The Magical Age of Seven
What childhood ages and stages can teach us about change and fiction
True love is not stagnant. It is, in fact, a door through which all kinds of miraculous and dangerous things may enter.
~The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow
What do January Scholar (of The Ten Thousand Doors of January), Miki (from Tales from the Cafe) , Alice in Wonderland, James (of the Giant Peach), and Sophie Hatter (of Howl’s Moving Castle) all have in common?
And what are they all about to have in common with my oldest son?
Seven year olds in fantasy fiction
This summer in my fantasy and magical realism reading, the number seven is popping up all over the place. Not the seven dwarves, not the lucky number seven. I’m encountering a bunch of child characters who are seven years old.
In The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow, protagonist, January, makes her first discovery of magic doors at the tender age of seven. In Tales from the Cafe by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, a transfer of magic power awaits a young girl, but she cannot come into her power until she turns seven.
Encountering these two fictional seven year olds—one after the other—piqued my curiosity, especially since my son just turned six, and is now headed down the road to his own seventh birthday,
Is there something special about the age of seven? Why are writers chosing to introduce child characters to magic when they’re seven? Does the answer clue me in to the new frontiers awaiting me as the parent of a seven-year-old boy?
To my surprise and delight as I researched this question this week, I found that the answer is: yes.
Piaget’s Four Stages of Cognitive Development
Jean William Fitz Piaget, psychologist and pioneer in childhood development, famously outlined the four stages of childhood cognitive development. They go something like this:
0-2 years, Sensorimotor Stage
2-7 years, Preoperational Stage
7-11 years, Concrete Operational Stage
11 years+ Formal operational Stage
The Sensorimotor Stage for babies and toddlers is all about understanding their world. Object permanence (Mommy doesn’t vanish when I close my eyes?), simple cause and effect, and sensory exploration of the world via the senses. In other words, smashing their grubby little fingers on Daddy’s computer keyboard and stuffing any object that will fit into their mouths.
Both my kiddos are currently developing in the Preoperational Stage, when children are extremely literal. They see the world through their own eyes. Imagining what others are thinking and feeling is hard work. Their journey during this stage is to assign symbols (like pictures or words) to the concrete things that make up their worlds.
In the Concrete Operational Stage, which shimmers into being like magic around seven years old, logic blossoms. Kids grasp a bunch of math-related concepts (for example, that different-shaped containers can hold the same volume of liquid). With logic and reason developing, kids begin to intuit that not everyone is thinking what they’re thinking—yet their understanding of the world continues to hinge on the concrete. They’re not ready to grasp abstract concepts until…
The Formal Operational Stage, when all that logic and reasoning gets supercharged by the new ability to conceive abstract and hypothetical concepts—and to ponder moral, philosophical, and ethical questions.
When I’d read and digested Piaget’s four stages, a frisson of excitement ran right through me, because those stages explain more than January, Miki, Alice, James, and Sophie. Piaget’s stages explain a whole host of my other beloved childhood fantasy characters, as well.
Eleven year olds in fantasy fiction
When I was researching examples of famous seven-year-olds in fantasy, I kept turning up childhood protagonists who were eleven. The list of eleven year olds bowled me over: Lyra (His Dark Materials), Coraline, Meg Murry (A Wrinkle in Time). And, of course, Harry Potter.
I was about to set aside the question of eleven-year-old protagonists for another essay, when Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development offered a theory that fit both seven and eleven year olds.
Borders and magic
As writers, we all know if our characters don’t change, we have no story. So is it really any wonder that when children to play critical roles in fiction, writers select ages that place those kids on the cusp of major changes in childhood development?
When our protagonists are adults, we choose people teetering on the rim of some life change. Someone dealing with the loss of a loved one, the loss of a home, a job. Someone reeling from illness, or whose partner is about to leave.
When writing fantasy fiction in particular, we writers crave characters balanced on the rim of transition, awaiting the fictional nudge that will plunge them over the edge of everything known, understood, and familiar, into an unknown and uncharted world of magic.
With child protagonists, writers don’t have to look far for the big transition their young character is about to embark upon. Change is written into the growth and development of every human mind. Big developmental brain changes are coming for all young kids. One big transition around the age of seven, the next around the age of eleven.
As a writer, I’m enchanted by the way some of my favorite writers have (consciously or intuitively) tapped into the power inherent in our human brain development. As a parent whose child is headed for one of those big transitions, I’m feeling a little less brave.
Buckling my mommy seatbelt
My kids are continually growing and changing, which means I never get to enjoy the satisfaction of having mastered my parenting skills at any stage for very long. It’s a wild and wonderful ride that demands my constant and complete attention; there’s no room for complacency.
The good news is that these stages—while they look definitive on paper—don’t actually pop into being the moment a child blows out their birthday candles. Cognitive development ebbs and flows. An insight pops into being, then retreats to marinate for awhile. My kids’ developmental journeys include lots of forward bursts and lots of doubling back.
Now that I can see what lies ahead for my son at the magical age of seven, I can watch as rays of burgeoning logic shine through to presage his coming concrete operational stage. I can both brace for the change and embrace it. For as The Ten Thousand Doors of January has reminded me, true love is never stagnant, but a door through which all kinds of miraculous and dangerous things may enter.