Her.meneutics: Why There's No Narnia in Our Home

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« Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, and a Young Man's Death | Main | Top 10 Posts of the Summer »

October 13, 2010

Why There's No Narnia in Our Home

Forget Slaughterhouse Five — there's enough bloodshed in some of the best children's literature to raise my parenting fears.

Elrena Evans

Banned Books Week got off to a rousing start this year with the publication of a letter from Wesley Scroggins, Missouri State University professor of management, in The Springfield News-Leader. The letter, “Filthy books demeaning to Republic education,” listed books on Scroggins’s hit list, including Speak, Slaughterhouse Five, and Twenty Boy Summer, all of which are on the syllabus at the local public high school or recommended reading in the school library. Scroggins enumerated some of the books' offensive material, imploring parents and taxpayers to ask if this was how they wanted to spend their money and educate their children.

Scroggins was subsequently excoriated across the blogosphere for his censorship, misreading of several of the books’ themes, and poor writing. On one publishing blog, a literary agent’s assistant offered her tongue-in-cheek editorial services and went through Scroggins’s letter line by line with suggestions on sentence construction, punctuation, and grammar. (The link is here; as a warning, it contains language that might be offensive to some. I’ll leave the decision to censor or not up to readers.)

If nothing else, Scroggins’s letter shows that we’re still pretty divided on the subject of banned books, especially about what is and is not appropriate material for children.

Last year, in her Her.meneutics post about Banned Books Week, Ruth Moon concluded, “If we are going to get up in arms (rightly, I would argue) about banning things that are offensive to others, we at times have to be willing to take criticism and swallow offense ourselves. If all truth really is God’s truth, well, the truth can set us free, if we let it.” I spent some time thinking about truth and its role in literature — specifically children’s literature — last week, as I examined some of my own book-banning practices.

I shocked myself by becoming a book-banner the week I learned I was pregnant with my first child. At the time, I was enrolled in a Ph.D. program in children’s literature, and some of the books subsequently adorning my shelves I didn’t think suitable for my coming child. I wanted to have an open-shelf policy in our household of a thousand or so books, so any children’s book I didn't want a young child to read, I simply put in a box. Just for now.

Those books remain boxed. After my daughter was born, the boxed collection started to grow, with books I found too scary (The Story of Babar), too intense (The Greedy Python), or too theologically shaky (One World, Many Religions). I wasn’t putting them away forever. Just for now.

Things got complicated when my daughter started reading at a very early age. Like many parents of early readers, I found that books that were otherwise fine suddenly weren’t, when they were being read by a child much younger than their intended audience. I re-read the Little House on the Prairie series from her perspective and nearly had a heart attack. Narnia became a wasteland of bloodshed and violence. Even Christopher Robin was running around shooting things with his gun. Clearly I needed to take a deep breath and regroup before my shelves were stripped bare.

I still keep a close eye on what comes into our home, but for the most part I’m letting my children take the lead, and answering questions as they arise. (“Mommy, what’s suicide?” my daughter asked the other day. Calvin and Hobbes made a premature return to the library.) I still censor some material (Christianity Today is routinely banned; the irony is not lost on me), we’ve had a few “when you’re older” discussions, and we’ve worked through some serious topics with hugs and sometimes tears. For now, it seems to be working, and I hope I’m laying a foundation of trust that will allow my children to continue to come talk to me about what they read as they grow up.

Earlier this year, my 5-year-old daughter asked me to read her a chapter of Betsy-Tacy, a book that somehow, in my voracious childhood reading, I hadn’t read. We read a few chapters together and my interest waned, the completely drama-free adventures of Betsy and Tacy too plotless for my taste. But it seemed a perfect book for my daughter, and for weeks she walked around with her nose between the pages.

Then one night she asked me to read her another chapter from the book, a chapter called “Easter Eggs.” I browsed through it while she got ready for bed. Tacy’s baby sister Bee gets sick. Tacy’s mom is sad. Tacy’s baby sister dies. My daughter was brushing her teeth as I read the description of the baby’s funeral, horrified:

After a while Tacy said, “It smelled like Easter in the church. Bee looked awfully pretty. She had candles all around her.” “Did she?” asked Betsy. “But my mamma felt awfully bad,” said Tacy. Betsy said nothing. “Of course,” said Tacy, “you know that Bee has only gone to Heaven.” “Oh, of course,” said Betsy. But Tacy’s lip was shaking.

My book-banning self sprang into high gear, and I ran out of my daughter’s room with book in hand. By the time she was done brushing her teeth, the book was gone. But I knew I couldn’t keep it from her for forever. I lost sleep over it, I prayed about it, I talked with my husband. Finally, I told my daughter that I wanted to talk to her about Betsy-Tacy.

“It’s pretty sad, Mommy,” my daughter offered. She’d already ready the chapter. She already knew that Tacy’s baby sister dies.

“Sometimes babies die,” my daughter continued. “Sometimes they die after they’re born, and sometimes they’re born when they’re too little to live. That’s why I’m glad we get to see them again in Heaven.”

Perhaps it’s time to get Babar back out of the box.

Comments

As a librarian, I just have to make a clarification here: Deciding that a book is too mature for your child right now, or even that it is unsuitable for your child altogether, is not "banning" the book. "Book banning" in the sense of Banned Books Week refers to situations where one person or group of people determines that a book is unfit for ANYONE to read and tries to prevent others from accessing it. Good librarians support a parent's right (and obligation!) to determine what is appropriate reading material for his or her own child; the banning controversy arises when a parent starts trying to dictate what OTHER people's children can read.

I always have to wonder, when I read/hear about parents like you who decide to censor (however temporarily) the books your child reads, what do you do with the Bible?

Cara, you share the truth of the Bible in an age appropriate way. When my son was three years old he memorized, "All have sinned" and added his own amendment, "even Josh!"

Cara, that's when you buy a heavily abridged, pretty picture Bible. A distinctly late 20th century phenomenon.

But to comment on the article - yes I also have shelves full of books that will unfortunately have to go when I have kids that can read. Narnia won't be one of them, though.

Hmmmm. I was fully expecting you to ban the Betsy-Tacy book based on the obvious theological flaw.

Listen, our kids can handle so much more than we give them credit for. Banning books from them is not the solution, in my opinion. Open, free discussion IS.

I think your daughter responded to the death of Baby Bee exactly as the author intended: a sad episode (based on her own childhood) that is part of life and how having a best friend helped Tacy get through it.

I hope you continue reading to her, and proceed to Betsy-Tacy and Tib, the second book in the series. The adventures are more lively and it sounds like your daughter will enjoy the whole series.

Not a fan of banning books. Am a fan of discussion. We've read Narnia with both our children, 9 and 5. Wouldn't have traded the discussions that we've had over those treasures.

I still remember sneaking certain books into the house, as we weren't supposed to read them . . . now, I'd rather read them along WITH my children that having them feel they need to hid material from me.

I have two thoughts. One is that rabbis traditionally said that there are parts of scripture that are not to be discussed or read to children. You have to be of age to even hear those parts.

Second, this article in the New York times earlier this week. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/08/us/08picture.html?_r=3

Parents are pushing children to chapter books as a way to move them into more advanced reading. This is shrinking the picture book market except for the old standards. Picture books actually can help children understand context and give children some deeper meaning than what chapter books alone can do. Sometimes we need to introduce some of these content heavy picture books instead of chapter books. For instance Betsy-Tacy is listed as age appropriate for 9 to 12 year olds. While some children really are advanced readers, reading them content that is more advanced than they are emotionally capable of handling is not to their advantage.

In this case, it seems your daughter was capable of handling the content better than you were.

Wow! Banning Little House and Narnia? That is so sad. I read those books to my children when they were four, and then they reread them by themselves at 5 and 6 (they were early readers). As young adults they continue to cite these stories as being formative to their understanding of good and evil. If I had waited until they were, say, 8 or 9, the impact upon their mindset of the intrinsic beauty of all things good, and the awfulness of evil would have lessened.

I agree that you have to have age appropriate books...picture books are very important...how do you shield them from things that are not age appropriate outside your home? More important than restriction is discussion.

hmmm. Is she for real? It's natural to want to protect our children from fear, death, horror. But it's not realistic. Children, even young ones, think more deeply, and understand more clearly than we give them credit. Don't you remember being a child? You weren't a member of some alien race. You were human. Imago Dei. When we over-protect our children and exert our force to control every morsel that enters their mind, we not only face a losing battle--but insult the child. She is intelligent. And I promise you, she thinks about these things. We do no service to hide them from the reality that they already know exists. I believe this censorship has the opposite effect, and incites fear. GK Chesterton said it well, "Fairy tales are true, not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten." Love your child, but don't insult her very real fears and worries. Allow her to give them voice and discover that God ultimately triumphs.

As a high school English teacher in a Christian school, I see this Betsy-Tacy situation a lot--conservative mom and dad ban certain books and movies from their home, completely unaware that their kids are way beyond them in both exposure and understanding. And by sticking so willfully to the fantasy of their child's innocence, the parents lose the opportunity to TALK with their kids about the issues that concern them.

Kids WILL experience both evil and pain--probably when they're not "ready" for it. That's one of the purposes of literature--to experience those things vicariously and deal with them within the world of imagination. Blocking this opportunity doesn't do kids any favors. (Plus, it's pretty ineffective anyway.)

**And because there will be someone who claims this argument can apply to porn, let me clarify the obvious: I'm talking about books that a reasonable person would classify as being within or perhaps somewhat above their age/reading level and as having some literary merit.

As I read this, I am reminded that my youngest son loved the Harry Potter books, fully able to comprehend the fantasy in them, and understanding the delineation between good and evil that asserts itself in each of these books. His older sister, however, was fearful of the fantastical nature of the stories and had nightmares when she tried to read the first in the series. When her teacher at school proposed the first book in the series as a read-aloud book to the class, I simply asked that my daughter be sent to the library to read a different book. There really is a difference in children, and each child must be treated as the individual he/she is. By the way, my oldest daughter experienced the real-live death of a little cousin. It wasn't fiction, and we simply had to deal with it as people of the Resurrection. Books can be painful to read. Life is painful to live.

(sarcasm on)

Regarding the Bible, even adult Christians routinely pick and choose the parts of the Bible that they pay attention to. So obviously parents can censor any and all portions of the Bible they do not want their children to be exposed to. Ignorance is always easier to teach than understanding – who has the time to explain the more graphic parts of the Bible to little kids?

“The Roman soldiers tied Jesus to the wooden cross, but an army of angels freed Jesus and carried Him inside a cave where He was seen by Mary. This is what grown-ups call the resurrection.”

Nice and clean, with no blood, death or gory parts. Exactly what middle-class Christianity should be. Even God’s Word needs to yield to a parent’s better judgement.

(end of sarcasm and post)

I became a Christian partly because of Beth March in Little Women.

I was not raised in a Christian home. At the time I first read Little Women, at age 9-going-on-10, my mother was a self-proclaimed atheist. I loved Beth dearly, and her death from complications of scarlet fever hit me really hard. It also made me think about God. The conclusion I came to was that if my mother was right and there was no God, then everything was OK--no harm, no foul. On the other hand, if she was wrong, God's existence was the worst possible thing a person could be wrong about.

I didn't become a Christian then. That happened 7 years later. But if it weren't for Beth March, I might not have even had those thoughts about God that prepared the way for me to meet His Son.

Shannon - that's an awesome testimony! I'm so very happy that you've meet Jesus! :)

I remember in the 4th grade we read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe - my teacher (a Christian) was able to tell the class (in a public school) what everything represented - so many of these children who weren't raised in Christian homes were having seeds planted into their hearts. At home I tried to explain to my mother how it was based on the Bible.

My Mom's response? "There are no witches in the Bible!"

She didn't understand what I was trying to tell her (I was trying to explain allegory - it wasn't working so well)

Ironically as an adult I laugh even harder because - um, yes there is a witch in the Bible.

My mom never censored any of the books I read (she censored television, etc...) and thankfully there's only one book I read before I was 18 that I really wish I hadn't.

I can understand why some books are out of kids of a certain ages' reach. What I don't get is how parents go to extreme measures to "protect" their children. You can keep kids isolated from the world at home for only so long. Then they go to college or jobs and are completely overwhelmed and unable to deal with the world. The best place to prepare kids for this is at home! Talk to your kids!! Don't get upset at libraries or schools because they have the latest bestseller that you don't agree with. I have taught my kids what is okay with me, and they know that it is for their benefit that certain things are not allowed. My daughters teacher was reading one of the Harry potter books to his class, she was in 4th grade at the time. She told him and the whole class that I would not want her listening to that, and could she please go to the library. Her teacher was so impressed with her that he called me and told me thank you for talking to my children about how to handle situations that arise that they don't agree with. While you can protect your kids, and indeed that is our job as parents, it is also our responsibility to prepare them for the world that they will live in.

Ms. Evans, thank you for sharing your perspective and concerns. I imagine that your view is both nuanced and has more substance than space would allow. Recognizing this limitation, it still suggests that bad news is unsafe for some households. Is this dealing in reality or creating an antiseptic world that will eventually have to be undone?

Having lost a child, my children were exposed to death very early on. It is part of our faith story and is common for much of the world. IMO, American Christianity tries too hard to sanitize and create a world that doesn't even exist in Scripture. Further, it makes a god incapable of dealing with such things as racism, genocide, and the sex trade.

The redemptive work of the Cross is the context by which the evils of the world are properly framed. Granted stories should be age-appropriate, but not at the exclusion of reality. The Bible tells us that Israel always made the Exodus and Passover central to their remembrance of God's Work, would the part about blood and death have been omitted? That seems problematic under the paradigm you espouse.

I can understanding steering kids to age-appropriate reading (and that's not banning, by the way). But I think the author goes a bit overboard. Our calling as parents is not to perpetually shelter our children from the world, much less everything that might upset them, but to teach them how to live in the world without being of it.

I tried reading "The Lion, The Witch & the Wardrobe" to my oldest daughter some 25 years ago. She was five and after one chapter decided she didn't want anymore because of the witch. I didn't try reading it to her again until she was 7. At which time her younger sister listened in too and had no problem with it. She self censored until ready to handle something she didn't like. Now at 30 she's letting me read the Narnia series to my granddaughter. If a problem should arise we'll talk about it and deal with it appropriately. A parent has the right to censor/ban their child's reading material. So does the child.

I find Banned Books week ironic, since the most banned book in history is never mentioned, and any book with even a hint of a Christian perspective is subject to removal from public school bookshelves.

Ooops. This probably goes without saying, but of course I meant to say that the Bible is the most banned book in history.

I'm curious. What is the purpose of banning Narnia and Little House? What good is achieved by doing this? What noble end is served by this action? We might as well subscribe to the book that Lemony Snicket so despised, The Littlest Elf.

Was it to protect the child? If so, from what? Bad feelings? Is that realistic? Bad thoughts? C. S. Lewis, the author of the Narnia series, said this about children's literature:

“Let there be wicked kings and beheadings, battles and dungeons, giants and dragons, and let villains be soundly killed at the end of the book. Nothing will persuade me that this causes an ordinary child any kind of fear beyond what it wants, and needs, to feel. For, of course, it wants to be a little frightened.”

He goes on to say:

“And I think it is possible that by confining your child to blameless stories of child life in which nothing at all alarming ever happens, you would not fail to banish the terrors, and would succeed in banishing all that can ennoble them or make them endurable. For in the fairy tales, side by side with the terrible figures, we find the immemorial comforters and protectors, the radiant ones; and the terrible figures are not merely terrible, but sublime….I think it better that he should think of giants and dragons than merely of burglars. And I think St. George, or any bright champion in armour, is a better comfort than the idea of the police.”

Lewis, On Three Ways of Writing for Children, from “Of Other Worlds.”

I don't often comment on my own posts, but I'd like to clear up a misunderstanding about this piece that seems to be prevalent in the comments.

I wrote this piece, in part, as a way to understand what goes through the mind of a book banner. As someone who is passionate about reading, I shocked myself (as I said in the piece) when becoming a mother suddenly turned me, of all people, into someone who wanted to "ban" books. By the time I was ready to pull Little House on the Prairie and Narnia off of the shelves, though, I realized that something was wrong. Again as I said in the piece, "Clearly I needed to take a deep breath and regroup before my shelves were stripped bare."

I then go on to write that instead of banning books, "I’m letting my children take the lead, and answering questions as they arise." And I conclude by writing about how my daughter can, indeed, handle things that make me want to knee-jerk to protect her.

Perhaps that point was too subtlety made.

Thanks to everyone for reading and commenting!
~Elrena Evans

We do have a banned series at our house, partly because it is age-inapropriate, and partly because it glorifies disrespecting adults and other children. The Diary of a Wimpy Kid is on our "bad" list, while we are fine with Narnia, Little House and The Hobbit for our 10- and 8-year-old. (Our littler children are firmily ensconced in picture books!)

There is little to nothing that is teachable or redemptive in these books. My 10-year-old is fine with not reading it, but my 8-year-old feels left out -- "everyone else is reading it!". (His teacher has the series on her reading shelves, but they're not part of the curriculum.) At our parent-teacher conference, I'm planning to ask her why she thinks it's age appropriate, and what her opinion of the book is -- before I tell her mine. (Incidentally, she is a Christian . . . so obviously we don't all agree about content in books!)

I actually really enjoyed growing up with the Betsy-Tacy books--there's one for each year of high school and then two post-high school. She gets a little boy crazy later on, but always sticks to her goal of becoming a writer. The later books deal with issues like immigration (welcoming Syrians), cliques (an ill-fated attempt to start a sorority), being true to yourself (not changing yourself for a boy), etc. The later parts where she tries to figure out religion aren't the deepest, but it does address it when she decides to change churches (Betsy Was a Freshman, I believe). The books do a nice job of modeling family, friendship, and community--as well as showing that you can be both brainy and feminine. I re-read the high school/post-high school ones every few years.

I LOVED the Betsy-Tacy books. In the later ones there are some sweet scenes of her going to church to try to figure things out, and her relationship with Joe (boyfriend and later husband) is realistically portrayed. Plus the Vera Neville (in the later stories) and Lois Lenski illustrations are enchanting. Now I want to go back and read 'em all again . . .

I don't doubt I'll be misunderstood and flamed for this, but my spouse and I made the decision not to have The Chronicles of Narnia in our home, or our children's lives, years ago. We did not make an uninformed decision but checked out TLTWaTW ourselves. (We had somehow made it through childhood without reading the series ourselves.)

The Lord convicted us of unscriptural and pagan elements* such as traveling through the wardrobe into another time/place, the witch**, and the picture of the children dancing around the Greek god Pan (the goat), along with their singing to him.

I realize other believers may not understand and may be tempted to judge our decision, but we truly felt led of the Lord in this, and our children (now grown) were not hurt in any way by not reading this book series.

* We also applied that standard to other books, and movies, as well.

** Yes, there are witches in the Bible. In the Bible they are clearly evil. King Saul obeyed God by evicting them from Judah, then incurred the Lord's judgment when he had backslid, by consulting the witch at Endor. His life ended badly.

Jules, I respect you for allowing the Lord to lead you in this decision. If you felt convicted about these books, they simply were not right for you - anything not of faith is sin.

Having said that, I LOVED the Narnia books! I still re-read them from time to time, and I'm 23. The witch was wicked because she represented the devil, and I hated her accordingly. She ended badly, too! I cried (and still do) every time I read about Aslan dying, not because that part is so sad (it is) but because I so clearly see Jesus dying for me. All C.S. Lewis' books helped me get closer to the Lord, which was his intention when he wrote them.

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