THERE\u2019S A WORD FOR STORIES LIKE JESSE\u2019S<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Have you ever read a book where you didn\u2019t just follow a young character\u2019s adventures\u2014you watched that character grow up right before your eyes?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s actually a word for that kind of story: BILDUNGSROMAN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s a German word, pronounced roughly \u201cBILL-doongs-roh-mahn,\u201d and it means a novel of growth, education, or formation. We usually call these COMING-OF-AGE stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You probably know some famous examples:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Great Expectations<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n David Copperfield<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n A Tree Grows in Brooklyn<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n To Kill a Mockingbird<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n What makes these stories special isn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s also the heart of my SEARCHING FOR FAMILY<\/em> series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When we first meet Jesse in Jesse Sings, he is a young boy whose family is falling apart. Through Jesse\u2019s Hope and Jesse\u2019s Dream, we watch him face poverty, illness, bullies, broken relationships, new friendships, responsibility, faith, forgiveness\u2014and hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesse isn\u2019t just getting older.<\/p>\n\n\n\n HE\u2019S BECOMING JESSE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Over the next few posts, I\u2019d like to explore coming-of-age stories\u2014some famous ones, some you may have forgotten, and one young boy named Jesse who is searching for something almost all of us need:<\/p>\n\n\n\n A PLACE TO BELONG.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What coming-of-age book do you remember most?<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" THERE\u2019S A WORD FOR STORIES LIKE JESSE\u2019S Have you ever read a book where you didn\u2019t just follow a young character\u2019s adventures\u2014you watched that character grow up right before your eyes? There\u2019s actually a word for that kind of story: BILDUNGSROMAN. It\u2019s a German word, pronounced roughly \u201cBILL-doongs-roh-mahn,\u201d and it means a novel of growth, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vicsnotes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhess.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhess.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhess.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhess.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhess.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=258"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhess.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":259,"href":"https:\/\/victorhess.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions\/259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhess.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhess.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhess.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}