Why do Children's Book Editors Talk Down to Modern Children?
I bought my grandson an illustrated edition of Ruyard Kipling's brilliant story, "The Elephant's Child," intending to record myself reading this exquisitely told tale from Kipling's "Just So Stories." As I read through the lovely illustrated book, something seemed off, as though something were missing from the story I enjoyed hearing as a child.
Off to the Internet I went and pulled up a copy of the story from a website that collected literature from the past, intact and without meddling by modern critics and editors who feel like Kipling just didn't understand modern sensibilities. To my horror, I discovered that the wonderful rhythm of the story, which you may remember was almost a song in its use of rhythm and repetition was missing much of what I loved about the story. Not only were some of the best, most mysterious bits missing but the rhythm and repetition - two key crucial ingredients of excellent storytelling for children, as every great storyteller knows - were missing.
My grandpa knew about rhythm and repetition. He used to tell us kids simple stories of his own childhood. They varied very little as he told them over and over. The words had been honed over the years to a fine edge, like music that held us enthralled. Then he would play an old tune on his harmonica and then magically plucked another story out of the air. Perhaps it would be "Old Bob and the Skunk" or "Old Bob and the Kittens" "Or Dixie the Horse Arrives on the Train." Then a chorus of "Polly Wolly Doodle" or "We'll Be Jolly Friends." His stories were simple and lovely and would have made Mr. Rogers proud.
Kipling stories are like that. In the Elephant's child, Kipling does not talk down to children. He challenges them, periodically launching spectacular phrases like "the great grey green greasy Limpopo River all set about with fever trees." The editor of the book version I bought seems to have decided that children today are too stupid to understand about fever trees, thereby missing the point entirely.
Of course, the children hearing this story the first time won't know about fever trees. They are likely to interrupt the story to ask "What are fever trees." The wise story-teller, knowing that the whole point of this story is to show that children should ask questions even at some risk that more may happen than is expected, will answer. "Oh, best beloved, the fever tree is a kind of African tree which attracts mosquitoes which bite people and cause malaria which gives the people infected a fever. That's why people in Africa call them "fever" trees. Also best beloved, these trees like to grow along the banks of rivers."
The child learns not only from the story, but also the story-teller that asking questions is an acceptable thing, despite the relatives that tell them they should shut up and spank them for their "curtiosity."
Kipling also mangles words on purpose for fun. Some children, hearing the tale for the first time, may find the words funny, but they will soon come to recognize that the Elephant's Child, in using words like "'satiable curtiosity" is like them, trying out language and learning new words and that even if they mispronounce a word it is not the end of the world.
One wonders whether the Children's Book Editor at Frances Lincoln Children's Books who abridged "The Elephant's Child," does a great disservice to children by removing phrases like "all set about with fever trees" and "One fine morning in the middle of the Precession of the Equinoxes". Does the editor think children will not understand such things or is the editor like Aunt Hippopotamus and Uncle Baboon and could not understand such things himself. Or is he afraid the child might ask, "What is a Precession of the Equinoxes?"
Many grownups have a complete horror of being asked a question by a child that they cannot answer and therefore discourage any difficult questions from children and sometimes try to prohibit questions altogether because doing so might cause them to think and thinking has given them a headache ever since their days in college when they were taught not to think thoughts not approved of by their professors.
My solution to the problem is to obtain the original version of "The Elephant's Child" and read that into a microphone and render the digital audio onto a CD, thereby creating an audiobook of the unabridged story. My grandson Eli can follow along with the pictures (I'll put a bell in the recording to indicate time to turn the page). The words however, will be Kiplings own, intact and complete.
I am thinking that I will get Eli to provide me some recordings of his own voice saying cute things like "O' wisest of grandfathers. Can you tell me how the elephant got its trunk?" I may interject questions like "What, o' wisest of grandfathers, is a fever tree?" That would be fun.
I would also include a preface of my own explaining that this is the unabridged story because Grandfather believes children are clever enough to figure out things for themselves, by asking wise grownups questions that satisfy their 'satiable curtiosity.
© 2021 by Tom King
