Comments on Author/Illustrator Matthew Holm: Do books for kids and teens need to have kids and ...

Happy to see this interesting topic. Glad you inc...

2007-11-12T15:22:00.000-08:00

Happy to see this interesting topic. Glad you included The Hobbit..my kids also read Lord of the Rings (pre movie) at ten years old.

I loved all the Asimov I Robot series when young.....also, my parents had a complete set of children's works (like encyclopedia sets) so we could just pick whatever we felt like reading at the moment.....adult heros of the West like Lewis and Clark, fairy stories, poetry, Greek myths.

I think the furry animal adults like Ratty and Badger, Aslan, etc. serve as a bridge between adult and child states. Aslan doesn't treat the children as children, but as human begins.

What can you say about Amelia Bedilia? An adult with child like perceptions? Almost like the "foolish young man" in fairy stories.

Consider biographies and autobiographies written for kids (trust me-they have to read them for book reports)
Many have a vocabulary that's limited, but the real story of a real adult is still interesting for many kids. Some kids prefer these books.
so why not fictional adult protagonists?

So I think there's a wave of interest as far as kids go if given a vocabulary they can handle-and it's part of acknowledging that we are all in the world together, not in age groupings just because school is set up that way.

I can think of one example of a kids book about ad...

2007-11-07T19:24:00.000-08:00

I can think of one example of a kids book about adults that I loved then and now:
The Pushcart War

"...if they're the main character they may have to...

2007-11-07T09:54:00.000-08:00

"...if they're the main character they may have to be a little stunted in their emotional/social development so that they aren't always worrying about making the rent, car payments, keeping their jobs, their relationships with their aging parents and on and on."

Yes! Perhaps this is why the sorts of stories where this works usually involve a quest or war—in general, a journey away from home during which time all of those concerns of everyday life are ignored.

"It's tough to be a kid and possess true freedom o...

2007-11-07T09:39:00.000-08:00

"It's tough to be a kid and possess true freedom of action, which is why, for escapist literature (which I guess is what I prefer), child characters will always feel limited."

I think that's why it's so difficult to do a good kid mystery. It's hard for the kid detective to get around.

So what you're interested in is stories with "young" themes, adventure storylines, and a protagonist adult enough to have true, rather than contrived, freedom of action? Okay. I can buy that.

It's probably harder to do than it sounds, though, because in my experience, it's hard to keep adult characters from taking over a kids' book, anyway, and if they're the main character they may have to be a little stunted in their emotional/social development so that they aren't always worrying about making the rent, car payments, keeping their jobs, their relationships with their aging parents and on and on.

The rub is that most of those books with adult cha...

2007-11-07T08:53:00.000-08:00

The rub is that most of those books with adult characters have adult themes and storylines that are either inappropriate or uninteresting to kids. What kid wants to read John Updike? But many kids (and I was in this group) prefer books that deal with themes and storylines that interest them (i.e., perhaps, like most sci-fi and fantasy, they are more socially simplistic; perhaps they deal with grand adventure and personal heroism, rather than the minutiae of interpersonal relationships), but that have adult characters. The Hobbit is a kids' book—but Bilbo Baggins is 50 years old! As is the case with many classics, this book could probably never be published today.

As a kid, my desire was not to be a kid that went on an adventure, but to be an adult who went on an adventure. As a kid, you often want to slip free of the bonds of being a kid. Harry Potter and Taran and Peter Parker overturn those things slightly, because they are empowered (or superpowered) kids—but the characters are still, ultimately, trapped in the mundane torments and strictures of childhood. Harry still is not allowed to go to the town of Hogsmeade when he wishes, be out of his dorm room, etc., because he is too young. He still has to do homework!

Adults don't face the same restrictions. Star Wars can't get started until Luke's Aunt and Uncle are killed, and he is made into an adult. It's tough to be a kid and possess true freedom of action, which is why, for escapist literature (which I guess is what I prefer), child characters will always feel limited. And as a kid, sometimes you want to cease feeling limited, if only for an hour or two.

"I think there is no dearth of stories for kids wi...

2007-11-07T07:25:00.000-08:00

"I think there is no dearth of stories for kids with kids as characters, and allowing adult protagonists into the genre would not, I think, push out all of the kid-protagonist books. So I doubt that we would limit kid readers' choices in any way."

That's very true. On the other hand, all the adult books out there are already available to kid readers. Since that is the case, is it necessary to bring adult protagonists into the children's field? What will be gained?

Gail:

I think there is no dearth of stories...

2007-11-07T06:56:00.000-08:00

Gail:

I think there is no dearth of stories for kids with kids as characters, and allowing adult protagonists into the genre would not, I think, push out all of the kid-protagonist books. So I doubt that we would limit kid readers' choices in any way.

I guess I wonder if there are not books/stories that are de facto children's books/stories, despite the fact that the protagonists are not 12 years old. And that a significant portion of young readers prefer that type of book over the type of book featuring 12-year-old kids.

As a kid, I clearly identified more with Luke Skywalker and Han Solo than I did with the characters from Little House on the Prairie or How to Eat Fried Worms. Kids love the Arthur legends, stories about Hercules, Superman, etc. etc. And, as R.J. said, maybe it's just the myths/fantasies that allow us to cut across age groups like that. (And maybe it's the fact that, personally, I am still not terribly enthralled with much realistic fiction; I'm just a fantasy/sci-fi kind of guy.) But the fact remains that many stories, starring adults, have very simplistic, non-adult themes that kids really enjoy. No one could argue that the 1980s' GI Joe cartoons/comics, despite their lack of any child characters whatsoever, were for anything but an 8-12-year-old audience. Perhaps this is a new sub-genre?

Came here from Fuse #8, and glad I did. I've just ...

2007-11-07T06:09:00.000-08:00

Came here from Fuse #8, and glad I did. I've just been re-reading the Prydain books to my son, and you know what? Taran is really only identifiable as a child/teen in the first two -- three at most. And even that's stretching it, considering the amount of independence and authority he exercises over the course of the series. By the time of books 4 and 5 he comes across as decidedly twentysomething -- his whole quest to find his identity and position in life is such a guy-in-his-early-twenties thing, at least in our present culture, and the leadership role he takes in the last book would be ludicrous if he weren't recognizably a man.

Having read pretty much all the same books as you did as a child and teen, plus some, I agree with you that it is not necessary for a book written for children to contain characters who are only a couple of years older than the children doing the reading. As long as those characters are going through struggles and challenges that the child reader can identify with and appreciate, that's what really matters, IMO.

Mind you, I think fantasy gives a bit more wiggle room in this area than some other genres. All of us who grew up reading fairy tales and myths are already used to identifying with adult or pseudo-adult characters.

I think that readers identify with the characters ...

2007-11-07T06:03:00.000-08:00

I think that readers identify with the characters in the books they're reading. It's a normal part of the reading process. It's one thing for a young reader to choose to identify with adult characters in adult books. The world is full of books with adult characters that they can choose from. But I find the idea of the publishing world (which is made up of the adults who control what kids read, anyway) creating books around adult characters that kids will then need to identify with in order to enjoy the book a little disturbing.

When kids choose to read adult books, they are choosing. But if we open up the definition of what is a children's book and start creating children's books around adult characters and their needs and concerns, we're limiting their choices. They don't have the option to stay in a kids' book world if adults can go anywhere. We're also suggesting that adults and adult concerns are of such value that that is what they should be reading about vs. their own kid problems.

To say nothing of the fact that I really, really need definitions. If you're going to eliminate kid and YA characters as part of the definition of a kid/YA book, then how are you going to define it?

All so very true. There is an odd exception to th...

2007-11-03T08:34:00.000-07:00

All so very true. There is an odd exception to this rule, though. If the heroes are furry woodland animals then it's perfectly fine for them to be adults. Redwall and the like.

Great post!