Only a Kids' Book

The other evening I was looking for something light to read. Something lighter than the two books I'm in the middle of -- Roxane Gay's Bad Feminist and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. I know, weird -- what's not light about those?

Anyway, I found an old copy of a Phyllis A. Whitney novel. As a girl, I read every mystery by Ms. Whitney that I could find. I loved her books! So the other night, I thought this would do. It's only a kids' book and an old one at that. Nice and light. Eight pages and one half-page illustration later, the protagonist's dad announces they are moving to South Africa because he wants to write about that "ghastly experiment of apartheid." Say what?

Who was Phyllis A. Whitney that she was writing for children about apartheid and South Africa in 1961?

It turns out, Ms. Whitney wrote scores of mysteries and, unusual in the genre, she wrote for both children and adults. She won the Edgar twice. She kept her maiden name and divorced her first husband because he wasn't supportive of her writing. At 79 she told The New York Times that she kept meaning to go back and reread her books when she got old, but "I never seem to get old." Appropriate then that Ms Whitney published her last book at 97 and died at 104.

Yes, there's some gender stereotyping in Secret of the Tiger's Eye, but it's minimal, and Ms. Whitney does not shy away from describing the weirdness of increasingly restrictive apartheid rules. She also acknowledges that race relations in the U.S. are coming under closer scrutiny and pressure.

Her main character, in particular, is well-drawn and realistic. Benita is about 14 and, since their mother's death, feels responsible for her younger brother. She is clearly going through her angst-y teen stage. She's taken a dislike to a boy her family is traveling with and can't budge in her feelings. Ms Whitney gets it right -- Benny knows she's being unreasonable, she can step outside herself and see the folly of her actions, but she is incapable in the moment of changing the trajectory. I so recognize that feeling and it seems a hallmark of modern young adult literature.

"Only a kids' book." Yes, adult literature can be structurally more challenging and multi-layered than children's literature, including young adult. There can be a higher level vocabulary, and events don't have to be spelled out as directly. But I am reminded of what another author ahead of her time said when goaded to defend fiction: "It is only a novel... or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language." 

I know not all children's books are created equal. The next childhood mystery-fave that I picked up (not by Ms. Whitney) was awful, with stereotypical characters solving a predictable mystery. Still I should know better than to paint all children's literature with the same brush. Only a kids' book? Right! Only a book that names and legitimizes feelings; only a text which introduces the greater world to children; only a story that shows them how to be their authentic selves in that world. Only a universe to fall into!

Thanks for the reminder, Ms. Whitney, and thanks for being a trailblazer.