Meet Kirsten
Dec. 13th, 2012 05:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerI realize this is both on the wrong day and out of order, but...it’s Saint Lucia Day! How could I not post about Kirsten Larson, American Girl's Swedish-American immigrant girl? The scene where she wears a candle-studded crown of wintergreen is emblazoned on my brain!
Seriously. I wanted to wear such a crown so much after I saw that picture.
Kirsten is the girliest of the American Girls. Unlike Felicity, she never complains about doing women’s work or yearns to do boy things. She’s perfectly happy to spend her school recesses sitting in the sun, sewing a quilt with her friends; and the first thing she notices on arriving in America were the women’s pretty ruffled dresses. Her favorite color is even pink!
I feel constrained to add that pink didn’t become a “girl” color till the 1910s - before then, forceful pink was considered suitable for boys, while cool, tranquil blue was for girls. Possibly Kirsten has a secret rebel heart? Maybe nineteenth-century Swedish immigrants just don’t care about girl and boy colors?
But of course the book was written for American girls in the late 20th century, so I think Kirsten’s favorite color is meant to show that Kirsten has the heart of a girly-girl - and that being a girly-girl is perfectly compatible with being brave, kind, and adventurous, the American Girl trifecta of virtues.
Aside from the Saint Lucia crown, I had forgotten almost everything about these books. I recalled Kirsten's secret friend Singing Bird, whose tribe leaves Minnesota because there's nothing to hunt now that the settlers are shooting all the game.
It's a very bloodless displacement, which is perhaps problematic. But then again, I don't think "And then the US Army swooped in and shot all the natives and Kirsten found Singing Bird's bullet-riddled corpse in the snow!" would have been an appropriate scene in a book for eight-year-olds.
I argued in my paper (because in a paper one must make a stand) that the important thing about this story line is the emotional valence. Kirsten doesn't know all the nasty backstory to US government-Indian relations, but she knows that losing her friend is sad, so young readers will be primed to know that it's sad that settlers pushed Indians off their land. I'm waffling about whether this holds water.
Dealing with the really ugly parts of history is, I think, a difficult part of writing historical fiction for children. This is especially true for something like, well, Indian-settler relations, because there's a strong contingent of people who adamantly don't want to believe that white settlers did anything wrong.
But I'm thinking also of for instance children's books about the Holocaust. After Number the Stars I read tons of these books, and I daresay the authors wrote them with the highest of raising-Holocaust-awareness intentions, and my eight-to-ten-year-old awareness was indeed raised, in a "The Holocaust is a great setting for running-away-from-the-Nazis adventure yarns" kind of way. I loathed Donna Jo Napoli's Stones in Water because it's too gritty to be read that way.
I'm wondering if trying to teach children the ugly parts of history through historical fiction isn't like trying to teach them about Death by giving them books like Old Yeller or Bridge to Terabithia. Some will doubtless be receptive; but lots of people have stories about their ferocious youthful rejection of Old Yeller and its ilk, and I suspect gritty!historical!tragedy would strike lots of kids the same way.
But! Getting back to Kirsten! And on a happier note! Let's talk about my very favorite character from the Kirsten series, the only one I remembered aside from Kirsten and Singing Bird! (And poor benighted Marta, of course.)
Miss Winston! Kirsten’s stern but awesome schoolteacher from Maine. Miss Winston's father sails ships; and apparently that wanderlust is heritable, because Miss Winston became a teacher because she “wanted to travel, to meet people, to have adventures!” How cool is that?
The girls scheme with her to pull off their Saint Lucia Day celebration. No wonder she was my favorite.
I remembered there being a great deal more Miss Winston backstory than in fact there is in the books. This often happens with books I read as a child (or had read to me, in the case of Kirsten).
Seriously. I wanted to wear such a crown so much after I saw that picture.
Kirsten is the girliest of the American Girls. Unlike Felicity, she never complains about doing women’s work or yearns to do boy things. She’s perfectly happy to spend her school recesses sitting in the sun, sewing a quilt with her friends; and the first thing she notices on arriving in America were the women’s pretty ruffled dresses. Her favorite color is even pink!
I feel constrained to add that pink didn’t become a “girl” color till the 1910s - before then, forceful pink was considered suitable for boys, while cool, tranquil blue was for girls. Possibly Kirsten has a secret rebel heart? Maybe nineteenth-century Swedish immigrants just don’t care about girl and boy colors?
But of course the book was written for American girls in the late 20th century, so I think Kirsten’s favorite color is meant to show that Kirsten has the heart of a girly-girl - and that being a girly-girl is perfectly compatible with being brave, kind, and adventurous, the American Girl trifecta of virtues.
Aside from the Saint Lucia crown, I had forgotten almost everything about these books. I recalled Kirsten's secret friend Singing Bird, whose tribe leaves Minnesota because there's nothing to hunt now that the settlers are shooting all the game.
It's a very bloodless displacement, which is perhaps problematic. But then again, I don't think "And then the US Army swooped in and shot all the natives and Kirsten found Singing Bird's bullet-riddled corpse in the snow!" would have been an appropriate scene in a book for eight-year-olds.
I argued in my paper (because in a paper one must make a stand) that the important thing about this story line is the emotional valence. Kirsten doesn't know all the nasty backstory to US government-Indian relations, but she knows that losing her friend is sad, so young readers will be primed to know that it's sad that settlers pushed Indians off their land. I'm waffling about whether this holds water.
Dealing with the really ugly parts of history is, I think, a difficult part of writing historical fiction for children. This is especially true for something like, well, Indian-settler relations, because there's a strong contingent of people who adamantly don't want to believe that white settlers did anything wrong.
But I'm thinking also of for instance children's books about the Holocaust. After Number the Stars I read tons of these books, and I daresay the authors wrote them with the highest of raising-Holocaust-awareness intentions, and my eight-to-ten-year-old awareness was indeed raised, in a "The Holocaust is a great setting for running-away-from-the-Nazis adventure yarns" kind of way. I loathed Donna Jo Napoli's Stones in Water because it's too gritty to be read that way.
I'm wondering if trying to teach children the ugly parts of history through historical fiction isn't like trying to teach them about Death by giving them books like Old Yeller or Bridge to Terabithia. Some will doubtless be receptive; but lots of people have stories about their ferocious youthful rejection of Old Yeller and its ilk, and I suspect gritty!historical!tragedy would strike lots of kids the same way.
But! Getting back to Kirsten! And on a happier note! Let's talk about my very favorite character from the Kirsten series, the only one I remembered aside from Kirsten and Singing Bird! (And poor benighted Marta, of course.)
Miss Winston! Kirsten’s stern but awesome schoolteacher from Maine. Miss Winston's father sails ships; and apparently that wanderlust is heritable, because Miss Winston became a teacher because she “wanted to travel, to meet people, to have adventures!” How cool is that?
The girls scheme with her to pull off their Saint Lucia Day celebration. No wonder she was my favorite.
I remembered there being a great deal more Miss Winston backstory than in fact there is in the books. This often happens with books I read as a child (or had read to me, in the case of Kirsten).
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no subject
Date: 2012-12-13 10:22 pm (UTC)When we teach difficult concepts, we start with very simple explanations, and as people get more capacity to think about nuances and details, we add those in. ... that doesn't answer the question, though.
... Nazis. My first personal experience of them was The Sound of Music They were scary, terribly scary, and clearly wicked--and that wasn't even knowing the half of it!
... Other bad things. I remember vividly when my mother was reading us The Magician's Nephew, and she came to the part where Aslan says, "One day your people will discover a force as powerful as the Deplorable Word, capable of destroying everything...." and I said "BUT THAT'S NOT TRUE RIGHT??" and my mom said, "Well actually . . ." Hello first glimpse of the power and horror of humanity at age eight.
... yeah. Anyway. Which is just to say, those very roundabout means of addressing evil and destructiveness were fine for me, at the time.
I don't think we need to punish children for the sins of the past [which I think overly gritty books can amount to: punishment]. It's enough to learn that people suffer, and to be led to empathy, I think. Then, as you get old, you can learn about personal responsibility and also about the burden of history.
And on your more cheerful note: that teacher character sounds excellent.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-14 01:04 am (UTC)And I have not had a chance to finish my reply to you about your paper! I really enjoyed reading it however, and I shall reply intelligently as soon as possible.
I think you make an interesting point about gritty historical fiction being problematic - especially in that middle grade age group that American Girls aim at. (Also you made me remember my favorite 'kids dealing with Nazis' books - Devil's Arithmetic. Which tries to face Nazis head on, but at the end, it takes a bit of a left turn, allowing some of that grittyness to pass by.)
Just from a rough ponder, I think that middle grade kids especially may need more hope in their books than older groups. Perhaps it's a function of them being so focused inward still. One of the things I've learned is that for middle grade readers, they absolutely have to relate to/identify with the protagonist as compared to older kids who can enjoy other aspects of books. So perhaps having that protagonist go through intensely gritty situations hits too close to home?
Totally just spitballing, but it's interesting to think about how that works.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-14 01:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-14 03:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-14 03:17 am (UTC)The question is how gentle a history lesson can be before it becomes sugarcoated, I think.
The teacher character is awesome! American Girl has a surprising number of single adult women characters striding around being awesome. (They also have mothers being awesome, but parents are kind of necessary in a book about children. The single adult women are an extra side benefit.)
no subject
Date: 2012-12-14 05:09 am (UTC)And I think, even apart from identifying with protagonists, that kids of that age often feel books more intensely than grown-ups do. I didn't relate to anyone particularly in Bridge to Terabithia, say, but it still upset me terribly when Leslie died.
Also, Saint Lucia crown without real candles? You were robbed! (I'm sure my parents would never have let me use real candles either.)
no subject
Date: 2012-12-14 09:50 am (UTC)In some ways, I think the Holocaust in fiction is a bit of a unique case - still, just about, within living memory, a one-off event with a clear end date, and because it was largely directed against people who are very widely distributed across the globe, many of whom were highly educated, it is almost the world's - if not family, then neighbourhood tragedy. Even the name says 'something terrible happened'. So I think you can kind of get away with having the gas chambers offscreen, because it's going to be hard for anyone to escape hearing about them at some point.
It's more difficult with tragedies that maybe don't get the same historical light directed at them. I absolutely love Patricia Wrightson's Australian novels for children, which use a lot of Aboriginal myth, but I can see why they are considered a bit problematic now, particularly for children who might easily not otherwise encounter any books with Aboriginal protagonists and beliefs.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-14 07:01 pm (UTC)For instance, a lot of Disney movies terrified me at that age: Sleeping Beauty (the dragon!), Snow White (the run through the grasping forest!), Pinocchio and Alice in Wonderland (pretty much everything!). Watching them now, they seem tame.
This may not be an argument for sanitization so much as for not introducing small children to the most horrible horrors of history. You don't need to start discussing World War II with the gas chambers with a five-year-old.
I think you're right about there being more of an issue with tragedies that don't get as much historical light directed on them - or even, leaving out tragedies, about cultures in general that don't get talked about much. If you write about, say, a relatively obscure Native American tribe, very likely that will be the only time most of your readers run into that tribe - so the consequences if you get it all wrong are higher than if you mess up writing about, say, China, because readers aren't as likely to run into something that will correct the flaws.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-14 07:34 pm (UTC)I think there are probably lots of historical situations where the horror is far enough away that you can give it the Horrible History treatment and make things seem absurd rather than heartbreaking. But for slightly older kids - OK, it's good to have a range of stuff so people can avoid the subjects that traumatise them, but I do feel uncomfortable about the idea of writing out an atrocity on grounds of age. The things kids can cope with at different ages seem to vary so much.
Mind you, I grew up reading Sutcliff from an early age, so maybe I am just hopelessly hardened to tragedy. :-D
no subject
Date: 2012-12-14 07:45 pm (UTC)The book I always remember in that context was some terribly twee and cuddly story about some kittens that got washed away down a river in a basket. The kittens are absolutely fine at the end of the book, but for some reason the idea that they might not be upset Small Bunn vastly, I can still remember the sheer terror and making my mother take the book and put it on a high shelf downstairs, in case the river got out and started washing me away.
For some reason the idea that we were all in real life, living under threat of imminent nuclear apocalypse was much less horrifying, although I definitely knew about that and can remember much talk of the Four Minute Warning from that period. Children are so strange...
no subject
Date: 2012-12-14 10:51 pm (UTC)I don't think its so much that we should write out atrocities as that, in books for six year olds, it's best not to force the characters to wallow in suffering. It's enough to say "So bad things happened," and the kids can find out more details when they're older.