A Boy Called Dickens

Thanks to the Muppets, multitudes of children and adults have been introduced to A Christmas Carol. I suspect far fewer have been properly introduced to the author, Charles Dickens—who is not, after all, Gonzo.

A Boy Called Dickens, by Deborah Hopkinson and illustrated by John Hendrix, is an excellent avenue into the life of this famous author and his work.

"Come along, now. We are here to search for a boy called Dickens. He won't be easy to find. The fog has crept in, silent as a ghost, to fold the city in cold, gray arms." --Hopkinson

Dickens at the blacking warehouse. By Fred Bernard

The book opens, dear reader, with a chase through the icy streets of London as we attempt to follow the lonely, ragged, and elusive 12-year old Dickens. He leads us to Warren's Blacking factory, where he works 10 hours a day packaging bottles of shoe polish. 

Dickens' only relief to the drudgery is the stories he makes up. Today, Charles tells his friend Bob Fagin about a boy named David who runs away from the cruelty of factory work. His tale is cut short when the boss enters, demanding silence and work.

The ghosts of Dickens' stories come alive through Hendrix's illustrations as they follow Charles through the soot-choked fog of 19th century London. 

"Then Dickens walks on, surrounded by pickpockets; ladies with shattered hopes; a miserly old man; a young gentleman with great expectations; a proud, heartless girl. There are lawyers, clerks, convicts, and keepers of old curiosity shops. There are even ghosts and spirits. And children like Dickens, trying to hold on to a dream.

"All these characters and their stories swirl about the boy like the fog."

It is not until the mid-point that we discover why Dickens is in this cold, miserable, and isolated state. His father is in debtor's prison. Dickens is working to survive. 

When his father is released, things begin to look up for the Dickens family, but Charles is still sent to work, though his family does not need his income. Here, in poetic brilliance, Hendrix illustrates Dickens turned away from us, on a blank white page. 

Dickens' father finally ends this wretched period of Charles' life and sends him back to school. Spring has turned to summer. Sunlight streams through clean windows onto a warm classroom cluttered with books, boys, and even a few mice. 

We leave Dickens as a grown up, still walking the streets of London but no longer followed by his ghosts, which we must assume, found a home in his books. 

The impact of this episode on the life of Charles Dickens must have been profound. We see it in his advocacy for social reform, and we read it in his books. Was it the birthplace of Ebeneezer Scrooge? We can only guess. 

"Oh! but he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping , clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster." A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

My copy, purchased at Blackwells in Oxford, UK.

 Parents, Teachers, and Librarians:

I found A Boy Called Dickens in the children's fiction of my local library (3rd to 8th grades). I find picture books in this section are sadly neglected. Rescue this one and give it some exercise.

• Create a Dickens' display including: A Boy Called Dickens, biographies, and children's versions of Dickens' stories. Parents may enjoy these versions as, let's face it, the original works are a hard slog for even the most devoted English major.  (Thank you Kat, for pointing that out.)

• The Christmas season is a great time for a Dickens-themed display. Host a storytime featuring "Stave One" of A Christmas Carol (an awesome read-aloud. Try it!). You might follow with a showing of one of the many versions of A Christmas Carol, or to guarantee a crowd, The Muppet Christmas Carol. Steer everyone to the display and include books on London. Usborne has a great book. If possible, include food such as Christmas pudding, mince pies, and hot spiced cider.

• For older students, discuss the impact they think Dickens' early life might have had on his later work. Discuss the wretched things that happen to people in our time. Imagine a different world and how that might be brought about. 

"and it was always said of him that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!"
--A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Michele Hathaway is a writer and freelance editor. She has an M. A. in Social Anthropology and has worked in libraries in California, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania. She writes stories set in culturally diverse, historical and contemporary periods.

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Authenticity versus Creativity

By Suzanne Morgan Williams

I have three projects “pending” in various stages of development. One is a fictionalized memoir. (yes, I finally said, “why not?” some of my life is pretty interesting and relevant.) One is contemporary research based fiction, and one – wait for it – is definitely historical fiction. The memoir is half done and resting. The contemporary has been out to a couple of editors and is waiting for revision. The historical is in that “hot writing” stage where, working from a very rough outline, I’m just writing to the end. I’ll see what I get.

But some interesting questions have come up as I work on the historical. It’s not only based on real people, but the plot is true too. That said, there’s precious little information about these people themselves. I’m totally creating their characters. As a writer, that’s good. It gives me flexibility and I’m quite capable of researching to make them believable, and fashioned to their times. This is historical fiction. But, they were real. There are documents about them and letters. So how much will my fiction influence any subsequent thoughts about these folks? Probably not much. But I’m thinking about it.

Maybe I should just change the names. But what I find fascinating is that the story, the plot, is real. Maybe I shouldn’t embellish the plot at all. It’s pretty good as it stands. But with a couple of other characters and some more confrontation the tension is better. With the addition of specific talents and traits that I’m assigning to them, the characters come alive. So I’m probably going to go for full out for historical fiction.

The manuscript will be true to its times. The setting, history, and some extent even the voices will be researched. But the characters – they are themselves. They will be molded from my ideas, my research, and good story. Is that wrong? Do I need to change the names? Can I manage with including an end note that explains what we know is true, what is probably true, and what I cooked up in service to the story?

For now, I’m writing the manuscript, but before I submit it for publication I have to answer these questions. Your thoughts?

The History We Make

by Suzanne Morgan Williams

It's an election year and adults will be making some important decisions. I can't help thinking that we'd all be better prepared if we had a solid education in history, political decisions, and their consequences for the country and the world.

I do a lot of school visits and I taught for a number of years. Try explaining genocide or slavery or war and conquest to a ten year old. They’ll ask you, “Why?” And they should! I’d say there is no logical answer to this, and yet, we humans continue to back ourselves into places where power, greed, or difficult circumstances breed oppression and hatred. That’s part of the answer.

The bigger question is why don’t people take other paths? How would they do that? And another – when we travel back in time fifty or a hundred or maybe five hundred years and try to understand and portray what happened, is that impossible? Were people so different in their outlooks, values, and expectations that we can’t understand them? What part of humanity is unchangeable and what can be evolved, grown out of, hopefully for the better?

Historical fiction gives faces and emotions to the facts. It can help children explore alternate plots and creative ways to deal with adversity. Are these characters accurate to the times? Are they reworked to modern sensibilities, or a blend of the two? A careful reader will ask those questions. I’d say that historical accuracy is fundamental but that, in creating modern work authors will bring a different point of view. They can’t help it. So is historical fiction real? No, it’s fiction. But historical fiction is a gateway to real history and the questions it poses. I’m all for that.

How does interest in history translate into today’s decisions? What role does history play in current events? By presenting the past in understandable, human details, historical fiction may let our children and grandchildren see that today’s decisions – to go to war, to accept or reject refugees and immigrants, to fund schools, prisons, health care, or armies – these all have direct effects on people’s lives, right now. History is nothing but story after story after story. Decision after decision. What we do with our lives matters. Let’s read historical fiction, then talk about the past and our future. And most of all, what can we do to help each other today?