Shock-horror, I didn't keep this regular blog-thing up. No one is surprised so let us just swiftly move past it.
So I read an article today, in amongst applying for jobs in publishing/sobbing. Please read it before continuing because I'm gonna talk about it. Go. Come back in five and I shall muse about it.
This article put me on edge a bit. It was like Anya Jaremko-Greenwold was in my head. I have noticed particularly that in moments of stress (like all the time hashtag graduate life), I resort to reading children's books or sitting my in my room talking aloud about them, as if I am in an interview (ha! I wish.) After reading this article, I promptly googled Children's Literature masters, despite me feeling content about how much education I have received thus far and having not thought about doing a masters since the Great Life Wobble of December 2016 when I thought that enjoying the research I was doing for my dissertation meant that I simply HAD to dedicate my life to Victorian Literature and research it until I die. But there is something about reading a well-written article that you just get. Jaremko-Greenwold references secondary reading and I miss doing that! I miss having in-depth and educated conversations about books, not just children's (I didn't do the children's literature module at Uni because I make poor life choices).
The piece took me on a small roller-coaster ride. I feel hella inspired. Part of me, as I said before, felt like that inspiration HAD to be channelled into an academic environment, whilst the other half calmly screamed about not having yet landed her dream job in the publishing biz. So I settled on writing this blog post. The inspiration waved over me again, and the blog-neglect-based guilt returned: "I WILL review children's books on this blog to show employers I am cool and relevant".
I am currently working in a pub, which is especially frustrating when you consider that 'pub' is, like, half of 'publishing'. I'm on the right path, I think... So I spend a lot of my time working and then moaning about said work, so there is almost no time to do what I am passionate about. I think I feel a kind of guilt when I see all the books on my shelf that are unread or I think about re-reading an old childhood classic, because I wish I could dedicate all of my time to it. I wish I was in that business, being part of the process. I feel guilty for whatever choices I made in my life that lead to this moment of me not being in publishing. I know I am being hard of myself, but ya can't help what ya feel, hashtag adult life.
The article raised some great points about childhood and the gendered response, or, I should say the gendered "expected" response. I personally have not read any Tolkien (gasps), but I understand what Jaremko-Greenwold is saying when she talks about girls having to grow up very quickly. I see that in a lot of children's books that I have read and I see it in myself. Maybe it is my adult self looking back and thinking 'how was I ever a child?', but I do genuinely remember feeling very mature. I have a lot of older cousins so maybe it was more innocent than feeling that I had to grow up - maybe I was just copying those around me. But this is something worth discussing, and I am making a note to google it at a later date. The connection that was made to female author's expectations of their own characters was something that really interested me and spoke volumes. Children's books are, we should not forget, written by adults, and therefore childhood is written about with the hindsight of adulthood. We can never have a complete, reliable account of childhood because of this context, as well as lost/distorted memories. Societal preconceptions trickle their way into children's books - it is something that we just cannot escape. So if you are looking for a read that puts life in layman's terms, read a children's book.
I especially resonated with the part where Jaremko-Greenwold discusses the idea of escaping, something I turn to in times of hardship or stress, whether it be music, films or books. Comforts from our pasts that take us back to easier times, but maybe at the time they did not seem so important because it was all we knew:
"We have to know how bad the real world can get—the dullness, the endless disappointments, the people who aren’t what we expected—before we’re driven toward escape."
(I am yet to see a sentence that captures, for me, the reason I love children's books so much, even as an adult.)
This article also brought to my attention something I had overlooked, which is ironic, because it is the subject of children's book authors being overlooked. As we mature, our subject material matures too, and it is not unusual for many to not return to the books we once loved, until we create life. I have also noticed that it is only until people have children that they then decide that they want to write children's books themselves. I get it, why would you go to the children's section unless you were buying something for your/someone else's child (or tirelessly researching into the children's market for job purposes)? But these books are still written by adults. Well, people who are legally defined as such. They just touch upon subjects in a different light or in a different way. When things are written for children, they can be simple. But simplicity does not mean that there cannot be multiple layers, written for the people buying/reading the books, as well as their 'intended' audience. And that's the beauty of kids books!
Thanks for getting this far, even I nearly gave up on the proof-read.
Alice x
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