Sticks and Stones: The Troublesome Success of Children's Literature from Slovenly Peter to Harry Potter (review)

I

The Tale of the Woodcutter

Once upon a time, there was an elderly woodcutter who lived on the edge of a dark forest. Many people thought that the forest was a magic forest. For generations, mothers had told their children stories about the enchanted wood. For generations, people had listened to these tales and had wondered at their magic.

When the wind blew chill, the stories warmed their hearts. When danger threatened, the tales brought laughter. When death left their hearths cold and their minds numb, the stories quickened them like a giant's breath upon an ember.

For the people the dark wood and the tales of wonder were one. But over many years, the people started telling stories in different ways. Sometimes fathers told the stories instead of mothers. Sometimes the storytellers put their stories down on paper so that the children could read them by themselves. Sometimes artists told the stories with pictures.

Now the people came to treasure the stories so much that they were willing to trade for them with gold.

But the woodcutter didn't like this. "Trees are trees," he said. "I work around them everyday. There's no magic in the wood. The trees grow the way they grow because of the soil in which they were planted. Oaks grow from acorns. Pines grow from seed cones. Chestnuts grow from chestnuts. Hickory from hickory nuts. There's no magic!"

When the woodcutter said such things about the magic wood, the people looked each other in the face and raised an eyebrow. "Perhaps he's lived too long by himself in his lonely cottage," they thought, and they told their tales and drew their pictures and exchanged their gold for books that could make them laugh and warm their hearts and kindle their hopes.

But when they ignored him, the woodcutter raised his voice. "They're tricking you! They're making you believe," he cried. "The magic only seems to be magic because you want it to be magic. Those storytellers just want your gold. There's really nothing funny in the dark wood! There's really nothing heartwarming in the dark wood! There's really nothing hopeful in the dark wood! There's just wood. I am a woodcutter. I ought to know!"

The people looked each other in the face and raised an eyebrow. "Perhaps he's lived too long by himself in his lonely cottage," they thought, and they told their tales and drew their pictures and exchanged their gold for books that could make them laugh and warm their hearts and kindle their hopes.

This made the woodcutter furious. "I hate these trees!" he shrieked, and he set to work with his axe. "See, this is an oak," he shouted as he stood upon the bark of a newly felled giant. "This a pine! This is a hickory!" The trees fell one after another, but the dark wood never seemed to grow any smaller. His voice echoed across the landscape, "These are just trees!"

After a while, the people didn't notice the woodcutter. Strangers who came into the wood would ask why he was shouting about trees and gold, trees and gold, but the people would simply reply, "That's the just woodcutter. He lived too long by himself in his cottage near the woods. Shouting makes him happy."

II

I tell this tale to dramatize a critical issue raised by Jack Zipes's Sticks and Stones: The Troublesome Success of Children's Literature from Slovenly Peter to Harry Potter, an issue central to the field of children's literature, but one that pertains to other realms of academia as well. The central question might be phrased in several different ways. Most simply, we might inquire as to the credibility of...