By Dharshani Dharmawardena
Daily Bruin Contributor
Hidden in the deepest alcove of the Charles E. Young Research
Library, a room where few dare to venture, books such as
“Adventures of a Pincushion” rest peacefully behind
glass barriers, waiting for their princely readers to come.
Princely readers in the shape of literary experts, that is.
“Scholars come from all over the world to look at
them,” said Mitzi Myers, a lecturer who teaches Adolescent
Literature and Children’s Literature in the English
department.
As part of the Department of Special Collections, the
Children’s Book Collection houses some of the world’s
finest and rarest books.
From these stories, many modern children’s books ““
the focus of Myers’ English 112 and 113 classes ““ have
risen.
“Cinderella is the underlying basis for most
romances,” she said.
According to Myers, books are defined as literature if they
serve as cultural documents that reveal important concerns in
society at the time, in addition to providing reading pleasure and
ethical insight.
While including a curriculum criteria similar to many English
classes, the most important of which includes analyzing texts,
Myers’s two classes on children’s and
adolescents’ literature also look back on how books shape
children into the adults they become.
In addition to familiarizing themselves with children’s
literature, students can view these works as “historical
documents shaped by and for particular societies,” according
to Myers’ syllabus.
Carolina Reyes, a fourth-year microbiology and molecular
genetics student, said she was surprised at unearthing the
authors’ true intentions behind the books she had pored over
as a child.
“A lot of the works I hadn’t looked back upon since
elementary school,” she said. “I didn’t see the
deep meaning behind the stories until I reread them.”
After reading “The Wizard of Oz,” Reyes said she saw
the metaphors behind the story.
“I didn’t see the utopian ideal before,” she
said. “I didn’t know there was any historical meaning
behind it.”
Although many people envision a romanticized, unchanging view of
childhood, Myers said she looked at childhood and children’s
literature as going through a sort of “cultural
construction” where both evolve.
Myers pays particular attention to fairy tales in the
children’s literature class.
Originally aimed as bawdy entertainment for adults in the French
court, fairy tales have evolved through the years, with writers
adapting the stories themselves from folk tales once related orally
to fit an aristocratic audience.
Through the years, writers tailored these occasionally raunchy
tales to a different audience.
“Stories like politically correct bedtime stories and
feminist fairy tales ““ they were appropriated for
children’s cultures,” Myers said.
At the end of the 1700s, the realistic moral tale emerged and
differed greatly from the common fairy tale.
“They were based on real life and real children,”
Myers said. “Usually, they gave children more
power.”
During this time, Myers said the growing middle-class encouraged
the growth of children’s literature.
“Children’s literature has always been a
middle-class thing,” she said. “Parents wanted their
children to be happier and more educated than they were.”
According to Myers, authors of children’s literature
express their concern for societal problems such as issues of war
and violence, economic stress and other adult problems throughout
their work.
“”˜The Little Prince,’ for example, is an
attempt to explain why France fell to the Nazis during World War
II,” Myers said. This classic tale by Antoine de
Saint-Exupery, according to Myers, criticizes how the French had
become instructed as opposed to educated through the years.
“The Little Prince” encourages people to discover the
truth for themselves, instead of regurgitating information fed to
them.
Some other classic children’s novels also show the
authors’ concerns for their societies. Both “The Wind
in the Willows” and “The Wizard of Oz” discuss
economic dislocation and disparity at the turn of the century.
Many of the students who take these two classes plan to teach in
the future, Myers said.
As an aspiring elementary education teacher, Angie Harris, a
third-year sociology student, said she took the class for her
specialization.
Attempting to abide by the class’s goals, Harris said she
has tried to view the stories through the eyes of a child.
“The main thing is that you have to read the books as a
child and as an adult,” she said.
Despite her attempts during the reading itself, Harris said she
found difficulty in returning to thinking as a child. On the other
hand, keeping a journal, which is a requirement for the class, has
helped her analyze the two viewpoints.
“Just to think about it as you saw it as a kid … it
makes you more aware as a reader,” Harris said.
According to Myers, children reaching puberty read adolescent
literature to find ways of coming to terms with adult society.
Anne of Green Gables, the heroine in L.M. Montgomery’s
novel of the same name, stands as the spunky, proud redhead with
whom many young women could identify.
“(The novel) was very much ahead of its time,” she
said.
Always “wanting to beat out the boy” and pursuing
her own independence at a time when most women minded the home,
Anne stood as a role model for young girls who wanted their own
careers, Myers said.
Other novels, like Sylvia Plath’s “The Bell
Jar” and J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the
Rye” stand as classic, coming-of-age novels.
Though written for an adult audience during the gender-binding
era of the 1950s, many young adults started reading the two novels
because they could easily relate to them.
“They were seized upon by kids as speaking to them,”
Myers said. “Young people often take over adult books where
they appeal to their needs.”
To Myers, adolescents aren’t the only ones finding common
ground with such novels as “The Catcher in the Rye.”
Graduating seniors, according to Myers, face some of the same
insecurities and issues because they are unsure of their future.
Adolescents ask many of the same question they ask.
“They ask “˜What kind of person do I want to be? What
do I want to do with my life?’ These are the things
graduating seniors are thinking of as well,” Myers said.
Although Myers said not all the students in her classes will
become teachers, she said they could use what they learned in class
as parents or members of society in general.
“I hope they take with them a concern for the young in
society,” Myers said. “They’re going to be the
ones to shape the coming generation.”