Children & Salinger
Lomanno (lomanno@ix.netcom.com)
Thu, 12 Nov 1998 09:15:44 -0500
Jonathan Moritz wrote:
> I wonder if the same shame of narrowness can be said of "children's books"?
> Sure, certain children's books one outgrows. But others, say
> Winnie-The-Pooh or Alice, seem to still hold fascination for those older
> Peter Pans among us. (And let's remember Peter Pan gets mention in one of
> Salinger's unpublished titles.)
> So I wonder if the phrase "teen books" is merely a category
> for the certain fiction which is pitched at a very restricted age group,
> and I say let those in marketing try, and let parents and teachers
> encourage teens to read a greater diversity.
>
You really struck a chord with me by mentioning children's books because
I am an avid collector. There is just something about the innocence and
colorful pictures that just takes me away when I read them! I,
personally, have never outgrown Winnie the Pooh or Alice (like you
said), or Dr. Seuss, Where the Wild Things Are, Peanuts, the Wind in the
Willows, E.B. White's books, or Green Tiger Press stories.
I've also found that there's almost ALWAYS more to a children's book
than a simple children's story, while so-called "teenage books" don't
tend to go below the surface very often. I can read Yertle the Turtle or
the Sneetches a hundred times and see more social commentary and
thought-provoking philosophy than one reading of Goosebumps or
Babysitter's.
I think the pre-teen and teenage group may be the hardest to get to
read, since there's so much more going on in life what with puberty and
all. Writers seem to be grasping at whatever they think the teenagers
will label "cool" rather than really trying to feed them good
"literature." I think this is OK, sometimes. I'd rather have my teenager
at home reading crap than out on the streets as a high school drop-out
who can't read.
But as far as Salinger in the teenage section, I have mixed feelings. I
think there's definitely something there for that age group, since the
narrator certainly has their voice. But I don't think Catcher should be
pigeonholed like he is. Another example of this is Madeleine L'Engle's
WRINKLE IN TIME. I searched for an hour in the library one time trying
to find that book, and I finally realized that while almost all her
other titles were in regular fiction, the WRINKLE series was over in
children's. While WRINKLE certainly is not of the same caliber as
CATCHER, I think it definitely has something for a "grown-up" like me.
--Kari