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Adults reading kids’ books is not, in fact, “bullshit”

Hungry Beast, an Australian TV show featuring a bunch of smug undergraduate types waxing lyrical about current affairs, ran a report in its most recent episode titled “Things we think might be bullshit: Adults reading kids’ books”:

Harry Potter, Twilight and other novels are deemed books for “children”, and adults (so the reasoning goes) need to grow up and presumably start reading “adult books” lest they develop a creepy Peter Pan vibe akin to Michael Jackson’s. Why, if adults continue reading “kids’” books, one day Spot Goes to School might be taught in universities – because after all, there’s no difference whatsoever between a book for preschoolers and a book for older teens!

Adults reading children’s books, we’re informed, is like owning golliwogs: “a bit wrong, but mostly just embarrassing”.

STFU, Hungry Beast. First of all, do your research: children’s books are very different from the genre known an “young adult” (note the use of “adult“). And guess what? There are loads and loads of YA books that aren’t Harry Potter or Twilight! (Shock!)

Why is it weird when adults read books about teenagers, given that adults were all once (another shock!) teenagers too? Is it also “weird” for senior citizens to read books about twenty- or thirtysomething characters?

Lastly, and most importantly, why are stories about young people automatically “childish”, and/or valued below stories about adults?

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This entry was posted on Saturday, February 13th, 2010 at 10:59 am and is filed under Reading, TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • Rich
    Speaking of checking facts... how about your latest gem here - http://www.yourtv.com.au/reviews/index.cfm?i=17...

    "Though The Vampire Dairies started out as a cheesy Twilight rip-off, it's starting to come into its own."

    Well, Vampire Diaries was written in 1991, over a decade before Twilight even existed. So if anything is a cheesy knockoff it would be Twilight.

    I would have thought a self proclaimed pop culture aficionado would not need to be reminded of this.
  • Thankyou, nitpicky commenter, but I realise that Vampire Diaries THE BOOKS
    have been around for a long time). However, Vampire Diaries THE TV SERIES
    (which that review refers to specifically - the novels, which I understand
    the TV series deviates from significantly, aren't alluded to at all) was
    obviously only greenlit because of the success of Twilight. I made this
    point in my first review of the program, in September. Similarly, Vampire
    Diaires THE BOOKS are being reprinted only because of the success of
    Twilight.
  • ironicallyanonymous
    Dude, sounds like you just need to face up to the fact that not all people think like you. Hungry Beast presented an opinion, and it's only one person's opinion - the one who wrote the script.

    You're a 'writer-wannabe', so you should be comfortable enough in your own skin without having to have everybody pat you on the back. I'm assuming that you look down on people who write mills & boon - but they're fine with that, cos they have an audience and they make money. If you're 40-something and you want to write the next Harry Potter, good on you. Just get on with it, without wanting Hungry Beast to give you the thumbs up - just like that person who's making money from their Mills & Boon.
  • Hungry Beast presented an opinion, and I disagreed with that opinion on my blog. I have no idea what my thoughts on romance novels have to do with that.
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