OoP as "children's book" (was: Is Anyone Else's Head About to *Explode?*)

[Dicentra spectabilis]

No: HPFGUIDX 64473

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "wonderbreadweirdo"
<wonderbreadweirdo at y...> wrote:

Cindysphynx:
> > Ya know, OoP was a children's book.  Definitely.  Don't you think?  
> > Nope, there's no room for disagreement at all.  I mean, we got the 
> > same old Draco Malfoy taunts, for one thing.  I was expecting 
> > something a bit darker, a bit more serious.  

> I think that the only reason so many adult readers of OOTP accuse it 
> of "being a children's book" is because they have not read actual 
> children's books for so long. 

Hear hear!  I've been reading children's books all my life, and I'm
three times your age.  And yeah, even though children's books might
deal with death and other serious subjects, they don't do it like
this.  When someone dies, there's always someone to comfort the poor
kid (or they work it through somehow).  You don't have the hero crying
in the bushes at the end because he feels so empty he wants to die.

> There are very, very few children who would 
> comprehend many of the themes and subjects broached in these books. 

No kidding.  How many nine-year-olds can articulate the theme of
Memory and Forgetting in HP?  How many would be able to compare and
contrast HP with Greek Mythology and Roman History? ::waves to
Eileen::  How many show overt sadism without it being a total cartoon?  

Even in the "Series of Unfortunate Events," wherein that horrid Count
Olaf plots terrible, even nightmarish things, his plans are eventually
foiled by the ingenuity of the children in ways that are a bit, um,
unrealistic, if entertaining.  The kids come out no worse for the
wear, and the storytelling is highly stylized, which puts a degree or
two of distance between the reader and the situation, because you
can't ever forget that this is a literary creation.  JKR's prose, on
the other hand, is totally transparent, which hides its literariness
to the extent possible.  The result is that Harry actually bleeds; the
Baudelaire orphans don't.

People often compare HP to the Wizard of Oz.  I loved the Wizard of Oz
as a kid and read all of the original books.  Dorothy often found
herself in peril, but it was hard to take it seriously because you
knew she was going to come out unscathed.  The excitement was in
wondering *how* she was going to extract herself from the dilemma. 
Besides, in Oz, no one can die.

> As for the "Draco Malfoy 
> taunts" which are the only reasons I can see which you gave for it 
> being a children's book, perhaps they are only there to put things in 
> perspective for Harry, so to speak? To teach Harry that there are 
> many types of evil in the world and some, like the type embodied in 
> Draco Malfoy are not worth putting up with. That is only my 
> interpretation but perhaps you can get a better one from wiser, non-
> children book reading adults.

Actually, that's a very insightful and well-articulated point. 
Degrees of Evil is one of the themes of HP -- and one that younger
readers will miss entirely.  My take on Draco is that now that his
father is in Azkaban, he'll up the ante.  It will go beyond taunts and
pranks now: Draco will probably try to kill Harry, or at least send
him to St. Mungo's to hang out with Lockhart and the Longbottoms. 

> Yes I know this is an adult group. I just couldn't resist....People 
> who patronize make me mad *grumble*

I don't blame you.  And hey, you might not technically be an adult,
but it looks to me like you can keep up with our level of discussion.
 Stick around, eh?

--Dicentra