From Cover to Cover (15 page)

Although each category of children’s fiction has its own special qualities, and some—most notably fantasy and science fiction—have their own rules and standards for excellence, there are certain elements they all have in common. When we evaluate any type of children’s fiction, we can look closely at plot, characterization, point of view, setting, style, and theme.

PLOT

The basis of all fiction is the
plot
, that is, a series of events that tell the story, actions that are linked by cause and effect, so that the pieces of the story are all tied together by a narrative. Unlike real life, everything
that happens in a story has a recognizable purpose. If, for example, a notebook is left on the school bus in the first chapter, we know that something is going to happen as a result; otherwise, the author wouldn’t have mentioned it.

NARRATIVE STRUCTURE

Narrative order
refers to the sequence in which the events take place. Most children’s novels follow a direct linear pattern, with events occurring in
chronological order
. They may take place over a period of just a few days, a month, or years.
The Birchbark House
provides a good example of a straightforward, progressive plot. The story follows young Omakayas over the course of a year, and readers can see how she and her family adapted to seasonal changes in their environment, contrasted with the change brought on by a stranger entering their community.

A slightly more complex form of narrative order based on chronology is one that tells the story from the point of view of more than one character. Kevin Henkes uses this device effectively in
Bird Lake Moon
, which takes place over the course of a single summer. Henkes shows the developing friendship between Mitch and Spencer, and builds tension by alternating the points of view so that readers know both boys are keeping secrets from each other. Since it is a little more difficult for children to follow this kind of order, authors can make it easier, as Henkes did, by shifting the viewpoint between, rather than within, chapters and by using the characters’ names as chapter headings so that young readers know from the outset which character is speaking.

More complex still is the use of
flashbacks
in which the author disrupts a linear chronology to recount events that occurred at an earlier time, usually to give readers insight into a character. This sort of narrative order can be very difficult for less experienced child readers to follow, as they expect events to happen in a chronological sequence and will struggle
to fit the past events into the present. For them, the flashback needs to be clearly framed in some way so that they understand the shift in time. Sharon Creech accomplished this in
Walk Two Moons
by introducing the flashbacks as a series of brief episodes in a continuing story that thirteen-year-old Salamanca tells her grandparents on a cross-country car trip. With frequent interruptions from Sal’s grandparents, young readers never lose sight of where they are in time; in a sense, the flashbacks seem to occur in the present, since they are part of a story being told in the present.

C
ONFLICT

Conflict is a major element of plot that keeps the story moving and stirs the interest of the reader who wants to find out what happens next and how the conflict will be resolved. Stories with little or no conflict are dull and slow moving, and inspire readers to say that nothing happened in the book. Conversely, stories with nothing but conflict seem shallow and contrived. Most formula series fiction, for example, is heavy on conflict, light on character.

To build a plot, an author places the main character (
protagonist
) into situations in which she comes into conflict with something or someone else (
antagonist
). The antagonist might be another character, nature, society, or self. A great many children’s novels center on
character versus character
conflict, from the stories about facing up to the bully down the street to those about adjusting to life with a new stepparent. Stanley Yelnats and the other inmates at Camp Green Lake are pitted against the unsavory adult authority figures in Louis Sachar’s
Holes
, and the conflict between the two groups drives the plot.
Character versus nature
has been popularized in survival stories, such as
The Young Man and the Sea
, by Rodman Philbrick, in which a twelve-year-old boy lost at sea struggles to survive and reels in a gigantic fish in the meantime. These two types of conflict are by far the most common in children’s novels aimed at
eight-to eleven-year-olds, most likely because they detail the type of outward struggles with which children can easily identify.

P
LOT
D
EVELOPMENT

Conflict can be used in different ways to build different types of plots. An
episodic
plot is made up of a series of conflicts that are introduced and resolved, usually chapter by chapter. Episodic plots are generally easier for newly independent readers, who often have difficulty sustaining concentration when they first begin to read chapter books. Beverly Cleary’s popular books about Henry Huggins, Beezus, and Ramona are perfect for this level, largely due to their episodic plots.

In a
progressive
plot, conflict is introduced early in the book and carried through until there is a climax and resolution near the story’s end. Progressive plots generally follow the same general pattern of action:

1. Presentation of brief background that sets the stage
   
2. Introduction of conflict
   
3. Development of conflict
   
4. Climax or turning point
   
5. Resolution
   

In children’s novels, the conflict is generally introduced very early in the book: Something happens to grab the reader’s attention, to arouse curiosity, to entice the child to read on. After briefly setting the scene as Copenhagen in World War II, Lois Lowry introduces the conflict on page two of
Number the Stars
, when the main characters, racing each other home from school, are stopped by German soldiers.

The development of conflict is an essential part of the plot, since it accounts for most of a novel. It must be well paced so that the story doesn’t lag, and it must continually stimulate the reader’s interest. An author can achieve this by using two devices:
suspense
and
foreshadowing
.

Suspense raises questions into the reader’s mind: What will happen next? Why did the character do that? When the girls come up against the German soldiers in
Number the Stars
, for example, we immediately wonder: Why would soldiers stop a group of little girls? Have they done something wrong? Are the soldiers friends or enemies? We keep reading to find out. Suspense that occurs at the end of a chapter is referred to as a
cliff-hanger
, and it propels readers directly into the next chapter so that they can find out what happens.

Foreshadowing gives us clues as to what will happen later in the story. To use the same example from
Number the Stars
, two instances of foreshadowing occur in the scene with the soldiers. We note that one of the girls, Ellen, finds the experience much more frightening than her friend Annemarie does. We will later learn that Ellen is Jewish. Annemarie’s little sister, Kirsti, on the other hand, pushes one soldier’s hand away and says
“Don’t!”
when he strokes her hair. This foreshadows the acts of resistance we will see later in the book. Foreshadowing builds anticipation, causing readers to make predictions about what will happen later in the story.

When foreshadowing is obvious and frequent, the plot is said to be predictable. In general, children seem far less troubled by predictable
plots than adults. Many children express delight at figuring out a book’s ending on their own—and then they’ll turn around and read the whole thing over again, just to bask a while in their own cleverness.

A good example of less obvious foreshadowing was present in the opening scene from
Number the Stars
: Annemarie encounters German soldiers once again at the end of the book, and she survives by behaving as her little sister Kirsti did in the first encounter. Subtle uses of foreshad-owing give readers a sense that the ending was inevitable, even if they did not guess the outcome. Experienced readers usually find this sort of ending more satisfying.

And what about that ending? After a steady buildup of suspense and foreshadowing, the protagonist ultimately engages in some sort of final confrontation with the antagonist, which will lead to a turning point in the conflict and a resolution. In children’s novels, the protagonist almost always wins the battle against the antagonist. To return once again to
Number the Stars
, the final confrontation occurs when Annemarie carries a basket containing something of utmost importance to her uncle in the Resistance movement and she is stopped by German soldiers. By pretending to be a silly little girl carrying lunch to her uncle, she outwits the soldiers and manages to get the important information to her uncle so that he can help her friend Ellen escape to Sweden. Two chapters follow this climactic scene and give a final resolution to the story so that readers feel a sense of satisfaction and completeness. Occasionally, a children’s novel will leave matters unresolved in an
open ending
by suggesting two or more possible interpretations and leaving it up to the reader to decide what happened. This was done most famously by Lowry in another of her books,
The Giver
.

Novels for children sometimes use more complex structures than a straightforward progressive or episodic plot. A
parallel
structure builds two progressive plots simultaneously. Louis Sachar skillfully developed
two parallel plots in
Holes
, weaving an account of events from four generations earlier into the contemporary story of Stanley Yelnats, who was cursed due to the actions of his great-great-grandfather. Sachar makes an otherwise complex structure straightforward by clearly delineating time, place, and characters, so that readers know exactly where they are at every point in the story.

Another possible structure in children’s fiction combines a progressive main plot with subplots. There are several subplots involving both people and animals that occur simultaneously to the two parallel plots in Kathi Appelt’s
The Underneath
. The author uses short chapters, episodic chronological action, and a strong sense of place to tie them all together so that the story is easy for children to follow.

When you evaluate the plot of any children’s novel, think of it from several angles. What kind of narrative order does it have? Will this order be clear for the intended audience? If the author chose a more complex type of order, what purpose does it serve? How does it illuminate character or advance the plot? What kind of conflict do you notice in the story? Is there too much or not enough conflict present? How is the conflict used to build the plot? What type of plot structure is used? Is it appropriate for the intended audience? If the plot structure is more complex, how does the author clarify the ordering of events for young readers? Do you notice clear instances of suspense and foreshadowing? How is conflict resolved in the story? Does the resolution seem credible?

CHARACTERIZATION

The
characters
are a crucial part of any children’s novel, because they serve as a link between the reader and the story. The link is established when the child reader is able to identify with the actions, motives, and feelings of the main character in a story. One way for the author to accomplish this is to choose a main character who is close to the same age as readers
in the book’s target audience. A book aimed at nine-to eleven-year-olds, for instance, is less likely to succeed if its protagonist is only six years old. On the other hand, children do like to identify with characters who are a couple of years older than they are, so a book aimed at nine-to eleven-year-olds works well with a thirteen-year-old protagonist.

TYPES OF CHARACTERS

Authors can also establish identity between the protagonist and the reader by creating a main character who seems realistic and believable. Through
character development
the author reveals complexity by showing us how characters think, act, and feel, so that readers get a sense of a real, three-dimensional person. Not all characters in a story need to be equally as well developed in order for the novel to succeed as good fiction.

Secondary characters
play smaller roles and often serve a different purpose, such as to advance the plot. They are usually defined by one or two characteristics alone and therefore seem to be one-dimensional or
flat
. Sometimes these characteristics are immediately recognizable because we’ve seen them countless times in other books and on television. Those created in this way are called
stock characters
. The pirate with an eye patch and a peg leg is one example of a stock character; and the smart, prissy girl who is the teacher’s pet is another. When the characteristics have their basis in a recognized cultural or social shorthand, the stock characters are said to be
stereotyped
. We see this in such stock characters as the African-American kid who’s good at basketball, or the Asian-American kid who’s good at math. While an author might succeed in making a case for traits of this sort in a fully developed character, the use of them as defining characteristics for secondary characters is an indication of laziness—or even bias, conscious or otherwise—on the part of the author.