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From: drabkin <arcanis>
Date: Tue, 8 Jun 1999 21:57:49 -0700
There are quite a few crossover books that are not fantasies, although modern crossovers might seem to be more in the fantasy genre just because fantasies (and s-f) have rarely confined themselves only to "adult-only" or
"child-only" themes, and have generally interested themselves in the kinds of universal themes that are of concern to all ages.
In many libraries, all the so?lled "classics" are found in the YA section, and YAs are used by middle-schoolers too, and often by 6th-graders. All the mythology, many of the books by Dickens, Jack London, and so on are in this section. I guess that makes "Call of the Wild" a crossover, and "White Fang"? Works for me. "Gulliver's Travels", written as a furious political satire, is now viewed as a children's book by all the adults who've never read it all the way through -- but the fact that children can pick out enjoyable elements in it and leave behind the parts they don't understand is enough to make it a classic crossover. (While on the subject of "Gulliver's Travels", there's an often-neglected book,
"Mistress Masham's Repose", by White, that follows the travails of the Lilliputians in modern England, and has one of the most hard-done-by orphans and the nastiest guardians I've come across in books. Wonderful book, and a good crossover too.)
When I was a child, one of my favorite books was "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn", by Betty Smith. My mother and all her friends were reading it too, and so were all my friends, when we were around 10 or 11. That probably makes it a crossover...
So -- what's a crossover? Those books that are left once you take all the ones deliberately written in simple language for early readers and set them to one side, and then take all the ones deliberately written in what is miscalled "graphic" language for adult readers and set them to another side? Are the crossovers the ones in the middle, whose authors didn't aim at any particular audience, but just wrote? I don't know -- but can we define our terms?
Marian Drabkin
Marian
Received on Tue 08 Jun 1999 11:57:49 PM CDT
Date: Tue, 8 Jun 1999 21:57:49 -0700
There are quite a few crossover books that are not fantasies, although modern crossovers might seem to be more in the fantasy genre just because fantasies (and s-f) have rarely confined themselves only to "adult-only" or
"child-only" themes, and have generally interested themselves in the kinds of universal themes that are of concern to all ages.
In many libraries, all the so?lled "classics" are found in the YA section, and YAs are used by middle-schoolers too, and often by 6th-graders. All the mythology, many of the books by Dickens, Jack London, and so on are in this section. I guess that makes "Call of the Wild" a crossover, and "White Fang"? Works for me. "Gulliver's Travels", written as a furious political satire, is now viewed as a children's book by all the adults who've never read it all the way through -- but the fact that children can pick out enjoyable elements in it and leave behind the parts they don't understand is enough to make it a classic crossover. (While on the subject of "Gulliver's Travels", there's an often-neglected book,
"Mistress Masham's Repose", by White, that follows the travails of the Lilliputians in modern England, and has one of the most hard-done-by orphans and the nastiest guardians I've come across in books. Wonderful book, and a good crossover too.)
When I was a child, one of my favorite books was "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn", by Betty Smith. My mother and all her friends were reading it too, and so were all my friends, when we were around 10 or 11. That probably makes it a crossover...
So -- what's a crossover? Those books that are left once you take all the ones deliberately written in simple language for early readers and set them to one side, and then take all the ones deliberately written in what is miscalled "graphic" language for adult readers and set them to another side? Are the crossovers the ones in the middle, whose authors didn't aim at any particular audience, but just wrote? I don't know -- but can we define our terms?
Marian Drabkin
Marian
Received on Tue 08 Jun 1999 11:57:49 PM CDT
