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This came to mind today when I was reading this thread on fandom_wank. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mirabellawotr brought up the excellent question of why people are often so quick to claim that a book they like isn't children's literature because it deals with weighty issues and darkness, as if there's something embarassing about reading a children's book. In this case the book in question was, of course, Harry Potter, which is a children's book, has always been a children's book, is published by a children's imprint. The two departments in kid's publishing are completely separate universes.
There's nothing demeaning about being an adult who reads childen's books. If someone sees a person reading a book intended for 10-year-olds I seriously doubt they assume that person is reading at a 10-year-old's level. In fact, most of the people I know who read books to show off their own reading level are, well, younger than 10. I mean, I was pretty proud of myself when I was reading my first chapter book too, but I was 6. I no longer peek out of the corner of my eye to see if the guy next to me on the subway is impressed that I'm reading a book with no pictures.
Juvenile fiction routinely deals very directly with the following subjects: death, racism, poverty, disease, child abuse, neglect, betrayal, war, class issues, alcoholism, drug addiction, murder, evil and, if we glance over to the YA (Young Adult) shelves of juvenile fiction, sex, sex and more sex. And btw, that includes homosexual sex.
Mainstream juvenile fiction does not rely on flat characterizations, black and white morality or happy endings. After all, it doesn't take long for most kids to realize the world is complicated so why would they want to be lied to in fiction? Juvenile fiction is full of "bad" children who are redeemed: Mary Lennox, Edmund Penvensie, Martin Hastings (aka The Bully of Barkham Street) and all five of the Herdman children in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever all come to mind. Bullies do not have to remain bullies in kids' books by any means--for goodness' sake, where are child bullies going to be given the attention and understanding they deserve if not in juvenile fiction? Juvenile fiction is also full of good children behaving badly, picking on others, betraying their friends, being spiteful, bigoted and destructive. Not only do children deal with death in juvenile fiction they also sometimes cause death.
So how is Juvenile different from Adult? It's a bit like pornography I guess, in that it's hard to define but we know it when we see it. The best book I have ever read on children's fiction is I believe OOP and has been for years. It had a really small printing run and it's pretty short, but it's by Joan Aiken who wrote The Wolves Chronicles and it's called The Way to Write for Children. She says lots of great things, but here's something she considers a main distinction between adult fiction and children's fiction (which she simply defines as a story written for children to enjoy):
"Children have plenty of energy, they aren't exhausted by the day's toil, and it is to be hoped they don't have serious problems from which their minds need diverting. Nor are their minds scribbled over already with preconceived notions, prejudices, and accumulations of acquired impressions. Children read to learn even when they are reading fantasy, nonsense, light verse, comics, or the copy on cereal packets, they are expanding their minds all the time, enlarging their vocabulary, making discoveries; it is all new to them."
This obviously doesn't mean juvenile fiction needs to be heavy of didactic. Only that an author would do well to remember that while most adults have already read hundreds of books by the time they get to yours, your book may be the first real book a child reads for himself or herself. That's a sobering thought. I know I'm not alone in remembering books I "discovered" as a kid which then became "mine" forever. Maybe this is why I just can't feel ashamed or silly for becoming obsessed with, say, JKR's badly written characters while others excuse them prescisely because they exist in a children's book. I know that plenty of readers are learning about the world through this book so I'm ridiculously proud of those younger readers who want to know the whole story behind characters who are painted as cardboard villains.
Heh. It's almost The Emporer's New Clothes, only in reverse.
So anyway, that is my point. There is a real difference between adult and juvenile fiction, but I will always and have always considered juvenile fiction equally rich and worthy of consideration...despite a lot of truly shitty trends in it in the past 20 years.
Oh, and in adult fiction news, I just finished The League of Frightened Men, a Nero Wolfe mystery which was totally fun. Went out to a used bookstore and got The Scarlet Pimpernel and At Swim, Two Boys. I got the second book because everybody on lj seems to recommend it. I look forward to getting on the subway and starting it.
mirabellawotr brought up the excellent question of why people are often so quick to claim that a book they like isn't children's literature because it deals with weighty issues and darkness, as if there's something embarassing about reading a children's book. In this case the book in question was, of course, Harry Potter, which is a children's book, has always been a children's book, is published by a children's imprint. The two departments in kid's publishing are completely separate universes. There's nothing demeaning about being an adult who reads childen's books. If someone sees a person reading a book intended for 10-year-olds I seriously doubt they assume that person is reading at a 10-year-old's level. In fact, most of the people I know who read books to show off their own reading level are, well, younger than 10. I mean, I was pretty proud of myself when I was reading my first chapter book too, but I was 6. I no longer peek out of the corner of my eye to see if the guy next to me on the subway is impressed that I'm reading a book with no pictures.
Juvenile fiction routinely deals very directly with the following subjects: death, racism, poverty, disease, child abuse, neglect, betrayal, war, class issues, alcoholism, drug addiction, murder, evil and, if we glance over to the YA (Young Adult) shelves of juvenile fiction, sex, sex and more sex. And btw, that includes homosexual sex.
Mainstream juvenile fiction does not rely on flat characterizations, black and white morality or happy endings. After all, it doesn't take long for most kids to realize the world is complicated so why would they want to be lied to in fiction? Juvenile fiction is full of "bad" children who are redeemed: Mary Lennox, Edmund Penvensie, Martin Hastings (aka The Bully of Barkham Street) and all five of the Herdman children in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever all come to mind. Bullies do not have to remain bullies in kids' books by any means--for goodness' sake, where are child bullies going to be given the attention and understanding they deserve if not in juvenile fiction? Juvenile fiction is also full of good children behaving badly, picking on others, betraying their friends, being spiteful, bigoted and destructive. Not only do children deal with death in juvenile fiction they also sometimes cause death.
So how is Juvenile different from Adult? It's a bit like pornography I guess, in that it's hard to define but we know it when we see it. The best book I have ever read on children's fiction is I believe OOP and has been for years. It had a really small printing run and it's pretty short, but it's by Joan Aiken who wrote The Wolves Chronicles and it's called The Way to Write for Children. She says lots of great things, but here's something she considers a main distinction between adult fiction and children's fiction (which she simply defines as a story written for children to enjoy):
"Children have plenty of energy, they aren't exhausted by the day's toil, and it is to be hoped they don't have serious problems from which their minds need diverting. Nor are their minds scribbled over already with preconceived notions, prejudices, and accumulations of acquired impressions. Children read to learn even when they are reading fantasy, nonsense, light verse, comics, or the copy on cereal packets, they are expanding their minds all the time, enlarging their vocabulary, making discoveries; it is all new to them."
This obviously doesn't mean juvenile fiction needs to be heavy of didactic. Only that an author would do well to remember that while most adults have already read hundreds of books by the time they get to yours, your book may be the first real book a child reads for himself or herself. That's a sobering thought. I know I'm not alone in remembering books I "discovered" as a kid which then became "mine" forever. Maybe this is why I just can't feel ashamed or silly for becoming obsessed with, say, JKR's badly written characters while others excuse them prescisely because they exist in a children's book. I know that plenty of readers are learning about the world through this book so I'm ridiculously proud of those younger readers who want to know the whole story behind characters who are painted as cardboard villains.
Heh. It's almost The Emporer's New Clothes, only in reverse.
So anyway, that is my point. There is a real difference between adult and juvenile fiction, but I will always and have always considered juvenile fiction equally rich and worthy of consideration...despite a lot of truly shitty trends in it in the past 20 years.
Oh, and in adult fiction news, I just finished The League of Frightened Men, a Nero Wolfe mystery which was totally fun. Went out to a used bookstore and got The Scarlet Pimpernel and At Swim, Two Boys. I got the second book because everybody on lj seems to recommend it. I look forward to getting on the subway and starting it.
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And "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" is one of my favorite stories...funny, sad and completely told in the voice of the young girl...
I love "children's" literature..."The Wind in the Willows," "Charlotte's Web," "The Secret Garden..." and many more. I still have my hard cover copies from when I was a girl...
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TBCPE just knocks me out. It's so incredibly funny but the end completely chokes me up without being maudlin. I remember as a kid seeing it on that show on PBS where the guy used to sketch a picture from the book while the text was read--that was the first thing I heard of it.
I am definitely an adult who loves kid's lit and I have a lot of books still. In a few weeks I'm going to a reunion for everybody who worked at Eeyore's--that's the children's bookstore where I used to work. One of us is trying to do an article for Publisher's Weekly about how so many of us are still working in children's books. It's great how I still meet people today and when I say I worked there they go, "You worked at Eeyore's?? I loved Eeyore's!" especially when they were a kid when they went there.
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The local theatre company did a production of TBCPE a coule of years ago and the girl who played Imogene was outstanding. It chokes me up, too...(Of course, it doesn't take much...!)
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Thank you for reminding me to reread The Secret Garden! It seems that I've always had a soft spot for villains - I loved Mary Lennox and her spoilt character. Probably there's a tiny hope for Draco after all...
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Thinking back I'd say the main things I looked for in a book were orphans and boarding schools--couldn't get enough of those. If they had parents I was very skeptical. ;-) I also loved ghosts and kids who got thrown back in time--Charlotte Sometimes, Courtyard of the Stone Children--John Bellairs, Robert Peck's "Blossom Culp" books. ::sigh:: Such great stuff out there. I have particularly fond memories of ones I discovered at camp, I think.