As adults, we sometimes see fantasy as a genre for made up things that do not pertain to our world; however, this is hardly the case. Lloyd Alexander, the author of the famous The Chronicles of Prydain Series, states the true purpose of modern fantasy quite bluntly: “Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It’s a way of understanding it.”
When we keep what Alexander said in mind we can see how truly important modern fantasy is in the realm of children’s literature. Strangely enough, not all books written for the fantasy genre are effective as parts of the genre or even children’s literature as a whole. Two examples of effective pieces of modern fantasy are Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling and The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo.
In Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, we get to see the life of young Harry Potter, an orphaned boy who lives with his tortuous aunt and uncle, who ends up being a very important person in the wizarding world. After getting accepted to Hogwarts, known to be one of the best wizarding schools in all of the United Kingdom, Harry gets in a lot of trouble with the help of his new friends, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasly. Danger seems to ensue when a mysterious package is brought to Hogwarts and a professor starts acting strange, a danger that Harry finds himself right in the center of.
When looking at Sorcerer’s Stone as a piece of effective children’s literature, and within the modern fantasy genre, there are a lot of things to consider. First of all, Rowing has this beautiful way about concretizing her descriptions of all of the weird and wild parts of her magical world. We can see this in how she describes the magical places like Gringotts, the wizarding bank:
“A pair of goblins bowed them through the silver doors and they were in a vast marble hall. About a hundred more goblins were sitting on high stools behind a long counter, scribbling in large ledgers, weighing coins in brass scales, examining precious stones through eyeglasses. There were too many doors to count leading off the hall, and yet more goblins were showing people in and out of these.”
This passage gives you just enough information to be able to paint a mental picture of the setting, while still being able to fill in the blanks with your own imagination and background information. Another way Sorcerer’s Stone is effective is its internal consistency of details. Rowling created this whole world that spread across seven plot focused novels, two informational texts, eight movies, and one stage play, all still being believable and not stepping on the others’ toes over details; which can be examined through her detailed magic and spell system.
Finally, when looking at Sorcerer’s Stone as a piece of children’s literature as a whole, it is effective because of its use of Harry, Hermione, and Ron as agents of change. Without the trio’s attention to detail and need to disobey the rules when they think it is necessary, Voldemort would’ve never been defeated. All in all, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is an effective piece of modern fantasy for children because it is a well-written novel that will make us forget about our world while helping to teach kids important lessons about their lives.
The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo is a sweet and dark tale from the perspective of three different dynamic characters. Despereaux is a young mouse who was born with his eyes open and has extremely large ears, two things that make you an outcast in the mouse community. And he truly isn’t like other mice. Despereaux can read, he can listen to sounds that no one else can hear, and in enamored with human beings. All of his quirks end up getting him excommunicated to the dungeon of the castle where craziness ensues.
Roscuro is a rat with vengeance on his heart. After he accidentally fell into the soup of the queen and indirectly killing her, he and the other rats are banished to the dungeon to never see the light again; and indirectly made the king ban all soup in all of the kingdom. With his one true love, light, taken away he plans his revenge on the princess who he blames for everything.
Miggery Sow is a young girl who was sold by her father for only a handful of cigarettes, a red tablecloth, and a hen to a man they called her uncle. This “uncle” ended up not treating Mig very well and beats her to near deafness and into a state of ignorance and unable to think normally. Mig falls in love with the thought of becoming a princess, which can never happen sadly. When Mig, Roscuro, and Despereaux all end up in the dungeon together with a scared princess things get crazy and a hero rises from the darkness.
Despereaux is, in many ways, an effective piece of children’s modern fantasy with its fairy tale style and its ability to make us root for animals that are often disliked by our society. The proof is in the pudding, or well the internal details and their consistency. When you have to bounce from the perspective of one character to the perspective of another it could be only natural that you may fall into a loop of odd details that do not match up, not in Despereaux though. DiCamillo does a wonderful job of meshing three completely outrageous story arcs and meshing them together with a fourth major character that had yet to have their story told. In my opinion, it’s truly brilliant.
As well, DiCamillo’s ability to suspend the disbelief of children, and adults, of these crazy characters contributes heavily to its effectiveness. When reading Despereaux, the reader gets sucked into all of the adventures that the characters seem almost real, as if you had met this mouse, rat and young girl. When reading, Despereaux becomes as human as the princess he falls in love with, and DiCamillo shows this verisimilitude by making him greatly contrast the other mice.
The final ingredient to Despereaux’s effectiveness as a piece of children’s literature is its theme of rebellion using unlikely forces as the cause. Despereaux and Mig have personal growth that help feed to the final moment when they both stand up against Roscuro and make a change for the whole kingdom. Children, and even some adults, need to be reminded that you do not have to be a superhero or have power to be the hero of the story. Anyone can make a change. It is for its ability to explore this concept that The Tale of Despereaux is an effective piece of fantasy for the modern child.
In conclusion, modern fantasy is an important genre of children’s literature when done correctly and effectively. For example, books like Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone give young readers the ability to see wild and crazy worlds that can give them a new perspective on the world they live in. As well, literature like The Tale of Despereaux give children the ability to see a story in different perspectives, see unusual characters succeed, and learn that they too can succeed when the world seems dark. We need modern fantasy not as an escape, but as a home for all of those burdens in life we have to deal with but cannot grasp quite yet.
