In The Child That Books Built , Francis Spufford, the British writer, organises his reading life as a young bookworm into four parts: ‘The Forest’, ‘The Island’, ‘The Town’ and ‘The Hole’. The Forest is where he began and where there were fairy tales and myths. He then graduated to the Island, where he was drawn to escapist worlds like C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia, stories that sent “jolts and shimmers” through him. Should children’s books be sending “jolts” through an impressionable reader? Then again, what are the stories we remember vividly — the sad ones or the happy tales?
Often asked whether he wanted to give the two nine-year-olds in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2006) a happy ending, John Boyne has always said: “Never.” In the Vintage edition of the book, tagged in the end is an interview with Boyne where he explains why: “The stories of the people who arrived at the concentration camps almost always ended tragically. There was no point in pretending otherwise…” Nine-year-old Bruno is constantly asking questions. He wants to know why his family has to leave their beautiful home in Berlin, a place of safety, to go to “Out-With”. Who is the “Fury”, he wonders. And who are the people on the other side of the fence? As no one will answer his questions on Auschwitz, a camp his father commandeers, he decides to explore the place alone. By the time Bruno meets Shmuel, who shares a birthday with him and little else, you see the fence disappearing, a possibility that seems to be outside the realm of the imagination of adults.
Imagine. That’s all you’re asked to do in R.J. Palacio’s first book, Wonder (2012). Ten-year-old August Pullman won’t describe what he looks like: “Whatever you’re thinking, it’s probably worse.” Born with facial deformities that make people do the “look-away thing”, Auggie has to negotiate the brutal reality that is school. J.D. Salinger’s 16-year-old protagonist Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye (1951) is a misfit, failing at a fancy prep school, weary of the “phoniness”. Yet, each time you revisit these books, you feel that the writers are helping young minds confront “the discomfort around difference”, teaching them the importance of always choosing kindness, and preparing them for the real world where we often have to say “glad to’ve met you” to people we are not really glad to have met.
