Messianic Children's Books

I've recently read two children's books whose tone can be described as "messianic." This is an esoteric word to use, particularly in describing children's literature. I will let my examples speak for themselves.

I) Surfman

First, the more obscure: The Coming of the Surfman, by Peter Collington. The book concerns a young skateboarder-turned-surfboarder caught between two rival gangs, and the intervention of the enigmatic Surfman, whose departure leaves the gangs back at each others' throats and the boy hoping against hope for the Surfman's return.

Such a summary minimizes the power of this book, and I have summarized it in a way to make the messianic imagery stand out. In fact, the illustrations veil the allegory to a satisfying degree, and it is their power that carries the story.

II) Maniac

The second book is more widely read, particularly here in Pennsylvania, the author's home state: Maniac Magee, by Jerry Spinelli. The eponymous hero is the messianic figure, who bridges the racial, geographic, and soci-economic divides between the East End and the West End in the course of his own search for home and family.


The book's outstanding introduction is what brings me back to this book, casting what might otherwise be a good, run-of-the-mill children's book in the light of myth, legend, and redemptive change.

III) Messianic Narratives

Both of these books are very good, which makes me wonder two things: is the messianic narrative, one that I always consider to be an abstract, adult concept, present in more children's literature (please share suggested titles in the comments)? And, what about the messianic narrative applies to childhood.

Surfman's messianic narrative is one of waiting and hoping for the return of a good thing. Maniac's messianic narrative is one of miraculous action towards community change, and the community's reaction. That is putting them in socio-religious (abstract, adult) terminology. How would a child read these stories?

Not being a child, and without children myself, I can speculate that childhood is a time of waiting; of understanding that one's agency is limited and that change can only come from the return of the Surfman.

That said, childhood has also been cast as a time of timelessness; of the unselfconsciousness that we cast as the innocence of youth. Maniac Magee works in this light; the boy believing and doing the impossible, unlimited by the constraints of the adult world, yet effecting real change in that world.

IV) Conclusion

As a Christian, it is tempting for me to spin these observations into some neat reflection on the messianic narrative through which I view the world, but that would be doing both of these books a disservice. They tell different stories, and present true mysteries of the world in very different (yet similar) ways. Needless to say, it is my religious background that causes me to read them in this way, yet I suspect that someone without my biases would also find strong messianic imagery in these texts.

I leave you with the prompt from above: Is the messianic narrative more common in children's literature that we may have thought? Why do these stories seem to ring true with children, who might not grasp all of their complexities?