The Imagination of Elsa Beskow vs. Modern Children’s “Literature”

We are fortunate that the authors of modern children's books have no clue how a child's mind works (probably because they have no children).

The tiny forest children bring cotton to their mother. Children of the Forest by Elsa Beskow.

“Deep in the forest, under the curling roots of an old pine tree, was a small house. Warm and dry in winter, cool and airy in summer, it was the home of one of the forest people. He lived there with his wife and four children; Tom, Harriet, Sam and Daisy.” 

So opens one of turn-of-the-century Swedish author Elsa Beskow’s iconic children’s stories, Children of the Forest. Beskow has been called the “Beatrix Potter of Scandinavia,” but between you and me, I think Beskow outdoes Potter.

Children of the Forest gives life to the words of G.K. Chesterton, that “the most extraordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children.” Chesterton seems to have gotten it right. “When we step into the family, by the act of being born,” Chesterton said, “we do step into a world which is incalculable, into a world which has its own strange laws, into a world which could do without us, into a world we have not made. In other words, when we step into the family we step into a fairy-tale.”

It is fitting that Beskow uses fairytales to illustrate the beauty of ordinary family life. Fairies, goblins, trolls, talking animals, and tiny children of the forest elevate the quotidian, making happy family life appear extraordinary, which really it is. 

Written over a century ago, Beskow’s tales are not self-conscious, nor do they strain artificially to convey messages of virtue. There is no didacticism or preachiness. Still, ideas of domestic happiness, sibling camaraderie,  using the imagination to create joy and excitement, a strong father and nurturing mother figure, and appreciating the natural world that God created permeate Beskow’s world.  

My favorite is Children of the Forest. This one plays to some deeply rooted needs and desires that, like all good art, defy strict rational analysis. Nonetheless, dear reader, rationally analyze I will! There is such a thing as philosophical reason, and it has its place—just not in the art itself (we’ll look at this fatal flaw later).    

Good stories speak to the symbolic mind on a symbolic level. They shape us in ineffable ways. Filling the mind with enough of this or that type of imagination (the imagination of Elsa Beskow or Saint Therese or Aesop or Robert Louis Stevenson, on the one hand, or the imagination of whatever books are on display in Barnes in Noble or your local library or whatever children’s shows are being pushed on Netflix, on the other hand), and the mind will start to desire and resemble that type of imagination. So let’s feed it wholesome, unrefined fairytales and fiction stories, like those of Elsa Beskow!   

It seems that you can often tell an old story from a new one by its concreteness, and Beskow’s are beautifully concrete, rich in texture and detail. Older stories give us vivid descriptions of the natural world and the characters that people it. We can really feel like we are there and feel attached to the characters.

Part of what makes Beskow’s stories so intriguing is that they begin with the ordinary and stretch it just enough that we can suspend our disbelief and enjoy. For children, her stories are perfectly probable!

Children imagine themselves in the place of her characters—living vicariously, thinking about how they would survive and enjoy themselves in the woods and how they would react to the challenges and adventures that her characters experience. 

My boys especially love when, in Children of the Forest, the children’s father must kill a viper that tried to harm them. “Tom, Harriet, Sam and Daisy watched and as the battle went first this way, and then that; but at last their father was so quick with his needle-sharp spear that he pinned the viper to the ground.”

The children proudly lift up the dead snake until a hedgehog decides to take it away.

We’re given the image of a strong, protecting father who will fight to the death anything that tries to harm his children—PETA (is that outfit still relevant?) and the LGBTQIA brow-beaters of MSNBC would no doubt take issue with this scene. But for the rest of us living a normal existence, this father is the type of role model that we want for our children, especially our boys. We want them to see that this type of behavior is worthy and masculine in all the right ways.

Contrast this with the bumbling, incompetent father figure of the Berenstain Bears books. It is no wonder that genuine masculinity is frowned upon. Us children of the 80s and 90s were all shown the doofy, effeminate Papa Bear as a paragon of what it means to be a dad (and also, no wonder men aren’t rushing to get married and raise a family).

The father that Beskow shows us is the opposite—strong, courageous, protective of his family, and a loving educator of his children.

He teaches his children to harvest and store food for the winter. He teaches them the importance of paying attention and working carefully. “Sam!” their father says when the boy refuses to pay attention, “If you make a mistake, we may all die. You must never pick a mushroom unless you know it is good to eat.”

Their father teaches them that if they don’t harvest the right foods at the right time and store them in the right way, the family could die. But, with his guidance, the family stores up enough provisions for the winter that they are able to be charitable toward their neighbors and bring food to the animals that do not have enough.

A father both manly and nurturing. Beskow nails it. Children of the Forest by Elsa Beskow.

“That evening, sleepy and warm, the children sat round the fire, listening to their father telling stories his father told him when he was a boy, about trolls and fairies, storms and strange cities from long ago.” Beskow knows just how to tickle the imagination. And also how to give us a father figure worth admiring.  

The children’s mother knits them winter sweaters and tends their wounds. The boys learn their lesson the hard way when they poke their homemade spears into an ants’ nest. “Silly boys,” their mother says as she treats their stings. “Never hurt the creatures of the forest, unless they mean you harm.” I quote that all the time to my boys when they are tempted into such silly boy behavior. That line is all it takes. The story, which they love, has done the work for me of imparting the lesson.   

Children of the Forest illustrates the idea, so uncommon these days, that the family is a natural source of order and comfort, and it is within family life that we learn lessons and grow—not in some abstract, ethereal way as the modern sentimental children’s “literature” would have it. But in real, day to day, often mundane, living. 

This story reflects to our children the beauty and joy of the type of life that we are trying to create—one with sibling friendships, time in nature rather than with technology, time for exploring and using imagination, time for work, time for play, and all under the loving guidance of a mother and father. This one will undoubtedly be on the banned books list soon!

It is easier to see the value and the underlying messages that are in Children of the Forest when we contrast it with a children’s book of a very different type, created by a very different imagination than that of Elsa Beskow. 

I asked our dear Google overlord to please, tell me what is the fairest children’s book of all? Book after terrible book popped up. I had to select almost at random. I settled on Maybe: A Story about the Endless Potential in All of Us (recommended for ages 4-8, according to the publisher). It is a good foil for Children of the Forest.

With 4.9 stars on Amazon and nearly 8,000 reviews, Maybe is reaching quite an audience—but fortunately one that seems to spare the children. Another “children’s” book that appeals more to liberal adult-children, this one is filled with platitudinous abstractions and lofty ideals.

“Maybe you will invent something that no one has ever seen before?” 

“Maybe you will build things that reach high into the sky?” 

“Maybe you will speak up for those who can’t speak for themselves?” (This one, by the way, is set against the picture of a polar bear, not millions of unborn children).

It is difficult not to read each page in the “I’m Ron Burgundy?” voice, with each of the declarative statements concluded with a question mark—which really is the way with liberal education, isn’t it? Children are presented with a one-dimensional, materialistic interpretation of reality and then told that they are free to choose for themselves how to think! To borrow from Ratatouille, “you would have to be an idiot of elephantine proportions not to appreciate this ’61 Château Latour” our democratic values!

Maybe, like many modern children’s books (see Tomorrow I’ll be Brave listed in my top worst children’s books), substitutes an actual plot with pure sentimentalism. Again, we are fortunate that these liberal authors have little or no grasp of how the imagination of a young child works (probably because many of them have no children). 

Abstract ideals are conceptually beyond the reach of young minds. Children are most interested in the concrete and specifically, the concrete that is relatable and tethered, in some way, to their little world. To teach a child to care about “those who can’t speak for themselves,” for example, we need to start by bringing up decent little human beings. Such an education in virtue takes place within the family. Concrete and interesting tales that reflect back to the young mind what a loving, well-adjusted, and contributing young member of the family should look like, will go a long way toward producing the type of child who will care about those in need of a voice (such as unborn children).

Cue Elsa Beskow.

Beskow’s stories do the exact opposite of stories such as Maybe. Where Maybe tries to teach children to desire leftwing causes and materialistic enterprises while at the same time encouraging the snowflake mentality, Children of the Forest teaches children to use their imaginations, to appreciate beauty and to experience wonder, to honor their father and mother, to enjoy the camaraderie of their siblings, and to live in harmony with the natural world—in other words, to be good and decent, ordinary human beings (which, again, is extraordinary in its own way).

Beskow gives us a good story that is peopled with worthy characters.

Maybe gives us a bad story (there is not a plot or characters to speak of) that encourages a sort of narcissism and expectation that by simply believing hard enough, we can do what no one else has done. This is not only unrealistic but also harmful to the mind of a child. It is a recipe for crusading idealism of the Stalinesque and Wilsonian variety. The less we have of those types of “dreamers,” the better.

The quintessence of the Rousseauean message that you are perfect just as you are. Maybe: A Story about the Endless Potential in All of Us by Kobi Yamada and illustrated by Gabriella Barouch.

In many ways, we are fortunate that these bad books fall so terribly flat (I assume that the complaint of one Amazon reviewer, that her child could not stay awake during the story, is not uncommon.). They will soon clutter the shelves of the used bookstore and the local Goodwill.

The vivid, concrete stories about worthy characters, such as Beskow created, will never fall out of fashion so long as remnants of culture remain.