Still trying to get my mind off this nausea...

[dc]

Here's an article by Ursula Le Guin, advocating the view that fantasy is not just for children, which is fair enough. A lot of her comments are very sensible (particularly the point about not talking down to children in writing). The bit I am not sure about is this:

As for "genre" fiction — mystery, horror, romance, science fiction — none of it is for children; they begin to read it as they approach their teens, but not before. The only kind of fiction that is read with equal (if differing) pleasure at eight, and at 16, and at 68, seems to be the fantasy and its close relation, the animal story.

I suppose her get-out-of-jail-free card here is the bit about approaching their teens: does that mean genre fiction read by a twelve-year-old does not break this rule since he or she is not a child but someone "approaching their teens"? What about someone who is eleven? Or ten? Nine?

The thing is, I remember the books that were being read when I was at primary school. There was a class library, a big bookcase at the front of the room, and we could borrow books from it. As well as some classics (Three Musketeers and the like), there was science fiction of a sort (though not much, which irritated me); there were Westerns (never much interested me, but a lot of my classmates loved them; there was a Lone Ranger book, I recall); definitely there were mystery stories, one of the most popular books was called Key To Danger which both I and my best friend at the time read several times; plus, naturally I suppose, the school genre (Billy Bunter, that sort of thing, and whatever the girls' equivalent was — the Chalet School?). Oh, yes, and war stories. In fact, lots and lots of genre fiction. The one genre which was not represented at all as far as I can recall was fantasy.

Then there was the kids' section of the public library. I still remember that place well, it had a marvellous smell of polished wood and books. Loved it from the first time my parents took me there. Again, the place was absolutely full of genre fiction of various sorts (but not a lot of fantasy; some, but not lots, and what there was was mainly the real classics like Alice in Wonderland). The stuff I focussed on was mostly the SF and mystery fiction, of which there was a lot, but there was a great deal of Western and war stuff, too.

OK, this was a while ago. But if kids were reading and enjoying genre fiction then, there is no reason why they should not be doing the same just now, apart, perhaps, from the fashions of the publishing industry.

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Meh. It's not working. I am going to have to try lying down to see if this nausea will pass. Getting waterbrash now...

Comments

[pickwick.livejournal.com]

Yay the Chalet School :) (Also all the Enid Blyton school stories, and probably Pony stuff...)

We definitely read The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe at primary school, and the Horse and his Boy, and I read the rest of the Narnia books at an early age. I think we read The Phantom Tollbooth as well, and I read The Hobbit at home, and was mainlining Diana Wynne Jones from the public library from about 8 years old.

[tanngrisnir.livejournal.com]

Actually, The Phantom Tollbooth may have been there, although I don't know that I would have categorised it as fantasy in Le Guin's classification in this article. I would tend to put it more in horror.

Not surprised there was more fantasy around when you were a kid, being as how you are a wee bit younger than me. I suspect there would have been a lot less Western and war fiction in your day.

[pickwick.livejournal.com]

Heh, yeah. I don't recall any Westerns at all, and any war fiction was a bit tangential - I remember When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit and Carrie's War (though I seem to only remember their existence rather than any details about plot!) and Anne Frank, of course. And a strange series about lovestruck teenagers in Ireland during the Troubles.

[tanngrisnir.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, Ann Frank. That was around, of course.

And, er, the Troubles only really got going a year or two before I left primary school.

See, ancient, me. ;o)

[luvlymish.livejournal.com]

Well there were a lot of school story type things for girls including The Chalet School but I think a better equivalent to Billy Bunter might be Enid Blyton's Malory Towers or St Clares series.

[tanngrisnir.livejournal.com]

I shall take your word for it. I think you will appreciate that I did not pay too much attention to the details of what the girls were reading. The girls' stuff/boys' stuff divide was a very clearly observed one back then. ;o)

[luvlymish.livejournal.com]

True.

[happybat.livejournal.com]

Something I notice with the kids at school is that while a lot of them read 'genre' fiction in first year (11 going on 12), most of them do not have the literary background to identify it as such - they respond to the text itself rather than the text as part of a literary tradition. Which can make for some interesting insights - why is it that books about ghosts ARE a genre, and books about motorbikes AREN'T?

Of course, we knock all that out of them within a year or so... *sigh*

[tanngrisnir.livejournal.com]

Actually, I always thought books about motorbikes were a genre. ;o)

I think that when I was at school, Westerns were identifiably a genre (in we would look for a given type of story), and so were war stories and SF, but everything else was just books.

[happybat.livejournal.com]

Mmm... I know mine have a tendency to identify a particular author ("I love Jacqualine Wilson books!" usually) and seek out more by that author, but I don't see a massive transferrance ("Because I like JW, I will go read some Meg Cabot, which is practically the same but American"), mostly because my little ones tend not to be sophisitcated enough readers to spot likenesses between texts. Hell, most of mine can't tell fiction from non-fiction...

As a child myself, I was very lucky because my library usefully coralled off the SF and Fantasy adult books (with a big sign to tell me that's what they were) and put them right next to the children's section, which made for a lovely easy transition between the two.

I wonder whether the very readily identifiable covers for Westerns - orange or red landscape with man on horse - helped in genre identification.

[tanngrisnir.livejournal.com]

That's quite good. There is a surprising number of adults, ISTR, who do not make a connection between the author of a book they like and other books by the same author at all.

I know that when I was a kid, I always kept my eyes peeled for W.E. Johns, and, later, Asimov and Clarke.

Our library setup was rather different: the kids' section was a completely separate room, on a separate floor, from the adults', so when you made the transition, you were immediately in a completely strange environment. I think I started to pick up the idea of genres before that, possibly from stuff on BBC2 at the time.

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

Well when I was a youngster I was a veracious reader, going thru 3-4 books a week until the local branch library ran out of books in the children's section for me and had to issue me an adult library card so I could take the rest out.

I certainly read SF, Western, Mystery, Action/Adventure and Fantasy Genre books, and there were books in all those generes in both sections of the library.

[hermi-nomi.livejournal.com]

It's hard for me to remember what was on the shelves at my junior school library. I know there were defiently Narnia books, roald Dahl, Dick-King Smith and Famous Five books. The thing is, fantasy has been the staple of my reading diet my whole life. I don't really remember there being anything else. As I grew older I read e.g Run Swift, Run Free (and I've just amazoned it and had a burst of nostalgia 'cos I was never able to get my hands on that book outside of school,) more Dick-King Smith, Watership Down and The Cold Moons (animal fantasy) ~ and then I started reading Terry Pratchett (mad fantasy.) Once I'd started reading specific fantasy I was hooked, although I do read more widely now. Do you know that I can't think, off the top off my head what else I read between the ages of, oh 14 ~18yrs old? Oh ~ The Railway Children ~which reminds me, I also read Heidi, Black Beauty, The Secret Garden, and Wind in the Willows. I suppose alot of them would be considered to be classics, but I think of most of them as fantasy. (Oh, and I read The Ogre Downstairs)

For me, the one thing that runs through all those books, and the books I read now, is adventure. Like mystery, adventure is something you find in alot of genres. I don't knnow if this is so for alot of people/schools, but kids books in my public library aren't segregated in genres. Fantasy runs through most kids books now ~ you could pick up any kids book and be able to call it fantasy (or mystery, or adventure) ~ so kids don't have specific genres set out for them, which is perhaps where Le Guins comment comes from.

[tanngrisnir.livejournal.com]

Yes, I know what you mean. It was a little different when I was that age, there was some fantasy but not much; on the other hand, SFnal elements were very common even in books which were not really SF. For instance, I recall one book about a gang of anarchists (I think: this was a long time ago) out to sabotage a rocketship. Really more the spy/mystery genre, but enough SFnal elements to spice it up (this being a time before the lunar landings, remember).

Our kids' library didn't have segregated genres then, as far as I recall. In fact, if I remember right, the distinction between fiction and non-fiction wasn't always completely clear.

[weofodthignen]

Yes, I don't know where she gets the idea pre-teens don't read "the genres." I wouldn't even have known about the concept if my father hadn't informed me of it--while recommending MR James to me! My parents handed me The Hobbit when I was about seven--I asked to read LOTR when I was 8, but didn't start on SF until a year later, starting with I, Robot. Until GCE time pressures came along, and then when I briefly resumed reading fiction long after I finished grad school, SF is what I read most of. Horror I started with at my father's suggestion, with MR James followed by Poe and Dracula, but rapidly ran out of stuff to read, so other than determinedly chasing down Lovecraft in grad school--and I have yet to read much of it, it's so depressing and so bad for one's writing style--I stopped reading that even earlier. I got into mysteries very late; I don't have the law and order orientation that usually leads to that addiction, and I'm not logical enough to appreciate the best plots, so I only read Conan Doyle in adulthood, and I think I read Sayers' books before that; I know I picked those up because of the radio dramatisations (truly peculiar--I usually hate radio drama). I know I read Chandler and Hammett pretty early in the process, and I went on to read some of the new female mystery authors, thinking at the time I might write about them or even follow suit--there's been an amazing explosion of female authorship in that genre, even more dramatic than in SF. Female 'tec stuff probably constitutes the last novels I read before I went online and lost the entirety of my spare time.

So for 2 out of the 3 genres, I'm the opposite of what LeGuin thinks is self-evidently normal, LOL. I think like many authors, she needs to realize how anomalous people who love reading truly are.

However, basically, and in accordance with things you say in some of your own comments here, I really think the separation of the "genres" from other fiction is a bit silly. Especially if you consider Westerns and Suspense as genres, too, you get left with pretentious, boring twaddle that very few people want to read as "mainstream fiction." No wonder so many readers give up, and start reading and writing their own online!

The public library I belonged to from 8 onwards did have a separate room for SF, and that and Gollancz yellow were damned useful in giving me ideas for possible good stuff. But the first public library I used had a vastly better children's section, with oodles of mythology; and the "classic children's literature" I have read I appear to have read at all the wrong ages, and mostly not from the library. I read Carroll far too early and loathed him, and I liked Billy Bunter stories moderately but loved the older boys' comics (who was that chap who fought Nazis with a cricket bat? He and Dan Dare . . . great stuff). I'm trying to remember the name of the series of books about a bad boy that I ripped through in a couple of years when I was 14, 15, something like that . . . I resisted reading Arthur Ransome for some time--the book my dad borrowed for me was so ugly--but loved those after I gave in and tried it. My mothers' old annuals with stories of boarding school were fun, far better than contemporary girls' annuals, which were all about how much better it was to know a lot about tv stars than to be good at maths. For a while I read career fiction for girls, until I realized all the plots were about getting a man so you could leave the career, but I think those books taught me a lot about life that school and Girl Guides didn't. And I read some historical fiction, but after exhausting the supply of Treece, Trease, and Garner I ran out of fodder for that taste, particularly since female authors in the field are notorious for the love obsession, and partly also because anything after 1066 tends to put me to sleep. Also I loathe adventure. I like hard SF, I like just about everything Van Vogt ever wrote, but stuff about goldmining, chasing spies, cowboys, or exploring makes me scream. It's a tribute to Ian Fleming's genius as a writer that I loved his stuff. But I only got into that after a friend did. Must have been 15 by then.

Mixed-up comments from a former bookworm . . .

M