On the Classification of Age Ranges in Literature

[cindysphynx]

No: HPFGUIDX 32563

Interesting essay, Luke, and welcome back.

That said, I can't say I'm completely on board with the essay on  
whether HP is a children's book.  I reach the same conclusion (that 
the books are cross-generational) but for different reasons, which 
I'll get into later.

But here is a question for everyone, to which Luke alluded to in his 
excellent essay.  Why do we collectively spend so much time debating 
this issue?  If the NY Times hadn't yanked HP off of the main best 
seller list, would we still care?  I always wonder about that as I 
type out my long boring posts on the subject.

OK, on to specifics.

Luke wrote:

> NOTE: Throughout this entire post, especially the essay at the 
> bottom, I will use "children's book/literature" to also include 
> (without distinction) those books that are considered YA (Young 
> Adult), simply because this is most efficacious and seems to be in 
> keeping with the way previous discussion here has treated these 
>terms.

I am having a bit of trouble with the framework for this analysis.  I 
think a children's book (age up to 12) is very different from a YA 
book (teens).  It doesn't have to be, but it often is.  I'll admit 
that the whole age debate really is a continuum, so the line between 
children's books and YA books can get blurry.  But my experience with 
YA books (that is, those books marketed as YA) is that they are much 
more likely to have darker themes.  In other words, it isn't 
necessarily the complexity of the writing so much as the themes and 
subject matter that make the difference, but there does seem to be a 
difference.  

Cindy wrote:

> > If she pulls [an effective tragic ending] off, her work will stand
> > apart from a great deal of other fiction I've read, and no one
> > could ever make the claim that HP is a children's book.
> 
Luke questioned:

> Hmm . . . why is that?  A tragic ending and children's books are 
not 
> mutually exclusive.  > 

Uh, oh.  Let me backpedal a minute and clarify.  My thinking was 
(IIRC) that if JKR wrote a hideously tragic ending (like total 
destruction of the wizarding world), she would be far outside of what 
is normally seen in a children's book, and still a bit outside of 
what is usually seen in a YA book.  I suspect there are exceptions, 
but I think it is highly unusual for a children's book to have the 
hero die tragically.  (Although I will allow for the possibility that 
I simply selected lighter kids' books growing up and had not yet 
developed my more bloodthirsty tastes.)  :-)  

I wouldn't say that tragedy and children's books are always mutually 
exclusive (although I did pretty much say that in my prior post), but 
tragedy on the scale I am contemplating would be rare in children's 
literature, I think.  So maybe you would see a children's book where 
Betsy and the reader is crushed when she isn't picked to be a 
cheerleader in the end, but you usually don't see the school burned 
to the ground and the entire football team perish (to use an 
outlandish example).

Luke again:

> The possible standards that I thought of are:
> 
> 1) Readability and complexity of syntax
> 2) Appropriateness of content
> 3) Author's intention
> 4) Worldview and thematic complexity
> 5) Thematic relevancy
> 

I agree that these standards make sense.  There may be others, but as 
I can't think of any, I'll go with these.  Well, maybe we can throw 
Length into the mix, as I can't think of many 700 page kids books or 
25 page adult books.  But maybe Length is a subset of readability.

I think I would apply these standards a bit differently, though.  For 
instance, I think that Luke is correct that using readability alone 
makes a poor determinant of what is children's literature.  Same 
thing for author's intent and content.

Where I differ, I think, is in the application of the standard.  I 
wouldn't automatically allow Thematic Relevance to outweigh the other 
four.  Instead, I would probably use certain combinations of 
standards as determinative and then, in close cases, I would resort 
to reliance on Thematic Relevance as the tiebreaker.  

Put differently, regardless of how simply written a book is, no 
matter what the author's intent is, no matter how unrealistic its 
portrayal of worldview, Appropriateness of Content is probably the 
gatekeeper for what can be considered children's literature.  If the 
subject matter is not appropriate for children, the analysis may have 
to stop and the book may have to be classified as YA or adult. (I'll 
admit, however, that whether the subject matter is appropriate for 
children in turn depends on how it is presented, so maybe my thinking 
is just hopelessly circular).

This is a hard concept to try to describe, but I'm trying to say that 
I agree that some of the five standards Luke listed are poor 
standards when viewed in isolation.  But some of them are very useful 
for narrowing the issues before we use Thematic Relevance as the 
final test.

As I've said before (but clearly said very badly in my post about a 
tragic ending for HP), I think the series will probably be viewed as 
an adult series overall:

PS/SS = children's book
CoS = children's book
PoA = YA (I think PoA is YA because kids can read and enjoy it, but I 
think they'll understand it in only the most superficial way)
GoF = adult
Books 5, 6, 7 = probably adult based on the trend so far and on what 
JKR has said she intends to do 


Luke again (giving his verdict):

>[We] can probably stick to 
> the idea that it has, in practice, strong CROSS-GENERATIONAL appeal-

>snip>
 
> [We] must use the fifth standard most heavily, and by this 
> standard "Harry Potter" intends children as its primary audience 
> (and, by default, adults as its secondary).  

The question of cross-generational appeal is an interesting one.  PoA 
is a good test case.  Kids probably enjoy PoA because they understand 
it, they are surprised by the plot twist, and the character 
development is good.  Adults probably enjoy it for those same 
reasons, but also because they can appreciate the sophistication of 
the plot devices, the enormity of the task of writing so many sub-
plots that work together, and the foreshadowing in a way that 
children cannot.  So perhaps PoA has cross-generational appeal not 
because people of all ages can read it, but because they enjoy it for 
different reasons. 

Assuming that the last three books are written like GoF, I think it 
is a tough sell to say that the series overall is a children's 
series.  I think that four of the seven books will be adult books, so 
if we have to pull the trigger and make a decision, I would classify 
the entire series as adult because most of it is.  If we look only at 
the books to date, then I'd say they are predominately children's 
books (with a nasty shock in GoF for those expecting a children's 
book).  So my verdict is that we've all been enjoying children's 
books, but the adults on this list will all be vindicated when the 
final three books are released.

Cindy (going on record that she will still love Luke in the morning)