THERE’S A WORD FOR STORIES LIKE JESSE’S
Have you ever read a book where you didn’t just follow a young character’s adventures—you watched that character grow up right before your eyes?
There’s actually a word for that kind of story: BILDUNGSROMAN.
It’s a German word, pronounced roughly “BILL-doongs-roh-mahn,” and it means a novel of growth, education, or formation. We usually call these COMING-OF-AGE stories.
You probably know some famous examples:
Great Expectations
David Copperfield
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
To Kill a Mockingbird
What makes these stories special isn’t simply that the main character is young. We watch experiences shape that young person. Hardship, friendship, disappointment, mistakes, family, and choices between right and wrong gradually change the person we met on page one.
That’s also the heart of my SEARCHING FOR FAMILY series.
When we first meet Jesse in Jesse Sings, he is a young boy whose family is falling apart. Through Jesse’s Hope and Jesse’s Dream, we watch him face poverty, illness, bullies, broken relationships, new friendships, responsibility, faith, forgiveness—and hope.
Jesse isn’t just getting older.
HE’S BECOMING JESSE.
Over the next few posts, I’d like to explore coming-of-age stories—some famous ones, some you may have forgotten, and one young boy named Jesse who is searching for something almost all of us need:
A PLACE TO BELONG.
What coming-of-age book do you remember most?