May 2006: What Stories Do (cont.)

There is no question. Our children are hungry for good examples, for a clear understanding of “the way.” When my daughter, Beth-Alison, was about seven or eight, I decided it was time to read Little Women to her. She was, after all, named after the character Beth. So one evening I settled onto the bathroom floor next to the tub while she was taking a bath, opened the book and started to read. I hadn’t read the novel myself for many years, and I didn’t get very far before dismay crept in. Surely my daughter wouldn’t want to listen to such preachy stuff! But when I shut the book for the evening, I discovered that Beth-Alison was, to my amazement, quite entranced. I was even more amazed to leave the bathroom and find her brother, two years older, with one ear pressed to the door . . . listening intently.

I’m not sure it’s kids who object to didactic stories. At least not when they are young. But I want my stories to do something more for my young readers than they may want for themselves. I don’t want simply to teach kids “the way,” whether it’s the way to behave around bears or the way to think about religion. I want them to climb inside a situation and feel it to its limits and, consequently, to grow with it.