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Authors, readers, critics, media − and booksellers.

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Child Narrators in Grown-up Books

by Susan Henderson, December 2, 2010 1:44 PM
My all-time favorite books explore grown-up problems through the eyes of children. From Scout Finch witnessing racial hatred to Bunny Morrison suffering from the Spanish influenza that will take his mother's life to Huck Finn faking his own death in order to escape his abusive father, we see children come face to face with the harsh realities of our world.

Part of what draws me to the child's point of view is how dangerous an event can feel without the benefit of adult reflection. Think of a child walking down a long black hallway to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. To that child, it can feel like an experience of life or death, an endless walk toward the fears that live in the dark. To hear a grown-up relate the same story — that it was only 9:30 at night, that the house was perfectly safe, and that adults were watching television only a few rooms away — has none of the child's truth in it. It says nothing of the terror.

In my novel, Up from the Blue, I explore depression and suicide from the perspective of eight-year-old Tillie Harris. To me, it's a different story when you hear it from her point of view precisely because she doesn't understand the larger picture. The gaps in her awareness create misunderstandings as well as surprises of compassion — Tillie has no expectations of what her mother should be and so is free to enjoy what others might condemn.

It was important for me to give voice to this child. Before I was a full-time writer, I worked as counselor for sexual abuse survivors. My youngest client was four. And while my novel is not about sexual abuse, I had these survivors in my head as I wrote, urging me to bear witness to a child's experience of grief. I also wanted to speak to the assumption that children are unreliable narrators. Survivors are often asked, Are you sure it happened the way you're saying? Could you have imagined it? And I play with this in the book — setting up the reader to doubt Tillie's experience, just as she doubts herself.

A couple of months ago, I was speaking with the poet Jane McCafferty, who had used Tillie's narrative voice as a teaching device for her creative writing class. She'd asked her students to tell her if it was really a child speaking, or if upon close inspection, they were seeing something else. What she'd noticed was a bit of the illusion I tried to create, where the reader can see the world through the eyes of a child and yet the language can be lyrical and focused. I admit to borrowing the technique from Harper Lee, who opens To Kill a Mockingbird with a grown-up narrator reflecting about the year she was six years old. That more eloquent and insightful Scout is in your ear before young Scout begins her story, and there is an ever so subtle blending of the two voices that gives the author some leeway with the words. Because you're never truly writing from the point of view of a child. All the while, as you're walking into the dark with your young narrator, you're aware of the larger picture, not to mention the reader's desire for satisfying prose and depth of story.




Books mentioned in this post

They Came Like Swallows

William Maxwell

Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn

Mark Twain

To Kill a Mockingbird

Lee, Harper

Up from the Blue

Henderson, Susan
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2 Responses to "Child Narrators in Grown-up Books"

Russell Rowland March 11, 2014 at 04:45 AM
Susan, wonderful essay, and especially interesting to me since I happen to be reading Up from the Blue now. My favorite thing about this novel so far is how realistic Tillie feels to me. Like Scout, she gets pissed! She gets really pissed sometimes, and when she does, she digs her heels in and won't cooperate with anyone. Considering her circumstances, that makes complete sense. I think the tendency to present children in fiction as happy, idealistic beings misses the mark, and you have nailed it with this novel. Well done.

Andrew Lacayo December 2, 2010 at 04:44 PM
After reading Gail Gibbons' book Santa Who? I found an error and wanted Ms. Gibbons to know about it. She states that the word Christ means "savior" when it doesn't. I've taken many classes at BYU from Hebrew and Greek scholars and they've always told me Christ meant anointed and Jesus means savior. Jesus comes from the Hebrew name Joshua which means savior. Why is Jesus the Savior? Because he is the anointed one, the healer that can save us all not only from physical death and sickness, but from spiritual death or sin. I hope Ms. Gibbons can correct the error because I don't want our children learning false information at such a young age. I like that book and want to read more of her books. I just hope she can correct the mistake. No one is perfect, I'm just informing the editor of the book to try to look over the book again and make the correction. Thank you.

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