Leo Matienne had the soul of a poet, and because of this, he liked very much to consider questions that had no answers.
He liked to ask, “What if?” and “Why not?” and “Could it possibly be?”
--Kate DiCamillo, The Magician’s Elephant
Kate DiCamillo is one of my favorite authors (which leads me to confess: I often prefer children’s and young adult literature).
My first encounter with DiCamillo came after I lost my first baby. A friend of mine sweetly ministered to me by encouraging me to read The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. As I recovered, the book led me on a difficult journey through love and loss in a way that, well, kind of left me back where I started, aching to love and be loved.
Excellent writers in this genre know they write for those who may not have the framework to process such “grown-up” things as love, truth, fear, grief, and forgiveness. But this does not mean that they are not deeply acquainted with them. DiCamillo somehow manages to simplify life’s most difficult questions, not by answering them or by teaching lessons that help us cope, but by simply acknowledging they exist. Her young characters know that life is hard, and they know this without explanation.
DiCamillo deals head on with these deep things of life without apology, without mincing words or making big deals. She introduces struggles without any amount of fanfare, and does not talk down to her audience. Because of this, her stories unfold as if the young reader already knows about them, too. To her, it seems that suffering and loss are the sacred secrets common to all humanity, no matter their age. She manages to ask her characters to experience disappointment, abandonment, death, lies, hatred, rejection, shame, and poverty, yet come out where they started, only with a better framework for a deeper understanding. In other words, they do not grow out of life, but grow into it.
She herself seems to have the soul of a poet. In the midst of the struggles of life, I have wondered if all her stories are simply responses to the questions, “What if?” and “Why not?” and “Could it possibly be?”
Her characters have proven excellent companions over these years. I highly recommend her books, for children and adults alike.
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