“To all children who have ever felt different,” Eloise McGraw’s The Moorchild begins. Based on Irish folklore, the 239-page fantasy novel tells of a young girl, half elf, half human, who struggles to be accepted by either half of her heritage. On top of weaving an absorbing storyline, introducing a little European mythology, and building a unique world, The Moorchild delivers a message that any young reader can benefit from. Opening with a challenge to society’s disposition towards “weird” things and then encouraging readers to accept their own weirdness, The Moorchild shows readers that it’s okay to be different. Moql was born to the folk, magical elfin creatures who live on the moor and surreptitiously cause mischief to humans. However, the …show more content…
She is not even aware of her heritage until later in the book. McGraw exaggerates this effect by portraying the villagers as perfectly conformist and simple. They are “good Christians” without original thoughts, aspirations, ideas, or critical thinking capabilities—comparable, almost, to domestic animals. McGraw combines this idea with a second: everyone, no matter how freaky-odd, has their own people. The “People” could be those who share your nature or simply those who appreciate it; it could be a group or an individual. Moreover, she shows that you will only find these people through accepting your nature and being authentic with yourself, not conforming to what is socially acceptable or crowd-pleasing. The Moorchild uses its plotline, the strategically timed unfolding of Saaski’s life, to show this sentiment. First, Saaski tries to fit in with the folk, hiding her human limitations, suppressing her human emotions. She is still rejected. Then, she tries to fit in with the humans, doing human things and living in human …show more content…
Despite the villagers’ views of it being “eldritch” and “not rightly ‘uman,” Saaski begins to open up to herself, spending her days on the “wild” moor and playing the “devilish” tunes of the folk. This leads her to meet Tam, a shepherd boy who lives on the moor and happens to love piping. Saaski finds her “people” in Tam. They bond over the ways they are alike—a love for piping, their wild, carefree nature, a home on the moor—and accept each other for the ways they are different. Combined, the two sentiments form a simple yet valuable message that every young reader can benefit from: it’s okay to be different. While it may sound like a run-of-the-mill statement, The Moorchild doesn’t just state it, it shows. It doesn’t say “love yourself,” it shows the happy changes that occur in Saaski’s life when she starts to accept her freaky-odd nature. It doesn’t tell readers “don’t bully weird people”. !,” it shows them how stupid they look while doing it. Which carries to the next point: unlike most stories with similar messages, The Moorchild isn’t just directed towards the outcast, but also towards the other side of the
When the poem is read aloud, the explicit rhyme and rhythm of the lines becomes extremely obvious. In fact, the bouncy rhythm is so uplifting, it occasionally makes the audiences feel like it is too predictable and straight-forward. An example would be “bright with chrysolite”, the word “chrysolite” feels like it is forcefully implemented for the sake of the rhyme. This is somewhat similar to a children’s tale. Most children’s tale as we know it, conveys messages straightforwardly and are easily understood by children, it also has an amiable tone and a merry mood that engages the children 's attention. Similarly, the rhyme and rhythm of this poem is very obvious and explicit, creating a delightful, casual mood that appeals to a young audience. Even though the legend dealt with deep insights about parenting that are intricate and puzzling, the father delivered it in such a gratifying, simple manner that made even the most dark and dreadful matters: like the description of precarious beasts and vicious monsters to sound like a blissful adventure of friendly animals. The sole purpose of this contradiction between the tone and message is to make this seemingly strong and serious topic more tolerable and captivating to the son of the father. Unsensible, impulsive youth is very similar to restless children, a long insipid lecture about deep insights is very difficult for them to buy into. In the same time, a harsh, threatening warning will only make them obey unwillingly, and creating a doubtful relationship will make them uncomfortable to communicate or appeal to their parents. Clearly, the percipient father recognized the ineffectiveness of these unsuitable parenting methods. Instead, he conveyed the message in a uncomplicated, friendly way that made his son to accept his teachings more comfortably. A
...n very human feelings of resentment and jealousy. Grendel was an unstable and saddened figure because of his outcast status. Though Grendel had many animal attributes and a grotesque, monstrous appearance, he seemed to be guided by vaguely human emotions and impulses. He truthfully showed more of an interior life than one might expect. Exiled to the swamplands outside the boundaries of human society, Grendel’s depiction as an outcast is a symbol of the jealousy and hate that seeks to destroy others' happiness and can ultimately cripple a civilization. This take on the outcast archetype ultimately exposes the Anglo Saxon people’s weaknesses, their doubts and anxieties towards the traditional values that bounded nearly every aspect of their life.
...xperiences of their readers. The poems express critical and serious issues that surround the heartfelt childhood memories of the readers. The surrounding circumstances and situations are different in each household. The readers are personally drawn to feel expressions of abuse, emotional issues and confusion as the poets draw them into a journey through their own personal life experiences from childhood to adulthood. These experiences are carried throughout a person’s life. Readers are somewhat forced to immediately draw themselves closer to the characters and can relate to them on a personal level.
My grandmother introduced me to reading before I’d even entered school. She babysat me while my parents were at work, and spent hours reading to me from picture books as my wide eyes drank in the colorful illustrations. As a result, I entered my first year of school with an early passion for reading. Throughout elementary and middle school, I was captivated by tales of fire-breathing dragons, mystical wizards, and spirited foreign gods. A book accompanied me nearly everywhere I went, smuggled into my backpack or tucked safely under my arm. I was often the child who sat alone at lunch, not because she didn’t have friends, but because she was more interested in a wizards’ duel than the petty dramas of middle school girls. I was the child who passed every history test because she was the only kid who didn’t mind reading the textbook in her spare time, and the child who the school librarian knew by name. Reading provided a
The narrator, Twyla, begins by recalling the time she spent with her friend, Roberta, at the St. Bonaventure orphanage. From the beginning of the story, the only fact that is confirmed by the author is that Twyla and Roberta are of a different race, saying, “they looked like salt and pepper” (Morrison, 2254). They were eight-years old. In the beginning of the story, Twyla says, “My mother danced all night and Roberta’s was sick.” This line sets the tone of the story from the start. This quote begins to separate the two girls i...
At the age of ten, most children are dependent on their parents for everything in their lives, needing a great deal of attention and care. However, Ellen, the main character and protagonist of the novel Ellen Foster, exemplifies a substantial amount of independence and mature, rational thought as a ten-year-old girl. The recent death of her mother sends her on a quest for the ideal family, or anywhere her father, who had shown apathy to both she and her fragile mother, was not. Kaye Gibbons’ use of simple diction, unmarked dialogue, and a unique story structure in her first novel, Ellen Foster, allows the reader to explore the emotions and thoughts of this heroic, ten-year-old girl modeled after Gibbons’ own experiences as a young girl. Kaye Gibbons’ experiences as a child are the foundations for this.
Rollin, Lucy. “Fear of Faerie: Disney and the Elitist Critics.” Children’s Literature Association Quarterly Volume 12. Number 2. 1987. Retrieved 18 Dec. 2013 from < http://muse.jhu .edu/journals/chq/summary/v012/12.2.rollin.html>.
When children are faced with emotional events that challenge their ideas, they take another step on the road to being “grown up” as they discover their identity. The short story “Boys and Girls” written by Alice Munro illustrates this coming of age by allowing us to follow the development of a young girl. We follow the main character, who narrates the story, as she changes from beginning to end. As the story opens, the narrator acts like a care free child, not paying heed to her gender. She then begins to react strongly to the way she is treated by her family and their expectations of her young womanhood. Once she realizes that some changes are inevitable she begins to adopt a new understanding of who she is which is evidence of a more mature way of thinking. This story demonstrates that difficult childhood experiences regarding gender contribute to a developing maturity and are frequently met with varying degrees of resistance.
Peter hunt’s ‘Instruction and Delight’ provides a starting point for the study of children’s literature, challenging assumptions made about writing for children and they are trivial, fast and easy. Children’s literature is a conservative and reading it just to escape from the harsh realities of adulthood. It’s probably the most exciting for all literary studies, and a wide range of texts, from novels and stories to picture books , and from oral forms to multimedia and the internet , so it presents a major challenge and can be considered for many reasons. It is important because it is integrated into the cultural, educational and social thinking for the success of the publishing and media, and it is important to our personal development. Things that may seem simple at fist, how children understand the texts, how these differ from the
The adults in the story expect the children to grow into the gender role that their sex has assigned to them. This is seen in several places throughout the story, such as when the narrator hears her mother talking to her father, “I heard my mother saying, ‘Wait till Laird gets a little bigger, then you’ll have a real help’…. ‘And then I can use her more in the house’” (Munro 495), when her grandmother comes to visit and tells her all the things girls aren’t supposed to do, and when she is roughhousing with her little brother and the farm hand, Henry Bailey, tells her, “that there Laird’s gonna show you, one of these days” (Munro 497). While the narrator disagrees with the adults, and tries not to conform to their expectations, at the end of the story both she and her brother end up acting exactly as a child of their age and gender would be expected to act: the preteen girl crying with no apparent logical reason, and the young boy excited to have been included with the men, and talking about the thrilling tale of slaying a horse.
Acceptance of who we are plays a large part in the overall theme of “rite of passage” in the story. The young girl is opposed to the thought of working for her mother at the beginning, but eventually comes to a realization that it is her pre-determined fate to fit the mould of the gender stereotype. Through the girl’s hardships, she accepts the fact that her younger brother, Laird, is now the man that his father needs for help, and she takes her place in womanhood. The story embodies gender identity and stereotypes, as a young child moves into adulthood. The fact that our rite of passage is unavoidable proves that we must all go through our own journeys to find our own true identity.
The construction of children’s literature was a gradual process. For a long period of time children’s books were frowned upon. The stories were said to be vulgar and frightening. Adults censored children’s ears to stories of daily life, tales with improbable endings were not to be heard. It was not until the mid 1800s that stories of fairies and princesses began to be recognized. Although children’s literature was accepted, the books were not available for all children. With limited access to education, few public libraries, and the books’ costs, these texts were only available to the middle and high- class. As public education and libraries grew so did the accessibility of books and their popularity. They no longer were considered offensive, but rather cherished and loved by many children. Children’s literature became orthodox and a revolution began, changing literature as it was known.
Bigelow, W. (1993). "Limits of the New Multiculturalism: The 'Good' Children's Literature and the Quincentenary." Unpublished manuscript. Available from NECA.
Children’s literature is, as Peter Hunt argued, a ‘remarkable area of writing: it is one of the roots of western culture, it is enjoyed passionately by adults as well as children, and it has exercised huge talents over hundreds of years’. Children’s literature is good quality books for children from birth to adolescence, coating topics about importance and interests to children of those ages, through prose and poetry, fiction and non-fiction. Children’s literature is probably the most exciting and vibrant of all literary studies, and its wide range of texts, from novels to picture books, and from oral forms to multimedia and the internet, presents a huge challenge. The important theme in children’s literature is the tension between the popular and the prestigious, or in other
“I knew who I was this morning but I’ve changed a few times since then.” (Carrol) This is a book I have and would recommend for anyone with young girls or young children in their family. This story is one of full imagination and intellectual thought provoking circumstances that leads the reader to imagine a world where anything is possible.