The Gift of Literature

I vividly recall the first time I read an entire novel. I was eight years old, and I had just begun volunteering in the school library. Our librarian was an admirable, elegant lady, and she recommended a particular book to me. I signed it out—the process where you wrote your name on the card inside the flap, and then your book was stamped with the due date—and I eagerly took it home, promptly reading it from cover to cover. As soon as I finished it, I was hooked. Now I knew that I could live in the world of imagination whenever I desired. I just had to take another book out of the library.

What was so transformative about that first reading experience? I recall that the book was about a girl who thought she was human, but she was actually a fairy. She was instructed to perform a secret test that would reveal her true nature: the elbow kiss. She was surprised that she could, in fact, kiss her elbow! (Yes, I’ll admit that as I was reading the book, I attempted to kiss my elbow more than a few times. Sadly, to no avail.) Reading that book was like living in a dream world where anything was possible—even the exciting prospect that I might actually be a real fairy.

In order to truly understand a work of fiction and receive the fullness of its message, readers must temporarily suspend their disbelief and allow their imaginations to carry them into the world of the story. Inspired by Northrop Frye’s book The Educated Imagination,¹Northrop Frye, The Educated Imagination (Toronto: CBC Publications, 1963). Victor Shepherd argues that people do not grasp reality through direct statements, propositions, and principles; reality is not known until we “step into” it:

Fiction … communicates indirectly by inviting us into a reality that we live by means of imagination … Literature creates a world, and the writer invites your participation: you will not understand what the novel is about unless you step into that created world and live in it.²Victor A. Shepherd, The Committed Self: An Introduction to Existentialism for Christians (Toronto: BPS Books, 2015), 15.

Similarly, when Jesus taught using parables, he was communicating truth in a way his hearers could grasp only after entering into the story, and only then could they receive the truth contained therein.

As C. S. Lewis wrote, “There is nothing in literature which does not, in some degree, percolate into life.”³C. S. Lewis, The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1936), 130. Much of what children read will impress itself upon their minds, shape their attitudes, and eventually show up in their actions. The literature they read early on will help pour the concrete of their life’s moral foundation, and brick by brick these stories will build the walls of their thought lives and character. To the degree that these stories reflect God’s moral law, they will help to finely tune children’s consciences to the difference between right and wrong, good and evil, beauty and ugliness, selflessness and selfishness.

Children will begin to recognize the moral choices they must make, and (mostly subconsciously) they will apply the moral standards they have internalized through reading these stories. In any given moral dilemma they face, they must choose to do what is right and avoid what is wrong. When they choose wisely, they will mature and grow in wisdom. When they fail to consistently live up to the highest standards they know, they will be confronted with their need for a saviour. The law is the schoolmaster that leads us to Christ, and the word of God does not return void.

Just as we do not indiscriminately take our children on visits to any place without knowing whether that place is wholesome, we similarly should prevent them from visiting unwholesome places in the world of literature. A few years ago, Andrew Pudewa (founder and director of the Institute for Excellence in Writing) gave our faculty at Westminster Classical Christian Academy categories to use when evaluating the moral content of the stories that we might share with our students:

• If the story portrays as good what the Bible says is good, if it portrays as bad what the Bible says is bad, and if good triumphs over evil, or if there is a redemptive element, then the story is whole or healing. The story aligns well with the Bible, and its message can be received by Christians with joy.
• If bad triumphs over good in the story, then the story is broken. It should be read cautiously, not by young children, and only by older children with guidance from a discerning adult.
• If the story elevates or glorifies what the Bible says is evil and derides what the Bible says is good (even subtly), then that story is twisted. It is dangerous because it is fundamentally disordering to the imagination and can cause the reader to like what is evil.

Both teachers and parents would do well to keep these categories in mind as we consider the books we make available to our students and children.

In addition to considering the moral content of literature, classical educators steer their students towards literature that nourishes the imagination. A story that seems innocuous may still be a waste of time, just as food that is “empty calories” (lacking in both nourishment and taste) is hardly worth eating. Charlotte Mason, the 19th century British educator, called these empty books “twaddle”:

[Children] must grow up upon the best. There must never be a period in their lives when they are allowed to read or listen to twaddle or reading-made-easy. There is never a time when they are unequal to worthy thoughts, well put; inspiring tales, well told.⁴Charlotte Mason, Parents and Children, AmblesideOnline’s Annotated Charlotte Mason Series, 263, https://www.amblesideonline.org/CM/vol2complete.html#263.

Just as we strive to give our children high-quality and good-tasting food for their bodies, we should likewise be determined to feed their minds with praiseworthy fiction because literature shapes their tastes. (You are what you eat, and books are no exception.)

In classical Christian education, books proven over time to stimulate the imagination and intellect are given priority in the curriculum. The teacher curates a selection of stories that are nourishing and tasteful, that stir the heart, that inspire wonder, courage, honesty, kindness, and selflessness. The goal is to expose students to the highest moral beauty they can imagine in order to prepare them to meet and welcome the perfect moral glory incarnated in the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom they will recognize all their heart’s longings and all that they lack.

The gift of literature that my librarian gave me at eight years old was the gift of knowing that I could, at practically any time, travel to another world where my imagination would meet with the author’s imagination, and we would share the delicious prospect that beyond what could be seen, there was another realm. Marvellous possibilities existed in that realm that did not immediately appear to exist in my surrounding circumstances. By giving children the gift of good literature, we are nurturing their moral imaginations in order to prepare them for God’s glorious revelation: “For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed” (Romans 8:19 NIV).