A prisoner of hope...

I've been reading Katherine Paterson's essays on reading and writing for children (Gates of Excellence and The Spying Heart).

Gosh. So many great things in them.

Here's an excerpt from an essay entitled "On Hope and Happy Endings":

"So the hope of my books is the hope of yearning. It is always incomplete, as all true hope must be. It is always in tension, rooted in this fallen earth but growing, yearning, stretching toward the new creation. I am sure that it does not satisfy children in the sense that Cinderella or Jack the Giant Killer will satisfy them. I know children need and deserve the kind of satisfaction that they may get only from the old fairy tales. For children whoa re still hungry for happily ever after, my endings will be invariably disappointing. Children need all kinds of stories. Other people will write the stories they can write, and I will write the stories I can write.

When I write realistic novels, I will be true as best I am able to what is. But I am, as Zechariah says, a prisoner of hope. My stories will lean toward hope as a sunflower toward the sun. The roots will be firmly in the world as I know it, but the face will turn inevitably toward the peaceable kingdom, the heavenly city, the loving parent watching and waiting for the prodigal’s return. Because, by the grace of God, that is truth for me and all who share this hope."