Adults Should Read Adult Books

[Mindfire]

I'm no stranger to criticizing books you haven't read , but this is RI-DIC-U-LOUS. Old article. I can't believe I'm only discovering it now. Great for a laugh.

Adults Should Read Adult Books - Room for Debate - NYTimes.com

Personally, I'm a proud heretic. 20 years old and counting and I read almost exclusively sci-fi and fantasy, and of that, almost exclusively children's and teens' books. Kids and YA books just have that spark in them that adult books seem to have either forgotten or ruthlessly stamped out.

 

[CupofJoe]

It's a Bait-piece.
It is supposed to drive an argument. And he is completely wrong...

 

[Mindfire]

Yeah I wasn't sure if he was serious or not. Either way, hilarious.

 

[Amanita]

Oh, when reading the thread title, I actually thought this was your opinion, Mindfire, and started to look for counter arguments. But there doesn't seem to be any need after all.

 

[Devor]

I still have a lot of fun reading Green Eggs and Ham. It's a performance. I was sad when my son told me, "Not that one, we read it at school." Well, I just had to out-perform his school because I like reading it, darnit.

 

[CupofJoe]

My loo books [do I have to explain? or am I the only one?] are usually the Asterix adventures [they aren't really graphic novels...]. I started on them when I was about 10 and still dip in to them once in a while. Now I collect non-english versions when I see them cheap enough.

 

[Mindfire]

Oh, when reading the thread title, I actually thought this was your opinion, Mindfire, and started to look for counter arguments. But there doesn't seem to be any need after all.

Lol, yeah I was title-baiting. I admit it.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

I still have a lot of fun reading Green Eggs and Ham. It's a performance. I was sad when my son told me, "Not that one, we read it at school." Well, I just had to out-perform his school because I like reading it, darnit.

I used to read to children in Hong Kong - not just at schools, I mean I was hired to do that at birthday parties. An Asia thing, I guess. It most definitely is a performance, and I always thought parents just need to perform so they don't need to hire ME.

But I enjoyed that job and I enjoy reading to my own kids. Especially Dr. Seuss.

 

[Alexandra]

It's a Bait-piece.
It is supposed to drive an argument. And he is completely wrong...

Absolutely. Not only is Stein's argument wrong, tis old. I've heard/read essentially the same argument applied against every well known fantasy writer since JRR (at one time all fantasy was considered children's/young adult by most of mainstream publishing). Stein is a lazy commentator and, it appears, woefully old fashioned.

 

[SeverinR]

I still have a lot of fun reading Green Eggs and Ham. It's a performance. I was sad when my son told me, "Not that one, we read it at school." Well, I just had to out-perform his school because I like reading it, darnit.

I would not eat that Poultry spawn and pork, not even facing dawn with a dozen orc.
I will not eat them, Sam I am.

 

[Anders Ämting]

"Critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."

-C.S. Lewis

 

[Alexandra]

When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."

-C.S. Lewis

I love this quote.

 

[S.T. Ockenner]

since JRR (at one time all fantasy was considered children's/young adult by most of mainstream publishing).

Ridiculous, especially considering that the Wheel Of Time is not appropriate for kids, LOTR is super hard to read, which turns away most kids, and that most fantasy writers are adults, writing for an adult audience.