Young adult fiction

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“How did you spend your weekend?” Apollonia asked. “Gambling? Moping?”

“Mostly moping,” I said. “Also reading young-adult fiction.”

She roared with laughter. She, of all people, knows what I mean. Apollonia is the world’s most tragically obsessed Twihard, and would happily pluck a leftover egg-salad sandwich out of the garbage and eat it, if there were any chance it had been gnawed on by Robert Pattinson. It goes without saying that she knows the Stephenie Meyer books by heart, the way Islamic clerics know the Koran.

Naturally all of us read the Harry Potter books, though they were “too young for us.” Why? Because they were well-told stories, and entertaining, and full of conflict on every level. They ask questions like: why is my family (and Professor Snape, for that matter) so mean to me? Why won’t Hermione and Ron realize they love one another? Why is Lord Voldemort trying to kill me? Also, the books are funny and colorful and full of incident. (There are some dull patches – the middle third of “Deathly Hallows,” in which Ron and Harry and Hermione wander in the wilderness and snipe at each other, was pretty deathly itself – but overall these books move pretty briskly. And who doesn’t like a six-hundred page book that moves along briskly?)

Also, some years ago, I discovered Diane Duane’s “So You Want to Be A Wizard” series, which is serious fun. Who doesn’t want to be a teenage wizard? You get to save the planet, and sometimes the entire galaxy, over and over again. You get to meet interesting people like the Archangel Michael and Satan. And Diane Duane can really write; she’s light-years ahead of Meyer, and I think she writes more fluently than Rowling. Naturally you really ought to read the books in order, but I didn’t, and I don’t think I missed out too much. I especially like “A Wizard Abroad,” in which a New York girl (and secret wizard) is sent off to Ireland to visit relatives, and ends up discovering an entire world of Celtic folklore, helps to reenact the Battle of Moytura, and (incidentally) saves the world one more time. (Diane Duane also maintains a great Tumblr in which she interacts with readers and fans – I don’t know how she finds the time – and is very obviously a funny and generous person. This makes me like her writing even more.)

And if you still find yourself with time on your hands, try Rick Riordan’s Greek-mythology series – the five novels of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” and the three novels of “Heroes of Olympus” he’s published for far. (The fourth, “The House of Hades,” is due out around the time that this blog is to be published; the series is set to conclude a year from now.) These are reimaginings of Greek and Roman myths, set in modern America; they’re goofier than the “Wizard” books, and the humor can be juvenile, but the stories are gripping (let’s face it, Greek mythology is good source material), and there are some nice touches. (If you saw the first movie based on the series, “The Lightning Thief,” rest assured that the books are much better.)

I could go on. Do Tove Jansson’s Moomin books count as Young Adult? Parts of them skew a little young (even for me!), but I love them anyway.

J. R. R. Tolkien said it best, in his essay “On Fairy-Stories”:

In describing a fairy-story which they think adults might possibly read for their own entertainment, reviewers frequently indulge in such waggeries as: “this book is for children from the ages of six to sixty.” But I have never yet seen the puff of a new motor-model that began thus: “this toy will amuse infants from seventeen to seventy”; though that to my mind would be much more appropriate. Is there any essential connexion between children and fairy-stories? Is there any call for comment, if an adult reads them for himself? . . .

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For Sunday: Tim Tebow reads "Green Eggs and Ham"

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Sometimes we need a relief from the difficulties of our everyday lives. We need something deeply silly to help us escape.

So: here’s Tim Tebow, who is Christian but delectably cute, doing a dramatic reading of Dr. Seuss’s “Green Eggs and Ham.”

With hand gestures, yet!

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Eat your books

Natalie Babbitt (the wife of one of my old bosses, and the author of “Tuck Everlasting”) is a terrific person who writes and illustrates pretty good books. She was featured in a documentary called “Library of the Early Mind” a few years ago. Some of the documentary’s participants complained about the publishing industry. Natalie, being smart, did not complain about it, probably because it's like being an oxygen breather complaining about breathing oxygen. 

Instead, she talked about her own love of books.  “I write books for children,” she said, “because my childhood was the most important part of my life to date.  And I'm seventy-two.”  Later she talked about her love of “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland,” noting that Alice was the smartest person in the book, and that the adults were “idiots.”   “And,” she added, “I grew up to find that that's true.”

That’s one of those sharp little zaps you get from a really smart observer. Myself, I didn't read the Alice books until high school, and I was immediately taken with Alice's brisk businesslike manner, and how she deals with the various kinds of nonsense around her.  She can be brusque, as with the Queen of Hearts; she can be nannyish and mothering, as with the White Queen; she can be sweet and sentimental, as with the White Knight. Alice, at the age of seven, is the only really adult-acting person in either book.

Children are generally not surprised by this. Children love their books. I know I loved mine.

I once read a wonderful Maurice Sendak anecdote, which I hope is true:

“Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim: I loved your card.” Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.”

So: you really liked that John Grisham novel, did you?

Let’s see you eat it.

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The Hobbit

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Are we looking forward to Peter Jackson’s filmization of “The Hobbit”? Yes, of course we are.

 

 

I was born into the Lord of the Rings Generation. When I was in the seventh grade I bought “The Two Towers,” not knowing that it was the second book in the trilogy, and not understanding how trilogies worked in any case.  Naturally I didn’t understand a bit of the plot, but I struggled through it anyway. Then one of my teachers, Mister Lorenz, bless him, noticed what was going on, and offered to lend me his copies of “Fellowship of the Ring” and “Return of the King,” so long as I didn’t damage them.

 

 

I was an immediate convert to Tolkienism.

 

 

A summer or two later – around 1970, anyway – I wrote to Ballantine Books, and sent them my $2.00, and received in return a copy of “The Hobbit,” which was described on the cover as “the enchanting prelude to ‘The Lord of the Rings.’”

 

I devoured it in a couple of days.

 

 

Have you ever noticed that “Hobbit” is exactly the same story as “Lord of the Rings”? A hobbit (Bilbo / Frodo) is enticed by Gandalf to leave the Shire with a group of oddball travelers. They encounter problems on the way (trolls, Nazgul, whatever). They get to Rivendell and have a chitchat with Elrond. They cross the Misty Mountains, but not without difficulties (Bilbo with Gollum and the goblins, Frodo in Moria). They pop out the other side and have a little rest (Bilbo and the dwarves with Beorn, Frodo and his companions in Lorien). They cross the river, and get into trouble, and get separated. There are spiders. There’s an ominous mountain. There’s a treasure that needs to be thrown away or given away (the Arkenstone / the Ring). There’s a big climactic battle. “The eagles are coming! The eagles are coming!” A few key people are killed in each battle (Thorin in “Hobbit,” Theoden in “Rings”).

 

 

And then the hobbit goes home to the Shire.

 

 

I’m delighted that Jackson is bringing back some key people: Ian McKellen, the perfect Gandalf, and Hugo Weaving, a grave (if intense) Elrond. (Please note that I love the Elrond that Tolkien gives us in the books; he’s thousands of years old, but he’s also very nice. Hugo Weaving looks irritated all the time, or maybe constipated, which is maybe more likely for someone who’s half-human and thousands of years old.)

 

 

Martin Freeman, like Ian Holm and Elijah Wood, is a perfect hobbit; like them, he’s a little unearthly-looking.

 

 

I hope the movie isn’t too CGI-reliant. “Hobbit” is a children’s book, but this had better not be a children’s movie.

 

 

And I don’t know if this is true, but I hear that Stephen Colbert is in the movie, as an elf. (He’s spoken Elvish on his show more than once, so he’s got the right background.)

 

 

We will see.

 

 

Here’s hoping for the best.

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Chapter books and picture books

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Last summer, my assistant Ezra said: “Are you going to the bookstore at lunch today? Because I want to go with you.”

 

 

“Why?” I said. “You want a book? I can pick it up for you.”

 

 

“No,” he said with certainty. “It’s the new Game of Thrones book. It’s the first one in six years. I want to buy it myself.”

 

 

So we went to the (now defunct) Borders Bookstore, and I turned him loose.

 

 

He was immensely happy, and I left him alone with his prize. I wandered off to the “graphic novel” section, and browsed for a few minutes, and rejoined him shortly with a big black-and-white Superman anthology. “What’s that?” he said suspiciously.

 

 

“It’s an anthology of some comic books from my childhood,” I said happily.

 

 

He looked down on me (seriously: he was at least five inches taller than me) with disdain.

 

 

He was buying a chapter book and I was buying a picture book.

 

 

Well, so what? I love my picture books. Some of them remind me of my childhood, which is reason enough. Some are artistic / beautiful, which is reason enough again. Some are profound and moving (like “Maus”). Some are just for fun, like my comic anthologies, or my volumes of Lynda Barry and George Herriman and Edward Gorey.

 

 

To quote Charles Dodgson (from - surprise! - a chapter book!):

 

 

 “Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, `and what is the use of a book,' thought Alice `without pictures or conversation?'”

 

 

Amen, sister.

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For the first day of summer: a young-adult reading list

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Summer is all about recreational reading, but everyone's idea of light reading is different.  Some like John Grisham, or Patricia Cornwell, or Stephen King.  I like young-adult stuff.

 

 

For me, “young adult” is any chapter book not directed to an adult readership.  Some are perfectly appropriate for bright eight-year-olds, and some aren't. 

 

 

Young-adult literature is unassuming, and it gets right to the point without dithering.  There's very little padding in most young-adult books.  Sometimes the authors pander – they lay it on too thick, or they get the atmosphere wrong – but there's some pretty good stuff out there, both old and new.

 

 

Let's acknowledge J. K. Rowling right at the top of the list.  I hope she figures out a way to continue her story.  What about Harry and Ginny's kids? 

 

 

Still have your set of Narnia books?   I've purchased them and gotten rid of them twice over.  I like the characters and the storytelling, but C. S. Lewis's drippy Christian moralizing makes me feel sticky after a while.  I can't even touch “The Last Battle” anymore, although Neil Gaiman has written a wonderful short story about the flip side of that story.

 

 

(Lewis, for all his faults, was a pretty good writer.  If you haven't read the space novels - “Out of the Silent Planet,” “Perelandra,” and (especially, and weirdest of all) “That Hideous Strength” - do it.  Great stuff.  Nasty stuff here and there, too.  If you don't wince a couple of times while reading these, you're not reading very carefully.)

 

 

If you like surreal whimsy – and who doesn't? - try Tove Jansson’s Moomin books.  My favorite is “Moominland Midwinter”: the Moomin family is hibernating, but the little Moomin boy wakes up and discovers that, during the winter months, their house is completely taken over by all kinds of peculiar creatures.  It has the creepy stillness of a deep Scandinavian winter, and it's lots of fun: perfect ice-cold reading for a hot New England day.

 

 

P. L.Travers wrote “Mary Poppins,” and “Mary Poppins Opens the Door,” and “Mary Poppins in the Park.” Her original Mary Poppins is not Julie Andrews: she’s ferocious, and truly scary sometimes – the cobra in the London zoo calls her “cousin”! – and Jane and Michael worship her.

 

 

Thornton Wilder wasn’t really a young-adult writer, but some of his novels – especially “The Bridge of San Luis Rey” – fit perfectly in this category. I read it in high school, and was moved to tears, and I still quote it endlessly. If you haven’t read it, read it immediately.

 

 

And finally, here’s a writer who’s still among the living: Rick Riordan.  The Percy Jackson books were a Greek-mythology knockoff of Harry Potter, but Riordan can really tell a story too.  He left the Percy Jackson story to tell a sort of parallel story involving Egyptian mythology instead, but it doesn’t quite have the energy of the Percy Jackson books. He seems to have realized this, however, and has gone back to Percy, with a side twist through the Roman version of the Greek myths; he’s written two of these, and they’re both wonderful, and I'm looking forward to number three.

 

 

There’s your summer reading assignment, kids.

 

 

And it’s fun.

 

 

So get reading!

 

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The Bobbsey Twins; or, Merry Times in the Children's Literature Section

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A million years ago, back in the early 1960s, my grandmother gave me some old books. One of them was “The Bobbsey Twins; or, Merry Days Indoors and Out.”

 

 

 

I was hooked.

 

 

The series, putatively written by “Laura Lee Hope” but actually written by many different people, goes on forever. The books are full of simple images and situations that are bound to appeal to impressionable children (they certainly appealed to me). The publishers update them from time to time, but they're really a lot more fun if you read the older versions; otherwise you miss details like the train ride to the seashore (on what is most definitely a 1910-era train), and Mrs. Bobbsey telling the children that “train ice cream may not be good to eat.”

 

 

So you have two sets of twins. First there are Nan and Bert, who are around nine or ten, sandy-haired, smart, diligent, alert, All-Around Good Citizens. Then there are little Freddie and Flossie, maybe five years old, with golden curls, lisping, adorable. There's a supporting cast: Freddie's cat Snoop, the black cook Dinah and her husband Sam (the family's “man-of-all-work”), and the school bully / all-purpose villain Danny Rugg.

 

 

The Bobbsey Twins solve mysteries! They get locked in department stores after hours! They get accused of things they didn't do! They march in the Fourth of July parade! They grow radishes! They go skating and ice-boating on Lake Metoka! They get captured by gypsies!

 

 

Flossie, in the old 1930s edition Grandma gave me, has a doll collection, which she tends carefully and keeps in a bureau drawer. Sam and Dinah give her a little black baby doll. She adds it to her collection, but puts a cardboard shoebox lid between the black doll and her other dolls, just to make sure there's no mixing of the races.

 

 

Even as a kid, I thought this was creepy.

 

 

But here's a high point, from (I think) “The Bobbsey Twins at Plymouth Rock”: Bert and bully Danny Rugg are on a train together. Danny pulls out a candy bar and starts to eat it. And I've never forgotten this line:

 

 

“He did not offer any of the candy to Bert.”

 

 

Oh, snap!

 

 

Danny Rugg is evil incarnate!

 

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The five widdle Peppers and how they gwew

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I recently bought an e-reader, and I am loving it. While vacuuming up free ebooks on the Project Gutenberg website, I noticed Margaret Sidney's “Five Little Peppers” books, and downloaded them, and am rereading them. If you have not read these -

 

 

Well, they defy description. But here goes anyway.

 

 

Their author, whose real name was Harriet Stone Lothrop, co-managed her husband's publishing firm in the late 1800s. The Lothrops lived in “The Wayside,” a house in Concord, Massachusetts where the Alcotts (and the Hawthornes before them!) had lived. Harriet was evidently determined to outdo Louisa May Alcott in every category. There were four March girls; there are five Peppers. The March family is shabby genteel; the Peppers are destitute.

 

The March girls are energetic and personable and interesting. The Pepper children are little Pod People.

 

 

The boys – Ben, Joel, and Davie – are a little featureless; I always had a hard time distinguishing them. But the two girls – brrr.

 

 

Polly, the older Pepper girl, is especially fascinating in a horrible way. She mothers the other four children (which is odd, as they presumably already have a mother in residence). Polly cooks, and tends to everything, and even disciplines her brothers and sisters. She weeps over the old black kitchen stove, which fills the kitchen with smoke and drives her to despair. At the end of the first Peppers book, the kind local doctor surprises Polly with – can you guess? A pretty frock? A trip to Europe? No, a new stove! Polly nurses the other children when they get the measles, and when she catches the measles herself, she cries and cries, because she can't keep house anymore!

 

Don't you just want to kill her?

 

Then there's the other Pepper daughter, Phronsie. (Yes, Phronsie. It's short for “Sophronia.” The others all have Biblical names, but this one has the name of a Greek courtesan. Go figure.) Phronsie is a living Kewpie Doll. She charms everyone, from the Stepin Fetchit-type black servants to old Mister King, the grouchy millionaire. She lisps adorably. She often screams with excitement. (“'Oh! Oh! Oh!' Phronsie screamed. 'Take us to the little brown house, do!'”)

 

Don't you just want to kill Phronsie too?

 

 

However:

 

 

About five years ago, Partner and I were up in Concord. We strolled around Walden Pond, and felt transcendentally uplifted.

 

And then we visited “The Wayside.” And we came in through the kitchen, and I saw the old black stove, the one Harriet Lothrop wrote about, the one Polly suffered over for so long.

 

And, just like Phronsie, I screamed with joy.

 

 

Children: be careful what books you read. Good or bad, they will mark you for life.

 

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The dark side of children's literature

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The Times recently presented a “Room for Debate” feature on dystopianism in young-adult literature. Why are recent books and series (the Dark Materials books, the Hunger Games series, the Twilight saga) so dark? The contributors offer lots of different answers: cultural changes, technology, kids are changing, the world is changing, kids want reality, etc.

 

Here's my answer: it's nothing new.

 

 

To wit:

 

 

 

• “David Copperfield.” Hero works in a factory, gluing labels on bottles.
• “Great Expectations.” Old lady catches on fire. Rotting wedding cake.
• “Treasure Island” and “Kidnapped.” Main characters get into serious trouble, in strange distant dangerous places, consorting with outlaws and criminals and rebels.
• “Huckleberry Finn.” Huck's father is a violent drunk. They live between the slave states and the free states, and they know exactly what “slave” means, but Huck chooses to help his friend Jim into freedom (which ain't perfect either, but which is far better than the alternative).
• Diane Duane's “Wizard” books (personal favorites of mine) take place in a universe in which entropy is an unpleasant fact of life, and Lucifer frequently turns up to taunt the main characters (in the most polite and seductive way possible).
• Harry Potter is an abused stepchild. His home life with Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia is played for laughs, but it's plainly vile.
• The Five Little Peppers lived in intense poverty.  Polly weeps with joy when she gets a new stove.
• The March girls weren't terribly well-off – not even able to afford pickled limes! - and their father was off ministering to soldiers in that thing called the Civil War.
• Evelyn Nesbit could write very sprightly fantasy, but take a look at “The Railway Children”: Dad's in jail, Mom's desperately poor, the kids are oblivious.

 

 

 

Let us not even speak of the brothers Grimm.

 

 

Makes your own childhood look a little brighter, doesn't it?

 

 

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