The Marvellous, the Real and the Horrendous in Children's Literature
By Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira (ACC)
‘Catholicism’ No. 40 - April 1954
As everyone knows, stories are children's first contact with life. Through them, children's intelligence transcends the limits of the home environment and learns the initial notions about human society, with its countless differences, attractions, duties, disappointments, and the complicated game of passions in the ups and downs of this great struggle that is existence. ‘Militia est vita hominis super terram,’ says Sacred Scripture (Job 7:1). ‘Militia,’ yes, in which some fight for their personal interests, legitimate and illegitimate, and others fight against the world, against the devil, against the flesh, for the greater glory of God. The first notions about this ‘militia,’ the deepest impressions that man receives regarding the essential aspects of this struggle and his position in relation to it, are received in his early years.
Hence, it is of essential importance for a Catholic civilisation to provide children with deeply and healthily religious literature. We are not talking only about the course of Catechism and Sacred History, which should be the centre of everything, but about stories that are like a commentary, an extension, an application of what Religion teaches.
This is, in terms of good doctrine, the norm. How evident it is, however, that the wealth of modern children's literature is far from this!
In this entirely secular flow - and bad for that reason alone - there are still distinctions to be made. For a long time now, secularism has not been the only evil in children's literature today.
When we speak of children's literature, we obviously include in this generic designation the illustrations that it legitimately contains, and which are often used to excess.
Wishing to deal with children's literature today in this section, which is not one of literary criticism, we do so by analysing some of these illustrations.
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First of all, a composition by Walt Disney. It is Cinderella going with her Prince to the enchanted castle. It is the wonderful thing about children's literature.
There would be restrictions to be made. In principle, what is offered to children should tend to mature them, otherwise it is not entirely healthy. Now, in this composition there are certain simplifications, delightful to adult eyes as a delicate interpretation of children's fantasy, but they do not help this maturation. Something in the coachman, the footman, the structure of the hill and the buildings gives the idea of something made not only for children, but by children. And this is noticeable, albeit less clearly, in the other elements of the scene.
But, with this reservation, how can we not praise the taste, delicacy and variety of this composition? The marvellous, indispensable in children's horizons as a means of refining artistic sense, elevating the spirit, opening the mind and healthily stimulating the imagination, is expressed here with remarkable tact and taste.
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We now move from the marvellous to a representation of everyday life, with its calm, homely, friendly aspects: another essential element in children's literature, to awaken attraction and interest in reality and virtue.
Here is a well-known illustration of Juca and Chico. On top of the roof, the two boys of the ‘seven mischiefs’ are ‘fishing’ for Widow Chaves' chickens.
Next to the stove, the faithful little dog barks fearfully. Below, the widow, busy with her household chores, notices nothing. The ‘two naughty boys, these two little devils’ who ‘drive everyone crazy’ represent with real expression the mischief so common in home life. Mischief treated, incidentally, in the book with exemplary severity: ‘read this story and you will see the fate of the two’. With the exception of the mischievous boys - and perhaps not even that - everything evokes the happy, calm, modestly abundant atmosphere of popular domestic life. Generosity of spirit, temperance, largesse, sensible well-being in one's own mediocrity, everything is expressed there.
Then comes the mischievous literature.
We present one example among thousands. Fistfights, shootings, assaults, aggression, exaggerated excitement, melodramatic narration, running around, blood, death, ‘supermen’ who fly, who climb walls, who manipulate lightning: a whole sinister and ridiculous fabric of implausibilities, cruelties, and crude sensationalism. And this is not just one story: it is an entire ‘literary’ genre that fills entire pages of magazines, entire magazines avidly followed by children.
What horizons does this open up for childhood? Those of crime. What pleasures? Those of nervous excitement, tending in certain cases almost to delirium. What ideals? Those of brute force and a life of adventure without rhyme or reason.
This does not make a man, much less a Christian. The product of this literature is the neo-barbarian...