Darkness in Kidlit, Victorian Style

The other day my daughter flipped through my copy of Sing-Song, A Nursery Rhyme Book by Christina Rossetti. She was attracted by the little girl on the cover cavorting with a lamb, one of the gorgeous original illustrations by Arthur Hughes, the Pre-Raphaelite whose illustrations for George MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin I've loved since I bought my copy in the third-grade Scholastic Book Fair.

Many of the poems in Sing-Song cover familiar childhood experiences, including many sweet, touching, and funny subjects. But the poems often take a dark turn, familiar to Victorians for whom the living and dead existed side by side.

For example, a poem about a bird:

Babies and flowers:

A sweet poem about sisters that takes a dark turn:

A bedtime poem from which there is no waking:

Darkness in children's literature is a hot topic lately, but it's nothing new. Dystopians reflect teens' fears and perceptions about society, but also their hope -- they are the ones who redeem the corrupt societies portrays. Cursing in YA reflects the way some teens speak, but certainly doesn't expose them to words they would otherwise never hear. And absent parents in middle grade and YA reflect, for many, reality, and for others, a chance to learn about how other kids solve their own problems and make their own decisions.

Children's literature has always dealt with death -- fairy tales are notoriously grisly in their original versions, and the origins of many nursery rhymes is similarly macabre. And Victorian childhood, despite its sentimentalization in popular images, was a risky world, where infant and maternal mortality was an ever present risk. Literature for children reflected that then, just as it reflects the darker side of our world now.

More Reading:

• Dee Garretson on why YA dystopian fiction is important
• Kate Messner on building dark worlds to build a better one
• Liz Burns on profanity in YA
• Andrew Karre on motivations behind creating controversy in YA