Well, as a gay man who only came to terms with his homosexuality in his thirties, I for one am happy to see modern books for teens being more realistic. If the children's books of 1960s the had been, I might have suffered a Hell of a lot less frustration and misery than I did. But that's me.
Is our world grimmer than is was half a century ago? Truthfully, no. It's no better, mind you, but it's no worse. Are we more aware of the darker side? Probably. Do children's books go too far in the pursuit of misery? Not sure, but probably. But then again, children's book usually do. In their own way, the Famous Five books are just as extreme as anything you will find today.
I sometimes think that the great mistake we ALL make is to forget that - as children - we had one, and only one, real ambition; to become adults as soon as possible. Why we forget it, I am unsure, but we do. And that act of forgetfulness probably explains a lot of the errors we as a society, and as individuls, make in caring for children.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2011-06-08 10:21 am (UTC)Is our world grimmer than is was half a century ago? Truthfully, no. It's no better, mind you, but it's no worse. Are we more aware of the darker side? Probably. Do children's books go too far in the pursuit of misery? Not sure, but probably. But then again, children's book usually do. In their own way, the Famous Five books are just as extreme as anything you will find today.
I sometimes think that the great mistake we ALL make is to forget that - as children - we had one, and only one, real ambition; to become adults as soon as possible. Why we forget it, I am unsure, but we do. And that act of forgetfulness probably explains a lot of the errors we as a society, and as individuls, make in caring for children.