Children’s Lit Corner: A Golden Thread of Hope

A Golden Thread of Hope

We are living in difficult times. I’m not going to rehash all the dangers and terrors and controversies that abound right now because these things are all too visible in the news and on the internet. Everywhere there are troubles. But life has always been this way. There may be an abundance of hard and terrible things around right now, but there have always been difficulties. The other day I was driving home after taking my cousin’s son up to his university dormitory in another town. It was a rather long drive and I really enjoy listening to an audio book during a drive. It helps the miles fly by. So I inserted a cd into the slot and heard the familiar opening words of A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, . . . in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.” Dickens was writing in 1859 about the events of 1776 and afterwards. Now here we are in 2016, and even though Dickens’ words about the French Revolution and the time preceding it are more than 150 years old, still it is true that the period he described was no more filled with difficulties and hardships than our own times, 240 years later. We just can’t get away from the hard things of life.
But I have found a source of hope and goodness that wells up even through the strata of life’s difficulties and hardships. This spring of hope is children’s literature.

Because I am a children’s librarian, I have both the opportunity and the responsibility to stock my library with, and then read, as many of the newly written and old favorite books that my allotted budget can cover. This is an assignment that brings me much joy and also fills my own reserves of hope in the daily struggle through these difficult times.

It’s not that children’s books don’t address the real problems of our world, because they do. It’s that these books also show that in spite of the terrible things, there are still love and hope and beauty to be found. For example, two of the recent Newbery Honor books are set in the time of the Second World War. Those books are Echo, by Pam Muñoz Ryan, and The War That Saved My Life, by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley. In The War That Saved My Life, a girl named Ada is ten years old. In all that time, as far as she can remember, she has never been outside of the one-room London flat she shares with her mother and little brother. Because Ada has a twisted foot, her mother is terribly mean to her and loathes the shame she feels Ada brings to the family because of her disability. Her mother will not allow Ada to leave the flat, even though her little brother, Jamie, can run unsupervised all over town. But when Jamie comes home one day and tells Ada that all the London children are going to be evacuated and sent to the countryside, Ada knows she needs to screw up her courage so that both she and her brother can escape their living situation. When Ada and Jamie arrive in the countryside, they are sent to live with a single woman who says she doesn’t know anything about children. However, in this new place Ada begins to thrive for the first time in her life. She learns to read, to assert herself, and she discovers that she is a person of worth and value. Even though it is a very difficult time in the history of the world, Ada finds there are still hope and a chance for happiness in life.

That discovery Ada made is like a golden thread that runs through children’s books in general. Children, even if they live in difficult conditions, still have fresh ways of looking at life. Books for children show young people how other children live and grow and learn in a huge variety of conditions. Certainly children of today don’t know from personal experience what it is like to live in London in 1939 like Ada in The War That Saved My Life, or in Germany or Pennsylvania or California before and during the Second World War like the children in Echo. But children who read these books can see how those earlier children lived and learned and found reason to hope. The experiences children read about are all different, just as each child’s life is subtly different from every other child’s life. But the thread that connects all the stories, real and imagined, is hope. In children’s books, difficulties really are resolved. Maybe they are not tied up completely and tidily and permanently, but children’s books show that hope is worthwhile and powerful and life-changing. And one of the most important things about children’s literature is that when real readers use the fictional experiences as a way to find even a little bit of hope in their own lives, that hope can also be powerful and worthwhile and life-changing in those readers’ real lives. That is what I love about children’s books and why I keep reading even though I’m moving daily farther away from my own childhood. Somehow the hope I read about feeds the spark that still glows in my own heart from so many years ago. And I know that even though reality is hard and full of trouble, hope still exists and there are truth and beauty and innocence and love and wonder in this world.

Here is a list of some newly published chapter books for children that I feel can kindle or keep feeding that spark of hope in a reader. Some of these books show children dealing with hard times, some show inner struggles, and some take the readers on fantastic journeys to imaginary lands. But in spite of all their differences, these books give hope and show examples of children learning to live in joy and wonder, even if their outward experiences are not always peaceful or gentle or safe. The summaries are mostly taken from the inside cover blurbs. Of course these are only a small taste of everything there is. There are so many, many more equally wonderful books! But these are some of the books I’ve read recently that span the range of history and fantasy and modern life. All are good, and all are full of hope.

I Lived on Butterfly Hill, by Marjorie Agosin. When her beloved country, Chile, is taken over by a militaristic, sadistic government, Celeste is sent to America for her safety, and her parents must go into hiding before they “disappear.”

Gabby Duran and the Unsittables, by Elise Allen. Gabby is an awesome babysitter. Who are her charges? Alien children!

A Pocket Full of Murder, by Rebecca J. Anderson. In Tarreton, where the rich have all the magic they wish and the poor can barely afford a spell to heat their homes, twelve-year-old Isaveth’s father is accused of murdering an influential citizen and Isaveth, aided by eccentric street boy Quiz, tries to solve the magical murder mystery before her father is executed.

The Penderwicks in Spring, by Jeanne Birdsall. As spring arrives on Gardam Street, there are surprises in store for each Penderwick, from neighbor Nick Geiger’s expected return from the war to Batty’s new dog-walking business, but her plans to use her profits to surprise her family on her eleventh birthday go astray.

The Astounding Broccoli Boy, by Frank Cottrell Boyce. Rory Rooney likes to be prepared for anything, but when he inexplicably turns green and finds himself in an experimental hospital ward with the school bully, everyone is baffled but Rory believes he and Grim have become superheroes.

The War That Saved My Life, by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley. I talked about this one at length above.

A Curious Tale of the In-Between, by Lauren DeStefano. Bright, imaginative, eleven-year-old Pram lives with two aunts who run a retirement home, hiding the fact that she can talk with ghosts–but not the spirit of her mother–and after befriending Clarence, who also lost his mother, she decides to find her father in hopes he can answer her questions.

The Island of Dr. Libris, by Chris Grabenstein. A twelve-year-old boy discovers that an island in the middle of the lake where he is spending the summer is the testing ground of the mysterious Dr. Libris, who may have invented a way to make the characters in books come alive.

The Forgotten Sisters, by Shannon Hale. This is the third book in the Princess Academy series. Miri is sent on a secret mission to teach some girls living in a faraway swamp how to become princesses.

Genuine Sweet, by Faith Harkey. Genuine Sweet of tiny, impoverished Sass, Georgia, inherited the ability to grant any wish except her own, but with help from new friends, her life and town are improving until unexpected trouble arrives and Genuine learns the difference between wishing for a better life and building one.

The Forget-Me-Not Summer, by Leila Howland. When their parents, a screenwriter and a film editor, go off on summer projects, Marigold, twelve, Zinnia, eleven, and Lily, five, must stay with their Great Aunt Sunny in Cape Cod, where they learn much about themselves and each other and grow closer than ever.

Binny in Secret, by Hilary McKay. While getting bullied at school, twelve-year-old Binny investigates the disappearance of her brother’s chicken and tries to save an endangered lynx.

Echo, by Pam Muñoz Ryan. Decades after a boy is entwined in a prophecy-based quest involving three mysterious sisters and a harmonica, three individuals from different areas of the world confront daunting challenges while in possession of the same harmonica.

The Chosen Prince, by Diane Stanley. Prince Alexos, the long-awaited champion of the goddess Athene, follows the course of his destiny through war and loss and a deadly confrontation with his enemy to its end: a shipwreck on a magical, fog-shrouded island.

When I Am Happiest, by Rose Lagercrantz. Dani is very happy. It is the last day of school, and summer is about to start. But then there is a knock on the classroom door, and Dani is told her father has been in an accident and is in the hospital. How can she possibly be happy now?

The Hired Girl, by Laura Amy Schlitz. Fourteen-year-old Joan Skraggs lives on a hardscrabble farm in Pennsylvania but yearns for real life and true love. Over the summer of 1911, Joan pours her heart out into her diary as she seeks a new, better life for herself.

The Marvels, by Brian Selznick. This illustrated story begins in 1766 with Billy Marvel and charts the adventures of his family of actors over five generations. The prose story opens in 1990 and follows Joseph, who must piece together many mysteries.

Jack: The True Story of Jack and the Beanstalk, by Liesl Shurtliff. This tale relates the story of Jack, who, after trading his mother’s milk cow for magic beans, climbs a beanstalk to search for his missing father in the land of giants.

Goodbye, Stranger, by Rebecca Stead. As Bridge makes her way through seventh grade on Manhattan’s Upper West Side with Em, Tab, and new friend Sherm, she finds the answer she has been seeking since she barely survived an accident at age eight.

Charlie and the Grandmothers, by Katy Towell. When fearful twelve-year-old Charlie and his bolder younger sister are sent to visit a grandmother they never knew they had, they discover a dark secret.