And I wish The Friend would consider such a retrospective.

One of the items on my list of topics for a certain group blog I am associated with is “Memories of The Children’s Friend.” I think I’m going to have to wait til the next time I’m in Utah and can dig out the archive of old Children’s Friends in my parents basement to be able to do this though. My memories of the fiction, illustration, and other content of “my” years is still very vivid. And my child’s brain made no distinction between that and other children’s magazines I read, like “Jack and Jill” and “The Golden Magazine.”

They seem, at least in memory, to be very similar: all of them had an educational agenda which could loosely be termed “moral,” but none of them were particularly pedantic about it. I’m sure my child brain ignored things I thought “boring,” and I’m also sure my adult brain has also edited these memories. Still, the Children’s Friend holds a special place in heart and went a long way in crafting my identity as “Utahn” and “Mormon.” While I’ve now lived over half my life outside of Utah and I’m no longer a member, those categories have had a determining effect on who and what I am, the magnitude of which I am only just recognizing.

Remember that 1910 Christmas story where potential rape was a main feature? Although I don’t know what was considered good mainstream kids’ fiction in that generation, I get the feeling that a lot of topics we wouldn’t consider suitable for kids was acceptable. These kinds of stories — non-fiction — are told in full gory detail in the newspapers of that era, so maybe fiction wasn’t that different.

But like Coffinberry said, I think it was well told, once you accept the convention. I think it was meant to stir feelings of pity and sentimentality, which it does do, and quite well, except that it doesn’t consider the ramifications that kevinf mentions.

I wonder if The Friend would consider a retrospective of earlier LDS kids’ lit …

Amy, I didn’t realize the narrator was female until that line. Ardis, was this labeled fiction in the JI, or supposed to be a true incident? As a short story, it has a rather unhappy and disappointing ending. It almost seems to say that once you’ve done something wrong, nothing can atone for the transgression. He comes across as deserving his death as his only way to pay for his bullying. Maybe I am being too harsh, but it is an odd piece.

??

What a curious story!