the classics
yesterday, during the few minutes before recital choir, i got to talk to some of the people i haven't seen for almost ten weeks. one of them asked me where i was working and i told him: a children's bookstore in the University Center.
"oh!" he said in a "that's so quaint!" tone.
he asked me if i had been looking for a job in the center and gotten lucky. i said no. i said i had come into the store to buy something and ended up applying for a job there because i liked the place.
he cocked his head at me and asked, "what were you going to buy?"
i gave him a bewildered smile. "books."
"oh!" he said again with a little bewilderment of his own. "i was just thinking 'what would you buy at a children's bookstore' because its for..."
and then a girl beside me butt in with "what are you talking about! children's books are the best!"
but i don't think she was being serious because then they started talking about picture books with really pretty pictures and i tried to make it clear that children's literature is not appreciated by only children and does not only consist of picture books.
its the kind of response i get a lot, though. why would you read children's books? especially from my dad who looks down on children's literature in a very annoying way as if reading it is below my IQ.
well, it isn't. harry potter and eragon and all those other children's books that are read by adults are all well and good, but why can't all children's literature be appreciated as much? as i've mentioned before, C.S. Lewis' chronicles of narnia are religious allegories. children's books address religious hypocrisy, domestic violence, social prejudices, justice and all kinds of other issues that adult fiction addresses as well and with more real understanding, more compassion.
do people so easily forget, Lewis Carrol, J.M. Barrie, Louisa May Alcott, Frank Baum, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Jonathan Swift, Rudyard Kipling and other authors who's books for children encompass such wider audiences? i had to read Dickens, Twain, and Kipling for highschool and college! Swift's Gulliver's Travels is a satire on British politics in parliament!
so, please, don't speak to me in that disparaging tone about the immaturity of children's literature. i'd be strongly inclined to either feel sorry for you or smack you.
3 Comments:
HERE HERE!
I hate it when people give me 'that look' when I tell them I'm studying children's literature. It drives me nuts! And I'm sure you know what 'look' I speak of.
The first day in my Children's Literature class my professor gave us a stern lecture about how people think that children's literature is easy to understand and so straightforward, and not worthy of reading once you are an adult. I think that was for those kids in the class that took the course because they thought "well, how hard can it be?"
I love reading children's literature.
I think part of the problem for people that don't like children's literature is that they've lost their imagination and that 'look' is really just masking their jealously that they can no longer lose themselves in a book that doesn't revolve around a murder (although many of them do).
I think you would love my kiddie lit classes Wig. It is too bad you aren't here to enjoy them!
Ugh...I used "to" instead of "too" in my second paragraph.
I say, you should'a smacked 'em. *nods*
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