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| Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay as the mother and son in Lenny Abrahamson’s adaptation of Room by Emma Donoghue |
It starts with a book....
I begin my reflect as you go piece of writing with the children's book I shared last week, The Day the Babies Crawled Away, by Peggy Rathmann. It's a book my children used to love. I had forgotten about it until reading about Picture Books and Graphic Novels. What struck me about this story, published in 2003, is the degree to which the images help to narrate the story. The illustrations are a series of sharp black silhouettes against a twilight sky. It begins with an image of a lively neighborhood picnic and then a narrator remembers how "you" - a boy in a firefighter's helmet, had to "save the day/When the babies crawled away!" The babies crawl away from the picnic and the boy watches over and protects them as they go on a night-time adventure without their parents. The babies don't ever seem in grave peril - the mood is light and the babies are brought home safely. There is really not a great deal of plot to this story, but the pictures are fascinating and fun, as the reader searches through each of the detailed images carefully to locate the numerous babies (up in a tree, in a bat cave...).
Last week I wondered about the literary merit of this story and through discussion with UBC Professor Jennifer Delvecchio, I came to see that despite its simplistic plot, it has several qualities which contribute to its literary status. Beyond it's fascinating sharp images and repetition of sound using alliteration and rhyme, according to Delvecchio the story's unrealistic but fun premise leads to "imaginings beyond the book itself" and to multiple meanings based on the prior "experiences and exposures" of the reader. For Delvecchio these past exposures include "classical sci-fi works where children of a town are corralled or brainwashed, 'alien-like' [and] take over." Delvecchio explains that "past culture and media are integrated into [her] experiences with this book, not to mention the realities around childhood safety and precautions" (Delvecchio, 2019). For me, part of the delight of the story comes from the somewhat subversive idea of children escaping from adult supervision into dark places and the boy in the firefighter's helmet being rewarded for this adventure rather than punished. In the final pages of the book the reader is left with an image of a woman who is presumably both the narrator and the boy's mother. She praises the boy for "saving the day." It is this final image which grabs my attention. Young and beautiful, the perfect image of motherhood, I wonder, "Who is she? Why was she not worried about the children earlier? The reader is left with only a silhouette of a seemingly gentle and proud mother, whose existence seems as empty as her shadow. Thus begins a train of thought which has me asking about the depiction and role of mothers (or lack of them) in children's and YA literature. My thoughts take me to the following book.
The story meets definitions of what is literary as presented in Module 5: Poetics: What makes Some Literature Literary, in that it provides new perspective, contains multiple layers of meaning with themes, and uses language uniquely (Delvecchio,2019). Delvecchio writes, "[literature] uses language, plot, character, events, and actions in complex and intricately constructed ways." Plot, character, events, and actions may be conveyed through the language of images rather than words. In the article A Meditation on the Good Old Picture Book, Janine Forbes-Rolfe explains, "The humble picture book may seem deceptively simple in form, but the best books always manage to belie this apparent simplicity, creating rich experiences that potently shape how young learner makes sense of the universe. This makes the best picture books foundational in how young minds begin the early process of constructing meaning and defining their surrounding" (Forbes-Rolfe, 2015). Are You My Mother is one of these "foundational" books.
Despite it's brevity and simple sentence structures, it manages to touch on the universal theme of belonging. In Graphic Narratives and the Evolution of the Canon William J Fassbender, Margaret Dulaney, and Carol A. Pope write, " The desire to belong is not unique to a certain culture or generation" (Fassbender et al.), and in Module 6: Sequential Visual Narrative Forms, Delvecchio point out the "cross-generational and cross-cultural potential of narrative imagery"(Delvecchio, 2019). She writes,"no child is too young and no adult is too old for a picture book" (Delvecchio, 2019).
Similar to The Day the Babies Crawled Away, the illustrations in Are You My Mother are essential to the story, as without them the reader would not understand who or what the little bird is talking to and would not understand how the baby bird is reunited with its mother. These illustrations are rendered with a limited color palette of muted brown, yellow and red. The images focus solely on the baby bird and his search, without any other details. These stories are also similar in their limited and somewhat stereotypical depiction of mothers. This mother is seen only at the beginning and end of the story. The mother's bird's sole purpose in being is to sustain the life her baby - she rushes off to find food in anticipation of the baby bird's arrival. The final image shows a proud mamma with her wing protectively around the baby. The reader is not privy to any other aspect of her personality. In fact, it is literally the absence of the Mother which provides the impetus for the story - that baby bird's quest.
Still thinking about absent Mothers and quests, I reached for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by UK writer Mark Haddon, a novel my husband had read and recommended as I chatted with him about my project. The story is about a fifteen year old boy name Christopher who has a very logical brain which sees complex patterns but cannot read emotions. His literally way of seeing things is fascinating as he tries to unravel the mystery of the murdered dog next door and later ends up on a quest to find his mother. Using Rudine Sims Bishop's metaphor, the text is one which offers a mirror to readers who process the world differently (such as people with autism) and to those who have experienced family dysfunction. The text is a sliding glass door to other readers, "allowing them to walk through in imagination to become part of whatever world has been created or recreated by the author" (Bishop, 2018; cited in Delvecchio, 2019). The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time may help readers to do what Christopher cannot do - that is, infer the feelings of others. In the article Literary fiction readers understand others' emotions better, study finds Alison Flood reports on findings that "literary fiction ... helps improve readers' understanding of other people's emotions...." (Flood, 2016). The study notes the improvement does not happen with what Flood calls genre writing and postulates that "the implied (rather than explicit) socio-cognitive complexity, or roundness of characters, in literary fiction prompts readers to make, adjust, and consider multiple interpretations of characters' mental states" (Study in Flood, 2016).
Christopher's mother's roundness of character is a marked contrast to the two books I read earlier. Instead of presenting an image of maternal gentleness and protection she is depicted as a person with complex and competing motivations and emotions. While she clearly loves Christopher, the reader discovers, through her letters and actions, a mother who struggles to cope with him. Her inability to deal with his unusual behaviors leads to a strained relationship with her husband, an affair with her neighbor, and feelings of inadequacy. She writes, "I remember looking at the two of you together [Christopher and his dad], and thinking how you were really different with him. Much calmer.... And it made me so sad because it was like you didn't need me at all" (Chapter 157). She finds herself unsatisfied with her family relationships and declares, "If I hadn't married your father I think I'd be living in a little farm house in the south of France with someone called Jean. And he'd be, ooh, a local handyman" (Chapter 157). Despite her struggles she takes Christopher in when he runs away from his father and she eventually abandons her relationship with Mr. Shears (who is abusive) to care for both herself and Christopher. The complexity of this motherly depiction defies stereotypes. The text neither idealizes her or turns her into a villain.
Sal and Pheobe's mothers are mysterious to the reader, but not stereotypical. They are depicted as loving but complicated women who struggle in their relationships with their husbands, struggle with depression, and ultimately struggle with their identities and the role of being a mother. The reader learns that Pheobe's mother leaves her family to find and reconnect with the son she gave up for adoption. Upon her return she explains to her family that in an effort to appear respectable she kept his existence a secret, even from her husband. The complex relationship between her and her conservative, somewhat controlling husband will require negotiation upon her return. Sal's mother is depicted as loving but deeply troubled. She feels herself in competition with her husband and is upset with herself for not being as perfect as she perceives him to be. She dreamed of having many children and becomes depressed after a miscarriage and necessary hysterectomy. Grappling with these losses she abandons her family to reconnect with the person she was before marriage. She leaves Sal without even a goodbye because a goodbye would seem too permanent. Instead, she sends postcards describing her love and longing for Sal. While the reader is given enough information to conclude that Sal's mother struggled with grief and depression, Sal's mother remains something of a mystery. The inability to completely understand her story is something Sal and the reader must come to terms with. While these mothers are not stereotypical, neither are they fully fleshed out. After all, they are missing through much of the story. This leads me toward thoughts of other stories which are made possible through the absence of the mother.
Witi Ihimaera’s The Whale Rider, published in 1987 and made into a movie in 2002, is the story of Kahu and her Maori family. Her grandfather, Koro, is disappointed when his oldest grandchild turns out to be a girl rather than the boy he was hoping would inherit his leadership role as the tribal chief. Told in a circuitous style, the narration flips between Kahu's family and a pod of whales, which is symbolic of the Mauri tribe as a whole. The story deals with such themes as male patriarchy and highlights a tension between contemporary culture and tradition.
In this story Mothers are depicted as more accepting of changing traditions. Although Kahu's mother is largely absent from this story, (she dies after giving birth, thus conveniently enabling a plot in which Kahu grows up in her grandparent's household), she reveals wisdom in the naming of Kahu. She gives her daughter a name in honor of the Whale Rider, who according to Maori legend, was the founder of the tribe. Kahu's mother somehow knows her daughter is the rightful heir to the Maori chiefdom and this act of naming is done in defiance of the patriarchal tradition of handing down tribal leadership to the oldest son of each generation. Through the act of her naming, Kahu's mother is depicted as a visionary, someone willing to flout tradition and wise enough to know that times are changing. The other mother in this story, Nanny Flowers (Kahu's grandmother), is also presented as having enough wisdom to recognize Kahu's ability as a leader. Despite regularly threatening her husband with divorce she is shown to be loving. While presented in a positive light, neither Kahu's mother or Nanny Flowers are fully fleshed out, well-rounded characters. Kahu's mother is absent through most of the story and Nanny Flowers is a recognizable caricature - the spunky grandmother.
My next reading choice was the graphic memoir Hey Kiddo, by Jarrett K. Krosoczka. I reached for this story because I recently purchased it for our library and reading the back I thought it would work for my study of what was beginning to look like the depiction of mothers in books where the mother is partially or wholly absent. With images rendered in a a soft limited pallet of oranges and browns, Hey Kiddo is Jarrett's J. Krosoczka's account of growing up with his grandparents and coming to terms with his complex family situation - that is, having a mother who has abandoned him while she deals with her addiction to heroin, and having a father whom he has never met and whose name he doesn't even know.
My reaction to this story surprised me. It had me in tears in several places throughout the story. Despite having grown up in a household with two parents I could feel the pain of Jerrett's confusion and abandonment. In this story his mother is depicted as someone who desires to be a good and loving parent, but who finds herself unable to break free of her addiction. She spends time in and out of jail, trying to find solid employment during her more stable periods and wanting to stay connected to Jarrett but ultimately unable to parent or provide any sort of emotional stability for her son. She is not shown in a stereotypical way. In an interview Krosoczka explains, "It's a complicated emotion to be a kid where I definitely always felt that my mother loved me, but I also felt total abandonment," Krosoczka says. "Those are complicated emotions and Hey, Kiddo is a graphic memoir, so it's illustrated, so I'm able to get into those thoughts and feelings with the visuals in a way that I don't think I would be able to with prose" (Krosocska, 2018; cited in Corish, 2018). The images are what make this story so powerful. Krosoczka's memoir reminds me of Kathy G. Short's observations in her article, What's Trending in Children's Literature and Why it Matters. She writes, "Graphic novels often contain content that addresses difficult issues at a high level of complexity," and "cut across genres and age levels." She then goes on to write, "Like picturebooks, visual images in graphic novels are essential to the telling of the story" (Short, 2018).
Krosoczka's memoir is also an effort toward increasing diversity in children's and YA literature. Short notes an over-representation of white middle-class protagonists from non-urban areas (Short, 2018). Hey Kid0 depicts a non-conventional family of lower soci0-economic status in an urban environment. According to Short, "Children who are missing and underrepresented may either take on deficit societal notions of their culture or reject literacy as relevant for their lives, [while] children who constantly see themselves in books....are also negatively affected, as they develop perspectives of privilege and superiority based on false impressions of the world" (Short, 2018). In their article, Picture This: Using Graphic Novels to Explore Social Justice Issues with Young Adults Kasey L. Garrison and Karen Gavigan echo the idea that powerful images may "offer readers a perspective often marginalized, ignored, and/or told by someone from outside of the cultural group being portrayed" (Garrison & Gavigan, 2019).
If I were to use Krosoczka's memoir in the classroom I would show interviews with Krosoczka himself, such as the one embedded above to add another layer of reflection to our reading. Module 11: Children's Book Creators in the Classroom articulates the value of hearing from authors and illustrators. It mentions a study by David Ward which finds that "creator visits [...] empower the children, giving [them] a sense that indeed they could do that" (Delvecchio, 2019). According to Deleviccio the inclusion of an author's voice provides another dimension for students to consider and "can [...] be considered a multi-modal approach to children's literature" (Delvecchio, 2019).
While much of Krosoczka's memoir centers around his relationship with his mother, in it he also goes on a quest for his father, which got me thinking about other stories where the protagonist goes in search of his father. I wondered if the depiction of the mother would be different in a novel where the absent parent is the father. With this question in mind I decided to explore the novel The Crazy Man.
The book review presented to the left reminds me of the reading from Module 9: Multimodal Responses to Literature Across the Curriculum because it it is a great example of Multi-modal response using Mindcraft and and audio to create a digital book review which could be presented to a wider audience.
In terms of its depiction of mothers, Emaline's mother suffers from depression following the departure of her husband at the time of her daughter's accident. In the weeks after Emaline returns home from the hospital she says that her mother's hair seemed to get grayer and she just stat on the couch wearing the same clothes day after day and staring into space, only moving to make Emaline something to eat. Eventually she forces herself to figure out how to get the crops seeded. When her neighbor refuses to help she hires Angus. Throughout the story there are little glimpses into Clarice's changing attitude. Initially she does not let Emaline play with Mai Wang, a nice girl from a Chinese family, but later in the story, as evidence of growth she allows Emalines and Mai's friendship to grow. Initially she warns Emaline to stay away from Angus and she makes him eat from the chipped plate while he sits on the front step of the house. Slowly she comes to trust Angus and she invites him to sleep in their spare room and to eat with them at the table. She speaks up for Angus when others in the town accuse him of theft. While the reader is never given access to Clarice's thoughts, Pamala Porter presents her as a complex character. Small details in the text, such as the fact that Clarice put on lipstick when it was time for Emaline to see the handsome town doctor, help to create a character who goes beyond the stereotype of a gentle, loving mother.
If I were to use Krosoczka's memoir in the classroom I would show interviews with Krosoczka himself, such as the one embedded above to add another layer of reflection to our reading. Module 11: Children's Book Creators in the Classroom articulates the value of hearing from authors and illustrators. It mentions a study by David Ward which finds that "creator visits [...] empower the children, giving [them] a sense that indeed they could do that" (Delvecchio, 2019). According to Deleviccio the inclusion of an author's voice provides another dimension for students to consider and "can [...] be considered a multi-modal approach to children's literature" (Delvecchio, 2019).
While much of Krosoczka's memoir centers around his relationship with his mother, in it he also goes on a quest for his father, which got me thinking about other stories where the protagonist goes in search of his father. I wondered if the depiction of the mother would be different in a novel where the absent parent is the father. With this question in mind I decided to explore the novel The Crazy Man.
I next read the The Crazy Man by Pamela Porter. Set in 1965 small town Saskatchewan, the novel presents the story of Emaline, a twelve year old whose family falls apart after a farm accident which leaves Emaline with a permanent disability and without her father. Furthermore, to cope with impending financial ruin Emaline's mother resorts to hiring a man from the mental institute to work on their farm. I liked this story on so many levels.
First, I am reminded of discussions on multi-modality as the story is told using free verse. It is accessible to a wide range of ages and reading abilities yet it is not simple or without layers of meaning, contributing to its value as a literary text. The story makes use of flashback and employs rich imagery through figurative language. It is one of the few stories I have read in which the protagonist has a disability and the secondary protagonist struggles with mental illness, therefore making me think about the module on diversity of text. This novel normalizes mental health issues in so much as the story shows several characters, not only Angus, grappling to varying degrees with mental illnesses such as depression. The novel would lend itself well to discussions around mental health and would likely provide a "mirror" to the lives of many students. It explores such themes as death and loss, racism, small town prejudices, families that break up, forgiveness, and resilience. It has potential to provide Bibliotherapy, discussed in the article by Marilyn Malloy Jackson and Melissa Allen Heath, Preserving Guam's culture with culturally responsive children's stories. Bibliotherapy is described as "the use of books to help individuals understand and cope with challenging experiences and to encourage adaptive life skills" (Sullivan & Strange in Jackson and Heath, 2017).
In terms of its depiction of mothers, Emaline's mother suffers from depression following the departure of her husband at the time of her daughter's accident. In the weeks after Emaline returns home from the hospital she says that her mother's hair seemed to get grayer and she just stat on the couch wearing the same clothes day after day and staring into space, only moving to make Emaline something to eat. Eventually she forces herself to figure out how to get the crops seeded. When her neighbor refuses to help she hires Angus. Throughout the story there are little glimpses into Clarice's changing attitude. Initially she does not let Emaline play with Mai Wang, a nice girl from a Chinese family, but later in the story, as evidence of growth she allows Emalines and Mai's friendship to grow. Initially she warns Emaline to stay away from Angus and she makes him eat from the chipped plate while he sits on the front step of the house. Slowly she comes to trust Angus and she invites him to sleep in their spare room and to eat with them at the table. She speaks up for Angus when others in the town accuse him of theft. While the reader is never given access to Clarice's thoughts, Pamala Porter presents her as a complex character. Small details in the text, such as the fact that Clarice put on lipstick when it was time for Emaline to see the handsome town doctor, help to create a character who goes beyond the stereotype of a gentle, loving mother.
Continuing my exploration of stories with absent fathers I decided to watch the film Smoke Signals. This film was released in 1998 and is based on a collection of short stories by Sherman Alexie entitled The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. The film is largely based on one particular story, "What it Means to Say Phoenix Arizona," but pulls from other stories in the collection as well. Both the short story and the film are centered on two Spokane Reservation Natives who go on a quest to bring home the ashes of Victor's alcoholic father - a man who abandoned his family several years earlier and has been living in Phoenix Arizona. These variations of the same story offer a multi-modal experience. While the short story does not mention Victor's mother, she has a part to play in the film. Arlene (that's her name) subtly encourages Victor to accept Tomas-Builds-the-Fire's money and his help in bringing home Arnold's ashes. In a scene where she is baking fry-bread she explains to Victor that her fry bread was not always so good. She became better at making it as she listened to the advice of those around her. Through story-telling she hopes to show Victor the wisdom of not becoming too proud to accept help from members of your community. Both the short story and the film narrative is periodically interrupted by flashbacks as well as the wildly imaginative stories of Thomas. In several of these flashbacks the viewer comes to understand that despite her love for Victor, years ago, when Victor was a child Arlene drank too much and was neglectful of her son. She eventually sees the error of her ways which brings her into conflict with her husband, but ultimately leads her to treat Victor with more care. Her voice is soft and her demeanor is warm and affectionate. The film does a good job of presenting Arlene as a fleshed out character despite that she does not have a great deal of screen time and we do not see her as anything other than a wife and a mother to Victor.
Smoke Signals and Long Ranger and Tanto Fistfight in Heaven represent a contemporary Native experience and paints a picture of life on a Native reserve. These stories dispel the myth that Natives exist only in history. In the article Mirrors and Windows: Teaching and Research Reflection on Canadian Aboriginal Children's Literature Wiltse shares Ingrid Johnston's thought (2010) that "it is important to be able to recognize ourselves in a book, particularly if we, as readers, are from a culture that has been marginalized or previously unrecognized in literary texts in the west" (Johnston, 2019, cited in Wiltse, 2015). Wiltse ends the article with the hope that "Aboriginal students in current and future classrooms will be on the winning side of hearing their own words and seeing their own faces in the texts they are given to read in our Canadian classrooms" (2015). These words lead me to my next selection, an Aboriginal text that is frequently used in English classrooms across BC.
The novel, April Raintree by Beatrice Moisionier is a revised version of In Search of April Raintree (1983). It was was revised specifically for students in grades 9 through 12 at the request of the Native Education Branch of Manitoba Education. This semi-autobiographical novel is the story of two young sisters who are removed from their family and placed in foster care. Mosionier's novel shows the difficulties that Aboriginal people have faced (and may continue to face) in maintaining a positive self-identity. April's mother is depicted as traumatized and struggling with addiction. She appears in the first chapter of the story and seems to genuinely care about her children, but she frequently neglects them when she is consumed by alcohol. April tells the reader her mother is an excellent housekeeper (a habit from her time in residential school), and a loving parent, particularly when she has not been taking the "medicine." Yet April's life as a five year old reveals wide-scale neglect. There are often people at the house taking the "medicine" late into the night and sometimes in the morning. April and her younger sister, Cheryl, spend all day at the park, returning home only long enough for April to find food for the two of them. One night April witnesses her mother sleeping with another man and is privy to an argument between her parents and then between another woman (the man's wife?) and her mother. The reader also learns that since contracting tuberculosis her father cannot work and the family relies on welfare checks to survive. April's mother seems uncomfortable when out in public, aware of being judged by those around her. When social services come to remove the girls from their home April's mother lets them go. The reader later learns she is suffering from depression due to the death of her infant who was ill and in the hospital. Toward the end of the novel the reader learns that April's mother, plagued with guilt and sadness over the loss of her children, commits suicide.
Despite the seemingly stereotypical representation of alcoholic Natives living off of welfare, the text also works to dispel stereotypes by providing a fuller context of the historic, socio-economic, and cultural power dynamics at play which have contributed to the mother's situation. Teaching this novel would require what Wiltse describes as the "scaffolding [of ] students understanding of power relations in a critical reading of the text," (Wiltse, 2015). While students might feel empathetic toward April and her family I am reminded of the article Empathy: Narrative Empathy and Children's Literature by Kerry Mallan which warns of literature eliciting "individual and [...] one-off acts of empathy while failing to address institutional, corporate, systemic abuses of power that are much more toxic and powerful and oppressive than anything an individual can individually commit or repair" (Mallan, 2013 ). This article is in marked contrast to the TED talk by Linda Sue Park who attempts to answer the question posed as the title of her talk: Can a Children's Book Change the World? Park suggests that the empathy of individuals can and does make a difference in the world. She cites anecdotal evidence a story which has moved many students to fund-raise for the building of wells for communities without access to water. She supplies the answer to her own question: "No, but the individuals who reads them can" (Park, 2018).
Little Gorilla is perfect for reading aloud and predictable enough that children would be quick to memorize it and read along, as shown in the video above. In the article "What Next in the Read Aloud Battle?" Mem Fox writes, "Listening to an adult read aloud cultivates the essential enchanting engagement with books, stories, rhymes, and songs that every child needs to experience before the formal teaching of reading can begin."(Klass, 2018), while Perry Klass's article references a study by Dr. Mendelson which links reading to young children to positive behavior and better attention spans in years to come. According to Mendelson in "Reading Aloud to Young Children Has Benefits for Bahavior and Attention" reading aloud is a form of play which results in social-emotional development (Klass, 2018).
The children in the video are clearly engage in reading stories with their caregiver (their dad?) who has turned his read-aloud into a fairly sophisticated multi-modal presentation. In the article The Language and Learning Theories of Halliday and Vygotsky and their Contributions to Educational Practice Zhao Xia points out that both theorists and their schools of thought "hold that language learning takes place in a social context and each considers language to be a product of human construction" (Zhao). The boy in the video is learning language in the social context of interaction with his father.
Ironically, in this, the first book which does not deal with an absent mother or father, the Mother is barely visible. She occupies one line of the story: "His mother loved him." This one line tells the reader next to nothing about her as a person. The images are of her lovingly cradling him at his birth, standing proudly arm in arm with her husband, and carrying out the cake, again, with her husband, at his first birthday. These are all somewhat stereotypical images which do not even hint at a multi-dimensional character.
Note: Some of the theoretical discussion in this analysis is borrowed from my previous post on board books for my first reflection piece.
First published in Sweden and written by Astrid Lindgren, Pippi Longstocking, has been translated into 40 languages. The book is about a child living on her own (her mother died long ago and her father recently disappeared at sea). Generous and well meaning, she nevertheless is often rude and frequently gets into trouble. She's abnormally (fantastically) physically strong, strong willed and a risk-taker.
As I read this story, I did not have quite the same strong negative reaction to her as I did when I was a child, but I still didn't exactly like her. She is probably the antithesis of how I was as a child. I'm far more introverted, rule abiding, and physically risk-adverse. When I was a child it just didn't make sense to me that she would live alone. I also didn't like how loud and boisterous she was. In short, I found this character irritating and couldn't identify with her. I did not find a mirror or sense of belonging within the text. According to Short, "Children who are missing and underrepresented may either take on deficit societal notions of their culture or reject literacy as relevant for their lives, [while] children who constantly see themselves in books....are also negatively affected, as they develop perspectives of privilege and superiority based on false impressions of the world" (Short 2018). As an adult I am still surprised at the popularity of this story. I wonder if my reaction might also have something to do with the fact that the story was written by an author from another culture and country, and then the book was translated into English, thus making it doubly removed from its original audience.
Now to my original question: How are mothers depicted in this story. The mother of Pippi is nearly invisible. She is mentioned in a few lines in the first chapter explaining Pippi's orphaned state: "Once upon a time Pippi had a father of whom she was extremely fond. Naturally, she had had a mother too, but that was so long ago that Pippi didn't remember her at all. Her mother had died when Pippi was just a tiny baby and lay in a cradle and howled so that nobody could go anywhere near her. Pippi was sure that her mother was now up in Heaven, watching her little girl through a peephole in the sky, and Pippi often waved up and her and called, 'Don't you worry about me. I'll always come out on top" (12). The depiction is stereotypical. Pippi imagines a mother who worries about her and gazes down at her from Heaven. The reader learns nothing of Pippi's mother when she was alive. It seems, in this story, that to be without a mother gives the character licence to do as she says, "Always come out on top."
As I thought about which book to read next I was surprised at how many books have characters with absent parents. I tried to think of something else to read with a character whose parents were visible. I wanted a book in a format I had not yet looked at and decided on a childhood favorite of mine: Calvin and Hobbes.
The concept of the strip is a hyper-imaginative kid, Calvin, and his imaginative (or not) tiger, depending on how the reader looks at it, navigate the world as Calvin sees it - an adventurous, fantastical place, set against the world as adults see it - a conventional reality. The reader navigates between these worlds, often finding humor in the juxtaposition.
Module 6: Sequential Visual Narrative Forms, outlines the history of comic book strips, pointing to their heyday of the 1930s to 1940s before comic book sales crashed and were forced to go underground. Delvecchio writes, "The comic industry has so far not been able to regain its peak one billion dollar market [....] Sales today are around 60 million units and only about 2% of those sales are to children" (Delvecchio, 2019). Nevertheless, some artists of the past thirty to forty years, such as Bill Watterson, have managed to write and publish wildly popular comics. About a decade before Watterson began crafting Calvin and Hobbes Will Eisner used the term "Graphic Novel" to talk about comic books which were being taken in a more literary direction and longer comic book form, but it was not until the 1980s that graphic novels were really first recognized as literary in the present day sense (Delvecchio, 2019).
Calvin and Hobbes is complex and thought provoking. The characters - at least Calvin and Hobbes, are multi-faceted and elicit reflection from readers on philosophy and such themes as consumerism and educational conformity as well as the universal themes of love and family. The comics work on multiple levels attracting readers of all ages. The images consist of clear, vibrant colors, often depicting movement. As mentioned earlier in my discussion on the picture book Are You My Mother, and of the graphic novel, Hey Kiddo, images can do the work of telling the story. Watterson's images, as with comic strips in general, are essential to Watterson's narratives. Perhaps Watterson's cartoons have contributed to what Short has recently described as our "visual culture [...,] one in which images, as distinguished from text, are central to how meaning is created in the world" (Short, 2018).
There is a lot to admire about Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes, but now to answer my question: How is Calvin's mother depicted in this comic strip collection? She is shown as frequently stressed and exasperated by Calvin's antics, but is also caring and amused by him. She is occasionally depicted as enjoying quite moments of gardening or reading which are interrupted by Calvin. While Calvin doesn't enjoy her cooking, she keeps the house tidy and the house-hold running. She has a stay-at-home job; Calvin's dad once remarks that she used to work in a stressful job, so she was the one best-suited to stay home with Calvin! She is a disciplinarian, the one most often forced to deal with Calvin's destructive tendencies, but she is not presented as unreasonably strict or fond of punishment. Down to earth and at times sarcastic, the reader catches glimpses of her as a person beyond her role as a caregiver. For example, she hates camping, she is shown as having done some partying in her collage years (we learn this in one of the strips), and she may have been as crazy as Calvin when she was a kid. She tells Calvin she can't wait until he has kids and Calvin says that Grandma said the same thing about her. Watterson provides just enough information to suggest there is more to this woman than simply being Calvin's mother. Nevertheless, her primary literary purpose is that of a foil to the crazy behavior of Calvin.
Rata writes, "Children's books have the potential to be the most influential books in someone's life, being the first books that a person reads; having the power to form the reader's personality, character, value system, and even the reader's literary taste" (Rata, 2014). This is certainly true for me with this novel. It was the first chapter book I can recall reading on my own, at the suggestion of my mom. I know I didn't understand all of the vocabulary, but that didn't stop me from falling in love with this story. I've since read Anne of Green Gables many times over, though never with the lens of studying the depiction of mothers.
The entire plot of this story hinges on the the death of Anne's biological mother, Birtha Shirley. Birtha's story is mostly untold. The only thing Anne knows about her is that she and her husband were recently married schoolteachers who die of typhoid fever. Despite the absence of a biological mother, Anne finds no shortage of maternal women in her life. These are the likes of Marilla, Mrs. Berry, and Rachel Lyned - women who are characterized as strict, rigid, impatient, and blunt. In particular, much of their time is spent in opposition to Anne's creative expression. Furthermore, the women Anne finds herself most in tune with - those whom she describes as kindred spirits, are childless - her teacher, Ms. Stacey and old Mrs. Berry. Anne comes to understand that there is much love behind Marilla's stiff exterior, but nevertheless Montgomery presents an unflattering picture of motherhood and she appears to position it as diametrically opposed to creativity.
Rata points out that much children and YA literature, "may surprise the reader with unexpected depth and intricate narrative, beautiful language and deep subtle human motives, literary innovations, and difficult themes treated with grace" (Rata, 20). The Book Thief is a fine example of a story with these features. The plot is far from simple, containing a non-linear narrative with multiple plots and sub-plots, multiple secondary characters, and multiple points of view. It also employs anachronies - flashbacks and flash-forwards, prolepsis - the anticipation of possible objections in rhetorical speech, and analepsis - a past event narrate later. These are all mentioned in Rate's article as frequent features of adult literature, but also a surprisingly large amount of children's and YA literature.
Mothers in The Book Thief are depicted as complex characters. Liesel's mother, Illsa, and Mrs. Holtzapfel all embody maternal suffering. Each grieves the loss of a child. In this way they are similar to Mary of the bible. Their suffering is on a biblical scale. Rosa is the other maternal figure in this story, although some may argue she has little resemblance to the idealized mother, as she is anything but gentle, patient, and kind. Physically she is described as being squat and wrinkled with browny-grey 'elastic' hair and 'chlorinated' eyes. She is foul-mouthed, aggressive, and somewhat abusive - she is not above providing a beating with a wooden spoon. She constantly scolds and criticizes Liesel, but with Max's arrival the reader is privy to Rosa's other side. She helps to hide and care for Max. Liesel eventually understands this softer, but frequently hidden side of Rosa. Her beauty resides in her strength and willingness to do the right thing. Liesel comes to love and admire Rosa. She is the most fleshed out, or fully conceived material character. Despite this, The Book Thief is more a celebration of fathers. Hans has the starring parental role. In many ways he is an embodiment of the idealized biblical mother with qualities such as patience, kindness, generosity, and gentleness.
My last book selection is The Outsiders, by S. E. Hinton. Once again, the plot is driven by the absence of parents. Published in 1967, The Outsiders is the coming-of-age story of Ponyboy Curtis, a boy who has lost both his parents to a tragic accident not long before the story begins. He and his two brothers are struggling to get by and are caught up in conflict between the kids in their neighborhood and a rival group of students from the wealthy side of town. The story is a first person point of view with a circular narration - that is, the conclusion ends up being the start of the story. The novel explores such themes as class conflict, innocence versus experience, loyalty to family and friends, and the identity of the individual versus that of the group.
The Outsiders reminded me of a couple of our Module readings. First, Ciara Murphy's article, Why is there so much poetry in YA/teen lit, points out that "some of our favorite characters like poetry" (Murphy, 2015). Robert Frost's poem, "Nothing Gold Can Stay" is one of Ponyboy Curtis's favorite poems and it plays a significant role in the plot of The Outsiders helping to advance one of the novels major themes - that of innocence versus experience. It works on a metaphorical level. Secondly, a number of articles articulate the impossibility of children's literature, postulating that it is always an adult writing to and about an idealized child. (Frijhoff, 2012; Hill, 2014; Short, 2015). Rata writes, "The child, whom the narrator addresses, is not the real child, but rather the concept of the child, an imaginary child or an idealized child, that the author tries to educate and influence one way or another" (Short, 2015). The Outsiders is a rare contrast to this notion because S.E. Hinton was 16 when she wrote it. It was written by a teen for teens, and as such it is potentially not the colonizing force described by Short and others: "The children's books are produced mainly by adults, because the adult audiences of parents, teachers, librarians, etc. are the ones to choose the books for children to read and study. Therefore these books must represent the adults' values, morals, knowledge, ideas that are manipulating the child" (Short, 2015). Of course, S.E. Hinton may well have been writing her novel with an adult audience also in mind, as she too would need to find a publisher and adult purchasers for her story.
Mothers are portrayed in contrasting ways in The Outsiders. Ponyboy describes his mother as "beautiful and golden, like Soda, and wise and firm, like Darry" and as being the only one to get through to Dally. He recalls that Dally used to say, "You've got quite a mom.[...] She knows the score" (Chapter 3). In marked contrast Johnny's mother neglects him. She spends her time drinking and arguing with her husband. When her husband beats Johnny she offers no protection and shows no love or attention. She doesn't go asking for him when he disappears from the neighborhood. These are two extreme depictions of motherhood, both likely falling outside of the day to day experiences of motherhood for most people.
Final Reflections:
Through this book study I have stumbled upon the idea that in many children's and YA stories the mother's absence (and sometimes the father's) creates the space that makes the protagonist's plot possible. Occasionally the plot then involves some sort of quest. Sometimes the mother is absent due to death, while at other times her absence is for another reason. None of the selections studied show the mother as a protagonist alongside the child or teen protagonist. Mothers are presented in a variety of ways ranging from stereotypical one-dimensional characters to more fully fleshed out characters. Mothers are often idealized (Are You My Mother, The Day the Babies Crawled Away and Little Gorilla) and sometimes made to be the villain or opposing force of the story (Anne of Green Gables, and Johnny's mother in The Outsiders). In some stories mothers are shown to be struggling and flawed human beings (April Raintree, Walk Two Moons, Hey Kiddo and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time). Mothers appear to be more often idealized in children's stories than in YA literature, which seem to provide a more nuanced depiction of mothers (such as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, The Crazy Man). A more extensive study would need to be taken to determine the degree to which this is true. Occasionally Mothers are depicted as longing for something outside of their role as a a mother (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and Walk Two Moons). Rarely are mothers shown to have thoughts, feeling, interests, or responsibilities outside of their roles as caretakers (the reader sees tiny glimpses of this in Calvin and Hobbes). I would be interested in reading more children's stories which show well-rounded, fleshed out mothers with interests, thoughts, feelings, and actions not directly connected to the role of care-giving. While care-giving is a part of every woman's life, it is not the only part. I suppose I am not finding the "mirror" to my own life as a mother within these stories.
Cornish, Audie. (2018) Author Interview: In 'Hey Kiddo,' Jarrett Krosoczka Sketches Childhood, A Mom's Addiction. NPR Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/2018/10/05/654596837/in-hey-kiddo-jarrett-krosoczka-draws-a-portrait-of-childhood-a-mom-s-addiction
Dalton, B., & Grisham, D. L. (2013). Love that book: Multimodal response to literature.The Reading Teacher,67(3), 220-225.
Mothers in The Book Thief are depicted as complex characters. Liesel's mother, Illsa, and Mrs. Holtzapfel all embody maternal suffering. Each grieves the loss of a child. In this way they are similar to Mary of the bible. Their suffering is on a biblical scale. Rosa is the other maternal figure in this story, although some may argue she has little resemblance to the idealized mother, as she is anything but gentle, patient, and kind. Physically she is described as being squat and wrinkled with browny-grey 'elastic' hair and 'chlorinated' eyes. She is foul-mouthed, aggressive, and somewhat abusive - she is not above providing a beating with a wooden spoon. She constantly scolds and criticizes Liesel, but with Max's arrival the reader is privy to Rosa's other side. She helps to hide and care for Max. Liesel eventually understands this softer, but frequently hidden side of Rosa. Her beauty resides in her strength and willingness to do the right thing. Liesel comes to love and admire Rosa. She is the most fleshed out, or fully conceived material character. Despite this, The Book Thief is more a celebration of fathers. Hans has the starring parental role. In many ways he is an embodiment of the idealized biblical mother with qualities such as patience, kindness, generosity, and gentleness.
The Outsiders reminded me of a couple of our Module readings. First, Ciara Murphy's article, Why is there so much poetry in YA/teen lit, points out that "some of our favorite characters like poetry" (Murphy, 2015). Robert Frost's poem, "Nothing Gold Can Stay" is one of Ponyboy Curtis's favorite poems and it plays a significant role in the plot of The Outsiders helping to advance one of the novels major themes - that of innocence versus experience. It works on a metaphorical level. Secondly, a number of articles articulate the impossibility of children's literature, postulating that it is always an adult writing to and about an idealized child. (Frijhoff, 2012; Hill, 2014; Short, 2015). Rata writes, "The child, whom the narrator addresses, is not the real child, but rather the concept of the child, an imaginary child or an idealized child, that the author tries to educate and influence one way or another" (Short, 2015). The Outsiders is a rare contrast to this notion because S.E. Hinton was 16 when she wrote it. It was written by a teen for teens, and as such it is potentially not the colonizing force described by Short and others: "The children's books are produced mainly by adults, because the adult audiences of parents, teachers, librarians, etc. are the ones to choose the books for children to read and study. Therefore these books must represent the adults' values, morals, knowledge, ideas that are manipulating the child" (Short, 2015). Of course, S.E. Hinton may well have been writing her novel with an adult audience also in mind, as she too would need to find a publisher and adult purchasers for her story.
Mothers are portrayed in contrasting ways in The Outsiders. Ponyboy describes his mother as "beautiful and golden, like Soda, and wise and firm, like Darry" and as being the only one to get through to Dally. He recalls that Dally used to say, "You've got quite a mom.[...] She knows the score" (Chapter 3). In marked contrast Johnny's mother neglects him. She spends her time drinking and arguing with her husband. When her husband beats Johnny she offers no protection and shows no love or attention. She doesn't go asking for him when he disappears from the neighborhood. These are two extreme depictions of motherhood, both likely falling outside of the day to day experiences of motherhood for most people.
Final Reflections:
Through this book study I have stumbled upon the idea that in many children's and YA stories the mother's absence (and sometimes the father's) creates the space that makes the protagonist's plot possible. Occasionally the plot then involves some sort of quest. Sometimes the mother is absent due to death, while at other times her absence is for another reason. None of the selections studied show the mother as a protagonist alongside the child or teen protagonist. Mothers are presented in a variety of ways ranging from stereotypical one-dimensional characters to more fully fleshed out characters. Mothers are often idealized (Are You My Mother, The Day the Babies Crawled Away and Little Gorilla) and sometimes made to be the villain or opposing force of the story (Anne of Green Gables, and Johnny's mother in The Outsiders). In some stories mothers are shown to be struggling and flawed human beings (April Raintree, Walk Two Moons, Hey Kiddo and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time). Mothers appear to be more often idealized in children's stories than in YA literature, which seem to provide a more nuanced depiction of mothers (such as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, The Crazy Man). A more extensive study would need to be taken to determine the degree to which this is true. Occasionally Mothers are depicted as longing for something outside of their role as a a mother (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and Walk Two Moons). Rarely are mothers shown to have thoughts, feeling, interests, or responsibilities outside of their roles as caretakers (the reader sees tiny glimpses of this in Calvin and Hobbes). I would be interested in reading more children's stories which show well-rounded, fleshed out mothers with interests, thoughts, feelings, and actions not directly connected to the role of care-giving. While care-giving is a part of every woman's life, it is not the only part. I suppose I am not finding the "mirror" to my own life as a mother within these stories.
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