Modern Fantasy

The nature of
childrens fantasy literature

Some material from Zena Sutherland, Children and Books, 9th ed. New York: Addison-Wesley, 1997.

Make believe
A

commonplace and, probably, essential part

of childhood is playing make believe.
For that matter, we continue to make believe,
to daydream or fantasize, for the rest of our
lives.

Make believe and novels

Any

novel or play is, by its very nature, an act

of make believe: characters perform actions
created by the imagination of the writer

The

appeal of fiction and drama is

inseparable from this matter of making
believe

And so . . .
.

. . it is hardly surprising that fantasy is

particularly popular with children readers.

What is fantasy?
a

work of literature that imaginatively breaks

free from the limits and limitations of realism
in explicit ways.

Definition
Sutherland

says, The special quality of

fantasy is that it concerns things that cannot
really happen or that it is about people or
creatures who do not exist, yet within the
framework of each story there is a selfcontained logic, a wholeness of conception
that has its own reality. If it does not, it fails
(227).

a self-contained logic
The

magic elements within a fantasy must be

consistent and reasonable:

cant have a prodigious mind-reader who gets

baffled by another characters thoughts at a
crucial moment

a self-contained logic
The

magic elements within a fantasy must be

consistent and reasonable:

cant have a prodigious mind-reader who gets

baffled by another characters thoughts at a
crucial momentunless theres a good
explanation
cant have characters desperately fighting to
avoid dying if we then see that death is positive
and welcoming

Three characteristics
Sutherland

adds that a good fantasy will

contain these three characteristics (among
others): sincerity (not too coy or overly
whimsical), directness (addressing children
as equals, or at least with respect, and not
talking down to them), and imagination.

Popular form
What

are some of your favorite fantasy books

from childhood?

Why so popular?
1.

The display of the authors imagination can

be delightful, surprising, etc. It also can
stimulate the readers imagination. Kids
often have terrific imaginations, and being
able to exercise it can be very satisfying: in
real life, a kid is just a kid; but when she puts
her imagination to work, she is a god!

Why so popular?
2.

The possibilities that are explored or

illustrated in fantasies are delightful, exciting,
desirable, etc.

Why so popular?
3.

Fantasies are often very liberating;

because they are not tied down by the limits
of reality, there can be fun, excitement, and
experiences that make the readers feel
released in some way.

A negative way of saying this might be that the

books are escapist, a term that we often use
disparagingly. But I think we can welcome this
liberating power.

Why so popular?
4.

Fantasies take children far beyond the

realm of ordinary experience, which can
create events and scenes that are
emotionally very powerful without being
especially threatening; seeing a battle in a
fantasy evokes an emotional response that is
fairly safe; if we transferred the battle to
everyday life, it could be very worrisome.

Why so popular?
5.

Fantasies allow children to do all sorts of

things that they could never do in real life--all
sorts of things that the readers could not do-and thats fun.

Why so popular?
6.

Seeing kids do some of these things is

very empowering to children: they see that
kids can achieve great things.

The fact that kids (and adults) cant achieve

exactly what we see in the book--cant go down
the rabbit hole or talk to animals or fly to the
incredible mushroom planet--is nowhere near as
important as the fact that they have in fact
achieved something great.

Low Fantasy and High Fantasy

Generally

speaking, modern fantasies fall

into one of two categories: low and high.

Low Fantasy and High Fantasy

All

fantasies depend to some extent on what

Lloyd Alexander calls the primary world-peoples knowledge and experience of real
life. . . .

Low Fantasy and High Fantasy

All

fantasies depend to some extent on what

Lloyd Alexander calls the primary world-peoples knowledge and experience of real
life. . . . Low fantasy is actually set in the
primary world, but the magical elements of
fantasy make the story impossible.

Low Fantasy and High Fantasy

All

fantasies depend to some extent on what

Lloyd Alexander calls the primary world-peoples knowledge and experience of real
life. . . . Low fantasy is actually set in the
primary world, but the magical elements of
fantasy make the story impossible. By
contrast, writers of high fantasy take
information and experiences from the primary
world and project this information to create
images and situations of a secondary world.

Low Fantasy and High Fantasy

Authors

of high fantasy create a secondary

world whose concrete elements are
impossible according to the logic of the
primary world but consistent with its own
laws.
Some high fantasy stories remain totally in
the created world, and some travel between
that world and the primary world. Others
involve a world within the primary world,
marked by boundaries that keep the magic
inside the created world.

(Childrens Books in Childrens Hands 351)

Kinds of Fantasies
many

folktales are traditional fantasies

articulate animal tales--The Wind in the
Willows, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Charlottes
Web, Poppy (by Avi)
animated toys--Winnie the Pooh, The Indian
in the Cupboard, The Castle in the Attic
preposterous characters and situations--Pippi
Longstocking, Mary Poppins, Tuck
Everlasting, Harry Potter

Kinds of Fantasies
strange

and curious worlds--Lewis Carroll;

The Phantom Tollbooth, The Ear, the Eye,
and the Arm, His Dark Materials, Charlie and
the Chocolate Factory (inside the factory is
what we can call a fantastic and curious
world)
little people--the Borrowers, all manner of
fairy / pixie / brownie stories
ghost / spirit stories--The Secret of Green
Knowe

Kinds of Fantasies
time

warpsKing of Shadows
science fiction--Madeleine lEngle
high fantasy--more mythic, usually, than most
of the above; often involving quests and
conflicts of enormous importance; usually
involving active use of magic of some sort;
Earthsea series, Prydain Chronicles, Sabriel
series

3 key fantasy elements

According

to Sutherland, writers of fantasy

usually manipulate one or more of the
following three elements in creating a
fantasy: setting, characters, and time.
In each case, the story presents these in
something other than familiar, normal,
realistic ways.

3 key fantasy elements

The

Oz books rely on a new and imaginative

setting to a certain extent.
They also use characters that are different
from what we know in real life (the Highly
Magnified Wobblebug, for example).

3 key fantasy elements

The

Boggart and The Dark Is Rising on the

one hand, and Charlottes Web on the other,
present our world with the addition of special,
fantastical characters.

3 key fantasy elements

The

Ear, the Eye, and the Arm moves forward

in time a few hundred years, thereby
manipulating time.
It also includes the three title characters and
the blue monkey as fantasy elements.

Six basic fantasy motifs

Specific

elements appear again and again in

fantasies. These elements include such
things as characters, settings, plot details,
and so on. They are commonly referred to as
motifs.
In Stith Thompsons Motif-index of Folk
Literature (1932), he identifies hundreds of
recurring motifs: flight from the ball is one.

Six basic fantasy motifs

More

useful for everyday purposes is this list,

from Linda Lee Madsen (1976):
magic
other

worlds--or secondary worlds

good versus evil (not just good and bad)
heroism and the heros quest
special character types
fantastic objects