John Harold Drake is a man of deep compassion, and has written a book that argues for the cause of children in need of love. "Children, Little Children" is an honest book, showing great concern and dissatisfaction with the care for children.
The difficult trick of living inside another person’s mind and being able to put your reader inside that same mind, is a capability held only by writers of exceptional skill and talent. Mr. Drake has approached the problem by making a 10-year-old boy his central character. The boy does not for a moment come across as a real child. Irresponsible parents abandoned him, his grandfather disliked him, he took everything literally, and begged everyone for love. Bret is being used to make a point. His ideas are too poetic, his response too direct, and the contrasts of good and evil too simplistic for real life. He is being manipulated by someone behind the scenery trying to tell us something.
For fifteen years the author has been dealing with people with psychological trouble at the V. I. T. Neuropsychiatric Institute. He has actively been involved in this field at other institutions for a quarter of a century. This book is a form of acting out, through the character, Bret, the pain of a rejected child. If one understands the book in those terms, one may be willing to believe the imaginary story. If viewed in this light, the exaggerated movements and reactions of the characters became less unbelievable and therefore more meaningful. The excessively poetic passages of description and emotion, seen as stage flats made more colorful than nature in order to look real from afar, are acceptable in a drama whereas they are irritating in a novel. The one-sided characterizations--insane father, immature mother, mean old grandmother, selfish aunt, cruel neighbors, and totally misunderstood Bretare figures moving across a lit stage to dramatize a message. The true-to-life ending, without resolution or growth or development, might work on a stage, however, it is contrary to everything a novel should do.
Calling the book a novel is the publisher’s mistake, the work is more nearly a drama. Perhaps it is one of Mr. Drake’s psychodramas in print and should so be judged. What doe Drake want to achieve with his book