Saturday, June 28, 2025

A small note on literature

 Ronald Blythe observed that woods have one function in children’s literature: they’re places to get lost in.

We give children the idea that the forest is a dangerous place. We could suggest it is interesting.

I have seen this more than once: Kids get out of a car at a trailhead and run and yell and scream around the parking lot. When they get into the forest, they become quieter and less fidgety, stiller if not still.

The transformation is one of those astonishing things you see if you study natural history.

• Ronald Blythe’s essay “A Suffolk Wood” was collected in Field Work; Norwich: Black Dog Books, 2007, pp. 29-32.

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