After winning a prize for a recently published poem of mine, I sat against the dark glass of a window, chest empty, too tired to say a word. If there was one thing I felt, it was extreme exhaustion.
As I chatted about this feeling with my roommate, our conversation steered toward stories from our childhood. My speech quickened as I began telling her about my favorite childhood book series, “The Mysterious Benedict Society” by Trenton Lee Stewart and what its characters and story meant to me. My roommate interrupted me, pointing out the bright smile and warm glow that had long spread across my face.
“Look how happy they make you!” she said, eyes glistening.
I stopped, stunned that I was out of breath. I had also almost forgotten why I had begun writing stories in the first place.
That night, I wrote to my parents, begging them to mail me my copies of “The Mysterious Benedict Society” series as soon as they could. I found myself in this desperate state — the lone voice in my mind saying, “I need to see my books again. Not library copies. My books.”
As we enter our twenties in the university years, concepts such as taxes, bank accounts and rent materialize into terrifying reality. All of a sudden, we find ourselves forced to put aside “childish” things and “grow up.” But what if we had this all wrong? What if the key to growing up, the key to the greatest wisdom, was embracing and fostering a spirit of childlikeness?
As I’ve immersed myself into the world of children’s literature and films once again, I’ve discovered our society has repeatedly confused two different traits: childishness and childlikeness. We must learn their differences as quickly and deeply as we can, especially in the season of “adulting.” Even if you’ve already been aware of their differences, this can serve as a gentle, clarifying reminder, which I most certainly need on the regular.
Childishness is a case of stunted growth that results in a lack of understanding of the complexities and nuances of the world. This immature trait can manifest in both being stuck in the past or casting aside things for children in favor of “grown-up” status and approval for shallow reasons. In short, childishness is superficial. I’ve met many a petty old person who judges, clings to idle stubbornness and hates easily— they live encased in shells of age but have childish hearts in need of maturity.
Childlikeness, however, looks beyond the surface to the soul’s barest form and should be clung to just as tightly whether we are five years old, middle-aged or lying on our deathbed.
As C.S. Lewis once said, “When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”
According to the definitions we’ve just discussed, Lewis is talking about growing up as putting away the fear of childlikeness, not childishness. I’ve had the delightful privilege of meeting so many childlike old people who love unashamedly and treasure the gift of the moment above all, a practice that comes not out of ignorance but out of wisdom. Childlikeness in adulthood is the wisdom to stop, slow down and marvel at the wonderful lessons and nuances the smallest, simplest things carry. This is the gift high-quality children’s literature and films have to offer us: a childlike heart that opens our eyes to see the darkness of the world and decide with vulnerable courage to still love it.
In addition to children’s books such as “The Mysterious Benedict Society,” Studio Ghibli films have been vital in helping me build a childlike view of the world, particularly in learning the gift of stillness and silence and the wondrous wisdom they hold. Some more targeted to younger audiences, though relevant to all ages, are “My Neighbor Totoro” (1988), “Spirited Away” (2001) and “Kiki’s Delivery Service” (1989). Others that use a heart of childlike love to wisely tackle more mature, darker themes include “Princess Mononoke” (1997) and “The Boy and the Heron” (2023).
The beautiful world Studio Ghibli films and good children’s books invite us to re-enter is the slower pace of life we lived as children — before we had phones and social media, back when we were comfortable with boredom, entertaining ourselves with stationary objects and the wonders of our imagination. What is even more beautiful about returning to children’s stories, whether they be from your childhood or a childhood you never got to live, is that we now possess a maturity of understanding as adults. A maturity that helps us notice and learn deeper lessons embedded in these deceptively simple tales we never could’ve dissected and comprehended in our early years.
Ultimately, revisiting children’s stories is not about escaping our present reality, though that can be wondrous at times. It is about re-learning to love the world we have been given, the people around us, the soul we have been blessed with and the marvelous creator of it all.
