Kiddie Lit? (was More Ginny, Hermione and the Curse of Mary Sue

Thu Feb 20 05:08:22 UTC 2003

No: HPFGUIDX 52565

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Penny Linsenmayer 
> It's just that the phrases "well, these are *just* kids' books so 
X, Y and Z naturally won't happen," or "even in a kids' book" - well, 
they tend to set me off a bit is all.  I think JKR has typically 
turned things on their head ...... so I don't know why classifying 
the books as "childrens' books" automatically means that certain plot 
points *won't* happen.  I think that's selling JKR short a bit myself.

Well, that's certainly not the subtext that I intended when I said 
they were books written for kids. I still think they are young adult 
novels (Rowling both uses and reinvents the tropes of young adult 
adventure novels and boarding school tales all over the place) but I 
wouldn't suggest that that means a particular plot development will 
or won't happen. In fact, the point of my original post was that I 
thought it was significant that imagery *not* typically associated 
with a YA novel was present in CoS.

And other people may not view the books as being written primarily 
for younger readers and that's an equally valid interpretation. 
*shrugs* I don't think, though, that classifying the books 
as "children's" or "young adult" literature takes anything *away* 
from them. There are plenty of novels that I would argue were written 
with young adults in mind that have an equally compelling adult 
reading as well: the Narnia books and A Wrinkle in Time spring 
immediately to mind, and I'm sure there are others. But, for me at 
least, a critical part of the adult reading of those books is a 
knowledge that they're intended for and illuminate things about 
childhood and young adulthood.

--Julie