At some point in time someone pointed out to me that kids are fascinated by orphan stories. I heard that and something just clicked inside my head. Suddenly, all of the disparate stories I had been reading shared a common thread.

  • The Shoe books by Noel Streatfield
  • The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
  • The Anne of Green Gables series by Lucy Maud Montgomery
  • His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman (Lyra is not actually an orphan but thinks she is for enough of the story to count)
  • The Secret Garden by Frances Burnett Hodgson
  • Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott

If I think too far about this topic, I start to weird myself out. Why in the world would I be intrigued by this? There’s something about my interest in orphan stories that offends me. I want to be an advocate for fostering and adoption and then I get caught up in romanticized stories about orphans? But it’s undeniable. I just finished the Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon, which turned out to be pretty awesome, by the way, and one of the characters is an orphan, albeit one in his late teens and early twenties. As I was reading I found myself hooked into the orphan story in much the same way that I felt drawn to the Pevensie children in The Chronicles of Narnia.

If I ignore the idea of glorifying kids having parentless home situations, the thing that I think I identify with in orphan stories is the idea of proving yourself or starting over. It’s idealized much in the way that starting a new school, job, city of residence sounds like an appealing way to start anew. In reality it’s hard and, oftentimes, lonely. But in books, idealized is okay.

If I were a character in a book and an orphan (sorry mom and dad!), I would be able to visit new lands and battle evil in the defense of good. I would be able to keep house and be inexplicably self-sufficient. I would be poor but have pluck enough to stand up to bullies and to be proud of my meager belongings. I would be able to dance up a storm in every method of dance imaginable. In short, I would be awesome.

In addition to the awesome factor, I do think there is some aspect of orphan stories that appeals to kids simply because they don’t want to be a member of their family. At some point in time. I’m not spelling out any ill-intentions, just acknowledging that when kids get to an age when they roll their eyes at every adult they interact with, they’re probably thinking being an orphan sounds all right.

I prefer to focus on the awesome factor. It just sounds nicer.

Illustration from Noel Streatfeild’s Ballet Shoes.
This post originally appeared on Kate’s Point of View. © Kate. All rights reserved.