Hal’s Reading Diary: March 2005
Hal is now four and stories about knights are a must. Is this to do with his innate aggression? His father, psychodynamic counsellor Roger Mills, continues to explore the interaction between developmental issues and stages and the part that books play in Hal’s life.
The other evening I was with Hal in his room looking for a book to read before he went to bed. As has happened a lot over the last few months he said he wanted to read a story about ‘knights’ – a category which in Hal’s mind stretches from Normans in chain mail up to Tudors in full suits of armour. Strangely, or strangely to me at any rate, there seems to be remarkably little published for the early reader on men in armour. I am sure that there are titles that we have missed, but we have spent a good deal of time scouring the library and local bookshops for knightly reads but with very little success.
Hal’s knight fascination seems to date from a trip we made to Battle Abbey last Easter. During the visit we came across a couple of Norman ‘knights’ sporting chain mail, helmets, shields and various weapons (and discussing what was on at the local cinema when we came along). The ‘knights’ let Hal wear a helmet and handle a sword and, it seems, an obsession was born. On the day we went to Battle we found a plastic breastplate, helmet and sword in a local shop, but it wasn’t long before Hal was begging us for more knightly accessories. He wanted chain mail (finally tracked down at Bodiam castle), he wanted leg armour, he wanted ‘pointy shoes’. And with increasing frequency he started asking for stories about knights.
Obsessions are curious things and it is always fascinating to wonder what lies behind them. What is it about knights that is so completely compelling for Hal? The other day I was pondering the question and thought I would try to find out. My first attempt – asking him up front what it was about knights that he liked so much – met with a ‘that is such a pointless question’ expression and silence. I realised I was going to have to float a few suggestions. Did he like knights because they fight all the time? I tried. ‘Yes’. Did he like knights because they sometimes destroy things? ‘Yes’. Did he like knights because they do brave and noble deeds? Silence again.
There is, of course, always the possibility my rather directive questions got compliant rather than genuine responses. But Hal’s agreement certainly makes sense to me. At this stage in his life the thing I notice most in him is a boisterous, quite aggressive energy. He is forever trying to get me to have a sword fight with him. He revels in knocking down a beautiful and elaborate Playmobil castle which we got him for Christmas. I’d love to say he gets as much pleasure from reconstructing the castle as he does from deconstructing it. But it wouldn’t be true. Hal likes destroying.
But I think it is destroying of a particular kind. It isn’t just blind allegiance to my child that makes me want to stress that Hal’s destructive energy isn’t malicious. He doesn’t want to hurt people. He doesn’t like it if someone does inadvertently get whacked in a sword fight. I think the ‘destructiveness’ is the way that at this young age, Hal can feel powerful. As yet, his motor skills and his cognitive skills are still pretty embryonic – for example kids can’t write very well at this stage. It perhaps makes sense that self expression is going to tend more to knocking down than it is to building up. And this is where the knights come in. In knights Hal feels, I think, a counterpart to the kind of feelings he has inside himself. He imagines that knights have the same sort of massive, and somewhat destructive energy, that he does. We all look for things to identify with that match the feelings in our inner worlds. And for Hal the best match is men in armour wielding swords.
Can any kind reader recommend books about knights for 4-year-olds? Ed.
