Uncharted Depths: Descent Narratives in English and French Children's Literature

Literature written for children has generally been held to a different standard than that written for adults and, consequently, rarely analyzed by scholars of literature. In this compelling study, Vaclavik (French and comparative literature, Queen Mary, University of London) examines several French and English tales for children that employ the theme of 'katabasis,' the journey through an underworld and a return to the surface. The archetypes for this are found in the Odyssey, the Aeneid and Dante's Inferno. The works for young readers begin with La Sale's fifteenth century Le paradis de la reine Sybille but the majority of the books are from the nineteenth century, well known to readers today: Alice in Wonderland The Princess and the Goblin and Journey to the Center of the Earth. The conclusion is that these stories not only fit within the pattern of the archetypes, but extend them, especially in complexity, and by the introduction of female protagonists. The literal and spiritual journey through the dark underground into the light continues, Vaclavik states, in the work of authors such as Phillip Pullman. As with the earlier stories, his Dark Materials books deserve to be appreciated alongside katabatic literature aimed at adults. Distributed in North America by the David Brown Book Co. Annotation c2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)