Summary

How reality affects fiction, with a particular focus on Children's fiction in the Second World War.

At the start of the summer I had a different idea about what I was going to do for my essay and started my research based on that.

My question was about how growing up in a creative household affects the creative, with a particular focus on Tove Jansson’s Sculptors daughter. As the title suggests I stared my research by reading Sculptor’s daughter and making illustrations based of the book. The book itself is a part biography part fiction of her own childhood, viewed through the eyes and mindset of the child. I wasted a lot of my time by enjoying making images over starting to read a proper biography and when I did get round to reading one I began to change my mind on what I wanted to write about. After reading Tove Jansson Life, Art, words I wrote a big mess of a list about what it was that actually interested me and what it was that I wanted to write about. I realized that I was most interested in seeing how Tove’s life appeared in her works and about the subtle appearances of war in moominland compared to the not so subtle of C.S Lewis say.

Questions/Topics:

How the author’s/artists life appears in the story

How religion appears

How war is shown in a fantastical setting

How difficult/intangible concepts are presented to children

The differences between a subtle idea and an obvious one

Has this affected children?

How has children’s fiction been affected by war?

Books to read/Authors to look at:

Boys and Girls Forever – children’s tales from Cinderella to Harry Potter

World War II As Seen Through Children's Literature by 
Laura Pringleton (essay)

British Children's Fiction in the Second World War (Societies at War) by Owen Dudley Edwards – need to get my hands on a copy

Tolkein

C.S. Lewis

Judith Kerr

Tove Jansson