A few days ago, The New Yorker published an article by Christopher Beha entitled "Henry James and the Great Y.A. Debate." In the article, Beha dismissed children's and young adult books as both unsuitable and unworthy reading for adults. Allow me to pull the following three quotes:
“The critic Ruth Graham wrote, for Slate, that adults should 'feel embarrassed about reading literature written for children.’”
“The problem with [Donna Tart's] “The Goldfinch,” its detractors said, was that it was essentially a Y.A. novel. Vanity Fair quoted Wood as saying that 'the rapture with which this novel has been received is further proof of the infantilization of our literary culture: a world in which adults go around reading Harry Potter.'"
“Putting down 'Harry Potter' for Henry James is not one of adulthood’s obligations, like flossing and mortgage payments; it’s one of its rewards, like autonomy and sex. It seems to me not embarrassing or shameful but just self-defeating and a little sad to forego such pleasures in favor of reading a book that might just as easily be enjoyed by a child.”
This article intrigued me. Then it shocked me. Then it enraged me.
Children's and young adult books are vitally important. They reach young persons at an age when they are developing. When they're learning about the world. When their imaginations are brimming with what-ifs. When they're growing.
Now read that last paragraph again. Read it and really think. Developing, learning, imagining, growing. Are these not essential to adulthood as well?
In our twenty-first century society, we like to place this sharp distinction between childhood and adulthood. In fact, we break life down into a series of stages defined by age-brackets: infants, toddlers, children, pre-teens, teens, young adults, adults, seniors. As if there is a clear point at which a person leaves one stage and enters another.
In fact, the entire concept of "childhood" is a modern notion. The idea that children are innocent and need to be protected, that they need to be properly educated, socialized, and given plenty of play time, that they are distinctly different than adults and therefore incapable of work, didn't even exist until a couple hundred years ago.
Obviously, people change as they get older. They learn to think in new ways. They learn how to live independently. They grow bigger. But life isn't a series of building blocks with clearly-defined edges and no ability to move between one phase and another. It is a continuous, fluid journey, and this fluidity moves in both directions. Our past helps to shape who we are. People age, but that doesn't mean they cut away their younger selves. Child-me is a part of present-me.
News flash: young people are brilliant. They see limits and imagine ways around them. They have crazy ideas. They dream. Some of them even succeed in extraordinary ways; look at Mark Zuckerberg, Tavi Gevinson, Dakota Fanning, Tyler Oakley. Declaring that it is "self-defeating and a little sad to forego such pleasures in favor of reading a book that might just as easily be enjoyed by a child" is an outrageous insult to the younger generation. It suggests that young people's opinions are to be ignored, that their thoughts are not worthwhile.
Saying that it is the mark of adulthood in decline when adults go around reading Harry Potter is preposterous. People don't go into the oven as kids and emerge fully-cooked as adults. We are constantly growing, thinking, learning, exploring, and imagining, just as we were when we were younger. Dismissing young adult books in particular as juvenile is just plain ignorant. These books explore a vast range of subjects and life experiences. Harry Potter, to take Beha's example, takes on an impressive spectrum of themes, from growing up to growing old, from acceptance and love to prejudice, hatred, and genocide. Indeed, for some reason, people seem to think it convenient to forget that a good half of the cast of characters in this series are adults.
Besides, if some children's or young adult books do nothing more than make a person, young or old, excited about reading, is that not enough?
When we reach the point when adults can no longer connect with their younger selves, when they stop valuing the importance of learning and imagining and growing, when they dismiss a "children's" story as beneath them, that is the point at which I will fear for the state of adulthood.
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