Classic Novels as Children’s Books

Some of the most interesting classic novels have been shat upon by modern culture in its framing of these novels as “children’s books”. Not that I have a problem with children’s books, or even adult works being redone as children’s stories. The problem becomes when this adaptation is made by creating the most bland and superficial interpretation of the original story and then takes over.

Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass make for great children’s books in and of themselves but adults will probably get just as much out of them if not more. In fact, Godel Escher Bach (a masterpiece of non-fiction concerning the weaving of such threads as artificial intelligence, evolution, linguistics, maths, self-reference, genetics and more) often takes parts of Carroll’s two books as the starting point. Things that are currently the topic of real debate were written up as profound jokes in the Alice books.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are commonly studied in high schools in the US. I think it makes more sense as a book for slightly older readers. Of course like Alice, the structure of the story and the basic plot premise are very compatible with children’s books. And I loved it as a kid and I think kids do get a lot out of it. But again, I think adults would get even more out of it and it shouldn’t be dismissed as a children’s book. Not to mention that from some anecdotes I’ve read about, many classrooms have problems. As you might know, many right wingers do not see the comedy of Colbert as satire, instead expressing agreement with Colbert-the-character. Similarly these admittedly anecdotal events have classrooms where many of the children have racist attitudes miss Twain’s satire and turn it into a racist club to beat others with. Of course this would be a problem for adult readers of Twain as well. But the point is that no matter how well you understand and appreciate satire, more people don’t get it than you think. I would at least think that specifically anti-racist satire is probably too early for 8th grade.

But those aren’t biggies. The one that gets up my nose the most is The Hunchback of Notre Dame. In reality, it is a fascinating novel about the medieval mindset, religious mania, intellectual authoritarianism, revolution and social dysfunction and so on and so on. Hugo takes us on a tour of the Gothic architecture, the mystical mindset and the desperation of the street gangs of medieval Paris. What do most people know this wonderful book as, thanks very much Disney? Some faux romance between a hunchback and an attractive girl. Most ridiculously, the whole thing supposedly revolves around the theme of “don’t judge a book by it’s cover”. That’s not what the book is about at all. It’s however very ironic that Disney’s presentation of it exemplifies judging a book by its cover, since they only take the most basic, boring parts of the plotline to shove their “family friendly” didacticism into.

And then there’s Frankenstein. Much as I love the 1931 film with Boris Karloff in all its kitschy glory, the novel was so much more. Even the supposedly “fuller” film versions only scratch the surface. This is especially a shame since the book is very important in the history of sci fi writing and horror writing. It pulls of both of these in a much better way than most film versions — perhaps because it deals with the psychological element in a way that’s not as translatable to film.

Finally there’s Gulliver’s Travels — a great satire that’s so much more than the kids story of big people and little people. Are there any others that you think have been misplaced into the kids section or grossly misrepresented?

Of course there’s nothing wrong with adaptation, reinterpretation, even butchery. For example The Life of Brian deliberately butchers the gospel stories, but I think it’s much more interesting than the originals. It’s just annoying that some of the best elements of this work have become obscured. It’s possibly more annoying that much of it is the natural, predictable patterns in which certain types of messages are easier to put across to larger masses of people (think of the vividness of Disney’s Quasimodo vs the very dense and sometimes dreary descriptions by Hugo).

Also the youth should really vacate the nicely-cut rectangle of grass outside my house!