The current appreciation of “older generation” authors’ literature for children is under question; nowadays, most children and parents prefer J.K. Rowlings to Roald Dahl, Lloyd Alexander, or Edward Eager. For example, Lloyd Alexander was born in 1924 and he published many novels for children during his lifetime, some of them being very profound (The Chronicles of Prydain, The Arkadians, etc.). His stories are reflective on life and are not banal when dealing with moral values and ethics. However, bookstores have a fraction of his works on their shelves nowadays and Mr. Alexander’s books rarely disappear from the bookshelves. His popularity at this time of first publication is undoubted, but that was more than half a century ago. The number of children today that know his books or even his name is limited. The same fact applies to Edward Eager, a barely known author from the quarter of the nineteenth century who greatly admired Edith Nesbit, one of the foremost authors of children’s literature. His works are almost out of print but once rediscovered their magic is everlasting. His words are simple but they always spin tales that envelop the reader completely.
Literature printed in the twenty-first century is over promoted, leaving no room in the minds of children for the classics printed before the modern generation’s existence. These forgotten treasures must be recognized once more so that both children and their parents may benefit from these undervalued authors’ insights into the hearts of children and their imaginations.
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