Some writers seem to feel that writing for children is a lesser art form, even that it's "beneath" them.
We at La Gr@not@ (http://la-granota.com) believe that the very reverse is true. It takes a writer of real talent to write for children without "writing down" to them. To treat them as a public deserving of quality... and of our respect.
We also believe that it's one of the most important reading publics that exist. Just think about it: Most adults read for one of the following reasons:
:
To keep themselves informed (news media, current affairs, non-fiction)
To exercise their brains (who-dunnits, thought-provoking fiction, philosophy, etc.)
To entertain themselves (fiction of all kinds)
To have a good laugh (GOOD humour, the "Twilight" series and other non-intentionally funny books)
To "edify" themselves (religious and spiritual fiction and non-fiction)
To turn themselves on sexually (erotica, pornography)
To "improve" themselves (self-help, religion, erotica...)
To escape from reality (romantic fiction, historical dramas, dubious "non-fiction")
Out of obligation (reading for studies or work)
Just because they're bored and the telly's on the blink / they're in some foreign hotel without telly from "home"
To snort derisively at "the drivel that some people write"
Children have 3 main reasons to read:
[At a young age] To feel proud of themselves: "I can READ!!!"
To spend quality time with their parents (often including cuddling [one of my favourite activities]): "Daddy, can you read me a story?" (then sometimes reading it TO Daddy)
To [help] open the doors to this marvelous, new WORLD that they're constantly discovering.
I'm not a fan of all of the reasons that adults might have for reading. But the reasons that children have are all gems.
Let's not fob them off with thin gruel. Boring, repetitive crap of the Enid Blyton school, warmed-over conservative values from the 50s coupled with self-glorification ("Us versus Them"/"WE are the Good Guys. Let's kick some Baddie BUTT!") of the Harry Potter school.
Let's give them something worthy of their attention and trust. Something we can be PROUD of having written.
Do you STILL think that it's a lesser art form?
p.s. Happy Birthday, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland!
I would like to clarify: I didn't mean that books for children SHOULD be 'dumbed down', in fact I meant the opposite. That you don't need to do that if you present ideas in the right way. I also know that children aren't stupid and that they understand a lot more than you realise they do.
At the same time, there's nothing wrong with giving them simplistic or fantasy stories, and letting them be children. Like they learn to read at their own pace, they'll find the genre and level of writing they enjoy, as long as there's a decent choice. Also, they won't care if all the Enid Blyton- or any other series of stories, are basically the same. Heck, they ask for the EXACT SAME book to be read to them every night for years, and a lot of people (children and adult) have a 'favourite' they read multiple times, so what's wrong with similar story lines?
Children are clever, and they do deserve good books, but they're not analysing them the same way adults do. Or at least I never did, not until I had to for school and by then I'd moved on to adult books anyway.
Passioned defence of quantity at the expense of quality. What are we coming to?!
@ Jonathan Parker:I have always wondered just what [the hell] people mean by "post-feminism". I know that "post" means "after". so, grammatically, "post-feminism" means "after feminism". I can only pity anybody who thinks that feminism is a thing of the past. Or does it mean "after the start of the feminist movement"? In this case, I pity anybody who finds it necessary to obscure their agenda by using "post-feminism" instead of "retrograde machismo" or "new feminism" or whatever [the hell] they mean by it.
Actually, I rather suspect that the term was invented by - and continues to be used by - the sort of male-chauvinist public-opinion-manipulators (of either sex, e.g. Macho Maggie Thatcher and a host of sexist spin-doctors) who wish that the feminist movement had never occurred. And they're the ones I pity the most.
"Enid Blyton - who was, quite possibly the most influential and greatest children's writer since Lewis Carroll" This is worthy of spelling it out in full: Falls On Floor And Rolls About Laughing. Or - if you prefer - Laughing My Arse Off. There's no doubt that Blyton was influential (more's the pity!). HITLER was influential. STALIN was influential. No doubt THERE. But when you use the word "great" about a writer, you're really supposed to confine its use to describing the QUALITY of their work. Otherwise you're just confusing your readers.
If you consider that the real worth of a piece of literature can be measured by the number of people who flock to buy the book (as you seem to do by citing the sales successes of Blyton and Rowling), you're inviting the obvious rebuttal: "Let's all eat shit! Billions of flies just can't be wrong!"
Since you dare to mention Blyton [positively] in the same sentence as Carroll - and since you elsewhere plead that the value of a book and/or its political views must be judged in the light of the age in which it was written, might I be so bold as to point out that Carroll WAS ahead of his time, especially in his feminism and respect for the integrity and intelligence of children. Somebody - like Blyton - who DECADES later tried to drag literature for children back into its condescending, moralistic, sexist past (and hugely succeeded) deserves nothing but contempt.
I notice that you scored an own goal: "the usual postmodern and/or postfeminist [sic] clap trap [sic] which tends to dominate good literature these days". i.e. GOOD literature is dominated by these values.
Crap literature will continue to criticise feminism and other positive values, like ecology as preferable to greed, or social conscience as opposed to "F@#^ you, Jack! I'm alright." And it will find millions of human flies to gobble it up.
It's just a shame that they're passing this shit on to their children.