Hilary's latest post had me mentally sifting through well-loved stories searching for the villains I love to hate. Fantasy is one of my favorite genres, and I like a good hand-clasping, character-torturing, mwa-ha-ha-laughing villain as much as the rest of you. Yet I remember when I was a young reader, some of the books that really gripped me were the man-against-nature ones. Hatchet. Julie of the Wolves. The Island of Blue Dolphins. The Sign of the Beaver. The Incredible Journey.
These were stories that captured my imagination in a way that wouldn't let go. The kind of tale that I would reread right away, even if I had just finished the book a few days before. As an adult, I wonder if some of the magic of these stories grew from the way my worldview was developing. Perhaps the new realization that the world was so much bigger than me provoked a fascinated respect for characters who could make it "out there" on their own.
What do you think? In past posts, we've identified that a distinctive of middle-grade stories is characters discovering their place within familial relationships, or, in the case of often-absent parents, learning identity in alternate forms of community, like a close-knit boarding school, grandparent figures, or the most loyal of friendships. But what about these survival books, where a character must make it on his own in a life-or-death scenario? Why do you think these stories appeal so much to middle-grade readers?
And, because seeing some of these covers again makes me want to go on a survival-story binge (that was the same image on my worn-out copy of The Sign of the Beaver), what are some of your favorites?
