Introducing Children to Mature Reading: C.S. Lewis for Young Teens
Quick Book Notes #4
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Dear Friends,
When a young reader enters early adolescence, he or she will encounter a problem.
Finished with the children’s section at the local library, he or she will wander over to the young adult section, wondering what book to read next.
The problem is that the majority of so-called young adult books are of such poor quality as to not be worth reading. It’s not just the explicit sexuality and celebration of serious immorality that so many of them include (to which I object, but may be the source of some disagreement among parents). It’s that the stories are silly or gross, they introduce strange anxieties, and they normalize dysfunction. They’re not very good stories told through not very good writing. Parents may also disagree about that, of course, but…just try reading one of those books.
They’re (mostly) just not good books.
All of which is to say that when a young person reaches the age of 12 or 13 and is ready to move beyond children’s fiction, I do not think that the solution is to send them into the young adult section. Instead, it is time for parents to become excited about the opportunity to introduce them to literature and nonfiction broadly; that is, to the adult literary and intellectual world.
As parents, it is our job to give these young people opportunities to mature in their reading, as well as to learn to choose books well.
I’m not saying parents should just throw their kids into the deep end and hand over their formation to faux-Amish romance novels (i.e. the trashy stuff in the adult section). Not at all. Instead, it is our duty to bring our children wisely forward from childhood literature into the adult reading sphere, rather than to pretend that the young adult section will somehow do this for us (ha!).
We need to help our kids identify excellent adult books that are mature but also can be in some way transitional.
What an exciting prospect this adventure can be for parents and youth both! What a wonderful privilege it is to help a maturing young person to learn how to choose adult books well and read adult books well, including how to engage with differing points of view! What a joy to introduce our young teens to Twain, Austen, Dickens, Cather, Wordsworth, Flannery O’Connor…not to mention the whole world of scholarly and creative nonfiction that exists for our delight and edification.
With this in mind, for this month’s Quick Book Notes, I’d like to discuss two such books by C.S. Lewis. These books are wonderful for bridging this gap between childhood reading and mature reading, a gap that I can confidently say is unlikely to be properly bridged by your average young adult section.
Many children (how I wish I could say most children) will already have read Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia series by the time they are approaching puberty. Hopefully, they will also have allowed the Narnian allegories to enter deeply into their imaginations. But although these kids may be wrapping up their initial engagement with Lewis via Narnia, they are likely still not yet ready for Lewis’ tremendously interesting but also at times bizarre and disturbing adult-oriented Space Trilogy, or for the complex marital grief stories in A Grief Observed, or for The Problem of Pain, although each of these may be beneficial to read later in life.
Instead, I would like to suggest two others of Lewis’ adult books as introductory pathways for emerging adolescents into adult nonfiction, fiction, and theology, as well as into a more mature moral imagination: Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters.
Let’s take each in turn, beginning with the former.
Mere Christianity
Mere Christianity1 is Lewis’ effort, via a series of lectures later collected into book form, to identify the core beliefs and practices that define Christianity writ large, a small “c” catholic Christianity. In case you have not yourself read the book, let me assure you right away that this essentialism does not ignore or deny the importance of differences between Christian sects in any way – there is no minimization of differences about Mariology or the Lord’s Supper, for example. But the book does identify, carefully and thoughtfully, the common ground essential to Christian belief, at least in Lewis’ assessment (with which you—or I—may or may not fully agree).
If your (Christian) child has been raised so far without significant awareness of differences within Christianity, adolescence will be an important time to begin to introduce these matters gently and charitably but without minimizing the strength of your own beliefs. As young Christians go out into the world, they need the ability to be generous and open to understanding others without being so malleable as to be swayed away from their own convictions by any disagreement whatsoever. Reading Mere Christianity provides an excellent opportunity to form a young teen with this in mind, especially when the book is read in the context of ongoing conversation with a parent.
Additionally, if you have chosen to raise your child in an ecumenical Christian context or in a different faith (or no faith), Lewis’ careful distinctions can begin to answer their questions about other people’s Christian faith in a more specific, mature, and detailed way than a childhood approach to ecumenism or humanism may do. Part of maturation is growing in our ability to understand both what other people believe and why they might believe it.
Please note that children who are as yet innocent of the birds and the bees should not read Mere Christianity, as it does address sexual morality (as well as war and some other pretty hard things) at points. By this age, however, most young people will already have received basic formation from their parents both on sexuality itself and on Christian approaches to sexuality, however, and will be ready for Lewis’ discussion. (Do preview the related sections yourself first, if you like; and remember that this was written decades ago.)
The Screwtape Letters
Like Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters addresses a wide range of serious adult topics in a way that is highly relevant and accessible to teenagers. Unlike Mere Christianity, it is a work of fiction, but it is no mere flight of fancy. If you have ever read this collection of instructive letters from the experienced demon Screwtape to his rookie nephew Wormword, you may at points have recognized as familiar many of the struggles of the humans whom Wormwood and Screwtape are cleverly and maliciously trying to turn away from God. The Screwtape Letters, like all good fiction, is very revealing of reality.
Here, in this avuncular correspondence, we learn about how an itchy ankle is more distracting from prayer than something like a dramatic injury; how boring a person into complacency is much more effective than trying to blatantly attract them to sin; and how powerful a weapon scrupulosity is against the maintenance of a trusting faith.
In other words, we learn just how well the devil knows us and just how little he cares how he gets us, just so long as he gets us.
But the book is not depressing. Oh, no – it is convicting and inspiring. It invitest the reader to recognize that temptation is real and that we human beings cannot rely on ourselves alone to resist it: we must rely on God.
This is a far more effective way to influence the moral and spiritual imagination of a young teen than, say, giving them a lecture on how they really should be more responsible. Lewis’ imaginative approach inspires a personal conviction to go forward in faith, which is in fact just exactly what our teens need: to commit themselves seriously to becoming adults in the Church. When a young person reads Screwtape, they are likely to walk away with something like this Benedictine prayer in mind: May the Holy Cross be my light. Let not the dragon be my guide.
Once again, be discerning: your child should know about temptation and some of the more serious sins and, for example, should already be aware that some people do engage in the marital act without being married.
But don’t let that put you off. Both books are excellently placed to move a young teen a step forward into adult ways of thinking about theology, moral responsibility, literature, and language. Both books have been monumental in the growth of a handful of young teens whom I have known, and were instrumental to me myself at that age.
I encourage you to consider them!
- Have you read either of these C.S. Lewis books?
- What other books would you recommend for readers at this transitional stage between childhood and unrestricted adult reading?
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I thought “Girl of the Limberlost” was wonderful for that middle stage between girlhood and womanhood.
Would the Father Brown mysteries by Chesterton be age appropriate? (I read them in high school so can’t remember if some themes were too dark.)