Your follow-up comment that girls, because they explore different imaginary circumstances than boys, do so at a "higher level", is an example of how boys' fictional interests are, consciously or unconsciously, considered inferior to girls'.
Here you read "higher" as "superior." My conscious intention is for "higher" to mean "greater" as in "bigger," "larger," or "more intense." As in "this goes to eleven." I had no intention of assigning a worth value to one mode being "better" than the other. It was posed as a possibility, not a statement of truth. Fortunately, in a forum like this, one can clarify one's meaning.
Reading romantic novels has nothing like the social stigma of reading science fiction or military history - or comics.
It's my experience that reading romance novels is highly stigmatised in the media as a weepy, smarmy, silly, fluffy, waste of time for sexually naive or frustrated chicks who like those books with half-nekkid men and heaving bosoms on the cover. Science fiction is for nerds who wear Spock ears, and comics are for dateless guys who sit unwashed in dark comic shops. But reading military history, that is for intellectual manly men with a firm grasp on the historical and contemporary global situation and a deep appreciation of the Greatest Generation and the Things that really Matter in the World. Unless you read it while dressed in khaki in your survival shelter, in which case no one will insult you, because you might blow them up.
perilousknits began a list of books for middle readers in her reply. I won't expand on it because the list would go on for a very long time. The "middle reader" or "middle grade" market (ages 7-10 and 9-12) is the PRIME market for "boy books," the ones she listed along with Captain Underpants, the Riot Brothers, Lemony Snicket, all manner of books serious and humourous about pirates, rogues, highwaymen, lads with dogs, lads who lose their dogs, lads who meet the tomboy girl next door, lads who learn to hunt, lads who get goosebumps, lads who save the world. Girls are often short-shrifted in the middle reader market, except for a few explosive series such as Mallory and the Babysitters Club
I'm not sure whether you live in a region where book selection is skewed because of community pressures, because physical danger scenarios remain prime plot points in books, the extent of the danger depending on the age of the reader and the seriousness of the book. It's too predictable that, about 2/3 through a book, the hero--or heroine--will be in horrible predicaments and have to find a way to safety by the ending. When I mentioned Westerfeld, Fisher, and Wilce (because I happened to have those books on the table nearby), I cited three authors whose heroines and heroes spend almost the entirety of multiple novels in myriad life-threatening situations of high action, fast pacing, and, yes, emotional development as well. Of course it's possible to find happy books as well--and sometimes one wants to read books that are all fun and humour, maybe about some kids solving a non-life-threatening mystery down on the cul-de-sac with their cocker spaniel. Every book needn't be printed in blood.
In all seriousness, I ask: How do you survey books available for kids? What is your reference for your sense of the market? Depending on where you live, there are resources where you can see every book published each season by a majority of children's publishers in the United States and some from Canada. If you are in the NYC area, the Children's Book Council (http://www.cbcbooks.org) library is open during business hours.
The selection of graphic novels is scanty for under-12s, I agree with you. I would like to see much more, of all types of plots and styles of art. There's this awesome series of graphic/prose hybrid books where you choose your own path through the story, in which in the first book, Captured by Pirates, you might get eaten by sharks, killed by islanders, shot by rival pirates, used as bait, or nibbled by maggots... which I think ought to qualify as scenarios of physical danger. Darned good book. Just happened to hear about it somewhere.
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The glut of middle reader books... and dangerous predicaments
Date: 2007-12-15 04:51 pm (UTC)Here you read "higher" as "superior." My conscious intention is for "higher" to mean "greater" as in "bigger," "larger," or "more intense." As in "this goes to eleven." I had no intention of assigning a worth value to one mode being "better" than the other. It was posed as a possibility, not a statement of truth. Fortunately, in a forum like this, one can clarify one's meaning.
Reading romantic novels has nothing like the social stigma of reading science fiction or military history - or comics.
It's my experience that reading romance novels is highly stigmatised in the media as a weepy, smarmy, silly, fluffy, waste of time for sexually naive or frustrated chicks who like those books with half-nekkid men and heaving bosoms on the cover. Science fiction is for nerds who wear Spock ears, and comics are for dateless guys who sit unwashed in dark comic shops. But reading military history, that is for intellectual manly men with a firm grasp on the historical and contemporary global situation and a deep appreciation of the Greatest Generation and the Things that really Matter in the World. Unless you read it while dressed in khaki in your survival shelter, in which case no one will insult you, because you might blow them up.
I'm not sure whether you live in a region where book selection is skewed because of community pressures, because physical danger scenarios remain prime plot points in books, the extent of the danger depending on the age of the reader and the seriousness of the book. It's too predictable that, about 2/3 through a book, the hero--or heroine--will be in horrible predicaments and have to find a way to safety by the ending. When I mentioned Westerfeld, Fisher, and Wilce (because I happened to have those books on the table nearby), I cited three authors whose heroines and heroes spend almost the entirety of multiple novels in myriad life-threatening situations of high action, fast pacing, and, yes, emotional development as well. Of course it's possible to find happy books as well--and sometimes one wants to read books that are all fun and humour, maybe about some kids solving a non-life-threatening mystery down on the cul-de-sac with their cocker spaniel. Every book needn't be printed in blood.
In all seriousness, I ask: How do you survey books available for kids? What is your reference for your sense of the market? Depending on where you live, there are resources where you can see every book published each season by a majority of children's publishers in the United States and some from Canada. If you are in the NYC area, the Children's Book Council (http://www.cbcbooks.org) library is open during business hours.
The selection of graphic novels is scanty for under-12s, I agree with you. I would like to see much more, of all types of plots and styles of art. There's this awesome series of graphic/prose hybrid books where you choose your own path through the story, in which in the first book, Captured by Pirates, you might get eaten by sharks, killed by islanders, shot by rival pirates, used as bait, or nibbled by maggots... which I think ought to qualify as scenarios of physical danger. Darned good book. Just happened to hear about it somewhere.
edited for clarity about the CBC