Comments on: Messages in Children’s Fantasy

By: Sequel Summer: People of Sparks, by Jeanne DuPrau

Sequel Summer: People of Sparks, by Jeanne DuPrau — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 15:53:54 +0000

[...] so I can’t complain about the happy ending. I read the whole thing in a day, and it gets the secular humanist hippie stamp of approval! Skip over City of Ember and head straight for this [...]

By: Destiny

Destiny — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 00:44:27 +0000

[...] little icon over there refers to what I’ve been calling the “Secular Humanist Hippie Stamp of Approval.” As I think you’ll all agree, that doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. I’ve [...]

By: » Sequel Summer: Out of the Wild, by Sarah Beth Durst Parenthetical.net: Musings and snark about YA lit, libraries, and geekdom, from an overly opinionated middle school librarian.

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:10:04 +0000

[...] I adore Into the Wild. It was an easy sell for my kids, too — I put it on the middle school summer reading list, and I think half the seventh grade will have read it by September. It’s particularly appropriate for a girls’ school because of the clever way it turns the tired damsel-in-distress pattern of fairy tales on its head: Zel and Julie save the world by refusing to be saved by their princes, by refusing to be trapped by their destiny. (Secular humanist hippie stamp of approval!) [...]

By: » The Looking Glass Wars, Frank Beddor Parenthetical.net: Musings and snark about YA lit, libraries, and geekdom, from an overly opinionated middle school librarian.

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 12:50:51 +0000

[...] sauce. Good is dumb, and then triumphs anyway because they’re also loyal. And you want a predestined heroine? Hoo, [...]

By: Sebbo

Sebbo — Sat, 24 May 2008 16:47:47 +0000

Jade, I’d propose LoTR as an epic fantasy novel where, at least, the Destined Hero (Aragorn) is kind of a sideline to the action and heroism that actually matter–both to the outcome and to the reader.

By: Doug Orleans

Doug Orleans — Wed, 21 May 2008 01:45:34 +0000

Hm, does Earthsea count? I don’t recall much in the way of destiny or heredity per se, though it was about having special in-born talents. But I think it’s also about class and station and escaping from those restrictions. Which is sort of the exact opposite of “blood is destiny”.

By: jadelennox

jadelennox — Tue, 20 May 2008 23:44:47 +0000

Homeward Bounders is kids who just suffer bad luck and do the best they can with it, and it’s really amazing. Lots of DWJ is special magical children, but not that one.

By: Sam

Sam — Tue, 20 May 2008 21:28:19 +0000

Martini-Corona:

Ok, good point — my kids could certainly stand to hear more about patience, humility, and sucking it up.

But the fact that Aslan just sits around and waits for them to come ask? That struck me as petty when I was seven, and it still does. And I’m still irked that the whole book is about freeing the Narnians, but they aren’t allowed to take responsibility for their own freedom; they have to wait for humans from England and Telmar to come do it for them, even though they’re providing the overwhelming majority of the manpower (er, centaur-and-talking-badger-power).

I heart The Homeward Bounders, though I don’t remember enough about it to have a sense of what its message was. (And that would imply that I understood it well enough at the time, which I’m not sure I did.) But as I recall, you’re right that they didn’t have a special destiny, so I’ll add it to the list! I think Diana Wynne Jones’s books would often fall into this category… I’ll have to think about more.

By: Sam

Sam — Tue, 20 May 2008 21:18:44 +0000

mayica:

Oh, I love Dealing with Dragons! It also has a lot of fun with what it means to have royal blood — the dragons will only accept kidnapped princesses as housekeepers, so only princesses get to matter, but only the princess who has more to her than royal blood ends up *happy* as a dragon’s housekeeper.

The Ordinary Princess was one of my favorite books when I was a kid, and it has a similar theme (only without dragons): Princess Amethyst’s fairy godmothers give her a whole bunch of gifts a la Sleeping Beauty, but the oldest and wisest fairy tells her, “You shall be ordinary!” And so she gets freckles and her hair turns mousy and she’s not fit for a princessy life at all. I have no idea if it’s still in print, but it’s fabulous.

By: Sam

Sam — Tue, 20 May 2008 21:12:36 +0000

colorwheel:

I was thinking about the Farsala trilogy (by Hilari Bell), too. There’s a lot in there about blood as destiny, but then the story deliberately turns that on its head in a way that I do think is awesome. Sabriel is similar, come to think of it. Is it possible to find fantasy that just isn’t about royalty or heredity at all?