It's All About The Story
Oct. 7th, 2012 01:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bloodyrosemccoyOh, swell. Just what we need: Another journalist talking out of his ass about YA fiction.
Call me crazy, but I'd say the reason different books appeal to different people isn't the people's age, it's that they're different people. There's no dichotomy between What Kids Like and What Grownups Like, like some sad Venn diagram without even its edges touching. There's no reason to assume that something adults like is automatically Not For Kids.
Kois is right about one thing: as an adult I don't respond to The Giver. And I didn't when I was ten, either. I've enjoyed crazy fantasies and space adventures--including the ones Kois maintains are Only For Adults*--since learning how to read. I'd go into the adult fiction section at the library and grab a bunch of paperbacks, then move on to YA and juvie fiction and grab a bunch more. Still do. My taste--my sense of what makes a good story--has remained remarkably consistent over the years.
On the other hand, I know people who loved The Giver when they were kids--and still do almost twenty years later.
So maybe it's not so much about your age. Maybe it's your individual taste. And maybe it's totally possible to make a book that appeals to kids and adults, so that the Venn diagram overlaps. And maybe--just maybe--that's why the books in both circles are so darn popular.
Protip: Aside from dismissing all the kids and grownups who don't fit into your Taste Somehow Does A One-Eighty In Your Late Teens theory, maybe it's a good idea if the title of your article doesn't insult, y'know, every children's author ever. Except Lois, I guess.
Special Note To Lois Lowry: My terribly belated condolences.
*Weirdly enough, when I was a kid I used to wonder what magical point in my life would change me so I liked boring grownup books. I couldn't imagine why I'd change, but most people seemed to imply that action and adventure were For Kids. So it's doubly strange that this article relegates the kinds of books where things actually happen to the adult world. Usually it's the other way around.
Call me crazy, but I'd say the reason different books appeal to different people isn't the people's age, it's that they're different people. There's no dichotomy between What Kids Like and What Grownups Like, like some sad Venn diagram without even its edges touching. There's no reason to assume that something adults like is automatically Not For Kids.
Kois is right about one thing: as an adult I don't respond to The Giver. And I didn't when I was ten, either. I've enjoyed crazy fantasies and space adventures--including the ones Kois maintains are Only For Adults*--since learning how to read. I'd go into the adult fiction section at the library and grab a bunch of paperbacks, then move on to YA and juvie fiction and grab a bunch more. Still do. My taste--my sense of what makes a good story--has remained remarkably consistent over the years.
On the other hand, I know people who loved The Giver when they were kids--and still do almost twenty years later.
So maybe it's not so much about your age. Maybe it's your individual taste. And maybe it's totally possible to make a book that appeals to kids and adults, so that the Venn diagram overlaps. And maybe--just maybe--that's why the books in both circles are so darn popular.
Protip: Aside from dismissing all the kids and grownups who don't fit into your Taste Somehow Does A One-Eighty In Your Late Teens theory, maybe it's a good idea if the title of your article doesn't insult, y'know, every children's author ever. Except Lois, I guess.
Special Note To Lois Lowry: My terribly belated condolences.
*Weirdly enough, when I was a kid I used to wonder what magical point in my life would change me so I liked boring grownup books. I couldn't imagine why I'd change, but most people seemed to imply that action and adventure were For Kids. So it's doubly strange that this article relegates the kinds of books where things actually happen to the adult world. Usually it's the other way around.
