Children's books/Planning all seven; Potterverse Coherence

[Penny Linsenmayer]

No: HPFGUIDX 38889

Hi --

A battered & bruised, but determined, James posits:

<<<The books (especially the first one) WERE written for children.  JKR says so.>>>>>

I know that in the letter she wrote to her agent Chris Little, trying to sell him on the manuscript, and shown on the recent biography documentary of JKR, her wording says something about this book being written for or appropriate for children ages 9-12.  But, when we last discussed this, Amy Z quite rightly pointed out that this was (a) her view about the first book and only the first book, and (b) was written with the *purpose* of getting her book published.  

In recent months I've given alot of thought to the concept of the "market" or "target audience" for some things I'm working on (which could, incidentally, go either way: children or adults).  It seems to me that there's a difference between what you the writer might think of as your target audience and what you know the publisher will *think* is the target audience.  In other words, JKR may have been savvy enough to know by that point to know that she should try to sell it as a children's novel.  She apparently received a fair few rejections before Chris Little took her on as a client & sold the manuscript to Bloomsbury.  There's no telling whether the letter that was shown on the Biography special was the basic cover letter she had used from the beginning or if it was a revised version based on her history of multiple rejection notes. 

As Amy pointed out a few months ago I think -- we don't know really what JKR thinks or will think about the "target audience" of the later books.  I think PS/SS *is* appropriate for 9-12 yr olds.  But, I don't think the *series* constitutes a "children's series."      

And, more importantly, I think it's better to look at everything JKR has said about her audience and her intentions *since* the first book was published.  Below are links to several interviews where she explicitly says, time and again, that she didn't set out to write for children (or write fantasy!), doesn't write with a target group in mind and doesn't intend to change her plans for the sensibilities of her younger readers:

http://www.scholastic.com/harrypotter/author/interview.htm

http://www.geocities.com/aberforths_goat/July_2000_Malcolm_Jones_Newsweek.htm

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/feature/-/6230/002-9306298-5740852

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/entertainment/newsid_944000/944728.stm

There are others that don't appear to have online links ... but that's the gist.  The most comprehensive one on this topic, IMO, is a 2-part interview that appeared in Entertainment Weekly in August 2000 -- couldn't find any online links to it though.

I said:

> The books are not, IMO, "meant" for children.  They have a 
> protagonist who is a child when the series begins.  Harry and his 
> friends will be adults (or late-term adolescents if you're unable 
> to stomach the notion that 17/18 yr olds are adults) at the end of 
> the series (if they survive).  The books have so far been marketed 
> to children, but I think even the publishers have now realized 
> that this series has unprecedented cross-generational appeal.  I 
> also think that the publishers are going to have a very, very hard 
> time marketing OOP to the "9-12" yr old set.  

Barb responded:

<<<<Thank you, Penny!  This is something I think people forget far too 
often.  In a way, I'm not a bit sorry that she's taking a while to 
release book five, when Harry will be turning fifteen and then 
almost reaching his sixteenth birthday.  If it comes out in 2003, my 
kids will be turning 9 and 11 that year.  I plan to read the book 
first so I can tell where I may have to warn them of particularly 
scary or nerve-wracking events.>>>>

Yes, the more I think about it, the less likely it seems that the marketing can continue to narrowly slot the books as "9-12."  This doesn't mean that there won't be some kids in the 9-12 age group who can read & fully understand what's going on & appreciate the plot & subplots.  But, I think many (most?) 9 year olds may have a hard time relating to 15/16 yr old Harry in the same way that they related to 10/11 yr old Harry in PS/SS.  Think about it.  Isn't there a *huge* difference between 9 yr olds and 16 yr olds?  Yes, IMO.  

Now, for Barb's kids, this isn't likely to be too big a problem.  As she said, her kids are probably going to age right along with Harry & his peers at about the right pace.  But, what about my 1 year old daughter?  By the time she's old enough to read & appreciate PS/SS, all 7 books will probably be available.  What do the parents of 8 yr olds in 2010 do?  Do they let them start the series, but warn them that they may not want to finish it just yet?  Let them figure it out on their own?  Let them read all 7 but guide them through it?  Let them read the books until they reach the point where they seem uninterested or unable to follow?  Tough questions.

I just think people need to consider that the adventures of 15/16 yr old Harry in OOP, 16/17 yr old Harry in Book 6 and 17/18 yr old Harry in the final book are not really the adventures of a "child."  I personally think he'll be an adult before the end of the final book ... JKR has billed it as a "coming of age" book after all.  So, it stands to reason that if Harry survives, he'll be "of age" at the end of the series.  I'm not suggesting that the books are all fully "adult novels."  I just don't think they are "childrens' books" necessarily either, and I definitely don't think that the final 3 books will qualify for where the books are currently shelved in bookstores ("intermediate fiction: ages 9-12).  Interestingly, for example, I was recently in a Waldenbooks & looking for a particular childrens' author.  I noted that the HP books are shelved in intermediate fiction but C.S. Lewis' Narnia series is shelved in "young adult."  These classifications seem so arbitrary and bizarre IMO.        

COHERENCE IN THE POTTERVERSE --

David asked:

<snip> They are, I admit, based on the way I read the first three books, in turn based on my experience of the types of literature out of which HP seems to have sprung.  If you read the Jennings series by Anthony Buckeridge (or any other school series), or the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett (or most other fantasy series: I except Tolkien, of course), it is obvious that you are reading a collection of episodes loosely linked together in the same fictional environment.  In the school series there is usually not even any attempt to pretend that the characters are getting any older.>>>>>>

But, JKR has said that she really views the series as one long novel, broken into 7 convenient chunks.  I don't think that HP was ever intended to be episodic, and I don't think it *is* episodic.  We are gradually learning more & more about the central mysteries of the series in each successive books, like layers being peeled away.  I think this is purposeful.  I think the little details that get planted in earlier books and take on more importance in a later book are planted in the early volumes with this in mind.

<<<<<<So, to give some examples.  When I read COS, and Harry's Parseltongue turned out to be central to the solution of the mystery, my reaction was not: How clever of JKR to put that bit of foreshadowing in the zoo scene in PS; it was: How lucky for JKR that she had put that random bit of underage magic in PS to pick up on and use.  Even Hagrid's expulsion I saw in the same light.

In POA, I assumed that the idea that Scabbers was an animagus was something that JKR had only thought up when writing that book.  That McGonagall is an animagus was to me just part of the common currency of fantasy literature - <snip>

In GOF, it never occurred to me that Polyjuice had been *foreshadowed* in COS, even after Crouch was revealed: I assumed that Crouch was not even a twinkle in JKR's eye when Hermione brewed Polyjuice for the first time.>>>>>>

Fascinating!  Really?  See, I definitely assume that she knows exactly what she's doing when she plants these details in the earlier books.  She did spend years plotting out the stories & researching and making voluminous notes.  I think she is likely changing small details that turn out to be problematic as Barb mentions ... but I think she knows exactly where she's going with the overall story arc.  Are you suggesting David that she wrote PS/SS and then said to herself, "Okay, so what happens next to Harry?" and then set out to develop from whole cloth the events of CoS?  I realize you didn't know it at the time, because you mention that you read the first 3 books & then read secondary materials like interviews with JKR, but it's very obvious to me from her statements that she has a grand master plan.  I don't think she ever intended them to be "episodic" and she recalls asking her agent or publisher at an initial meeting how he felt about "sequels."  She then proceeded, apparently, to outline the whole plot & story arc for the planned 7 volumes.  I think "sequels" (and especially her statement about viewing the series as one very long novel, broken into 7 parts) is a strong indicator that her books are not, and were never intended to be, episodic.

Funny.  I don't suppose I read any interviews or book reviews or anything of that nature when I picked up SS for the first time.  I read it, immediately picked up CoS, and then immediately picked up POA, devouring them all within the space of a week.  I then searched out everything I could find on Rowling or the books.  But, it never occurred to me that the books were episodic in the nature that you suggest, David.  While I didn't *know* there was a grand master plan in the works, I think I must have suspected as much.

<<<<Here are some issues that look different if you regard the series as episodic: is there anything more to Snape, other than what JKR chooses to make up *after* the publication of GOF?  Was he an ex-DE in POA and before?  If the notorious Prank is alluded to again, will there just be another twist in a mystery that has no actual resolution in JKR's mind, in the spirit of X-Files?  Or is it forgotten now, as one suspects the singing Valentine is?  Are these backstories a gigantic bluff?>>>>>>>

Well, I know in that recent biography special on JKR, she states that she knows *everything* about the characters.  She said something like "I know things the readers don't need to know, but that's as it should be.  You want the person in control to have the full picture in mind" (that's a loose paraphrase by the way).  I don't know why she *would* bluff about that.  I think there are things within her magical fictional world that she may not have thought through in the same way that some of us have, and I'd like to think she's spending this extra time with OOP to minimize or eliminate things that just don't add up when scrutinized closely.  But, I do believe whole-heartedly that she has a firm handle on her characters and their backgrounds & futures.  I just wish she understood how badly so many of her fans want to know *everything.*  I think she should eventually publish every little note she's ever scribbled regarding the Potterverse.  <g>

<<<<So, is JKR a brilliant opportunist, or does she transcend the genres from which her stories spring?>>>>>>

Well, as is probably fairly obvious, I don't think her stories spring from "episodic" tales, particularly "episodic boarding school" tales.  I don't think the HP series bears any resemblance at all to books such as the Nancy Drew & Hardy Boy mysteries or the Bobbsey Twins.  I can't comment on Enid Blyton as I've not yet ever read any of her books (likewise can't comment on any of the other "boarding school" genre books that are sometimes mentioned as a point of comparison).  IMO, the books that bear the most structural resemblance (but no resemblance substantively) to HP are the 7 "Little House" books by Laura Ingalls Wilder (in which the protagonist matures from a young child (younger than Harry at the beginning of SS) to an adult woman who has just married).  But, that's just a structural comparison.  I think JKR draws from so many different sources that it's difficult to pin down the exact roots of her series to any one "genre."  

Penny





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