Posted by Kathy_S on September 08, 2006 at 04:43:59 from 69.81.57.23 user kschmid.
In Reply to: Re: A missing generation? (was Bob & his history) posted by Pam Adams on September 08, 2006 at 00:33:28:
I'd say that peripheral grown-ups are the norm in children's literature. To quote Jane Duncan, describing the letter from her niece and nephews that led to her first children's book:
"I once heard Geoffrey Trease, the well-known writer for children, speak about his work to this effect: 'The first thing in a story for children is somehow to get rid of all the Mums, for when you are just about to climb down the cliff after the pirates, Mum would say: No, no, it's too dangerous!'
"No words could be more true. The Camerons' story began with a longish factual paragraph about being on holiday, then leaving for home in the car with Father, Mother and the baby but when the second paragraph opened, Mother, Father and the baby had mysteriously disappeared without a word to mark their passing and there were robbers on the train...." -Letter from Reachfar, NY: St. Martin's Press, 1975, p. 128.
That's how I'd account for the Sea Lords' intervention in Secret Water: merely a plausible mechanism to get the grown-ups out of the way of the story. Ransome does a wonderful job painting characters as they intersect the plot, but would lose the audience if he spent too much time on tangents.