Enchanted hunters : the power of stories in childhood

Tatar challenges the assumptions we make about childhood reading. By exploring how beauty and horror operate in children's literature, she examines how and what children read, showing how literature transports and transforms children with its intoxicating, captivating and occasionally terrifying energy. "Tatar leads us on a fascinating and timely exploration of how books cast powerful spells on young readers. For them, words create other worlds: they lead the way through the wardrobe to the snow-covered slopes of Narnia; open the gate to E.B. White's barnyard, where pigs and spiders talk; and direct us to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, from which the train departs for Hogwarts. As Tatar explains in mapping the origins of storytelling, stories put children in touch with all the things that adults speak about in hushed tones. The tradition of bedtime reading creates a contact zone between young and old, a safe space where the intoxicating and sometimes terrifying energy of tales from times past is released. For children, reading is less about identifying with characters and more about witnessing and exploring. Through books, they learn about the mysteries of other minds and discovery what it takes to navigate a world. Child readers rarely live vicariously: as pages turn and dramas unfold, curiosity and compassion are awakened. [...] Whether looking at classics like 'Alice's adventures in Wonderland' or 'Peter Pan', or more recent favorites like 'The golden compass', 'The story of Ferdinand', and 'Mr. Popper's penguins', Tatar shows how the authors of children's books use beauty -- rainbows, prisms, and other forms of fireworks -- to draw children into other worlds. [...] Tatar examines such classics as 'Goodnight moon' and 'Charlotte's web' to understand how children work through their fears of dying, and she shows how writers stockpile arsenals of beauty and horror to construct 'peak experiences' -- memorable moments that offer up the exquisite, the terrifying, and everything in between." -- from the dustjacket

Highly illuminating for parents, vital for students and book lovers alike, Enchanted Hunters transforms our understanding of why children should read.

Ever wondered why little children love listening to stories, why older ones get lost in certain books? In this enthralling work, Maria Tatar challenges many of our assumptions about childhood reading. Much as our culture pays lip service to the importance of literature, we rarely examine the creative and cognitive benefits of reading from infancy through adolescence. By exploring how beauty and horror operated in C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels, and many other narratives, Tatar provides a delightful work for parents, teachers, and general readers, not just examining how and what children read but also showing through vivid examples how literature transports and transforms children with its intoxicating, captivating, and occasionally terrifying energy. In the tradition of Bruno Bettelheim’s landmark The Uses of Enchantment, Tatar’s book is not only a compelling journey into the world of childhood but a trip back for adult readers as well.

Ever wondered why little children love listening to stories, why older ones get lost in certain books? In this enthralling work, Maria Tatar challenges many of our assumptions about childhood reading. Much as our culture pays lip service to the importance of literature, we rarely examine the creative and cognitive benefits of reading from infancy through adolescence. By exploring how beauty and horror operated in C.S. Lewis 's Chronicles of Narnia, Philip Pullman 's His Dark Materials, J.K. Rowling 's Harry Potter novels, and many other narratives, Tatar provides a delightful work for parents, teachers, and general readers, not just examining how and what children read but also showing through vivid examples how literature transports and transforms children with its intoxicating, captivating, and occasionally terrifying energy. In the tradition of Bruno Bettelheim 's landmark The Uses of Enchantment, Tatar 's book is not only a compelling journey into the world of childhood but a trip back for adult readers as well. Introduction: Comfort zones or conflict zones Reading them to sleep : storytelling and the invention of bedtime reading Beauty, horror, and ignition power : can books change us Now I lay me down to sleep : brushes with death The magic art of the great humbug : how to do things with words Theaters for the imagination : what words can do to you.