Are HP Books Child's Tales? (Was Re: World Building And The Potterverse)

[Goddlefrood]

No: HPFGUIDX 167637

> > Betsy Hp:
> > I think it was more that she didn't like the idea that her 
books were *merely* children's books, in that they were somehow 
lesser than.  I can't recall the quote, but I think she said 
something to the effect of not coming at the series as if she 
were writing children's books.

> Magpie:

> Being somebody who also hates the idea that books written for 
children are supposed to somehow be lesser than books for adults, 
I believe what she said was that she just wrote the story she 
wanted to write and it turned out to be a children's book. In 
the past people have used that quote to try to prove they're not 
children's books, but of course she's actually validating 
that's exactly what they are. If they weren't they wouldn't be 
published by the people who published them. As the series has 
gone on they've become YA.

Goddlefrood:

JKR has stated the following, apart from in interviews with less 
than small nosed Englishmen :):

"When did the idea for Harry Potter first enter your head?

I didn't know then that it was going to be a book for children - 
I just knew that I had this boy. Harry. During that journey I 
also discovered Ron, Nearly Headless Nick, Hagrid and Peeves. 
But with the idea of my life careering round my head, I didn't 
have a pen that worked!"

Later in the same interview:

"And Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban?

The idea that children would queue up in bookshops to buy copies 
of my books delighted me. But there are other more disconcerting 
sides to that level of publicity - having your photograph appear 
regularly in the papers is not something I ever anticipated. But 
all the time, children are reading the books. And we know now 
that adults are reading the books, too. And they like them. 
That's what I remember when I'm feeling besieged."

Both from Lindsay Fraser. "Harry Potter - Harry and me," The 
Scotsman, November 2002. Can be summoned from:

http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2002/1102-fraser-scotsman.html

Additionally on NPR Radio on 20th October 1999 JKR answered:

"Sean Bullard question01: Yes. You know, it sounds so much better 
when you're reading it. The first question ... "did you write the 
book for children or adults"?

J.K. Rowling: Um ... I wrote it for me. Er ... so both. Because 
... er ... I wrote something that I knew I would like to read now, 
but I also wrote something that I knew I would have liked to have 
read aged 10. So I, I never really wrote with um, with anyone in 
mind. I ... I ... I still don't write with an imaginary focus 
group in mind. I have been asked time without number 'why are the 
books so popular?', and the tru ... I, and ... I don't want to 
analyse that. I ... I don't want to decide that there's a formula;
I really don't want to look at that too closely, 'cos I want to 
carry on writing them the way I want to write them and not um, 
you know, start trying to put ingredient X in there. It's for 
other people to decide that, not me I think."

Audio link to this interview is available here:

http://www.npr.org/programs/npc/1999/991020.jkrowling.html

So, as we see from the above, JKR wrote them primarily for 
herself with no particular audience in mind, at least initially. 
The books work for all ages, as this group clearly attests.

Btw while Scholastic may be considered as a Children's poublisher
Bloomsbury primarily is not. If the books were not recognised as 
transcending classification by age group it would not be likely
that Bloomsbury would publish an adult edition.

Therefore, I agree with Magpie to an extent :) and also with Betsy
Hp, but state that M. Paxman, as the French call him ;), often
puts words into other's mouths. Not meaning any offense thereby :)

Goddlefrood, another large hootered, opinionated Englishman :)