Crash and the Dark - Book Two of the Crash the Cub Series
Crash and the Dark - Book Two of the Crash the Cub Series
In Praise of the Confounding Dark
Book Two of the Crash the Cub Series, Crash and the Dark, is now available here. Thanks for reading!
When I started pulling books about the dark off my shelves and other people’s shelves and from the shelves of bookstores and libraries, not only did I have an incredible mess, but I was no nearer to getting at what I wanted to write about for book two of the Crash series. Deadlines darkly loomed.
It’s no small thing to be invited into the evening’s story time, those sacred moments (sometimes longer) between parent and child. And it’s a relatively new genre, only emerging in the mid-20th century, perhaps most famously with Goodnight Moon. Bedtime can be both close and fraught, it marks the nightly voyage into the fearsome unknown. All must pass through alone, and, crucially return. Beyond the sleepy border are separation, concealed dreams and nightmares, surrender of the ego, death, the promise of restorative repose, and a new day.
Dissecting picture books about the dark is a sort of strange exercise - like explaining a joke. Yet fear and anxiety are part of the human condition. Babies experience fear and at around six months learn to differentiate it from other emotions. Children’s fears may be expressed through stranger anxiety, fear of the dark, monsters, clowns... Most children grow out of these normal developmental fears by the time they reach 12 or so because they have the cognitive capability to differentiate between imagination and reality and greater control over their environment (**see below note).1
But the tension between day and night, light and dark remains throughout a life. Perhaps that’s why so many adults like horror or suspense. There’s a “protective frame” that can be relied on; “the cage that contains the tiger”2 that sets anxiety apart from excitement. The story in the frame provides safety, the terror is over there… not here, we are detached from it. Whether or not we’re afraid of the dark, we sometimes seek out the feeling of being afraid.
Children don’t have a protective frame. We could argue that through reading picture books (or storytelling at large) we can provide the foundation for one as they build a frame in a non-didactic, (hopefully) funny, and slightly dangerous (in an age-appropriate) way: dangerous, but always with the promise and safety of resolution.
Some of the best picture books about the dark have illustrations that toy cleverly with the dark and its counterpoint; see Jon Klassen and Mac Barnett’s Circle, or Klassen’s illustrations of The Dark by Lemony Snicket, Peter Brown’s pictures in Creepy Pair of Underwear by Aaron Reynolds, Tiny T. Rex and the Very Dark Dark (Jonathan Stutzman [Author] Jay Fleck [Illustrator]). Inside the darkest black, children are presented with nothing less than annihilation.
Yet sometimes the dark of night is wondrous and strangely full of light as in Kat Yeh and Isabelle Arsenault’s Just One Little Light. Anyone who has taken a walk in the woods at night might notice there’s a surprising amount of light pouring down from the universe, and of course, ambient light from homes and streetlights and neon signs rebuilds a cityscape.
It’s the shadows, the other, the absence that lends a sense of danger. No matter what our age, whether unwillingly or not, we spend a lifetime embarking on the same nightly journey. A seeking that is endlessly fascinating.
I hope you enjoy this little Cub’s tiny odyssey.
** Note: It’s important to distinguish between normative childhood fears and those that stem from abuse and violence which affect a child’s developing brain in terrible ways and “trigger extreme, prolonged activation of the body’s stress response system” as well as changes to the brain development.3 That is not addressed in this article.
A bit of fun for those new to Crash
Crash the Cub is based on a real live bear cub from Katmai National Park in Alaska. He was fondly nicknamed Velcro and was Bear 273’s offspring. Inside Katmai, Brooks Falls creates a natural barrier for the salmon to jump on their annual migration to the sea and age-old memories and behaviors bring the same set of brown bears back to this spot year after year where they can count on a bounteous meal.
Explore.org has a relationship with the National Park Service, and you can view bear activity up close at Brooks Falls. It is awe-inspiring.
Bears spend the summer gorging themselves, preparing for hibernation. They become massive by Fall. For the last decade, explore.org has hosted Fat Bear Week where you can vote in a bracketed tournament for the fattest bear of the year. (The NYTimes did a write-up here).
Bear 480 Otis, one of the characters in A Cub Called Crash, won the competition four times. At least 25 years old, Otis is one of the oldest bears at the Falls. But he has been conspicuously absent this year. It’s possible he found another salmon run, but also possible that his time has come. There’s been a vibrant discussion over what could have happened to Otis. We may, sadly, never know. But we connect deeply, maybe even transcendently with the wild and the animals who call it home.
Vote (and not just in Fat Bear Week). Give children the gift of this wild wild world. Let them know these animals must be protected (you can support the Otis Fund here).
Another reminder to buy the books and write a review from wherever you order. Reviews help get the book noticed and spread the word, especially any books purchased on Amazon (unbelievably, those kinds of things matter). Share with others, as we look to each other for book recommendations.
So many of you have reached out already to let me know what your child (or you) thinks of A Cub Called Crash. I’m so very grateful and I love hearing their thoughts — the books were written for them… to be read together with extra love and cuddles. Thank you so much for letting me be a part of storytime.
https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/persistent-fear-and-anxiety-can-affect-young-childrens-learning-and-development/
https://hbr.org/2021/10/the-psychology-behind-why-we-love-or-hate-horror
ibid
My copy arrives on Thursday. I wait with anticipation and will spread the word!
Am so excited to receive Book Two of Crash to see what the cub is up to now. Loved A Cub Called Crash. Think every child/adult should have the series in her/his library.