Writing for Children: A Study of Two Authors who Truly Understood what Children Love to Read Abigail Rickard

Both Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows are honored and cherished children’s classics. Though the two stories were written over a hundred years ago, they are still popular and widely loved today. Questions have been raised as to why exactly these two books have turned out to be incredible classics and staple bedtime stories for children everywhere. Many believe the reason for the two stories’ success lies in the core of their meaning – the fact that they deal with basic needs and experiences of children everywhere, no matter the time period. Though the tales are very different, they have some very important likenesses that make them both timeless and relatable to children. The most principle of which is subversion. All of the characters in these two stories celebrate, as Alison Laurie states it, “Daydreaming, disobedience, answering back…[and] running away” (Lurie). For example, both stories deal with the concept of a desire to escape from the ordinary, and rebellion against authority. The four main characters in Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows personify these aspects, and Alice in Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland embodies different characteristics of all four.

In The Wind in the...