Literary Children
Feb. 22nd, 2023 08:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloWe took the kids round the shops- starting at the pier. Money was spent. When they became bored they turned into puppies and rolled around and play-fought, all the while emitting high-pitched noises.
Something we forget, looking back on childhood- and especially when writing fiction about it- is just how wild it is. We give weight to the defining moments- the moments of learning and sudden awareness- and forget how much time we spent being the chaos out of which a personality was forming...
Do the Famous Five or the Would-be-goods or the Little Women or any other storybook band of children ever behave as madly as real children do? Even Richmal Crompton's William Brown- the great anarch- is highly disciplined when it comes to himself and his outlaws- and their outbreaks are always planned...
Something we forget, looking back on childhood- and especially when writing fiction about it- is just how wild it is. We give weight to the defining moments- the moments of learning and sudden awareness- and forget how much time we spent being the chaos out of which a personality was forming...
Do the Famous Five or the Would-be-goods or the Little Women or any other storybook band of children ever behave as madly as real children do? Even Richmal Crompton's William Brown- the great anarch- is highly disciplined when it comes to himself and his outlaws- and their outbreaks are always planned...
