Children’s literature - reading between the lines -1

Flipping through children’s books casually over the years, as a parent, I’ve come to understand that there’s so much more to children’s literature than I ever knew – not just as a child, but even now as an adult. And this - not only in the variety of genres available and topics touched upon, but also in the content and its treatment by both authors and illustrators.

In this day and age of very thinly-veiled agendas of domination and pogroms of extermination, stemming from a high level of intolerance to difference in political ideologies, socio-economic structures, caste, religion, race and gender, what is glaring is that the establishment and the educated citizenry alike, either chooses to turn mute and watch in horror or covertly abet such agendas. Maybe our education just lacked the right focus and perspective. Or, like I read somewhere recently - "All problems in this world stem from people's varying levels of spiritual growth". Now, the very meaning of spiritual growth being elusive, wonder what can show us the way.

Getting back to kid stuff (which is so much more reassuring!) - in this series of posts, I intend to focus on those lines or illustrations which apparently look innocuous, but are so heavily layered that even adults can learn a thing or two from them.

Stellaluna by Janell Cannon (Scholastic) is a bat and bird story for 4-8 year olds.

Mother fruit bat loves her baby Stellaluna and will let nothing come in her way. Then an owl attacks them and throws Stellaluna out of her mother's loving care. The baby bat luckily lands in a nest of fledglings, but her whole world has just turned upside down. Stellaluna's adoptive bird mother accepts her into her nest, but only on the condition that Stellaluna will behave like a good bird should. Soon Stellaluna learns to behave like a bird --she quits hanging by her feet and starts eating bugs. But when she finally has an opportunity to show her bird siblings what life as a bat is like, all of them are confused. (Excerpted from an Amazon review)

The conflict of being someone else that you aren’t, but having to be, under duress, is poignant and in a larger sense very relevant to us, in the current context of our lives. It is all the more pertinent to us in a land that is pluralistic in every sense of the word and where all our traditional systems are crumbling.

Here are some of those hidden gems from Stellaluna – some food for thought.

“Stellaluna promised. She ate bugs without making faces. She slept in the nest at night. And she didn’t hang by her feet. Stellaluna behaved as a good bird should.”

“I’m just like them, thought Stellaluna I can fly, too.”

“Wrong for a bird, maybe, but not for a bat.” (Can't help but think of the anti cow slaughter bill being pushed by the Karnataka Govt.)

“How can we be so different and be so much alike?” I think this is quite a mystery.”

“I agree,” said Stellaluna to her bird friends. “But we’re friends. And that’s a fact.”