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����������ý�Ļ���Ʒ Associate Professor Emily Harrington examines the enduring power of stories we read in childhood and what we can learn from them as adults 

When many people think of December, their minds are filled with thoughts of snow, warm drinks, family and childhood. This is the time of year when memories of childhood bubble to the surface—burnished by time to seem simpler and happier.

For avid childhood readers, a profound element of those memories is the books they read in their youth, which can continue to play a significant role in their adult lives. , who died 100 years ago this fall, was the author of such books—the kind that young readers devour and still swoon over in adulthood.

“In these books like The Secret Garden, the kids are the ones who are empowered to figure things out for themselves and who are in worlds that are magical or partially magical. That kind of magic attaches itself to the kids,” says Emily Harrington, ����������ý�Ļ���Ʒ associate professor of English.

Her most famous works, including A Little Princess and The Secret Garden, continue to be fan favorites for young children and books that many adults consider the beginning of their reading careers.

Remembering Frances Hodgson Burnett

Frances Hodgson Burnett is a household name in the world of children’s literature. Her beloved novels are perennially popular with children and have been made into multiple film adaptations. However, says Emily Harrington, an assistant professor in the English Department at the University of Colorado Boulder, who has taught a course on children’s literature, it is important to critically examine even the beloved books of childhood—not allowing memory to obscure what adult readers may recognize as controversial aspects of children’s literature.

Critics and educators have been noted how Hodgson Burnett portrayed characters of color in her novels. For example, in The Secret Garden, the character Mary is unhealthy because she grew up in India. Martha, a sympathetic character, contrasts people of color with "respectable” white people. Modern readers have questioned the effect that could have had on the children reading these stories.

Harrington notes it’s important to teach the novels in a way that doesn’t dismiss their issues: “Both (A Little Princess and The Secret Garden) have some super problematic, racist attitudes. It’s not why they’re remembered but I think it’s important to acknowledge,” Harrington says.

When looking back on novels written in the early 20th century, it isn’t uncommon to discover undertones of racism or sexism.

Some argue that racism was more normalized at the time some books were written, but even in the context of a work’s time, it is important to recognize and consider these issues when they exist in novels written for children, Harrington says. She also notes Burnett’s questionable views about medicine, which are apparent in The Secret Garden, when a wheelchair-bound child is able to walk after a little exposure to fresh air. Burnett believed that nature and God were the solution to most medical issues, which can change the meaning of the Secret Garden as being a magical place outside that fixes all medical ailments.

A lifetime effect

However, even if some of their content makes a modern reader pause, the novels that young readers enjoy can have lasting echoes in their lives as adults. Childhood fans of Harry Potter, Percy Jackson and many other novels may continue to visit those worlds in their minds as adults or to wish they could be transported by books in the way they were as children. This includes Frances Hodgson Burnett’s novels, which many readers continue loving into adulthood. A large part of this connection is how the books made young readers feel while reading them, Harrington says.

“In these books like The Secret Garden, the kids are the ones who are empowered to figure things out for themselves and who are in worlds that are magical or partially magical. That kind of magic attaches itself to the kids,” Harrington says.

 

"All the people who enjoy these books can take the parts that they love and keep them," says Emily Harrington, ����������ý�Ļ���Ʒ associate professor of English. (Illustration: by Inga Moore from The Secret Garden)

Due to this escape that children can experience while reading these novels, the stories, characters and places can stay with them into adulthood. It isn’t rare to see someone who is still as deeply infatuated with novels such as A Little Princess or The Secret Garden as an adult because those books have been those escapes for many generations of children. And as parents or grandparents read these novels to children, the cycle continues, and the literary love is passed to new generations.

Even with Hodgson Burnett’s questionable beliefs, as well as aspects of her novels that trouble modern readers, readers still are able to take the best parts of these magical worlds and make them their own, Harrington says. That, in turn, allows the children who read them to make these fictional worlds their own, she adds.

She notes that this is a process that many children experience while reading these novels as a form of escapism: “[As they grow up, children may think] ‘This magical world is mine now, and it’s not going to be racist or anti-trans. I’m gonna imagine myself in it in my own way and reject the parts of the legacy that I don’t want.’

“All the people who enjoy these books can take the parts that they love and keep them, and hopefully had enough alternate influences that counteract the colonialist ideology,” Harrington says, citing common issues with The Secret Garden and A Little Princess.

Best friends forever

For many avid childhood readers, books have been a major part of their lives for as long as they can remember and the characters in them their lifelong friends. Those reading experiences can transfer deeply into their adult lives, especially when correlating reading with comfort, Harrington says.

Further, last year found multiple points of positive correlation between early reading for pleasure with subsequent brain and cognitive development and mental well-being. Also, the most recent finds that while 70% of 6- to 8-year-olds love or like reading books for fun, that number shrinks to just 47% among 12- to 17-year olds.

R. Joseph Rodriguez, a teaching fellow with the National Book Foundation, , “The joy of books has been killed. Suppressed, tested and killed. I hate when students are called ‘struggling readers.’ We need to see them as students who need a revival! I want a revival!”

Educators, researchers, parents, health care professionals and children themselves study and discuss how to —from alleviating testing pressure to proving time and space for reading, supporting diversity in children’s literature and not dismissing the literature that children actually enjoy as “frivolous.”

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