A book worth reading

[skip.knox]

I came across this statement by C.S. Lewis (here Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What's to be Said - The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe)

"... a book worth reading only in childhood is not worth reading even then."

This gets at one of my beefs with the whole notion of Young Adult, Juvenile, and reading levels in general. I don't expect ever to write a YA novel, but should the fit take me, I'm going to paste the above my monitor.

 

[Steerpike]

I like the quote. I read kid’s books, still. Just started one, in fact. I’ll read YA / Teen from time to time, and of course literature targeted at adults. I’ll read anything, provided it’s enjoyable.

 

[CupofJoe]

I whole heartedly agree.

 

[Maker of Things Not Kings]

Some of the most enduring reads over the last ten years for me were from the YA, middle grade genres, especially in fantasy. The best of them make me think, I wish I could've read this book as a child.

 

[Mad Swede]

There's a lot of truth in that statement from Lewis, and also a great deal of implicit criticism of some children's books. I've always thought that good literature should work on several levels, no matter what age group its aimed at. You need good characterisation, the story arc needs to work and there needs to be some depth to it all. Lewis put it even more succinctly when he said that he wrote the sort of books he would have wanted to read as a child. My children would have agreed with Lewis - they loved the more complex childrens stories, and hated the cheap, simplistic stories that some modern authors feel are appropriate.

I still enoy reading the Harry Potter books, the Moomintroll books and also the Emil i Lönneberga books. The latter are not only quite amusing and touching as stories, they are also a very accurate description of and commentary on life in rural Sweden at the start of the 20th century. I once asked my grandparents why they laughed when they read the books to me, and got the reply that they could remember doing things like that as children. Then they started to tell me their own stories about life at that time in their part Sweden...