{"id":10233,"date":"2024-11-17T04:45:24","date_gmt":"2024-11-17T04:45:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/?p=10233"},"modified":"2024-11-17T04:45:29","modified_gmt":"2024-11-17T04:45:29","slug":"not-just-for-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/2024\/11\/17\/not-just-for-kids\/","title":{"rendered":"(Not) Just for Kids"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Not (Just) for Kids<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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When we return to beloved children\u2019s books or discover new ones as adults, we make peace with our past selves and the people we\u2019ve become.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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By Megan Foster
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Illustration by Katie Howerton<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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When I said that I preferred a position in the children’s department, my interviewer didn’t believe me. “You want<\/em> to work there? Are you sure?”<\/p>

In my several years of bookselling, I’ve come to see just how far-flung the world of children’s literature feels to many adults. Part of this is a reluctance to handsell to children. Not everyone can answer a twelve-year-old’s very specific plea for a heart-wrenching book featuring mean girls and magic. I’ve had coworkers scurry towards me in sheer panic because a six-year-old asked for a chapter book about dogs. I understand how challenging, or outright daunting, it can be. However, I’ve found the issue of adults shirking the kids’ department extends beyond lack of confidence. Many adults just completely lose interest in children’s literature, weaning themselves off YA books sometime in college and leaving their bygone tales of bunnies and fairylands behind. No wonder adult booksellers struggle to recommend children’s books, if they themselves haven’t cracked one open in years. Unfortunately, some adult readers don\u2019t just phase out of children’s literature; they go out of their way to avoid it entirely. Even today, despite their growth in popularity, children’s books are snubbed by elitists who don’t classify them as “real” literature.<\/p>

Too many people mistake shorter texts as simple ones, and assume their readers are simple-minded, too.<\/p>

Indeed, even Margaret Wise Brown, arguably one of the greatest picture book authors of all time, believed she was an insufficient writer because of her young audience. So whatever the reason, whether aging out of it or intentionally rejecting it, much of children’s literature lacks adult readership.<\/p>

This breaks my heart. In extensively rereading my childhood books and devouring contemporary stories for kids, I’ve found that taking up a middle grade novel or picture book transforms and challenges me in ways that adult literature cannot. I believe that reading children’s books is not merely a considerable pleasure but an absolute necessity for adults.<\/p>

C.S. Lewis once wrote to his goddaughter, in light of her becoming an adult, that “some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.” It\u2019s all too common for people to abandon their old books as they leave their childhoods behind, same as forgetting favorite stuffed animals stashed away in the attic. We are sensitive to what others think as we embark on journeys to college or elsewhere; we are proud of growing older and eschew what brands us as childish. But C.S. Lewis recognized that there comes a time when we settle into adulthood and stop fretting\u2013\u2013as much, at least\u2013\u2013about other peoples\u2019 perception of how we spend our precious time. More than that, nostalgia sets in and we begin trekking back to the cobwebbed attics to retrieve the things of our youth. The hassles and humdrums of adulthood beg us to reclaim what wonder we beheld so easily as children, often in the form of beloved books.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Illustration by Katie Howerton<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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If I hadn\u2019t given that picture book another chance, then I wouldn\u2019t have seen the ways I\u2019d changed since last laying eyes on its pages.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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I\u2019ve encountered adult readers who scoff at these inclinations, even saying that for adults to read, say, YA novels, is nothing but mere escapism. I could easily write another essay, if not a book, about that claim alone. (I could also write an essay about why escapism isn\u2019t necessarily a bad thing.) But I\u2019d argue that taking the time to engage with our treasured childhood stories as adults means challenging ourselves to explore dramatic ways we\u2019ve grown from our skinned\u2013knee, loose\u2013tooth days. When we crack open those books, we encounter our old selves within their pages. It\u2019s a visceral, even transportive experience, to find that a once beloved book can not only take us to fantastical worlds but back to our own past. We may find old doodles or angry marginalia; we may rediscover favorite characters and great epiphanies. As our childhood books take on fresh meaning, we also make peace with our present selves. We grow bigger, and the old stories grow with us. Just as the texts transformed us as children, so too do they change, sometimes in unexpected ways.<\/p>

It happened for me in my reclamation of The Giving Tree<\/em> by Shel Silverstein. I won\u2019t deny that as a kid I absolutely loved all things saccharine. I downed sappy stories more than I ate candy. I wanted endless happily\u2013ever\u2013afters. (Don\u2019t worry, I balanced it out with plenty of macabre, like fairy tales from the good old Brothers Grimm.) It\u2019s no surprise that my tiny mind managed to manipulate texts like Playdoh and find blissful conclusions where they didn\u2019t originally exist\u2013\u2013or, at least, not for everyone involved. Such is the case for The Giving Tree. <\/em>Funnily enough, it isn\u2019t a book children tend to gravitate toward. But I did. I was that<\/em> kid. My interpretation of the picture book was a story about a compassionate being willingly offering every literal bit of herself to appease a single person. I thought it was nice. I thought it was sweet<\/em>. Oh, the selfless love! Oh, the sacrifice! I didn\u2019t align myself with the boy\u2013then\u2013man who required such servitude. I wanted to be the tree, to find someone worth losing all of myself for. This, I thought, was what any good little Christian girl should aspire towards: to become a martyr.<\/p>

I wonder what my Sunday school teachers would\u2019ve made of this.<\/p>

In becoming a young adult, I packed away my childhood treasures and began to unpack aspects of my conservative, missionary kid, Southern Baptist upbringing. I learned to wrestle with my ever-shifting theologies, as if each day the kaleidoscope changed and so, too, did my views of God. When I began to reject various parts of my past, I also washed my hands of certain stories I once loved\u2013\u2013such as The Giving Tree. <\/em>Straight out of college I moved to New York and got my first bookselling job at Barnes & Noble. I balked at the sight of that bright green book, a visceral reminder of beliefs I\u2019d fiercely begun to deconstruct. I was no longer convinced that being a Christian meant allowing, or even inviting, others to walk all over me; I wanted nothing to do with a book that extolled that belief. I didn\u2019t bother to reread it, of course. I knew<\/em> what it said. I knew what it meant. At least, I remembered what I thought it said, and thought it meant, as a child. That was enough for me.<\/p>

But I couldn\u2019t understand why adults flocked to buy The Giving Tree<\/em> time, and time, and time again. Eventually I gave in and reread it for myself. It was like reading it for the first time.<\/p>

Only as an adult did I interpret Silverstein\u2019s picture book as slyly humorous, a dark but searing commentary on egregious expectations placed on caregivers: that they are not only meant to make sacrifices, but to sacrifice their very identities to their loved one. Of course, this is only my interpretation. To this day The Giving Tree <\/em>remains a controversial book, in part because people can\u2019t quite agree on its meaning. I will say that as a child I believed the ending to be happy. As an adult I don\u2019t. But taking it up for the first time in so many years, I didn\u2019t mind. I laughed, and fumed, and cried. It was a gift to pick up a book I\u2019d loved as a child and find that as an adult, I could learn to love it anew. If I hadn\u2019t given that picture book another chance, then I wouldn\u2019t have seen the ways I\u2019d changed since last laying eyes on its pages. When we reread our favorite childhood books, we not only experience the joys of our youth again but come face-to-face with new versions of ourselves we might not otherwise encounter.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Illustration by Katie Howerton<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Here\u2019s what I suggest. Go to your local library or independent bookstore and find the children\u2019s section.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Then there are the classic children\u2019s books that, for all the times I\u2019ve revisited them, never seem to change. If anything, whatever sentiment I had as a child only deepens with age. It\u2019s as precious as returning to a favorite home cooked meal, or hearing a once forgotten melody. Margaret Wise Brown\u2019s Goodnight Moon<\/em> was my favorite book growing up; nothing else could settle me so. To this day it quiets my heart. Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith\u2019s The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales <\/em>still makes me cackle because, thank God, the stories remain just as stupid. The more I read Charlotte\u2019s Web<\/em> by E.B. White, the harder I cry. Even as a child I understood that Charlotte had to die, that Wilbur would never find true contentment without the acceptance of death. It still makes me sad. It still gives me hope.<\/p>

These are the stories I reread to feel like a child again because they force me to relearn simple, deep-seated truths about being human, the fundamentals I first learned while toddling along the streets of China. Sometimes we need to be quiet. Sometimes we need a good laugh. Sometimes we forget that we\u2019re dust.<\/p>

While I ardently believe in the necessity of rereading stories from our youths, I should also stress the importance of reading new children\u2019s literature. Many authors will testify that writing for children is much, much harder than writing for adults. For one, it\u2019s difficult to say a lot with little text. Ask a poet. For that alone, children\u2019s books done well are often far more impressive to me than any books for adults. What\u2019s more, writing for a young audience requires incredible research, intuition, and empathy. Authors must not only have a keen understanding of how kids might talk, or what kids care about; they must inhabit the mind of a child\u2013\u2013ten, twenty, forty years their junior. Adult authors must convince their young readers they\u2019re understood. Consequently, reading contemporary children\u2019s literature often teaches me what kids today wrestle with. It challenges me to consider how I can ensure, to the best of my ability, that things improve for their sake. Contemporary books empower kids to tell their own stories; they encourage adults like me to listen.<\/p>

It is a humbling thing, to read a story for a younger audience and find that I, too, have a lot to learn. I never would\u2019ve considered the serious need for well-timed profanity until reading Kimberly Brubaker Bradley\u2019s masterpiece Fighting Words<\/em>, a Newbery-honor winning novel about a girl in the foster care system. While I grew up after Columbine, I was fortunate not to experience a childhood filled with the incessant threat of gun violence. Jasmine Warga\u2019s novel The Shape of Thunder<\/em>, which explores the aftermath of a school shooting, showed me just a small piece of what kids throughout the country have experienced. Before reading A.S. King\u2019s young adult novel Switch<\/em>, I hadn\u2019t realized the world of burdens current teens carry\u2013\u2013ones that we adults have placed on their shoulders. In part, I read so often because I have an insatiable curiosity, and nothing teaches me quite like children\u2019s literature.<\/p>

Here\u2019s what I suggest. Go to your local library or independent bookstore and find the children\u2019s section. Choose your old favorites, and find a few new ones. You may be surprised by just what you\u2019ve forgotten, and by what you learn about yourself. When you return from the island of wild things or the castle in the sky or whatever place you visit, I hope you rediscover reasons to love our own wide little world. I hope you can make it better for all the kids in it. Better yet, I hope you\u2019re old enough and wise enough to think like a child again.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Megan Foster <\/strong>earned an MA in the Humanities from the University of Chicago and has been a children\u2019s bookseller across New England. She currently lives in New Haven with her husband and two cats.\u00a0<\/p>

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When we return to beloved children\u2019s books or discover new ones as adults, we make peace with our past selves and the people we\u2019ve become. By Megan Foster<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":10234,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,10,86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives","category-essays","category-issue-30-the-art-of-storytelling","entry","has-media"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farefwd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/ChildrensBooks_illustration3-scaled.jpg?fit=1978%2C2560&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10233"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10255,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10233\/revisions\/10255"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"hr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