Word: worlds
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Dates: during 1980-1980
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...gain some sense, courses in "kid lit" are becoming part of the curriculum at most major universities. The adult who was once the main focus of medical and psychological scrutiny now has a competitor. Today, says Historian Philip Aries, "our world is obsessed by the physical, moral and sexual problems of childhood...
...Uses of Enchantment, Psychologist Bruno Bettelheim addresses those problems by examining the implications of fairy tales. Weary of bedtime books that ignore or sugar-coat the real world, Bettelheim ransacks the stories for Freudian subtexts. In his view the Oedipal drama plays itself out in the giants that Jack slays and in the demands of scheming stepmothers. "While it entertains the child," he concludes, "the fairy tale enlightens him about himself, and fosters his personality development." The psychologist does not neglect aesthetics: "Fairy tales are unique not only as a form of literature, but as works of art which...
Today, animals and quasi-animals remain a child's earliest modes of transportation to the province of fantasy. Sesame Street, whose pervasive commercialism makes Disney's appear dwarfish, provides a world of tactile monsters; Sendak's night creatures and Arnold Lobel's Homeric tales of friendship between Frog and Toad, Dr. Seuss's Zizzer-Zazzer-Zuzz, Richard Scarry's Best Mother Goose Ever, and the omnipresent Snoopy and Woodstock are leaders in a procession that could populate a fleet of arks. Still, if anything appears with a tail or a mane, a small human...
This is not to say that all is dragon-free in the world of children's literature. The fragmentation of the nuclear family, the new consciousness of black and women's history and of human rights in general have engendered a series of "problem books" that confuse as often as they enlighten. Lower reading scores have been reported in grade schools throughout the country. And although specialists regard children's literature as a rich and complex genre, its artists and writers are too frequently appraised by critics as a species of emotional retards...
...Jimmy Hoffa, somewhere. And Jimmy Durante, as the world knows. But could a U.S. President actually call himself Jimmy and get away with it? As it turned out, the answer was no. By calling himself an adoring diminutive, Mr. Carter preempted any possible public urge to do the same. In our own good time we might have come to call him Jimmy, just as we called others before him Ike, Jack and Jerry. But since Mr. Carter took Jimmy for himself, he left no room for any spontaneous objective expression of affection. What followed was disaffection. Two years into...