From Soldier to Storyteller

Many of the best-known and most popular children’s stories of the 20th and early 21st century were written by veterans of World War I and World War II. These include works by such writers as A.A. Milne, C.S. Lewis, Roald Dahl, Ian Fleming, and J.R.R. Tolkien, among others. Although they had experienced war, most of the veterans did not overtly write about it. The seeming paradox of warriors who went through searing combat and then wrote books for children has not been addressed collectively before now.
The essays in this book explore what motivated these veterans to write for children, what they wrote, and how their writing was influenced by the wars they lived through. It examines how their combat experience can be traced in their writing, however subtly, whether it was stories about a bear and his piglet companion, a World War I flying ace, or a flying car. Their reactions to war, as reflected in their writing, yield important lessons about the complicated legacy of the 20th century’s two great conflicts and their long-lasting impact—through children—on society at large.

Kathleen Broome Williams is the recipient of the 2021 Commodore Dudley W. Knox medal for Lifetime Achievement in Naval History. She serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of The Journal of Military History, the U.S. Naval Institute’s Naval History Advisory Board, and Marine Corps History Magazine’s Editorial Review Board and is the author of numerous articles and books on naval history. She lives in Oakland, California.

Hal M. Friedman is the Chair of History and Professor of Modern History at Henry Ford College in Dearborn, Michigan, and both the Recording Secretary and the Midwest Regional Coordinator for the Society for Military History. He has published a trilogy on U.S. national security policy in the immediate postwar Pacific and another trilogy on the transition of the U.S. Naval War College from the Pacific War to the Cold War in the Pacific in the same time period.

Edited by Kathleen Broome Williams and Hal M. Friedman
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 226
Bibliographic Info: notes, bibliographies, index
Copyright Date: 2024
pISBN: 978-1-4766-9470-2
eISBN: 978-1-4766-5207-8
Imprint: McFarland

Foreword

Michael S. Neiberg 1

Introduction

Kathleen Broome Williams 3

Veterans of World War I

A.A. Milne (1882–1956): ­Winnie-the-Pooh for Children, Writing on War for Adults

John C. Mitcham 15

Hugh Lofting (1886–1947): John Dolittle, M.D., Pacifist

Kathleen Broome Williams 33

J.R.R. Tolkien (1892–1973): War, Fatherhood, and Writing for Children

Mark R. Folse 49

Captain W.E. Johns (1893–1968): Biggles—RAF Air Ace

Kathleen Broome Williams 66

C.S. Lewis (1898–1963): War, Children, Imagination, Christianity

Christopher A. Snyder 82

R. Sidney Bowen (1900–1977): Dave Dawson Flies with the RAF

William S. Dudley 99

Veterans of World War II

Ian Fleming (1908–1964): Creator of James Bond and of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Jock Gardner 119

Elizabeth “Betty” P. McIntosh (1915–2015): Journalist, Spook, Children’s Author

Mary Kathryn Barbier 134

Roald Dahl (1916–1990): Flying, Magical Powers, Heroic Children

Katherine K. Reist 149

J.D. Salinger (1919-2010): War and Innocence

Josef Benson 166

Charles Schulz (1922–2000): World War II and the Origins of Charlie Brown’s Melancholy and Success

Blake Scott Ball 181

Lloyd Alexander (1924–2007): High Fantasy for Children

Kenneth V. Anthony 194

Summation

Hal M. Friedman 211

About the Contributors 213

Index 215