The Percy Jackson Problem
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
Also, consider that since 1984, the percent of 13-year-olds who are weekly readers went down from 70% to 53%, and the percent of 17-year-olds who are weekly readers went from 64% to 40%, and the percent of 17-year-olds who never or hardly ever read tripled during this period, from 9% to 27% - source http://www.forbes.com/sites/jordanshapiro/2014/05/13/kids-do...
Why are we even slightly worried that a kid is reading a fun story about Greek mythology?
This article repeats many of the exact same complaints that my parents and my friends' parents had about the Wishbone[0] books (not the TV series). Fortunately, reading kid-friendly adaptations of classics neither rotted my brain nor destroyed my interest in the subject matter, and I remain an avid reader today.
My first exposure to Greek mythology came from (I kid you not) a reader in school[1]. It was probably intended for a 4th grade reading level. If anything, this only enhanced my interest in the matter - I read the entire D’Aulaires collection shortly afterward, studied Latin in high school, and still know many of the stories by heart.
I actually read the entire Percy Jackson series recently. It's a quick read for any adult, and like many kids' cartoons from the 70s, it's filled with jokes and references that only an adult can appreciate[2]. The writing quality is a little lower than Harry Potter, but if I may, I never thought Rowling was a stellar writer anyway (her talent is in plot development).
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wishbone_%28TV_series%29
[1] Do they still even have these anymore? They were basically consumable workbooks that had stories that you were reading as you practice spelling, grammar, etc.
[2] I actually am surprised in some sense that children enjoy the books, because to me, it seems like much of the humor would fall completely flat without a solid understanding of the stories that Riordan is adapting. Apparently he manages to make it work, but I would say that his writing is about as adult-friendly/adult-oriented as the first few books in the Harry Potter series. (As opposed to the last couple of books, which are definitely intended for a slightly older audience, and contain much darker elements).
Best of all, they gave me enough plot-summary of some of them (Fall of the House of Usher) that one can recognize references to them in OTHER works (such as Bradbury's works) which I might not previously have understood.
I've re-read several of those classics later, but I still have fond memories of that box of comic books.
For example, FTA:
> [Tim Parks] enlisted the example of his own children’s reading habits, and those of his young students, to argue that there is little evidence to suggest that readers will make progress “upward from pulp to Proust.”
Well, maybe not. Most people don't read Proust, after all. But does he think his kids will chose to read Proust if they are denied anything fun to read?
But ... perhaps these arguments are just badly stated. Would anyone care to give me a good argument that the "just do long as they're reading" position is a poor one?
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EDIT. After some thought, I guess I don't take the "just so long as they're reading" position to the extreme. There are some things I would never give my kids to read; as a parent, I have limits. Perhaps these people that sound ridiculous to me just put their limits in different places.
Still, my request for a well stated argument stands.
Indeed. The way the article took that argument to the extreme felt like a straw man with statements like: "The opposite argument—that the kind of book a child has his or her nose buried in does make a difference"
I don't think anyone on the "other side" would say that the kind of book doesn't matter, just that less good books are still good.
I hadn't really thought about the subject until now, so didn't have an opinion, but it very much strikes me as similar to the trend I (and others[1]) have noticed in film: we have a whole generation of films being based on YA/children's books; no one seems to make movies for adults any more.
Sure, you can claim, "at least they're entertaining", (or "at least they're reading" in the case of books), but it just feels like our culture is regressing to childhood, partly voluntarily and partly due to being coddled and nannied (and I say that seriously; please don't take me as a right-wing loony).
"So what?" you may ask (and again, probably say "at least they're reading" which is a valid argument for YA and children). The concern comes in when you have mental children wielding adult power. Such as voting. Or getting married. Or handling firearms. There's also the longer term issue of examining deeper issues, of asking bigger questions, things you don't normally get unless you go back to the classics (and no, just because Percy Jackson has Greek gods in it doesn't mean it addresses these subjects; that's just a setting, a flavor, window dressing).
It's also compounded by network effects: who wants to read Homer when they will have no one to talk about it with? And after a long day at work, who wants to wade through "War and Peace" when you can sit down with some pulp and escape reality? It's hard, but I think the rewards are well worth it, and if we are to keep our freedom (and escape the coddling), we have to at least begin to consider the deeper questions occasionally. Great literature can help, and be a reward in and of itself. YA and children's books, usually not so much.
[1] - http://www.gq.com/entertainment/movies-and-tv/201102/the-day... - Two apropos quotes from that:
Adults were treated as adults rather than as overgrown children hell-bent on enshrining their own arrested development.
will grow up believing that movies aimed at adults should be considered a peculiar and antique art. Like books. Or plays.
Do I think Percy Jackson is crap? Yes. Would I a tell a 7 year old not to read it? No way.
Compare JK Rowling's #1 versus #7. The first book is not very remarkable YA fiction. It is stocked with tropes from cover to cover. The last book actually seems handicapped by the need to maintain continuity with the first. The awesome thing that happened there is that the readers developed along with the author.
We need YA fiction of dubious literary value in the same way that we need minor league baseball. Some players never make it to the major league, but by playing at their own level, some can improve to the point that they can tackle a greater challenge. Is watching Indianapolis Indians versus Nashville Sounds as gratifying as NY Yankees versus Boston Red Sox? No, not usually. But the minor teams allow the pool of available professional and semi-pro baseball players to be much larger, which makes the top talent better.
In the same way, more readers support more authors, and more authors produce more bestselling authors, and more bestselling authors produce more literary masterpieces. To produce Shakespeare, you don't need infinite monkeys typing, but you do need an awful lot of them.
This really hit me, because while I believe that most of the YA fiction is crap that at least adults should try to move on from, I also firmly believe that this country (USA) could use more exercise and reading. Even if it's just pulpy YA fiction, or going for a walk, hey, at least that's better than vegging out on the couch to some reality TV. Thirty minutes of reading and thirty minutes of exercise every day would probably be a good idea for just about everyone.
I think that the internet is good because more people are reading because of it. I don't know that young adult trash is attracting people who would have instead read good things if it weren't for massive marketing budgets aimed at children. If it is, it's contributing to making (US) society stupider and less competitive.
First, they do read these books. Their friends read them too, this is a good thing.
However, they never have to leave that range of books dedicated to their age group. They seem to be interchangeable as well.
Additionally, it seems like the concept of mass market paperback has evaporated in this age range. I feel like there is some gouging going on with customers who aren't as price sensitive because they probably aren't spending their own money.
Personally, I don't get the anti-YA snobbery you see so often in this sort of article. The median "adult" novel sucks every bit as much as the median YA. Many of the classic novels of the 19th century would qualify as YA if written today. YA mostly just means the protagonists are younger and the writing is clearer.
People that was going to read the good stuff anyways will find their ways there eventually.
That said, I did enjoy reading the Harry Potter books with my kids (we read them aloud), but reading the Animorphs was not something I could really do for any length of time.
"Well, the unique thing about this period– the late 1800s and the early 1900s– was this was a time when books written for children as the main audience were largely and often read by adults and appeared on adult bestseller lists. You take a look at the bestseller lists during this period, and you see like Rudyard Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson, Pollyanna, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, and maybe like War and Peace. But the great authors of the time were writing for children."
Doesn't stop me from switching back to literature when I've had my fill.
or in addition to everything else. In the last week, I've read a great young adult book as well as a Sartre novel. I consider my life enriched by both. There's this awful snobbery around young adult books, but I often find they tell the best stories. I think Philip Pullman says it best:
“There's a hunger for stories in all of us, adults too. We need stories so much that we're even willing to read bad books to get them, if the good books won't supply them. We all need stories, but children are more frank about it; cultured adults, on the other hand, those limp and jaded creatures who think it more important to seem sophisticated than to admit to simplicity, find it harder both to write and to read novels that don't come with a prophylactic garnish of irony.”
(Those are serious questions, I'm trying to understand the basis of where that side is coming from.)
Personally, I'd worry less about the headiness of these books than what seem to be common themes of characters whose defining characteristics are innate - birth as a demigod, half-wizard or having a high midichlorian count.
Does anyone still write about 'normal' people doing great things?
It seems like you're trying to say that you want to read stories about people who are 'normal', but that doesn't really mean anything. Are you just looking for books that don't have any element of fantasy to them?
Is this character conspicuous because things worked out for him?
Or did things work out for this character because he is conspicuous in some way?
Game of Thrones has a lot of the first, virtually no teen book does. They are imbued with something special and everything works out because of their specialness. Sometimes multiple other characters join the cause sacrificing or putting on hold their lives because this person is a prince(ss).
With all this dystopian teen drama going around, I wonder how many SF authors are out there kicking themselves for not writing a romantic triangle into their story.
It's a standard plot: ordinary person living an ordinary life feels constrained by that life; boom thing happens, causing ordinary person to go on a journey. Character development happens on the journey.
I'm kind of surprised that you can't think of any book like this.
edit: I mean, Harry Potter fits the bill you outlined, but is explicitly called out by the parent post as a half wizard.
I read James Patterson's "The Beach House" on a pair of short plane flights this past summer. It's a commercial/pulp thriller. The MC doesn't acquire any superpowers during the story except for becoming a badass willing to take significant risks when his life and that of his friends is on the line.
Edit to add: Jack Ryan, especially in the early Tom Clancy novels.
In any story worth reading the main character won't stay "normal" for the duration. The protagonist's change through the course of the story is part of the point of telling a story.
Even after that, I'd argue that Frodo is only made interested through his posession of the one ring, not anything about himself. Sam is probably the only really interesting 'normal guy' in the story, and its only because he gets to tag along with the godly guys.
If you dig deep enough, every memorable character is a snowflake.
Even Walter Mitty, possibly the most average man in literature that I can think of, was exceptional in his imagination, and it is that exception which makes his story compelling.
Maybe Catch-22 is another example? Yossarian is a pretty average soldier, from what I recall.
There are plenty of non-innate ways to make the protagonist remarkable in some way, and most can be hand-waved away as not important to the plot. Epic heroes are easy to follow.
The magical origin story simply does not interfere with the adolescent empowerment fantasy. You, too, could be the secret bastard of an immortal, kid! That makes you special and important and worthy of respect! Tonight's homework: being awesome. Tonight's chores: save the whole freaking world.
In those stories, the protagonist of the story is proxy for the hero in you, and it saves the author a whole lot of character development. If the main character is instead some sort of average Joe Schmoe, the author has to figure out a way to make the reader care about him, whether that be sympathy, pity, hatred, or whatever.
There's good reason why some fiction stories seems to follow a formula. It's because the formula works. Define hero. Add conflict. Introduce the very likely possibility of defeat. Wind up to an epic confrontation, where the hero is ultimately victorious. Resolve subplots and romantic tension. The end.
If you want to read about normal people doing great things, read a nonfiction biography. In fiction, there are no normal people, because every author has the mystical superpower of invoking the suspension of disbelief by any means necessary.
The stories are set in fantastical worlds to make them more interesting to read, but the issues they address are mostly "normal" young adult issues like alienation, conformity, identity, family strife, censorship, oppresion, racism, bigotry, etc.