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dcHere'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:
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.
Meh. It's not working. I am going to have to try lying down to see if this nausea will pass. Getting waterbrash now...
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.
Meh. It's not working. I am going to have to try lying down to see if this nausea will pass. Getting waterbrash now...
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Date: 2006-12-20 12:37 pm (UTC)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.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-20 01:30 pm (UTC)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.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-20 02:09 pm (UTC)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.