The secular angel in contemporary children's literature: David ...

the stereotypes that have kept it alive for so many centuries, but is granted instead the freedom
to choose, and is finally seen acting upon this choice.
In the The Encyclopedia of Angels, Rosemary Guiley offers a detailed account, of all
things angelic throughout the centuries. Of their presence in the twentieth century she writes
that:
A renaissance of popular literature in angels began in the late 20 th century and
spawned a popular angelology. This view portrays angels as more than
messengers and administrators of God’s will, but as personal companions,
healers, and helpers. The modern angel is a being who is always good and
benevolent, in contrast to the biblical angel who metes out punishment and
justice when God so commands. (Guiley, 2004, 31)
Guiley’s description of the modern, twentieth-century secular angel seems to define McNish’s
vision of his own angels, as well as the tone he wished to offer his work. But in addition to
being companions, healers and helpers, McNish’s angels possess two more qualities which
ultimately demarcate them: a strong moral compass and an innate free will. McNish’s secular
angels also differ immensely from the other two authors’ discussed in this thesis. While
Pullman makes use of extensive religious material only to remove its necessity at the end,
Skellig is a part-human, part-angel, part-bird creature, and one that appears to have evolved.
McNish accomplishes something different with his angels in that he completely removes the
human, the scientific—at least in the way Almond describes it—and the religious. He
therefore creates a different species, one that to human eyes resembles a stereotypical angel
taken out of Scripture, but one that is in reality something else entirely. By the end of the
story, the only thing typically angelic about these creatures is their wish to guard and protect
humans, thereby assuming the role of the guardian angel.
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