Put a stake in it!

Today's PW Shelftalker blog had a wonderful post (with sad, sad comments) on nine-year-olds reading The Sparkly Vampire Book: What to Do, What to Do? The question of what to do revolves around dealing with nine-year-olds who come in wanting to read TSVB for no reason other than "my friends are reading it."

I wholly sympathize with Josie Leavitt's dilemma, as I have lectured a few times on what I like to call The Curse of Harry Potter. I also refer to it as Trickle-Down Readonomics. It goes something like this: Popular books trickle down in age. HP is YA, but now no parent will admit if their child was older than 8 when he read the very adult, violent, good versus evil, fantastic Harry Potter books, full of long words. Now TSVB has become the victim of Trickle-Down Readonomics. Why? Maybe the big sisters of these 9-year-olds were hanging around the house reading it. Maybe they've seen the movie (why?) and they want to read the popular, inescapable books. After all, kids always want to seem older. And if the older kids are reading this big huge black book with a pretty design on the cover, well, THEY WANT IT NOW.

One of the arguments in favor of letting TSVB trickle down is "Well, it's innocent! There's no sex! It's all about chastity!" I find this ridiculously superficial and a faulty argument at best. Abstaining from sex until marriage is not the hallmark of an innocent relationship or an innocent book. Why does TSVB get the "It's innocent!" argument because it doesn't have sex? There's more to innocence than sex. I would argue that the romance in TSVB is not innocent because of how abusive Edward is towards Bella. (I know many others feel differently, but this is my blog and I have always seen Edward as an abuser.) Yes, young readers, it's okay, if a man keeps you from your family and friends and you want to cause serious self-harm when he temporarily breaks up with you, it's okay because you didn't have sex! Since when is an abusive relationship innocent?

Leavitt also talks about the problem of Trickle-Down Readonomics squishing the great books written specifically for the age group that wants the age-inappropriate book. If the nine-year-olds want TSVB, why on earth would they want the less sparkly Clementine? In bookstores and libraries, those two books are shelved nowhere near each other. Why should they be? In their trip to TSVB, those nine-year-olds aren't going to be standing anywhere near the wonderful books that exist for kids their age. The nine-year-olds in Leavitt's store are very lucky to have an enthusiastic, knowledgeable bookseller there to guide them. Not every nine-year-old in a bookstore is. Those customers buy what looks cool and hope for the best. If we're lucky, they buy Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls (love, love, love and I need to write a review on the first 3 books!). If not, they end up with, I dunno, the House of Night books or whatever's facing out on the shelf next to TSVB. Maybe they'll come up with a book they'll love, maybe not, but what they're pretty much guaranteed to come up with is something they'll enjoy better in a few years. What they're probably NOT buying are the oldies-but-goodies, like personal favorite Jennifer, Hecate, MacBeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth unless they have someone (bookseller, librarian) to help them navigate the stacks.

I can sort of see why Harry Potter trickled down, though I personally don't recommend it to anyone younger than sixth grade. At its opening, it's a fun adventure-in-magic-school story. By book three, though, the layers have built so thick and dark that the book beyond its surface is best enjoyed by readers with more life experience. IMNSHO. I still think third-graders are better served by books other than Harry Potter.

Pictures (of wizards) at an exhibition

Sometimes life is just serendipitous. Today's announcement:

Harry Potter, the Exhibition opens April 30, 2009 and closes September 7, 2009 at the Museum of Science and Industry. Tickets are on sale now. The MSI says:

The Harry Potter™ books, by author J.K. Rowling, are among the most popular books of all time and the film adaptations have been equally well received by moviegoers the world over. Now the Museum of Science and Industry is pleased to invite you to experience this imaginative world for yourself in the world premiere of Harry Potter: The Exhibition.

Look at those dates. They run right over the summer of 2009, when the ALA Annual conference is scheduled to be in Chicago. I think this calls for a librarian road trip, don't you? The only catch is that you have to buy tickets in advance; you can't get in with general museum admission.

There's more information here: Harry Potter Exhibition. Who's coming with me? I'll drive the broom. You navigate.

Death and the Magic

From today's Guardian, J.K. Rowling on writing her favorite Harry Potter scene:

But when Harry takes his last, long walk into the heart of the Dark Forest, he is choosing to accept a burden that fell on him when still a tiny child, in spite of the fact that he never sought the role for which he has been cast, never wanted the scar with which he has been marked. As his mentor, Albus Dumbledore, has tried to make clear to Harry, he could have refused to follow the path marked out for him. In spite of the weight of opinion and expectation that singles him out as the "Chosen One", it is Harry's own will that takes him into the Forest to meet Voldemort, prepared to suffer the fate that he escaped sixteen years before.

J.K. Rowling, you are truly a queen among women.

(Been absent much of this week due to being miserably sick. But I'm on the mend now and entries are coming.)

The Sorting Hat declared me a Reading Ravenclaw

In today's Telegraph: Harry Potter readers "can be split into four types". From the article:

Each type conforms closely with one of the four houses found in Harry's school Hogwarts, Professor Stephen Brown of Ulster University said.

His research found 'Hufflepuff' readers take the tales at a slow, steady and systematic pace and enjoy re-reading the books over and over.

'Gryffindor' readers are eager and energetic and will devour the latest Potter book in one sitting, but quickly move on to new things.

'Ravenclaws' are subversive and take the stories with a pinch of salt, while 'Slytherin' readers are not fussed about the books.

They prefer the films but pretend to have read the books when it suits them.

That's the start of it, anyway. What interested me in particular was this later quote, which followed some "O noes the Potterdammerung is dying!":

"Only the Hufflepuffs are totally loyal to Harry, the Gryffindors are already moving on to other things, the Slytherins never really liked him anyway and the Ravenclaws are too busy writing their own fan fiction or posting spoof videos on YouTube."

If you ask me, I think this demonstrates that both the Hufflepuff AND the Ravenclaw readers are "totally loyal to Harry." If you weren't loyal to the intent and world of a series, you wouldn't make the efforto to write fanfic about it or take the time to make spoof videos or post them to YouTube. The Hufflepuff readers, if one goes strictly by this article, are content to read the books, enjoy them, and maybe discuss them with their book clubs. The Ravenclaw readers, on the other hand, are taking the time to speculate as to what happened before, or is happening offstage during, or will happen after the events of the Potter series. They're not satisfied by what appears on the page because Rowling made it clear that the wizarding world was so deep and so rich in history both light and dark. The Ravenclaw loyalty is not just to Harry, but to his entire world and all the people in it.

I caught the notion of fear from this article, too, a fear that Harry Potter will go away forever since there are no new books and nothing to learn about what happens next. I say this is ridiculous. There's interest in plenty of books that no longer have sequels coming out, and as much as we can speculate there will simply be things about the Potterverse that no one but J.K. Rowling will ever know. Whether we write more fanfiction or go on to other books, Harry will always have a place in children's literature history. And while I'm on the topic of Hogwarts houses, I also get the impression that Stephen Brown is more a Hufflepuff reader: loyal to the text but not delving too much into it. If that were the case, he'd know that Hogwarts houses are not about what you are, but what you value. But that's a discussion for another post.

(In terms of Hogwarts houses I think I'm more a Slytherin anyway.)

Wizards > Vampires

I do believe this settles the Harry Potter vs. Twilight debate once and for all.

We lie. There IS such a thing as a dumb question.

The question every librarian is asked most often at the reference desk is not "Where's the bathroom?" but "Can I ask you a dumb question?" To this, I usually respond, "There is no such thing as a dumb question."

I LIED.

There is such a thing as a dumb question, and the MTV Movies blog has asked it: Team Bella or Team Hermione? Whose side are you on?

Let's look at this question.

To ask a person to take a side in an issue, you must ask them to take one side or another concerning the same issue. Clowns are scary vs. Clowns are funny. Either way, it's a question about clowns. When MTV asks "Bella or Hermione?" they're trying to get people to take "sides" on two completely dissimilar things. It was one thing to ask, "Should Harry ride off into the sunset with Hermione or Ginny," because all the characters were in the same book and Hermione vs. Ginny was two sides of one issue. That is, of course, if you only read every other word of the books and couldn't see the Ron/Hermione coming from miles away. By asking "Bella or Hermione?" MTV assumes that Bella and Hermione represent two sides of the same issue, and they don't. They're not even in the same book.

Bella is a narrator and Hermione is a secondary character, to start. I suppose they're both book-smart, but the evidence we have of that for Bella is somewhat minimal at best. The theme of Twilight is romance and the theme of Harry Potter is the battle between good and evil. Hermione is resourceful and stands up for herself. Bella cooks dinner for her father and lets other men stand up for her. Even the book's perspectives are different: Twilight is first-person and Harry Potter is limited third-person. Bella is remarkably average and Hermione is remarkable. I don't particularly like either character, and that's about all I can see they have in common.

Would someone please explain why this is even a debate? I mean, I guess the blogger wants to compare the main female characters of two bestselling YA series, but so what? Even the bestseller numbers are dissimilar: Breaking Dawn's first print run (2 million) was only 16.67% of that of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (12 million). I like a spirited debate as much as the next person, but this is not a debate. This is comparing apples and pineapples.

Enter Hogwarts all over again

It's hard to believe that next month will mark the 10th anniversary of the US publication of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I swear just yesterday it was October of 1999 and I was in Conkey's Bookstore, anxiously checking their new books tables for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I've known Harry longer than I've known my husband and some of my closest friends. Since I first met Harry I've finished my Bachelor's and my Master's and acquired driver's licenses in four different states (not all at the same time). I waited in line at release parties for four of the seven books. Ten-year-olds used to stop me in airports and ask where I got my "Gryffindor House Quidditch Team" gym bag. It's been a long, strange trip, and a great one.

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the publication of book 1, Scholastic is holding an all-day Harry Potter Readathon on September 23rd at its SoHo building. Starting at 8 a.m., each person in line will get a chance to sit in J.K. Rowling's throne and read aloud from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. They have little gifts for those who read, too. For those who can't attend in person, there will be a live webcast at Scholastic's Read Harry site. I'll be there in my sparkly "Team Rowling" t-shirt.

Trailer for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Who wants to go see it in IMAX with me?



For a higher-quality video, visit Moviefone.

So much squee!

It's true: Some people just don't get it.

I love Editorial Anonymous, the blog of a children's book editor. Yesterday's post on answering the question of "Who is your book for?" led to some fascinating comments, one of which made my head spin so much that I had to respond to it here.

Direct link to the comment is here: What an idiot.

First, this: I'm not yet published, but I have 2 books done and 1 almost done in a series. Not a normal series because the main characters get older in each book.

That's called a bildungsroman, and it's not uncommon, definitely not since Harry Potter. It is neither normal nor abnormal to have the characters get older in each book. It does not make you edgy to age your characters, it just means you chose a different form for your series. The Pendragon and Uglies books do this.

Second: I know exactly the type of reader these are for. I knew that before I wrote any of books. I wrote for the age of the reader for the book. Adults won't get some of it because I didn't write it for them.

OH NO YOU DIDN'T!!!

Knowing the type of reader your book is for is great. It helps us purchasers and reader's advisers immensely if you can say something like, "My book is for teens who love historical romance." If you knew it before you wrote your books, okay, I can't argue, because you're the writer and not me, and if that helped you focus the book more power to you. But don't you DARE say that "adults won't get it because you didn't write it for them." Here's the major problem I have with writers who write children's books with that attitude:

Who do you think is going to buy, publish, publicize, review and sell your book?

Here's a hint: It's not children.

I am forever sick of being told that I don't "get" a teen book because I'm an adult. First, didn't an adult WRITE this book? Second, I think that a reader "getting" a book depends much more on the writer than on the reader. It's the writer's job to convey his or her ideas in a fashion that will make it clear to the reader what's going on. If a writer writes a book that no adult will understand, how will an adult literary agent sell that book to a publisher? How will an adult editor edit? How will adults in the publicity department get copies out to adult reviewers who write for review publications read by adults? I am curious as to how this anonymous commenter thinks the book will ever reach any kind of an audience if adults can't read it and sell it to child readers. Unless, of course, s/he envisions some kind of wunderkind Utopia over at 1745 Broadway, filled with the most brilliant minds under the age of 18.

I am not stupid and non-understanding of children because I am an adult, and if your book is written so adults "don't get it," that is your problem, not theirs.

Third: I am going to have a hard time "selling" this to a publisher. Of course.

Well, you said it, I didn't. But really, why do you think that is?

Probably my most beloved publishing blog of all time is the late, great, Miss Snark. Miss Snark wrote about the business of acquiring and selling fiction. No matter what questions most authors had about their books, one thing always seemed to be the theme: Good writing trumps all.

There are many YA books that are hard sells because they don't booktalk easily. Holes is one of them. The Book Thief, Impossible and everything John Green has ever written are prime examples of this. All of those books have one thing in common: The writing is absolutely stellar. None of these authors said that adults wouldn't understand books. They wrote the best story they could aimed at a YA audience. Publishing is a difficult industry to get into, yes, but in the end, it's all about how well you write. Good writing will be recognized by children and adults alike.

Also, why is "selling" in quotation marks? You sell a book. Period.

Interestingly, I have heard the "adults just don't get it" argument from an author who blogged about the reasons his book got a bad review in Kirkus.

Fourth, this gets my Ridiculous Line of the Day Award: I hated Harry Potter. She killed a teen aged boy and there was cruelty in the books.

J.K. Rowling killed someone? When? Why was she not sent to jail?

Ohhhh, because she killed a fictional character in one of the sharpest, most honest moments in the entire Harry Potter series. I will argue until the end of time that Cedric Diggory's death was an absolutely instrumental plot device, turning the entire series. And if it was wrong to kill Cedric Diggory, does this anonymous commenter also have it in for writers like Katherine Paterson, Jerry Spinelli, and E.B. White? How guilty can any of us feel about what we do to fictional characters?

And there was cruelty in the books! One would think that without J.K. Rowling all books for children would be perfectly safe stories of children frolicking in rainbows and playing with butterflies and puppies. Because there was never cruelty chronicled in children's books before Harry Potter, oh no.

Look, no one has to like the Harry Potter books. I certainly liked them but if someone gives them a chance and decides it's not for him, that's fine. To every reader his or her book. That's why libraries have thousands of books and trained reader's advisers. Feel free to hate the books because you thought Cedric Diggory should have lived, but don't hold Harry Potter to a different standard than the rest of the genre.