Audacious Kids: Coming of Age in America's Classic Children's Books

by Jerry Griswold

Now often called the "Golden Age of Children's Books," the years stretching from the Civil War to World War I were a remarkable epoch in juvenile literature, an era when the best authors on both sides of the Atlantic--writers such as Mark Twain, Louisa May Alcott, Rudyard Kipling, and Charles
Dickens--wrote some of their finest work primarily for children. It was an era in America that produced such timeless childhood classics as Little Women , The Adventures of Tom Sawyer , The Wizard of Oz , The Secret Garden , Tarzan of the Apes , and Hans Brinker --books that remain an essential part of
mainstream children's literature even to this day.
Now, in Audacious Kids , Jerry Griswold provides a groundbreaking study of twelve of these classic American children's tales, including not only the works mentioned above, but also such time-honored stories as Huckleberry Finn , Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm , Little Lord Fauntleroy , and Pollyanna .
Griswold offers many intriguing insights into these works. For instance, he explains why the Wicked Witch is angry at Dorothy (for filling her shoes), how Huck Finn wishes to slay his father, and how Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm is a precursor of Lolita. His most remarkable insight is that, at bottom,
these twelve books all tell essentially the same of a child who is orphaned, makes a journey, is adopted by harassing adults, triumphs over them, and comes into his or her own. Griswold also reveals that these tales emphasize certain motifs that are especially American, such as positive
thinking, concern with health, and the concealment of sex and violence, and he shows how these secular parables replaced religion with psychology and preached gospels of emotional self-control and optimism.
When people are asked to name their favorite books, an astonishing number mention children's books. Grahame Greene once offered a reason for this. "It is only in childhood that books have any deep influence on our lives," Greene wrote. "What do we ever get nowadays from reading to equal the
excitement and the revelation of those first fourteen years?" In Audacious Kids , Jerry Griswold provides the first book-length study of the great classics of American children's literature, a genre that has had a lasting impact on our lives.

304 pages, Hardcover

First published November 19, 1992

Reviews

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Prof. Griswold makes a number of good points about characters from the pre-WWI Golden Age of children's literature. However, his strongly Freudian stance may turn off readers who prefer their childhood memories untainted by Theory. It's true that Toby Tyler lends itself well to a description of oral fixation and The Secret Garden to interpretation in terms of its author's Christian Science beliefs. However, too many characters originally created to please and educate young people are here accused of Oedipal leanings, or worse.

[Angie Fisher · Rating 3 out of 5]

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