I’m not exactly an expert on Chris Van Allsburg. My first acquaintance with him was The Polar Express, long before it became Hollywood fare. I think it was my mother, then a kindergarten teacher, who introduced me to the book when I was in college, and I thought it was great. After my daughter experienced it in her kindergarten class last year, though, I formed a different impression. It was read to the kids, then they made bells, then they watched the movie in class.
It bothered me then. First, my husband and I had watched the movie and decided to wait to let our daughter watch it. The whole business of the tramp ghost on the train roof seemed potentially scary, and really the movie took so many liberties with the plot as to be its own entity. Then she went to school and was shown the movie anyway. Second, when the kindergarten class worked with the story, it became an overt lesson in the nature of faith, one in which faith was simply “belief” without regard to whether the particular object of faith was a worthy one or not. We’re Christians, and we teach our children that Jesus rose from the dead, and that God hears our prayers. Here was the kindergarten teacher using this book to teach that Santa, too, was worthy of “faith.”
No, I’m not advocating book-burning. It gave rise to some good discussions (though sooner than I would have chosen if circumstances hadn’t forced it). On the whole it was an exercise in the power of stories — Van Allsburg’s stories in this case, and his wonderful visualizations — and their malleability in the hands of their readers. I still like The Polar Express; the reality that seeing isn’t believing, but rather believing is seeing, is an important one. But all objects of faith certainly aren’t equal. It’s a multifaceted book that lends itself to different philosophies.
That multifacetedness is evidence that it’s legitimate art, not simply a screen for a single didactic agenda. All the Van Allsburg stories I’ve seen are similarly suggestive. Another one I like is The Mysteries of Harris Burdick. It contains a set of unrelated pictures, all done in black-and-white, and all with Van Allsburg’s trademark suggestiveness. Each picture contains a story title, and one line of a story. The reader’s job is to supply the rest of the story. (Follow the title link to see the pictures.) It’s really a wonderful imaginative exercise that takes students a step beyond picture narration, and into story creation. I’ve had the book since I was in college and (I admit it) I’ve pored over the pictures many times with admiration for Van Allsburg’s detail, inventiveness, and skill at depicting mood and atmosphere. These qualities explain why he’s the author I picked for the June Celebrate the Author Challenge. I learned from this book that he never learned to draw as a child, and felt he was no good at it. I’m glad he knows better now.
Your commentary is interesting, very interesting. I’ve never thought about putting into words how I feel about the Polar Express. I guess I saw it–or interpreted it–as showcasing that some individuals never grow up–they retain their childlike innocence or purity or optimism. I think optimism is the word I think fits best maybe. I really disliked the movie. The liberties that were taken with it are simply awful. It just shouldn’t exist.
I’m a Christian too. And I may be rare in saying this but I never had a problem with the Santa thing. I know some Christians–and they almost all have valid reasonings and logical supports–have problems with kids believing that Santa is ‘real.’ That that somehow might translate into thinking that Santa is real in the same way Jesus is. Or that one’s faith in Jesus can be outgrown like a child’s faith in Santa is outgrown. I never had a problem discerning reality from fantasy. And maybe that isn’t the case with every kid that grew up believing in Santa. But the power of storytelling can compel you to want to believe in fairies and Santa Claus. Like when Tinker Bell needs people to clap their hands to show they believe in fairies so she won’t die. Or Miracle on 34th street. There is something about good storytelling that allows you to suspend your disbelief. To “know” things on two levels. To feel with your heart that something is real, but to know with your head that it is just a story. A good story, but a story nonetheless. I think it’s just important to distinguish that Christianity, that Jesus, is above and beyond that. That faith in God is something that both feels real in the heart, and is something that can be known with your mind as well.
I’ve always loved van Allsburg’s illustrations. I think my first exposure to them was Jumangi, when I was a kid, but my favorite is the book of mystery pictures!
Jeane, we’re in agreement! I still love that book.
Becky, I think I agree with you. I’m not aggressively anti-Santa either… I put Jesus and Santa into different categories in my own mind as a child, like you say, and believed in them in different ways. But the way this story was handled in the class, it lumped them both (along with a few other things over the course of the year) into the same category.
I like your idea about storytelling making us willing to suspend disbelief in a different way than we do with other kinds of faith. For what it’s worth, Van Allsburg says: “The Polar Express is about faith, and the power of imagination to sustain faith. It’s also about the desire to reside in a world where magic can happen, the kind of world we all believed in as children, but one that disappears as we grow older.”
The rest of the interview is here: http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/features/thepolarexpress/cvaconversation.shtml