ON LITERATURE
The Importance of Magic
The Role of Fantasy in Children’s Literature
J. R. R. Tolkien said that fairy tales speak to primary truths. Bruno Bettelheim said that fairy tales validate the inner life of a child. I want to try to understand why this is and examine the impact fantasy literature can have on a child’s life.
The worlds of fantasy are incredibly important to a child. In play especially, it allows them to explore, learn about, and ultimately come to grips with a world that may seem so daunting to them. In Vivian Gussin Paley’s A Child’s Work, she stresses the importance of fantasy play. She cites an example of how her kindergarten children created a scenario where they had to swim away from a giant exploding bullfrog as a way to help them come to terms with the World Trade Center tragedy. She says fantasy play provides the perfect staging ground for a child’s cognitive and narrative skills to flourish.
A mind that has been freely associating with playful imagery is primed to tackle new ideas. Numerous studies have been published that resonate with this notion, claiming there are clear benefits to pretend play. These benefits range from self-expression to self-regulation, even to how a child comes to understand and use language. The development of theory of mind, a crucial precursor to how a child grows, is also directly linked to a child’s exposure to these make-believe worlds. The term theory of mind refers to how a person perceives the minds and cognitive functions of others; it enables them to establish connections with the people around them. These connections and how a child works them into their own emotional life are vitally important to a child’s development.
This is where narratives can be invaluable. A good story can immerse a child in new realities. It can make them care about the characters and make emotional connections with them. For instance, readers find themselves caring about what happens to Harry as they read J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. What makes a fantasy story so unique, though, is not how it connects readers with the characters that are similar to them but the ones that are different from them. We also see this with objects. A common ring becomes a magic ring; it becomes something readers fear as they do in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, or it becomes a gateway to new worlds like it is in C. S. Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew.
Fantasy fosters a seed of curiosity in a child’s mind. It forces them to step out of the primary world and into a world constructed by their imagination. They roam these new worlds, they explore them, and they come to question them. What if gnomes walked and talked? What if that locked door between apartments actually led to another world? In these stories, children are asked to look and think about things in new ways; it encourages them to think more divergently.
Divergent thinking is about being able to come up with multiple solutions to a single situation. It is vital if a child is ever to become a creative thinker. Marianne Saccardi looks at how literature can encourage children to think in this way. She suggests stories with characters who think more divergently can be of particular interest.
In Neil Gaiman’s Coraline, for example, before Coraline can return to her ordinary life, she must find three soul fragments and correctly guess where her parents are. After she has found the souls, knowing her Other Mother has no intention of letting her leave, she cunningly guesses that her parents are behind the door that leads back home. Once her Other Mother opens the door to prove they are not, Coraline throws a cat at her, grabs the snow globe where her parents are imprisoned and runs through the doorway.
Similarly, in the penultimate chapter of The Graveyard Book, also by Gaiman, Bod, the protagonist, overcomes the five Jacks that are pursuing him through a combination of his ingenuity and knowledge of the graveyard. He sent the first tumbling down an ivy-covered hollow, lured the other three into a ghoul gate, and tricked the last jack into agreeing to be the master of the Sleer and became trapped in its coils.
Author of Northern Lights, Phillip Pullman, said fantasy loosens the chains of children’s imaginations, it gives them new images to think with, allows them to see things from different perspectives, but more importantly, it shows them new concepts that they can take away and incorporate into their own lives.
Jean Piaget, a Swiss clinical psychologist renowned for his work in child development, asserted that a child’s mind is not simply a younger version of an adult’s mind but is something much more raw and animalistic. It develops as a child grows and interacts with the environments around them. Piaget was a strong believer that the best way for this to flourish is by encouraging a child to stoke their own curiosity through exploration, experimentation and fantasy play.
Children must constantly reconstruct their inner worlds to adapt to the bombardment of new information that occurs daily. A child does this in two main ways: by working the new information into their existing mental structures, and by changing their mental structures so that the new information can fit into what a child already knows. Piaget says that these mental structures are largely made up of schemata. A schema is a cognitive framework that helps a child organise and interpret information. So, for instance, if a young child encounters a horse for the first time, the schema they would then incorporate in their minds would be the characteristics of that horse. If, at a later date, the child encountered another horse, then this schema would allow them to recognise the horse as being a horse.
He also identified four main stages of a child’s cognitive development spanning from ages nought to twelve: sensorimotor, preoperational (which is subdivided into the preconception phase and the intuitive phase), concrete operational and formal operational.
The sensorimotor stage begins immediately after birth and finishes at around two years of age. This stage is purely reflexive and focuses on what an infant can learn through touch, taste, smell and sound. Piaget does note that towards the end of this stage, the child starts to develop object permanence. This means that the infant is becoming more aware of the objects around them, realising that they exist even if they cannot see them.
Next is the first part of the preoperational stage, the preconception phase, which lasts until the child is four years old. At this point, the child’s mind is very egocentric, and they can only understand things from a single point of view. To them, the sun is seen to be alive because it gives light, or the stone rolling down the hill has life simply because it moves. Children do not have a definitive perception of reality. This is why stories that contain fantastic elements such as anthropomorphism can become invaluable teaching tools.
The second part of the preoperational stage is the intuitive phase. The child can now use language more successfully and can verbalise their thoughts. Alongside this, the child’s mind gradually becomes less egocentric. They are more observant of the things around them, and they are increasingly able to consider things from new perspectives. They can identify and empathise with people other than themselves, regardless of whether they are fictional or not. This is because the child is still unable to separate the fantasy from reality.
Fantasy stories at this stage become less of a teaching tool and more of a learning aid; children can now follow and immerse themselves in the narratives. They can experience new perspectives, using them to enrich their inner world.
Around seven years of age, children enter the concrete operational stage. Becoming less and less egocentric, they begin to form ideas based on their reasoning rather than their perceptions. They can conceptualise ideas like the past, the future, or even things that are far away and unknown to them.
Piaget’s schemata are particularly important at this stage; the child is beginning to solidify their inner world, their moral values, and the rules that may eventually govern their lives. It is, therefore, imperative that the child is encouraged to experiment with and question these rules. Stories can allow this to happen. For instance, Sir Percival in The Story of King Arthur and His Knights is the traditional hero, a selfless warrior. In contrast, Bilbo in The Hobbit does not fit into this archetype but still becomes the hero of Tolkien’s story.
Finally, at approximately twelve years of age, the child transitions into the formal operational stage. They can now think beyond their immediate experiences in much more conceptual and hypothetical ways. Thoughts are much less stereotypical, and along with their growing mastery of language, they can communicate new ideas, take in this new information, and, more importantly, judge whether this information is valid to what they already know.
At this stage, however, children’s literature no longer offers the required depth and complexity the child needs to develop. This is best illustrated in the Harry Potter series; in the first two books, they are more befitting of a reader in the concrete operational stage, whereas, by the last book, it is more suited towards a reader in the formal operational stage.
Developmental psychologist Erik Erikson had an alternative theory to Piaget’s; Erikson’s ideas centred on the child’s psychoanalytical development. He believed there are psycho-social conflicts which emerge once the child reaches certain ages. How they deal with these conflicts determines their psychological maturity in later life.
The first conflict Erikson identified is trust versus mistrust. It occurs during infancy and revolves around the attachments babies form with the people around them and the confidence they acquire to cope with various new circumstances.
The second conflict the child faces is between autonomy and doubt, which means the child is involved in a struggle between holding on and letting go. This takes place between the ages of one and three. At this stage, if the child is controlled too much and is not allowed some degree of independence, it may cultivate a sense of doubt, consequently weakening the child’s sense of self for years to come.
On the other hand, if the child experiences too little control, they will find it difficult to manage their emotions, which may encourage destructive behaviour such as aggression or violence. Erikson stressed the importance of play in helping the child overcome this challenge because it allows the child to experiment with their autonomy in a safe environment where they can create their own boundaries.
Stories that address and explore this conflict can be helpful to the child. In Five Minutes’ Peace by Jill Murphy, for example, the child can see the elephant mother’s desire to have some alone time but is constantly interrupted by her three children.
At ages three to six, a new conflict between initiative and guilt emerges. The child is now more capable and is therefore expected to be more responsible. Gradually, they become more sensitive to how their behaviour affects others. Whenever the child is in conflict with another individual, a sense of guilt is likely to arise. If these conflicts continue and the child becomes overburdened with these feelings of guilt, they begin to lose their sense of purpose. Yet guilt is also fundamental; it helps children establish the basis of their moral values, so eliminating it could be equally dangerous.
Stories that have characters whose actions and motives throw them into conflict with other characters are particularly important here. For example, in Jack and the Beanstalk, Jack is told by his mother to sell the family cow for money but instead uses his initiative, trading it for beans. The child can then see how this conflict plays out and how, after a series of fantastical scenarios and tests, Jack is redeemed.
Industry versus inferiority is the conflict the child faces between the ages of six and thirteen. This stage revolves around the child’s perception of their own competency. The primary source of their self-esteem shifts away from their caregivers and moves closer towards their peer groups. They put a greater emphasis on the characteristics they feel will be valued both by their peers and by society as a whole.
If the child is not allowed or is unable to do this, they will start to doubt themselves, leading to feelings of inadequacy and inferiority. Some self-doubt is important because it allows the child to develop modesty. Books where the protagonist undergoes similar conflicts can be incredibly useful.
Percy in Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief exemplifies this. He introduces himself as a troubled, autistic boy. But as the story progresses, he discovers he is a demigod endowed with special abilities. He is taken to a camp with other adolescent demigods. Readers experience Percy’s attempts to master his newfound powers, gain the approval of his peers and manage the expectations placed upon him.
Looking at Erikson’s and Piaget’s theories, I believe fantasy literature is essential to a child’s development. I think this is because fantasy narratives mirror the instability in a child’s life; children are constantly growing, constantly changing, and constantly having to readjust to the world around them.
In Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice finds herself in several absurd situations. Now think of a child in a crowded supermarket; colourful displays intended to attract the eye are telling an already curious child to pick things up; some of the packages might even say ‘try me’, but their parents are telling them to put them back down. Add in some shoppers and mood music in the background: would this situation not seem equally absurd to a child?
Fantasy has the amazing ability to take this a step further, reassuring a child that, even though there might be things happening to them that they may not understand, it will be okay in the end. Alice returns from Wonderland. Percy Jackson becomes the hero his birthright demands. These stories create a world that reshapes a child’s fears and doubts, telling them they can overcome them.
Literature often imitates life, but I believe fantasy literature has the magical ability to aid life. It can give children hope for tomorrow. It can change the way they think about things around them. And it can offer them the tools to cope with an ever-changing world.
A beautiful example in Touch Magic by Jane Yolen best articulates this: she recounts when her family cat was killed. She staged an elaborate funeral with singing and prayers. Her ten-year-old son and her six-year-old daughter were able to sob out their last goodbyes; her eight-year-old son, however, could not. He would not even come to the cat’s grave.
For the next two days, he was unreachable, his grief held behind a set jaw. That evening, Yolen read Grimm’s Goose Girl to all three of them. In the story, Goose Girl’s magical companion, a horse, is killed, and its head is hung over the arched gateway to advise her. As Goose Girl walked beneath the door, she cried out, ‘Alas, Falada, hanging there’; at that moment, Yolen’s son burst into tears.
After hearing the story, he could go to the cat’s grave, which he had not dared to do before. This story resonated with the child. It made a unique connection with him. It did something that transcends theories. It spoke to him in a language only understandable to the heart: what it said we will never know, but isn’t that what makes it magic?
