They are children's books + Marketing

[feetmadeofclay]

No: HPFGUIDX 81948

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Penny Linsenmayer" 
<pennylin at s...> 

I daresay that books
like "Oliver Twist," and "To Kill a Mockingbird" might be marketed to
children if they were published today, but that doesn't transform
*them* into children's literature either.

I doubt it.  To Kill a Mocking Bird is a very sophisticated treatment.

But I believe Anne of Green Gables would have been. Today she would 
have been packaged as a children's heroine. She kind of is. But like 
HP she may have found a wider audience. Though I will qualify this 
with the need to say that I think Anne of Green Gables (the novel) is 
far superior to any of the HP novels.  Then it is superior to many 
books.   

The prose in Oliver Twist novels is quite advanced.  Several people I 
know read Dickens as young children, but I don't think they fully 
understood the books. Because of its difficulty, Dickens may have 
found such stories difficult to sell, but I doubt when he found a 
publisher they would have marketed his books to children.  

Catcher in the Rye is read by many teenagers, but it remains an adult 
novel. It was never marketed as a children's novel. 

Angela's Ashes was reviewed by Young Adult reviewers and stocked by 
school libraries, but it was mainly marketed and intended for an 
adult audience.  Its prose and characterization are probably the 
reasons for that.  Many (but not all) teenagers are capable of 
reading adult literature which makes writing for young adults a 
challange. But even a wonderful young adult novel will not challange 
me the way To Kill a Mocking Bird would.     

Of course there will be places where genres blend.  I don't believe 
HP is one of those places.  

Golly