I must confess that I have an inexhaustible penchant for really good young adult fiction. I have no desire to write young adult fiction, and I know for a fact that a great deal of the genre is complete crap. Yet I find really good young adult fiction literarily delicious. At the present time, I am reading about a chapter of The Phantom Tollbooth before bed, and I have to say that every time I read that book I am shocked to discover that I’ve once again forgotten its genius since the last reading. Just last night I stumbled over this little gem: a witch (oh, excuse me, a “which”), named Faintly Macabre. As in, “Hello, my name is Faintly Macabre.” You just don’t find stuff like that in adult fiction, no matter how magical it’s pretending to be.
I think there is something about writing for kids that allows authors to break free of convention in ways they would never consider for adult fiction. Magic becomes ordinary instead of something that needs explaining or has to have some deeply serious consequence. There is a release from the idea of having to take oneself too seriously, which I enjoy vicariously by reading these delightful creations.
Young adult fiction that I’ve found enchanting recently includes Peter Pan and A Series of Unfortunate Events (of which I’ve read only the first two books, will be looking for the rest of the series at thrift stores).
Just to cover my bases, I did not read Harry Potter or the Twilight series. Harry Potter I gave a good honest try by reading the first two books of the series, to which HP fans cry out “Oh but the third book is where it gets really good!” My response is that I usually give authors 50 pages to convince me keep reading. I gave Rawlings 500. Twilight I have not even tried, because what I hear from Twilight fans (of my own age or thereabouts) is the following. “I LOVE Twilight, it is SO good! I’m totally addicted to it, I skipped work for a week to finish it. You would hate it.”