Critical Assessment
Considered by many to be Kipling's masterpiece, opinion appears varied about its consideration as children's literature or not. Roger Sale, in his history of children's literature, concludes "Kim is the apotheosis of the Victorian cult of childhood, but it shines now as bright as ever, long after the Empire's collapse..."
In a reissue of the novel in 1959 by Macmillan, the reviewer opines "Kim is a book worked at three levels. It is a tale of adventure...It is the drama of a boy having entirely his boy's own way... and it is the mystical exegesis of this pattern of behaviour..." This reviewer concludes "Kim will endure because it is a beginning like all masterly ends.."
Read more about this topic: Kim (novel)
Famous quotes containing the words critical and/or assessment:
“If our entertainment culture seems debased and unsatisfying, the hope is that our children will create something of greater worth. But it is as if we expect them to create out of nothing, like God, for the encouragement of creativity is in the popular mind, opposed to instruction. There is little sense that creativity must grow out of tradition, even when it is critical of that tradition, and children are scarcely being given the materials on which their creativity could work”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)
“The first year was critical to my assessment of myself as a person. It forced me to realize that, like being married, having children is not an end in itself. You don’t at last arrive at being a parent and suddenly feel satisfied and joyful. It is a constantly reopening adventure.”
—Anonymous Mother. From the Boston Women’s Health Book Collection. Quoted in The Joys of Having a Child, by Bill and Gloria Adler (1993)