The Depiction of American Public Libraries in Film - Libraries and Children

6. Libraries and Children

Libraries have attached a special importance to their services for children since approximately 1900, and emphasis on this aspect of the institution’s work has grown throughout the twentieth century:

Today, in the minds of both the general public and of government officials, it is one of the main reasons for supporting the public library. This supportive view remains even though schools teach reading and schools probably have their own libraries. A sociological appraisal of the institution in 1950 concluded that children’s service was its “classic success”

In contrast with the controversy over the role of adult public library services (see Chapter 5), the role of the children’s service has never been in doubt since its inception in the 1920s. Pioneering children’s librarian Augusta Baker summed up its purpose as ‘to contribute to lifelong competence and self-fulfilment’. The relationship between children and libraries in film is therefore worthy of study in itself.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, though set at the turn of the century, depicts a child using a library that seems more rooted in 1945, the year of the film’s making. The story revolves around Francie Nolan (Peggy Ann Garner), the daughter of a poor family in Brooklyn, who is determined to better herself and her family’s circumstances. She uses the library resources both as a means for self-improvement and as an escape from the difficulties of her everyday life. In Betty Smith’s source novel, the library is depicted as ‘a little old shabby place' , and the librarian repeatedly recommends the same two books for children without even glancing up from her paperwork. As a result, Francie’s experience is largely miserable:

She stood at the desk a long time before the librarian deigned to attend to her…She loved the library and was anxious to worship the lady in charge. But the librarian had other things on her mind. She hated children anyhow.

Interestingly, the film (made some years later) gives a very different impression. The library is smart rather than shabby, and Francie uses the alphabetical card catalogue in the most literal possible way by attempting to read through every book in order, declaring ‘I want to know everything in the world!’ The young, pretty, female librarian (Lillian Bronson) is attentive and friendly, expressing surprise at Francie’s choice of Robert Burton’s ‘The Anatomy of Melancholy’. She urges the girl to add Charles Major's ‘When Knighthood Was In Flower’ to her selection ‘just for fun’, a work that could be regarded as both entertaining and educational.

The film’s director, Elia Kazan, has been described as both ‘liberal’ and ‘a quintessential humanist’ . Himself an immigrant who spent his formative years in New York City, he appears to identify strongly with Francie’s plight. It is possible that the film differs from the book because Kazan wished to show the role of the public library as an important resource for the disenfranchised urban poor.

Matilda also features a precocious girl who uses the public library to escape grim family circumstances, in this instance grotesque parents unappreciative of her brilliance. At the age of four she is left alone at home but sneaks out to visit the local library, following her parents’ refusal to buy her any books on the basis of ‘why would you wanna read when you got a television set sitting right in front of you?’. The library seems very imposing, the point being made by a combination of camera angles alternating between high overhead, making Matilda (Mara Wilson) appear extremely small, and low child’s-eye perspectives, emphasising the largeness of the surroundings. The elderly librarian, Mrs Phelps (Jean Speegle Howard), is friendly and directs Matilda to the children’s section. The room is lit with soft amber, paintings adorn the walls and the furnishings are comfortable, the overall impression being one of welcoming wholesomeness. A montage shows Matilda reading various books and displaying emotions such as wonderment and laughter. Later, Mrs Phelps explains the borrowing system and provides Matilda with a library card, which is used to take out items including ‘Moby Dick’ and ‘Ann of Green Gables’.

The role of the library as an opportunity for children to access great works of literature and thus develop their imaginations is the central theme of The Pagemaster, in which Macauly Culkin plays the nervous, exceptionally safety-conscious Richard Tyler. When hiding from a storm in the large public library he encounters the librarian, Mister Dewey (Christopher Lloyd), who initially appears intimidating and eccentric. The first impression of the library, reflecting Richard’s trepidation, is reminiscent of a Gothic castle: close-ups of the gargoyles on the exterior giving way to a dark, high-vaulted antechamber, with the thunder and lightning of the storm outside intruding regularly, whilst sinister music plays on the soundtrack.

Richard is reluctant to use the library but Mister Dewey produces a library card for him, telling him ‘consider this your passport to the magical, unpredictable world of books’. The magic metaphor is then transformed into a literal experience when Richard gets lost in the stacks and enters a fantasy world, a change signalled by a switch from live action to animation. Mister Dewey is transmuted into the Pagemaster, who refers to himself as ‘keeper of the books and guardian of the written word’. The library is highly romanticised, as in the Pagemaster’s description of the fiction section ‘where all is possible, where a boy’s imagination can take root and grow to incredible heights, where a boy’s courage is a wind that moves him to discovery, and where your journey begins’.

The rest of the plot involves Richard and three anthropomorphised books representing the genres of Adventure (Patrick Stewart), Fantasy (Whoopi Goldberg) and Horror (Frank Welker) progressing through a series of episodes based on such well-known tales as ‘Moby Dick’, ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ and ‘Gulliver’s Travels’. As a result of his journey Richard develops courage, imagination and self-reliance.

Each of these films reflects the prevailing cultural views of childhood as an innocent time and books as an escape from reality into other worlds. The child protagonists are deprived the privilege of imagination through poverty, lack of family support or pathological over-caution, but they come to improve themselves through reading. The function of the public library is arguably the most traditional one, the provision of a free book lending service. In every case a friendly librarian provides an introduction to the service, but no other children are present and the library remains an essentially solitary place. However, this solitude is not necessary a negative quality as it’s role is to provide a contrast to chaotic lifestyles in other areas. In every film the child is the central character of the narrative and the audience is given ample time to witness the positive influence the public library has on each child who uses it.

A curious feature of these films is the relative lack of children’s literature, the books referred to including instead a seventeenth century paramedical treatise (‘The Anatomy of Melancholy’ in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn), a Dickens satire of Victorian England (‘The Pickwick Papers’ in Matilda) and a gruesome study of the nature of evil (‘The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ in The Pagemaster). The children in the films, all depicted as exceptional intellectually and in other ways, tend to read what their parents (and of course the film-makers) would ideally wish them to read rather than anything an American child is actually likely to enjoy. It is revealing that the only book mentioned in all 3 films is Melville’s ‘Moby-Dick’, not only ‘considered by many to be the greatest work of American fiction’ , but repeatedly referred to in American art as totemic of the nation as a whole. This suggests a role for libraries as cultural signifiers similar to that of its role for immigrants (see Chapter 5), as an introduction to the national character and self-perceptions.

In A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and Matilda the library features early on in the narrative, as a way of introducing the girls to the world of fiction. The disparity between home life and imaginary existence is emphasised in both cases by the girls’ reluctance to admit to their respective families where they are going, demonstrating a wish to keep the two spheres completely separate. The children progress beyond books specifically aimed at young readers to adult literature, although this is achieved despite the encouragement of benign librarians to read ‘just for fun’. In both cases, the library is forgotten after the girls begin attending school and thus discover other channels for learning. The films suggest the library is at its strongest when used by autodidacts with no other opportunity to learn, casting the institution in the role of learning resource of last resort rather than supplement to other educational activities. This is perhaps an unintentional and unfortunate depiction, more due to the fact that school presents greater dramatic possibilities through social interaction than any reflection of how libraries are perceived by the film-makers.

Indeed, the portrayal of the public libraries in each of these films is generally extremely positive. Although it may originally appear as an intimidatingly grand environment, as in Matilda and The Pagemaster, the overwhelming impression is of a friendly and inspiring place. The film-makers in fact arguably come over as actively didactic in their promotion of public libraries as places of learning and wonder for children who might otherwise find both of these qualitities unobtainable.