Microsoft Word final-current Developments at the Intersection of British Children-online-version doc

Dark Materials
, God is not dead, just absent – and, to top it all, female. 
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Ibd., p. 299.
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Taylor, Wormwood, pp. 113, 160, 163-164.
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Having erected the House, the Creator is also called the Architect.

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At first glance it may seem paradox that in the modern age of mass media and 
communication traditional convictions and ideas are so popular. Yet, increasing instability 
brings about a demand for security. God and the angels symbolise people’s longing for 
guidance, shelter, support, love and consolation. In times of need and crisis they remain 
symbols of hope – a quality which exceeds the competence of any artificial intelligence.
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In 
current British fantasy novels for children, not only God and the angels are en vogue as 
characters but also comparable transcendental, i.e. non-human, beings like djinn, as in 
Stroud’s Bartimaeus trilogy or Kerr’s Children of the Lamp novels. Depending on the desired 
effect, the fantasy authors also introduce demons, witches or ghosts, which can be either good 
or evil.
Whereas the good representatives can boost the humans’ confidence, pass on values 
and morals, thus seeing to a happy ending for the main character(s)’ quest, the evil ones 
fascinate by their wickedness and ruthlessness, their intrepidity when striving for power and 
their dark visions. Furthermore, these evil beings stand for a mystical and psychological 
dimension, people’s unconscious fears and destructive desires unleashed. Delaney’s evil 
witches, boggarts and other creatures, Pullman’s cliff-ghasts and spectres and Nix’s dead 
hands in the Abhorsen trilogy explore the depths of the human soul. As inescapable 
personifications of menaces and existential fear, these beings require a direct confrontation. 
This does not only concern the respective hero(es), but also the reader. By giving negative 
feelings such as depressions a form, the internal problem becomes external. Now it is concrete 
and can be destroyed. Rowling’s Dementors for example are designed as monsters. With their 
frightening outward appearance and the dissemination of an atmosphere of pure fear, these 
hunters of tormented souls clearly originate from the horror genre. Any encounter with them 
has traumatic qualities. 
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Be it the various versions of angels, demons, ghosts, Dementors, djinn or whichever 
form they may take, these beings embody the mystical dimensions of magic and a parallel 
world of spirits. Yet, as all current British fantasy novels for children that introduce such 
beings emphasise, like good and evil, they prove to be a double-edged sword. Whereas their 
involvement permits humans to achieve the otherwise unattainable, be it extraordinary power, 
wish fulfilment, riches, performance, skills etc., it also holds a large potential of danger. As 
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Interestingly, topical computer games like Diablo, Black and White or Devil May Cry set in at this point: The 
characters are good and rebel angels, demons and the devil.
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Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, p. 281. 

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welcome as their assistance may be for certain projects, as destructive or even lethal those 
beings can be when they get out of control.
In this connection death is becoming an important subject in current British fantasy 
novels for children. Seemingly a strange topic for children, who are just beginning to live and 
for whom death should still be far away, death is a part of life just like birth and should not be 
a taboo topic. Current novels have discovered its potential and scope out modern 
interpretations. In particular these concern philosophical and ethical questions such as right 
and wrong, sin and punishment, the concept of heaven and hell and life after death in general. 
The localisation of a possible afterlife, its form and the beings in this kind of place oblige the 
otherness of fantasy worlds. With the exploration of death and its realm(s), fantasy literature 
for children broadens its horizon, i.e. the latitude for inventions. Certainly the idea of 
exploring death in fantasy literature for children is not new, but its extent and frequency are.
Novels such as At the Back of the North Wind, The Chronicles of Narnia or the