What is the effect on the young reader when there is no "Happy Ending" in a story for children?
It is a common practice for a story for children to have a happy ending. Would it be considered inappropriate and disappointing for the young reader if his hero/heroine will suffer a horrible tragedy in the end? Or maybe not a horrible tragedy, but just a small misfortune?
Is there an example of such a book?
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Three words: Bridge to Terabithia. Every single time I have heard someone mention this book (or the film based on it), it's been in the context of how much they were traumatised by its ending as a child.
A more personal example (since I've never seen/read Bridge to Terabithia myself) would be the Nicholas Fisk novel A Rag, A Bone, and a Hank of Hair. I don't think it was supposed to be for kids, but it was in my school's library, I read it when I was nine, and it was the first story I ever encountered where the hero doesn't win. Specifically:
He and the clone family he's spent the book trying to protect are killed in a bomb strike, and I still remember the description of him watching the flesh strip from his hands as he dies.
It haunted me for years. But I remember the story better than any other book I read at that age, even The Lord of the Rings, because it left that much of an impression on me.
So what's the effect on a young reader when a story has a tragic ending? Childhood trauma.
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There a series of children's books about Mog the cat and the last book is called "Goodbye Mog". It has Mog happily and peacefully going off to sleep. Despite being a bit too old for the books by the time it was published, I was still sad! Mog then helps the family's new kitten so the family have a new cat to love so the ending is happy and sad at the same time.
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King Matt the First is very explicitly written for seven-year-olds. It's about a seven-years-old prince, whose father dies, so he becomes king. He tries to be a good king, but there's a war, and he's defeated, and ends up being exiled. There's a sequel - in its end, he dies in a factory accident.
I read King Matt the First when I was seven. For a good while, it was my favourite book.
Why was it that this sad book, and no other "happy end" one became my favourite? Because it touched my like no other book had. It made me think, and it made me feel, and it made me think again. This wasn't "entertainment", a piece of candy, sweet while it lasted, forgotten the moment it was over. This was something more, something deeper. I couldn't have put it into words back then, but I appreciated it nonetheless. I wanted more books like that.
No, it did not traumatise me that Matt didn't get a happy ending. On the contrary: a sad story lets a child experience grief in a safe environment - end of the day, the child knows it isn't real. One can poke at it - reread a sad passage, and then leave it when one doesn't want to be sad for too long, and go play with one's friends. In a way, it prepares a child for real grief.
That said, you need to be explicit with what happens to your protagonist. You can't hide it behind "he went away". Reading The Little Prince when I was seven, it was not clear to me that the prince died, or was never there at all (depending on how you choose to look at it). I took things at face value: magic existed in stories (though it didn't in the real world - don't let anybody tell you that children don't know the difference at that age). This story already had a talking fox and a talking snake, it had magical travel between planets, why wouldn't the snake's bite return the prince to his asteroid?
You hide something, the child doesn't understand and then has it explained to them, the child feels you lied to them. Because, if the character died, why wouldn't you say that he died? And having the narrator lie - that is a disappointment, a breach of trust between storyteller and audience.
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I've only read the first two, but... isn't there a whole set of books called A Series of Unfortunate Events? Which make a point of saying they don't have happy endings?
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