Fantasy and the Real World in British Children’s Literature by Caroline Webb (review)

Leading on from academic discussions regarding children’s literature and morality, Caroline Webb’s Fantasy and the Real World in British Children’s Literature provides a detailed analysis of three eminent writers of twentieth and twenty-first century children’s fantasy: J. K. Rowling, Terry Pratchett and Diana Wynne Jones. Webb is primarily concerned with heroism and social ethicality, investigating how each writer’s narrative style, characterization and core plot equip and educate child readers in real-life moral lessons. Webb’s introduction is informative yet somewhat disjointed, justifying the study of fantasy literature too intensely rather than focusing on the ethical and heroic themes of the monograph. Webb does, however, persuasively contextualize her research within recent critical debate—Colin Manlove, Farah Mendlesohn, Andrew M. Butler and Edward James to name a few—and constructs a tantalizing breakdown of her chapters, promising to conclude with a unique and sophisticated approach to each author’s “intellectual and moral messages” (22).

Chapter 1 establishes the formation of the child hero in Pratchett’s The Wee Free Men (2003) and Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (1997). This introductory chapter analyzes the agency of their child protagonists; for example, Pratchett constructs his main character, Tiffany, as a critique of fairy-tale literature, whereas Rowling allows a much more “naive response that may prepare for a more subtly educative reading” (46). Webb argues that this set-up is important for positing readership, with the novels demonstrating juxtaposed approaches to the education of the child reader in fantasy and the real world. Whereas Webb argues that Pratchett quickly establishes his character as responsible and adult-like to attract more mature child readers, Rowling’s presentation of Harry as an innocent child opens up Harry Potter to broader audiences.

The following chapter examines how Rowling and Jones each critique the genre of heroic fantasy. Webb proposes that Rowling’s Harry Potter saga (1997–2007) initially formulates an appealing school story, then departs from this “delightful” narrative, producing later novels that harbor a “tone of sobriety” (73). Moreover, Webb suggests that this alteration in tone modifies “heroic” conventions. Although Rowling’s books indulge in brief moments of heroic fantasy, she ultimately rejects violence, regularly asserting moral statements that advocate its incompatibility with real life problems. It is more complicated with Jones; her books—Dalemark quartet (1975–93), Hexwood (1993), Dark Lord of Derkholm (1998)—parody and manipulate the genre. Webb summarizes Jones’s intention to destabilize the heroic model, arguing that although she recognizes its importance in the battle between Good and Evil, the heroic model “may project a vision of the world that is exploitative rather than altruistic” (74). In other words, by placing their expectations on a single “swashbuckling protagonist” (74), the readers become “exploitative” of the heroic model. To counteract this, Jones offers a family structure instead, reappropriating the reader’s expectations of heroism that usually rest on one central figure.

Chapter 3 continues Webb’s discussion of genre, this time analyzing Pratchett’s and Jones’s explorations of “wainscot fantasy,” or, the theory that “the everyday world is imagined to be concealing miniature societies” (20). Webb argues that both authors use this fantastical concept—along with sophisticated narrative structures—as an expositional device, introducing children to complex ethical and social issues such as religion, race and other “dangers of cultural constraint visible in so many cultures and subcultures” (88). Whereas Pratchett in Truckers (1989) and Diggers (1990) uses his Nome creatures—a race of little people that live secretly within the real world—to exemplify and critique real-life social barriers, Jones’s Power of Three (1976)—where the human and miniature world see each other as “other”—promotes liberalism and a transcendence of these communal codes.

In chapter 4, Webb moves from genre to content, again focusing on Jones’s and Pratchett’s children’s literature but this time in relation to their representations of witch figures. Webb...