Enchanted Hunters: The Power of Stories in Childhood

by Maria Tatar

Ever wondered why little children love listening to stories, why older ones get lost in certain books? In this enthralling work, Maria Tatar challenges many of our assumptions about childhood reading. Much as our culture pays lip service to the importance of literature, we rarely examine the creative and cognitive benefits of reading from infancy through adolescence. By exploring how beauty and horror operated in C.S. Lewis 's Chronicles of Narnia, Philip Pullman 's His Dark Materials, J.K. Rowling 's Harry Potter novels, and many other narratives, Tatar provides a delightful work for parents, teachers, and general readers, not just examining how and what children read but also showing through vivid examples how literature transports and transforms children with its intoxicating, captivating, and occasionally terrifying energy. In the tradition of Bruno Bettelheim 's landmark The Uses of Enchantment, Tatar 's book is not only a compelling journey into the world of childhood but a trip back for adult readers as well.

Genres: Nonfiction, Books About Books, Fairy Tales, Reference, Literary Criticism, Writing, Childrens

304 pages, Hardcover

First published April 20, 2009

About the author

Maria Tatar is the John L. Loeb Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures. She chairs the Program in Folklore and Mythology at Harvard University. She is the author of Enchanted Hunters: The Power of Stories in Childhood, Off with Their Heads! Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood and many other books on folklore and fairy stories. She is also the editor and translator of The Annotated Hans Christian Andersen, The Annotated Brothers Grimm, The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales, The Annotated Peter Pan, The Classic Fairy Tales: A Norton Critical Edition and The Grimm Reader. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Reviews

[Neil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful work so far...

[Hannah Greendale (Hello, Bookworm) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enchanted Hunters is a thoroughly researched, well organized, and intelligently written examination of the complexity and wonder of childhood reading.

The author eloquently identifies why books have the power to captivate young readers: Held together by rubber bands, duct tape, and rusting paper clips, [books] serve as companions and compass roses, offering shocks, terrors, and wonders, as well as wisdom, comfort, and sustenance.

The history of children's literature is explored, following its evolution from stuffy tales of morality to tantalizing invitations for adventure:

From its inception, children's literature had been a vehicle for moral instruction, spiritual edification, and behavioral coaching. Stories invariably broadcast the news that curiosity and disobedience -- not mere carelessness or clumsiness -- invited calamity.

The rise of the fairy tale created a tectonic shift in children's literature and revealed that something had long been off-kilter. Fairy tales -- sometimes referred to as "wonder tales" because they traffic in magic -- opened the door to new theaters of action, with casts of characters very different from the scolding schoolmarm, the aggravated bailiff, or the disapproving cleric found in manuals for moral and spiritual improvement.

Adults who crafted memorable children's books are discussed in great detail, and their books are examined for the components that made them successful (authors like J. M. Barrie, Lewis Carroll, Roald Dahl, Dr. Seuss, Philip Pullman, and J. K. Rowling, to name a few).

Above all, Enchanted Hunters: The Power of Stories in Childhood challenges authors to create children's books that will appeal to young minds and invite little ones to fall in love with reading: Great children's literature creates new worlds that children enter with delight and perhaps with apprehension and from which they return with understandings that their own experience could not have produced and that give their lives new meaning.

[Valentina Markasović · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lewis Carroll kinda sus, huh

[Caren · Rating 4 out of 5]

This author teaches folklore and children's literature at Harvard and some of her other books include annotated versions of classic fairy tales, so this is a rather scholarly look at some aspects of children's literature. She begins by connecting stories for children to storytelling for the whole family around the hearth at night. The kids were not off in a bedroom, but right there at their parents' elbows as the adults passed dark winter evenings listening to stories while doing dull chores. Those stories were not meant to make someone sleepy, but rather to grab the attention of the listener. She moves on to the transition from storytelling to print books for children. She contrasts the long, often scary stories told at the hearth to the "five minute bedtime stories" of today. Another chapter speaks of the way in which words can create a world and take the reader on a journey "without moving an inch". Some of the books she highlights are "The Cat in the Hat", "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", "The Wizard of Oz", "The Secret Garden" and "Peter Pan". One of the best parts of the book for me was the appendix in which she quotes writers on their memories of reading as a child and their subsequent love affair with books.

[Shawn Thrasher · Rating 2 out of 5]

This seems to go here, there and everywhere and lacked a coherent theme. I wasn't ever quite sure what the point was, other than the really broad stroke of "children's literature changes children's lives and is powerful." Tatar ticks off all the greats - J.R.R. Tolkien, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass, Charlotte's Web, A Wrinkle in Time, Dr. Seuss, Narnia, Hans Christian Andersen - but it was kind of like mixing different kinds of paint. At first it was really colorful and pretty and interesting, but then turned grey at the end.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's not much wrong with this book, and in all fairness, if I were more interested in children's literature than in fairy tales, I think I would've enjoyed the book more.

It is extremely well written and examines why children read what they do. I actually think I have discovered why Goodnight Moonwas not a favorite book. Along the way, you learn some interesting things about Dr. Seussand other authors. If you have read some of Tatar's other works, some of the information she has covered in varying degrees other places. Don't forget to read the appendix, which contains quotes from famous writers about reading.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book a lot. I generally like Maria Tatar's writing. Because this is aimed at a general audience, the writing is even more stylish and satisfying. However, because of the intended audience, I also found myself questioning some of the assumptions and assertions she makes. She's a little too willing to generalize about children's essential nature from time to time (though to be fair, she often qualifies particularly sweeping statements). The first chapters about reading scenes and situations were, for me, the most interesting and compelling.

[Courtney Johnston · Rating 1 out of 5]

So, so, so disappointing.

I got the public library to buy this on Neil Gaiman's recommendation. Neil, this time, you let me down. Don't worry, I won't hold it against you. But I am going to be a bit more cautious next time.

I suffered through the first chapter, about how story-telling went from being a family or social activity to a smaller or solitary one. I got through Tatar's rather clumsy interpretation of a couple of paintings showing small children being read to. I got the point that reading to kids at bedtime is a rather fraught activity - kids want more, parents don't. I didn't need 40 pages to understand all this.

But I held out for the next chapters, about the actual books. And I was bitterly disappointed. Tatar is a professor of German literature, so it's not surprising there's a strong focus on the Grimm fairytales, and also Hans Christian Anderson. There's a good bit on early, improving books which, frankly, sound awful - I'm surprised children bothered to continue reading in adult hood.

After this, Tatar restricts herself quite narrowly. 'Charlotte's Web', 'In the Night Kitchen', 'Goodnight Moon', 'Peter Pan', 'Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland', a relentless focus on Frances Hodgkins Burnett's 'The Secret Garden' (including a by-the-book feminist take-down'), 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz', 'The Phantom Tollbooth', the Harry Potter series and a brief glimpse at Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy are used to examine the ways children are introduced to mortality, the adult world, and the power of language.

But my god, is it dry. Tatar keeps on referring to the 'ignition power' of book, but it's an ingredient hers seriously lacks. What it doesn't lack is the use of the word 'vertiginous'which appears with greater regularity than 'preternatural' in Conde Naste magazines.

Tatar leaves vast tracts of children's literature pretty much untouched, from Kipling (glanced over) to Enid Blyton (not mentioned once) to contemporary masters like Michael Morpurgo. Fantasy and science fiction barely get a look-in. What we do get is a massive appendix of context-less extracts of authors discussing their reading experiences as children - interesting individually, or when introduced in the text, but dulling when there's endless screeds of them.

"Aesthetics is for artists what ornithology is for birds", said American painter Barnett Newman. What he meant is that artists don't need to know the philosophical disputes in order to make art. Art is something that comes naturally. Do I agree entirely? No. But has reading a book which celebrates the fact that "children's literature has, at long last, come of age in the academic world" makes me glad children can read with equal enjoyment naively or knowingly, and that I can do the same.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alright! I'm so glad I finished this book. I had to renew it at the library twice! But it was worth it.

Enchanted is a trip through the height and depth of Children's Literature. From horrifying tales told to stop children from sucking their thumbs (if you have a strong stomach Google Struwwelpeter.) to Harry Potter, Tatar analyzes them through the academic eye. It's a treatment I'm more accustomed to seeing Shakespeare put through.

The first chapter was quite a slog. It's a lot of looking at paintings and discussing their implications about bedtime reading. After you clime that mountain everything starts to become a lot more interesting.

She manages to cover just about every childhood favorite I ever had. The contextual and biographical details were fascinating. You actually start to think about how Dr. Suess influenced the "Why can't Johnny read?" debate.

One of my favorite gems is a quote from Beatrix Potter about her opinion of Dr. Seuss's And to Think That I Saw It in Mulberry Street "...the cleverest book I have met with in many years." It'd never occurred to me before that they were contemporaries. This book is peppered with revelations like that.

This is not a book you devour. It's the kind of book you read a chapter at a time so you can reflect. It should be at the top of every former child's must read list:)

[Kirsten · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting, albeit flawed, work on the power that reading has for children. In particular, Tatar explores the mixed feelings adults have about children reading -- we all want them to do it, but then we worry that they're turning into "bookworms" and not socializing enough, or we worry about what they're reading, or whether they're reading at their age level, or whether they are reading too much of one type of book. Tatar also discusses the history of the concept of the "bedtime story" and the role of horror and death in children's literature.

I enjoyed this book, but it ultimately didn't leave much of an impact, and it's hard for me to say why; there is a lingering sense that all of the different ideas don't hang together as a book-length manuscript. The other issue is that Tatar has an interest in exploring the mechanics and psychology of why reading grips some of us so completely in childhood, and yet she also seems very much loathe to dispel too much of the enchantment we feel about writing, reading, and the books we loved as children. I think I wanted her to be either more ruthless, or simply more specific about what, exactly, she was trying to accomplish.

In all, I would still read other things Tatar has written, but I tend to prefer Marina Warner when it comes to discussions of topics like the place of fear in children's literature.

[Marsha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Childhood tales are the first ones that we read, whether it’s the ones about Bemelmans’s red-headed Madeline in France or Rowling’s Harry Potter coming of age in Scotland. We might not think about them when we become adults but they are there, swimming around in our subconscious, informing the books we read today to our own children.

Ms. Tatar deftly explores these old stories and the significance they played in our distant youth and our adult lives. In doing so, she points out the emotional force we may have felt by reading the tale of a spin-doctoring spider (Charlotte’s Web) or the recognition of a child suffering from lethal boredom (The Phantom Tollbooth). While this might be too heavy reading for any kid, adults will appreciate the time and care Ms. Tatar displays in her searching between the lines of some of our favorite childhood hits.

[Rebecca Reid · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enchanted Hunters, Maria Tatar’s volume on “The Power of Stories in Childhood,” is enjoyable and informative for the reader of children’s literature, for the parent who reads to a child, and for the reader who enjoys fairy tales. She discusses children’s literature from a few different approaches, including literary criticism, history, and personal opinions.

Ms Tatar is obviously well read in not just children’s literature but adult classics and philosophers as well. Because of her wide-reaching discussions and because her book does analyze children’s books on a literary level (including "spoilers"), her book may not appeal to everyone. But for me, I found Maria Tatar’s volume also has much to offer, and I’m glad I read it.

More on my blog

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you were a child who loved books, you should read this. If you grew up into an adult who loves books and still likes the stories marketed to children, you should read this. If you have children who you want to give the magic of books to, you should read this.

It's a literary analysis of what makes children's literature so appealing to children that the stories stick with them through adulthood. It looks at the stories, the society, and the difference between how kids and adults need to view the world. It does this without destroying the stories for an adult reader. If anything, it reinforces the stories that changed us growing up.

This book is outstanding! I wholeheartedly recommend it!

[Cari · Rating 2 out of 5]

The last half contains quite a bit of golden literary analysis, when Tatar hits her stride and focuses on the literature as opposed to the psychology or attempts at cultural study. It's intriguing, thought-provoking, and will doubtless stir up some nostalgia for the reader's own favorite stories from childhood. If the reader can make it that far, of course. Unfortunately, the first half is terribly, unbelievably, choke until you die dry, and her superficial, grossly generalized, and rather misinformed stabs at the psychology of children led to more than one moment where I thought, "Has this woman ever even met a child?" Too bad, really, because if she had cut out the first hundred or so pages, this would have rated much, much higher.

[Nathan Dehoff · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author, a professor and expert on children's literature, here turns to the subject of how books affect child development. Tatar explores how storytelling and bedtime reading have changed over time, what attracts kids to books, and what lessons children can learn from reading or being read to. Examples range from old classic fairy tales to newer works like the Harry Potter and His Dark Materials series. There are significant sections analyzing Lewis Carroll's Alice books, J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan, Dr. Seuss, Maurice Sendak, and The Wizard of Oz. Tatar does tend to mix together elements of the book and the MGM movie, but to be fair, kids growing up on both probably do as well.

[Pat · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of those books I bought for work, but didn't have time to read until I'd retired.

A nice discussion of reading and children, with some brisk analysis of a number of books. I was amused to see the pages at the end on the Harry Potter books; it was A Thing You Had To Include earlier in the century, if you were writing about children's books. In order to be relevant, I guess.

But Tatar appears to mix up her In the Night Kitchen with her Outside Over There: Max doesn't fly through the window into the Kitchen; Ida goes through the window (wrong way around) into Outside Over There. Max simply falls out of his clothes and in the Kitchen, where he has his adventures. This was a jarring note in an otherwise interesting book.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

The earlier chapters present an interesting look at the development of children's literature (particularly bedtime reading) from its roots storytelling, while the later chapters focus primarily on children's fantasy, which Tatar, an expert on folklore and fairytales, seems to see as a direct descendant of that genre. The individual analyses are interesting, while the books as a whole, though it does not have one strong thesis, makes a powerful argument for the importance of fantasy lit for children. I'd be interested to read what Tatar thinks of children's realism.

[Caryn Lesuma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maria Tatar explores the history of storytelling for children and the reasons why the books we read as children have such a profound and lasting impact.

While the book is admittedly more of an exploration than an explanation, it felt a bit loose in many places where I would have preferred more focus. That said, Tatar's close readings of Dr. Seuss, Alice in Wonderland, Goodnight Moon, and many other beloved children's stories are thought-provoking. Defintely a must-read for anyone who loves children's literature and the power of storytelling.

[Monica Edinger · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been dipping into this here and there and like it very much so far.

[Elderberrywine · Rating 4 out of 5]

An intriguing examination of what children get from a book, and what adult authors mean for them to get. With a title that comes from a quote from Lolita, no less.

[Virginia Walter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scholarly, readable essays on the emotional fascination that stories -- particularly fantasies and fairy tales -- have for children.

[Noel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice for children's lit aficanados

[Joseph Hirsch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Throughout most of history, children have occupied a strange place in society. Regarded on the one hand as a blessing, they were equally considered a burden. “Spare the rod and spoil the child,” was an often-quoted (and corrupted) verse from the Bible. Likewise inherently admonitory was this chestnut: “Children are to be seen, and not heard.”
Even children’s tales—ostensibly told to them for entertainment—had a didactic purpose. To scare kids out of eating sweets (your teeth will fall out) or ward them off thumb-sucking (Struwwelpeter will cut your thumbs off with scissors.)
Something changed, though, in the 19th century. Children’s authors, rather than merely trying to scare or lecture children, began trying to entertain them. By the twentieth century, everyone from psychologists to anthropologists was more interested in studying children’s relationship with tales than in imparting lessons or instilling education. Authors like J.B. Barrie (“Peter Pan”) or Lewis Carroll (“Through the Looking Glass”) seemed to regard child as “the father of man” and silently studied the children in their care in hopes of learning from them.
“Enchanted Hunters,” by Maria Tatar sets its aim as examining the place of fairytales in both the world of children and in the world of adults. She traces the history of such stories from their early oral beginnings into the days of the printing press, on into the 21st century era of e-readers. Everything from Thumbelina to the blockbuster “Harry Potter” series is considered, and synthesized in her overarching analysis.
Tatar, who teaches at Harvard and has studied fairytales a good part of her life, knows whereof she speaks. She’s clearly thought long and hard on the subject, and does a good job of analyzing the material while also recognizing it can’t entirely submit to analysis. And even if it could, such an act would be a sacrilege against the magic such stories contain and perpetuate from one generation to the next.
Still, this is not to say that fairytales are completely innocent artifacts, or that her conclusion is something as Manichean as Children = innocent, adults = corrupted. There’s an interchange going on here, complex and with nighttime reading as a locus for what critical theorist Mary Louise Pratt called “contact zones.” Fairytales are rarely if ever simple stories of escapism, but are rather subtle and entertaining ways for imparting the harsh truths of the human condition. People die, either of old age or through mishap and catastrophe, sometimes perishing even in the first flush of life.
As with her previous Lustmord, Tatar has reduced a lot of pedagogical and pop cultural inputs to create her own superior and more economical output. It builds on the analysis of its forebears, but also improves on those studies, and will likely serve as a building block for future forays.
With drawings, photos, illustrations, and a handy appendix featuring quotes by various authors on the special place held in their hearts by the fantastic tales read in their youth. Needless to say, the bibliography also contains a wealth of works worth raiding for their own chestnuts. Many of them, of course, will not only be familiar to many readers of this work, but will be canonical classics.

[Mosh · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm rounding up from 1 1/2 stars, but goodness this was a slog to get through. Tatar takes a point (often a self-evident one) and just buries it beneath example after example. The depth of her examples don't provide much purpose other than to show how well-researched this book is, but I get it; reading is vital for young children and Narnia, Oz, Wonderland, Neverland, Hogwarts, and countless other fictional locales all show how.

[Michele · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tatar offers some great insights into the value of early childhood reading, that, I believe, are equally applicable to reading at any age. Stories we read at our formative ages seem to have a longer lasting impact on us, but that doesn't discount the power of stories read in adulthood as well--particularly if we can cultivate our sense of child-like wonder.

[Phoebe · Rating 1 out of 5]

By god is this dry. This book took me two years to read and it’s amazing how Tatar couldn’t capture storytelling in a book about reading.

I think this book appeals to people who don’t actually enjoy reading, because I’ll never get the time back I spent reading this and I’d rather have that than anything I possibly learnt from this book.

[AMY · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good book; I read most of it; it was interesting with regard to the idea of bringing souvenirs back from your reading “travels” and also the history of bedtime stories. I took some good notes.

[airy xie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this book, takes me to read some other books, and it's one of my satisfaction when read. Because what is more important of knowing something new and bring you other new things?

Even I skip some appendices, but I believe I'll come back to it some later time.

Always love Maria Tatar's book.

[Dave Hirsch · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone with Dr. Suess and Maurice Sendak tattoos, this book really spoke to me!

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maria Tatar was teaching a course on children's literature at Harvard when I was a student there. When I first picked up this book, I wondered why I had not taken her course. After all, what could more perfectly suit my inclinations than a combination of literary studies with texts like Peter Pan, The Secret Garden, Alice in Wonderland, and The Chronicles of Narnia? Once I got a little ways into Tatar's book, I remembered my original rationale for NOT taking the course: I had wanted, back then, to keep my experience of these beloved books pristine, as wholly innocent as possible, without adding the critical light of analysis (a word that, after all, has a etymological roots in "breaking apart"). Now, I opted to ignore this hesitation and read the book anyway.

As an adult, I reread my favorite children's classics frequently, and enjoy them with a mixture of hedonistic joy--at returning to Lantern Waste or Wonderland, Neverland or Misselthwaite Manor--and adult appreciation for the artistry involved in making them. Rereading them also feels like rereading my own story, at this point, given the central role they have had in shaping my character, aesthetic sensibilities, and love of reading. This love of reading is such an obvious outgrowth of encountering the classics that it feels almost not worth mentioning; yet Tatar devotes several chapters to exactly how and why young people come to love reading through fairy tales and other classic stories. I didn't mind her spelling this out, though at times it did seem a little like showing me the mechanics of a magic trick: for a true believer, such pragmatism only deepens the mystery and awe of real magic (which can never be fully explained).

Though I didn't buy much of her close-reading of Good Night, Moon, I did very much enjoy her meditation on Charlotte's Web, on the recurring themes of death and writing, and on the cycles--echoed in the spokes of the web and the Ferris wheel where Fern leaves childhood behind--that connect them. Perhaps it's as simple as the fact that I never really liked Good Night, Moon, yet I loved Charlotte's Web. But I also think there's a difference in how Tatar approaches them: regarding the former, she appears (to me, anyway) to read in complexity that doesn't seem to be there; about the latter, she shows us, credibly, just how much E.B. White embedded in the story, and the mystery is deepened instead of stretched thin.

Ultimately, I still prefer to read the classic stories themselves rather than analysis about them, but I did enjoy the novelty of encountering the beloved titles in a scholarly work. The fact that my love of the classics is not, in the end, harmed at all by its encounter with academia is a testament not to the failings of this book, but to the enduring spell of those timeless ones.