Passing on the Faith: Mennonite Writing for Children
by Kathy Meyer Reimer
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Ann Hostetler
Kathy, thank you for this illuminating essay on Mennonite publishing for children. I thought I'd read all the Herald Press juvenile books, but not even close! You astutely point out that much of Mennonite literature for young readers has been produced by women, but few women's stories have been told. Now you are doing a valuable service by contributing to the criticism of this much-neglected area. I hope your insights inspire more articles on the subject.
Paul M. Schrock
Kathy's overview of Herald Press Anabaptist/Mennonite children's books is excellent. An additional insight may be of interest.
I was Herald Press Book Editor from 1972 to 1988 and Director of Herald Press from 1989 to 1999. Two of the most prolific authors of children's fiction during that time were Mary Christner Borntrager and Carrie Bender.
Borntrager, a Mennonite writer from Hartville, Ohio, authored the 10-volume Ellie's People Series about the Amish. She had grown up Amish and treated them sympathetically. All told this series sold well over 100,000 copies.
Carrie Bender is the pseudonym of an Old Order Mennonite/Amish woman from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Herald Press published more than a dozen of her books, most of them with Amish settings. They appeared in three series: Miriam's Journal (6 books). Whispering Brook (6 books), and Dora's Diary (3 books). Bender's books all told also sold more than 100,000 copies.
At Herald Press we were straddling the fence between commercializing on public interest in the Amish for badly needed revenue at Mennonite Publishing House and helping provide a corrective for some of the innacurracies about the Amish in popular writing.
Again I applaud Kathy Meyer Reimer for her perceptive essay. She represents the intentions of the publisher well.
Paul M. Schrock, Harrisonburg, Virginia
Ann Hostetler
What's your favorite Mennonite book for kids? One of my favorite Herald Press titles is The White Feather, by Ruth Eitzen, illustrated by Allan Eitzen (1995). This book about peacemaking, based on a true story, tells of the friendship that develops between a Quaker family in Ohio and members of the Shawnee. My mother bought it for my children when they had questions about peace during the Gulf War and were living in a very pro-military environment in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It gave peacemaking a historical context and a personal face, and offered an imaginative way to share the message of peace with others. I hope it will someday come back into print--we could use it now!
Ervin Beck
Thanks, Paul, for calling attention to the books by Carrie Bender and Mary Christner Borntrager. We will be posting a list of their many books in a bibliography of serial fiction in the July issue of this journal. You imply that both authors wrote for children. What ages, in your judgment, were the books written for? Also, can you now reveal the actual name behind Carrie Bender's pseudonym? And is Mary Christner Borntrager still living?
Richard A. Kauffman
Kathy's article causes me to reminisce.
I am young enough (b. 1946) to remember Henry's Red Sea and Coals of Fire as new books for children. Although I wasn't much of a reader as a child (then I would have rather played ball), I read both these books and was profoundly influenced by them. My favorite story from Coals of Fire was also the one about the Swiss family's hospitality. In fact, it is the only one I remember after all these years.
It was only later in life that it became apparent to me that the people in Henry's Red Sea were a different stripe of Mennonite, but when I read the book as a child I saw them as "my people." After all, they were Mennonites! And I got to hear Peter Dyck tell this story himself.
Years later I spent a year at Princeton Seminary (1980-81). Our daughter Chris was in the fifth grade that year. Her best friend that year was a young Jewish girl in her class. Chris was a big reader and she gave Henry's Red Sea to her Jewish friend to read. I'm assuming her friend read it, but when she gave it back to Chris she loaned Chris her copy of The Diary of Anne Frank. What a wonderful exchange of culture and religion! I was later able to share this incident with Barbara Smucker, who seemed pleased by it.
Ervin Beck
If a story seems too good to be true, then it probably is. Richard Kauffman and Kathy Meyer Reimer, here is the skinny on the thatched roof story that you like so much in Coals of Fire. It actually is a legend; that is, a narrative that cannot be historically verified but that is believed to be "true" by teller and audience. Elizabeth Bauman said that "the chief incidents in each story are true." Well, she found the story in a book by John Horsch published in 1939 and he got the story from a book by J. Ellenberger published in Frankfurt in 1880. The Library of Congress regards Ellenberger's book as "fiction." If the story was not a legend in 1880, it has become so today. I collected a number of oral versions from Mennonite narrators a number of years ago. One college student told the story about Mennonite boys who took an Amishman's buggy apart on Halloween night and reassembled it on the roof of his barn. When they descended, there was the owner, who invited them in for a big breakfast. After eating it, they returned to the roof, disassembled the buggy and brought it down. I suspect that the special appeal of the story is created not only by its Anabaptist meaning but also by the narrative archetype of the trickster tricked. Notice that in the currently circulating version the homeowner has been changed from Mennonite to Amish, and the tormentor into Mennonite. Is that because Mennonites are now less rural than Amish? Or because Mennonites see Amish as better at preserving the Anabaptist ethic of love? This is not meant to debunk the story. We all know that fictional narratives are conduits for powerful truths. This analysis comes from my work with a third book on Mennonite folklore, now in manuscript and circulating. Who will publish it?
Richard A. Kauffman
@Ervin Beck: I agree that a story doesn't have to be factual to be "true." Knowing what you have shared doesn't take away from the power of that story for me. Now I'm probably going out on a limb for some people, but I would say the same thing in relation to some of the gospel stories. Or look at the Gospel of John in its entirety, which is very different from the synoptic gospels. I like to characterize it as "historical fiction." It is often the case that historical fiction can get at the truth of human characters and stories in greater depth than someone who tries to do more strict history.
Kathy Meyer Reimer
Thanks, Ervin, for your clarification on the Coals of Fire story. That is one interesting difference between the books published in the 50s and the current "hero" stories--the older ones seem to focus more on the action of the person (sometimes not even naming the person), the current ones seem to focus more on the person. Another way to put it would be to say, the biography (and accuracy) of the person plays a more central role than telling a whole story--current ones tend to be written more as vignettes.
I also wanted to respond to Paul Schrock. Thank you for referring to Mary Christner Borntrager and Carrie Bender. They were both initially in my review. As I wrote and edited the article I ended up moving them out because they both are writing in the style of a "series" novel--yet another genre in children's literature that would be interesting to review.
Karl Dick
As a lay leader in our urban congregation in Kitchener-Waterloo, I'm hoping to use the theme of "narrative" to help us as a church council to "tell our story". We sometimes feel that our members have such diverse backgrounds and theologies - does that somehow hinder a church family from welcoming newcomers? Or do the different comprehensions of God's work richly bless our efforts? How can oral story-telling help us to express our faith more easily? What does children's literature teach us about getting to the core of our faith?
How can we make sure that we're not just yearning for the glories of bygone days in our reminiscing? We are having a leaders' visioning session next month, where at first I was thinking that we should try and nail down a "brand" for our church family - something like having a focus group in the commercial realm. Your discussions of good children's literature reminds me that "formula" writing is not authentic, nor, necessarily, are those Amish/Mennonite stories that have broad commercial success. That, too, speaks volumes to the popular appeal of glib, formulaic Christianity, which is not where we want to go as a church family.
Ann Hostetler
You raise some great questions about storytelling, Karl. Kathy's article on children's literature--as well as the many different voices on this site--suggest that it's the conversation between narratives, rather than the "nailing down" of one version, that keeps them vital. For a story to have an authentic connection to its teller it needs to have room to be individual and unique. Even the Bible is full of stories retold from different points of view--as in the four gospels, which offer a model of multiplicity in unity. Sounds like an exciting challenge to help your church tell its story--perhaps a church can also be a space in which it's possible to share many stories.