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Home World and Story World: the Hero’s Journey 

In Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces, he describes how the main character begins his journey by leaving the safe world of his community. Campbell explains that “beyond the parental watch is danger to the infant and beyond the protection of his society [is] danger to the member of a tribe” (71). Yet for the character that Campbell is describing, some messenger has just come to call the hero to adventure, and so this hero must make a bold venture outside of the safe boundaries and into the unknown.

In many stories we see this venture into the unknown come in the form of leaving home to go somewhere new. We often call this the home world and the story world. The home world is the place where the story starts. It could be the character’s actual home, or school, or community, and it shows how the character has been living, his status quo.

Then the character is called to an adventure and he leaves his home world. He passes through an (often literal) gate or door or passageway and enters the unknown story world. This story world is the place where the character is going to have to work out his flaws, conquer the antagonist, and return home victorious.  

In Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, Max is safe at home and perhaps quite bored with the ordinary state of things. When his mother calls him “wild,” it sparks his imagination. As he passes through his bedroom door he leaves the home world where his mother is in charge, and passes into the world of his imagination where he is in charge. The  threshold between the two worlds is very momentous, and in this case even makes it into the illustration. Having left the home world behind, Max begins his journey into the unknown story world. Max’s internal, imaginary world fits Campbell’s description of the dangerous unknown and is filled with wild seas, new lands, and fierce wild monsters. Throughout Max’s journey, he tames the wild things in the story world, he tames his own character flaws, and finally returns to the home world, calm and victorious. 

Emotional Worlds — Setting Conveys the Mood and Tone

While many longer works rely on Campbell’s archetypes to describe an epic journey of the main character into the dangerous unknown, many children’s books have much gentler tones and subject matters. We often have quiet, pleasant stories about trips to the library, camping at the lake, or getting ready for bed. If you read with an eye for setting, however, you will be surprised how often there is an element of going out, having some fun or an adventure, and coming home satisfied. While the story world in a picture book (preschool, soccer practice, the park) may not feel like a dangerous unknown to the parent-reader, these places are filled with unknown possibilities for the child-reader, and are often the developmental equivalent to Frodo’s journey out of the Shire in Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Rings.

Ask where your story begins, and where the characters go. Talk about how these places look and feel. If you are reading an illustrated book, what colors are used to illustrate them? Are there dark places in your book? Sunny places? Busy places? Places of solitude? Places of peace? Bright flower gardens? Dark forests with watchful eyes? What do these places tell you about your character’s journey and internal development? 

If you can identify at least two worlds in a story, creating a quick comparison or a Venn Diagram would reveal a lot about what is happening internally in the main character as he moves between the two spaces.

Seeing Worlds in Action 

Mo Willems has a Parisian inspired chapter book called The Story of Diva and Flea in which there are two distinct settings. Diva is a small dog whose entire known world is an apartment building in Paris. Flea is a large alley cat who roams and explores the whole city of Paris. When the two become friends through the garden gate, Diva musters the courage to pass through the gate and explore Paris with Flea. And Flea musters the courage to pass the gate in the opposite  direction and enter the confines of a building. 

Diva is a small dog and she is comfortable in the small world of her building. Her home world is familiar, and Diva is an expert at her job of being a Gardienne’s dog. Her home is comfortable. She is confident and happy, though she does sometimes feel afraid of spiders. And feet. 

Flea is an ally cat with many names. He is an expert at exploring all there is to see in Paris, and this makes him proud. He does, however, sometimes suffer the indignity of being swatted with a broom when he is hungry. 

When Diva and Flea become friends, however, each must enter the world of the other by passing through the garden gate. 

Confident, tiny Diva must leave her small world and enter the vast city of Paris. Just around the corner, she confronts the largest thing of all: the Eiffel Tower.  Diva is suddenly afraid and not confident at all. As she learns to trust her new friend however, her world literally increases in size. The movement from a small world to a large world serves as a metaphor for how Diva’s internal life grows when she learns to trust a new friend.  

Flea must face the same internal growth and change in place, but in reverse. While he is a large cat used to roaming free in a large city, he must now enter into a tight, confining building filled with feet and brooms. But once he is able to trust Diva, he learns that the brooms in this apartment won’t swat at him. A small place can be a safe place. Flea’s movement from a large and free place to a small and safe place serves as a metaphor for how Flea’s life became more stable when he learned to trust a new friend. 

A quick compare/contrast activity or discussion about these two settings gives quite a lot of insight into the characters’ needs and areas of growth. 

Physical Worlds — Exploring the Real World

In the Bloomsbury Introduction to Children’s and Young Adult Literature, Karen Coats explores the literary themes and motifs that appeal to children at each developmental age. She describes how eager school age children are to venture out from home and become independent without yet being ready for “physics or bank accounts,” (70). She goes on to explain that 

“books for this middle-childhood age continue to offer reassurances, though, that the world is a safe place that makes sense, and they often feature, as Nodelman (2008) points out, a home-away-home pattern that rewards autonomy and initiative without leaving the hero alone and stranded” (71).  

In other words, kids want adventures, but they are too young for their first solo road trip. Books are a safe place for kids to explore the real world without danger. Many children love map-making and designing worlds of their own in drawings, with legos, in mine-craft. 

As we read with our kids, talk about the elements of the world that the author has created. Where are the homes? Where does food come from? Are there trees? Is there water? Where is the source of the danger? Where are friends to be found? What are the characters journeying towards or away from? What is known and safe? What is unknown? What colors fill this world?

Encourage your child to draw or create the world of the story. Talk about what places you would want to visit or stay away from. How would you feel journeying in that forest, or swimming in that lake? Let your little one image and dream.

Connection to the Narrative Arch

Once you have talked a bit about the world or worlds in your story, you can begin to consider how the places of the story impact the main character’s development. In addition to going out and coming home again, places can have very deep symbolic or spiritual meaning.  

In Peter Rabbit, for example, Beatrix Potter sets up the classic narrative of the young hero (Peter) leaving his cozy home in the fir tree to explore the dangerous unknown of Mr. McGregor’s garden. But this garden represents more than just a journey. This garden is the place where his own father lost his life. This garden is the domain of a fierce antagonist (Mr. McGregor), and becomes the place where Peter’s own manhood, as it were, is tested. He faces enemies and makes friends; he must solve problems and muster the courage to keep calm and make it home again. Of course Peter does make it home, but not as the victor who has conquered the enemy his father could not, but as a naked and frightened boy, who has learned to obey his mother. However we feel about the ending, that garden has become central in Peter’s sense of his self. It is, for him, a place of great significance.  

The acclaimed children’s writer, Tomie DePaola has a book titled 26 Fairmont Ave. in which he narrates, autobiographically, about the home his parents built when he was a child. The new house is a specific location that becomes a center around which all the action and problems of the story revolve. The house is more than a location, however. It becomes a symbol for the goals his family has as they carve out a space for themselves in their community. It represents success, safety, family, and stability. This house plays an important role in young  Tomie’s growing sense of self. 

The book My Papi Has A Motorcycle by Isabel Quintero reads something like an homage to the author’s hometown of Carona, California. In this narrative, as in many stories, the setting becomes a character of its own. While the main character and her father circle the city along the historic race track that circles the city (and lends it its name), the characters remember the history of the city and the ways that it has changed over time. The city has shaped the main character’s family, and her family has shaped the city. This is a special place, a living, growing, changing entity that gives life and takes part in shaping the lives that live there. 

While talking with our kids about settings, it is important to consider what role the setting plays in developing the character’s sense of self. When the setting itself becomes a character, we can ask the same kinds of questions about it that we would ask about secondary characters. Does this setting help or hinder our main characters? Does this setting (as a character) want or need something? How does this need impact the main character’s needs or goals?

The Take Away

Kids are naturally eager to explore the world. Whether this is a real life setting in a non-fiction book, or a spiritually-significant setting in an epic narrative, places shape us. Ask questions that will help your little one imagine and wonder. Dream together about journeys in faraway places or about what life is like in cozy places close to home. 

Remember that one of our goals in talking about literature is the development of imagination, creativity, and the ability to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes. What can we feel and experience as we walk in someone else’s land together?

Happy reading!