Whether or not they're children's books

[feetmadeofclay]

No: HPFGUIDX 82050

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Kagome Shikon Seeker" 
<KagomeShikonSeeker at B...> wrote:

> And yes, the plot gets darker in "Phoenix," a point Rowling thinks 
is so
> obvious by now it's hardly worth mentioning.  "I'm surprised that 
people are
> surprised that the series is getting darker, because the first book 
started
> with a murder.  And although you didn't see the murder happen, that 
for me
> was an announcement that these things would continue within the 
series."
> But she's not blind to the fact that very young children will want 
to read
> the books, and that they will be disturbed: "I was always 
ambivalent when
> people told me that they'd read the first book to their 6-year-old, 
because
> I knew what was coming.  And I have to say even with the first 
book, that is
> a scary ending."
> 
> /QUOTE

Rowling's simply wrong. Her book began with the Dursleys, not a 
murder.

Hansel and Gretel is about two children who hear their parents decide 
to abandon them to starvation during a famine.  The parents lead 
Hansel and Gretel into the forest and abandon them there.  The 
children are subsequently captured fattened up to be eaten and they 
end killing a person (in self defence of course).  Hansel and Gretel 
is a good deal more horrifying than much of HP.  Snow White is almost 
worse.

Kids love this stuff.  Rowling may be ambivilant but really there is 
nothing there most kids can't handle.  She hasn't included in PS 
anything so wildly different from children's stories and fairytales.  

She's simply wrong about it being too scary.  Kids see orphans all 
the time in books. Many kids grow up living lives with abuse.  Kids 
that don't are well served by understanding the the pain that others 
suffer when they loose loved ones and when people are abused.  

 If it isn't gory or really violent, most kids can handle sad and 
scary tales. Lemony Snicket's books actually begin with the death of 
the character's parents.  His Series of Unfortunate Events is a big 
hit with kids. Poor Beaudilares, nothing good happens to them.  In 
fact, most kids enjoy being scared.  Maria Tatar who annotated a book 
of fairy tales tells in interviews of how she agonized over including 
Bluebeard.  She worried over it and said if it scared kids in 
readings she wouldn't.  Instead she found kids enchanted by the story 
about a man who cut the heads off all his wives.  They LOVED it.   

Bambi is far more heatbreaking and I think I saw that at 5 or perhaps 
younger (Though it is hard for me to imagine what a 4 year old makes 
of death).  Rowling was skittish as any adult might be. It is nice 
that she worried, but there was no need. PS in comparison with 
Bambi's blood bath is rather happy go lucky.  

I know people who are reading their children Lord of the Rings and 
they are handeling that just fine - though the language often has to 
be explained or summed up. I see little ones at the LOTR movies all 
the time.  When you see them leaving, they are delighted and full of 
energy and ready to fight evil or become possessed by it.  

Though a parent should know their own child best.  Some children are 
particularly sensitive and that should be attended to on an 
individual basis.  

> Now, based on this statement alone - and it's direct from JKR's 
mouth - I'd
> say that HER intent is not a "children's book".  Hence any labeling 
of
> "children's book" was done after the fact, by the marketers and 
publishers.
> NOT by her.

Use the little "up thread" and see what she has said of take this 
quote.  

Rowling - 1998 - "I think it's wrong to think of adult books as 'real 
literature'. Real literature can be for people of nine and that's 
what I'm trying to write." 

Meaning of course she intends to write for children of nine.  

(I assume the targeted age has to do with COS or PS not OOTP.)


> The label is just a label.  Get over it, and stop thinking of it 
as "adult"
> or "children".  The truth is, this is one of those rare books (or 
series)
> that transcends the label, and is enjoyable by anyone, no matter 
their age.
> Giving it a label at all is pointless, foolish, and a waste of time.


My point is that this isn't rare.  Children's literature is a 
wonderful vibrant genre that is full of talented writers and 
wonderful stories.  Rowling isn't the only talented one. For whatever 
reason, her series is beyond popular. I won't try to imagine why.  
Some things are inexplicable.  And that is a good thing.

What I hope is that her success might break open the door to the 
store of wonderful children's literature being written. Just as I 
hoped when a comic won a Puliter Prize that people would begin to 
realize that genre does not determine quality.

It takes a special writer to write for children.  It takes the 
ability to formulate complex concepts in language that can reach 
those a range of reading abilities amongst those who aren't done 
learning how to read a novel. It has to entertain a person who might 
be learning something new on each page. A child's writer has to 
remember how it feels to be 7 or 9 or 15.  That isn't easy. Not 
everyone does that successfully.  

I like labels they help you compare work and see how writers play off 
one another and where they are coming from and what they are doing.  
It is a tool that is both useful and descriptive.  


Labels don't have to pigeon hole if you remember that labels aren't 
pigeon holes.  They are as flexible.  A book can be a children's 
book, a fantasy, a mystery and a historical novel all in one.  A 
picture book can also be a horror book.  A comic can be a political 
dystopia tale. Labels help examine what something is and is not.  For 
instance Dickens was not a fantasy novelist.  Is that bad?  No, he 
simply wasn't.    

All I am saying is that HP is not different enough or more 
sophisticated than other children's/YA literature.  So why should it 
trancend that label when other work doesn't?  Is it only because we 
as adults like it.  Will all the children's books on my shelf get 
that treatment?

That and I like the label.  I think children's writers are a very 
special and talented breed. I was hoping Rowling might lend respect 
to the whole genre.  

Golly