Children's Literature and adult categories

[A.E.B.Bevan at open.ac.uk]

No: HPFGUIDX 24548

Children and fiction

This leader from the Guardian (18 August 2001) may be of interest
it 
says the days of separate adults' and children's literature 
categories may be over as far a literary awards are concerned. 
(Occasion is inclusion of Philip Pullman into shortlist for the years 
Whitbread prize)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4241419,00.html

text includes:

This year's Whitbread children's shortlist contained two novels 
worthy of the overall prize, Coram Boy, by Jamila Gavin, and David 
Almond's Heaven Eyes.    Both stories have darker elements than their 
predecessors, though they are also life-filled and life-affirming. 
They offer a highly simplified view of experience, as do Pullman and 
JK Rowling. But so does much adult fiction. Segregation of genres may 
remain valid commercially and as a filter for parents. In judging the 
best writing, it is now redundant. 

And this in the `Independent on Sunday (19 August)- an interview with 
Philip Pullman

http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=89511

It has this section which may be fighting words in this forum:

>>>
Pullman is often mentioned in the same breath as J K Rowling: both 
create richly detailed magical universes, and both appeal to all 
ages. When asked whether Rowling caused a change in the way we view 
children's books, he sounds slightly hurt: 

"I like to think I played a part too, because my first book in the 
trilogy was published in 1995, before the first Harry Potter book, 
and I was getting picked up by adults right from the start."

Rowling's hissable villains tend to be signposted by evil names and 
nasty attributes: they are malevolent through and through.

With Pullman, you get the impression that his evil characters have 
chosen to be that way: "Free will is much more interesting. I like it 
when characters are surprised into good deeds. When a character whom 
you've come to think of as pretty warped and horrid suddenly does 
something that takes them by surprise by being rather good."
<<<

Um - maybe a considered comment might be given to the IOS?

Edis Bevan