Twaddle: A Gateway Drug to Literature

My literary life is far from exemplary, but there’s one thing I can say for it: it’s a whole lot richer today than it was when I was nine. I’m not referring to quantity. When I was younger, I could polish off two books a day, but in this season of life I’m lucky to get in a few chapters before bed. No, my reading hasn’t improved in quantity but in quality.

How It Started

When I was in elementary and junior high, I was a serial reader of all the classic tween series and more: tons of Sweet Valley Twins and Sweet Valley High books, hordes of The Baby-Sitters Club series, endless horse stories—any variety, all the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books at the library, loads of Christian romance books by Grace Livingston Hill and similar writers, not to mention every Garfield comic book in print, and a few R.L. Stein Goosebumps books before my parents deemed them too creepy for me.

How It’s Going

As I entered high school, however, my literary tastes began to mature. Maybe it’s because I’d finished most of the series I mentioned above and was looking for what came next, or maybe my mind was ready for deeper things. The first two real books I remember reading are Lewis’s Mere Christianity and Tolkien’s The Hobbit. I didn’t go out looking for them; I think they were just lying around the house. I guess  you could say they came looking for me. I’m thankful they did, because those books set me on a path toward the good stuff. Since then I’ve enjoyed Paradise Lost, Beowulf, The Iliad, The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, nearly everything that C.S. Lewis has penned, Jane Eyre, a handful of Jane Austen, plenty of Shakespeare, and so, so, so much more.

While my literary tastes still have a long way to go (sadly I still haven’t developed a love for Charles Dickens or Russian tragedy yet), my preferences have matured since I was the little book worm binging The Baby-Sitter Club books.

Room to Grow

I don’t give you this book list because I think I’ve reached the pinnacle of human literary achievement. Honestly, I hope I haven’t reached my own pinnacle of literary achievement! There’s room to grow as long as I’m alive. There are many who have come from more impoverished background (literarily speaking) and have gone on to achieve far greater feats. I share this list because I hope it brings you encouragement no matter what stage of the journey you or your children are in.

While my literary life is fairly decent these days, it certainly started in the “twaddle” category.

Who Is Charlotte Mason?

If you’ve dabbled in the homeschool scene at all, you’ve probably heard about “twaddle.” In the context of books and entertainment, twaddle is basically junk food for the mind and soul. For examples of twaddle, please see the list of what I grew up reading as a youngster. Add to it a wide swath of what’s being churned out for kids, tweens, teens, and even adults these days, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what we’re talking about.

The concept of books as “twaddle” was popularized by Charlotte Mason, an English educational reformer in the late 1800’s. She saw flaws in the educational system in England and did her best to remedy them through her books, lectures, and example. She provided a rich, challenging education for all students, not just the wealthy ones. She presented classic books to her students, and they invariably rose to the challenge. They preferred a feast of ideas over a snack of twaddle.

What Is Twaddle?

Merriam-Webster defines twaddle as “silly, idle talk; something insignificant or worthless.” So yes, literary twaddle is junk food for the mind and soul. The Simply Charlotte Mason website provides an even more specific definition based on Mason’s writings: twaddle is “diluted writing that undervalues a child’s intelligence and, so, talks down to him or relegates him to reading-made-easy content. It is second-rate, weak, light reading with stale, predictable plots, that can take the form of enticing goody-goody stories or highly-spiced adventures that cater to emotional highs.”

Just browse the youth section of any bookstore, and you’ll get a pretty good idea of what the writer is talking about. For that matter, walk down the adult fiction aisle and you’ll probably get a pretty good idea, too. When we give children a steady diet of poorly-written stories or little snippet summaries of better books, we do them a great disservice. We assume they wouldn’t like “the good stuff” or that their minds aren’t ready for richer literature. If we’d only offer them some better books, I think we’d be surprised how much they enjoy it and ask for more. I bet we’d find the same thing true of ourselves, too.

What Are We Reading?

What about my own kids? Have I fed them on Milton since their eyes first opened? Do I scorn the picture books they bring to me and pull out Shakespeare instead? No, not yet. We read a wide variety of quality and depth, but I think we’re working at their level toward a love of great books. I’m not doing it perfectly, by any means, but I feel hopeful.

My kids are five and three, and we’ve read countless picture books of varying quality. The older books are often better and are certainly longer. They’ve also enjoyed fairy tales, nursery rhymes, Winnie-the-Pooh, Beatrix Potter, tons of the Paddington books, The Tale of Despereaux, Stewart Little, several Roald Dahl books, and a dozen Beverly Cleary classics. The three-year-old gets up and plays after a chapter or so, but the five-year-old will sit and beg for “one more chapter” until we run out of time or I run out of voice.

Out of the Ashes

While their love of being read to doesn’t guarantee that my kids will be lifelong readers, I think it’s a decent start. If you or your kids aren’t where you’d like to be, don’t despair. Your story isn’t over; it’s just beginning, and you can go anywhere from here! Don’t run out and burn all your kids’ Nancy Drew books, but consider adding The Chronicles of Narnia or other great books to your library and see what happens.

Accept some twaddle as a gateway drug to literature, but don’t be content to leave it there. Introduce better books. Read aloud to your kids. Find great audiobooks for yourself if you prefer that, or treat yourself to a lovely copy of a classic. It’s fine to start slow, because once you find the genre that excites you, you’ll pick up speed soon enough. Sometimes twaddle can be the ashes from which the phoenix of true literature rises. Don’t be afraid to fan the flame.