What do stories of wizards and monsters, of extraterrestrials and other worlds teach us? Do they? There's a reason why books like Hobbit or Out of The Silent Planetare being taught in schools. It's not what you might think.
This is a slightly longer podcast because there's so much to unpack. Trinity Wright discusses these with her guest, Taylor Guinan who talks about some of the deeper reasons as to why fantasy and science fiction literature matter. The darker themes in literature - think Dante's Inferno, Homer's The Odyssey, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein - actually help young people come to a place of understanding when they confront complex, and sometimes bad things in the real world.
It is such a great topic we may return to it with a discussion of who gets to choose the books we read. Stay tuned!
