| What Is This Book About? |
| By Jane Cutler Most interested people will agree about the importance of certain elements in a children’s book. They will know that the end of a story, to be satisfying, should be implicit in the beginning. They will understand that a good book for children should include a character with whom the reader can identify, and that this character should undergo some sort of transformation that strengthens him or her, and that the conclusion of a children’s book should give both the character and the reader reason to view the world with hope. Usually, discussion of a book will include character, plot, point of view, dialogue, setting, language, conflict and resolution. Tone and voice and tense may be addressed. But discussion of what I think of as the most important characteristic of any book - its theme - sometimes is overlooked. Ask a young reader “what is this story about?” and, almost always, s/he eagerly will recount the plot. But plot is not what a book is about. Theme is. Some years ago I was teaching Children’s Writing to a class of adults. To illustrate “theme,” I asked the class what the book Charlotte’s Web was about. All hands shot up. Every student had a different answer. And every answer was correct. Diligently, I wrote each one on the board. Soon, the students had identified more than twenty themes. Wilbur was “Some Pig,” and we had Some List! But all those correct answers did not include what I myself had decided was the most compelling theme of Charlotte’s Web Nobody had given my answer: Charlotte’s Web is a book about the power of language. For me, this is the most important theme of that extraordinary book. But that doesn’t mean that death, parental love, courage, friendship, growing up, love and loss, the magic of nature, the nature of life, and many other fine and important themes cannot be found in it. Many books are, like Charlotte’s Web, built around multiple themes. Some excellent books have only one. In either case, character and plot, point of view and voice, the careful selection of language - all the elements of craft and imagination that go into creating a good book - are put in place, finally, to serve the point of the book, to illuminate its theme. “What is this story about?” is not necessarily an easy question to answer. But it’s always the first question I ask myself about any book, often including a book I’ve just finished writing! |