International Companion Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature

I think that a lot of adults in our society are uncomfortable with their own

sexuality, and therefore their children’s sexuality is a threat to them...

Wintle and Fisher: 315

The most frightening thing about censors is their complete sense of self-

righteousness.

West 1988:36

One answer, adopted by the political novelist James Watson, is confrontation:

I’m particularly interested in noting where an accusation of bias is used—it says as

much about the accuser as the person accused...the very perception of impartiality

is so soaked in ideological notions that there is no way to be impartial. So why

pretend to be? If I’m accused of bias in my books —tough! I am biased—biased for

certain value systems.

Nettell 1989:17

While realism attracts much general attention, it is fantasy, where children’s literature
has made such a major contribution, that much authorial theoretical attention has been
focused. Susan Cooper:

In ‘realistic’ fiction, the escape and the encouragement come from a sense of

parallel: from finding a true and recognisable portrait of real life. In these pages we

encounter familiar problems, but they’re someone else’s problems... Fantasy goes

one stage beyond realism; requiring complete intellectual surrender, it asks more of

the reader, and at its best may offer more. Perhaps this is why it is also less

popular, at any rate among adults, who set such store by their ability to think.

‘Escaping into ourselves’, in Hearne and Kaye 1981:14, 15

Jill Paton Walsh concurs:

If a book has a dragon in it, then maybe one dismisses it as rubbish... There are no

dragons in the world, but there are ferocious, greedy and destructive keepers of

goldhoards. And there is greed in one’s own soul. A work of fantasy compels a

reader into a metaphorical state of mind. A work of realism, on the other hand,

permits very literal-minded readings, even downright stupid ones... Even worse, it

is possible to read a realistic book as though it were not fiction at all...

‘The art of realism’, in Hearne and Kaye 1981:38

As Le Guin asked in the title of a famous paper, ‘Why are Americans afraid of dragons?’
(Le Guin 1992:34–40). But the common-sense of Terry Pratchett might be allowed to
have the last word here.

So let’s not get frightened when children read fantasy. It is the compost for a healthy

mind. It stimulates the inquisitive nodes. It may not appear as ‘relevant’ as books

560 THE CONTEXT OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE