So the vampires and zombies are not swarming into just the US publishing houses at an alarming rate. The wee kids in Ireland love creepy books, too.
I’m not sure about this bit:
In the book trade no one knows how long the teenage horror craze is likely to last, but so far it is showing no sign of slowing down. David O’Callaghan, Children’s Book Buyer at Easons, says that what is happening is brilliant for young readers. “I’m so excited — even more so than when the Harry Potter books started to fly off the shelves. Combining elements of horror, romance, darkness and the supernatural, the teen horror/goth-lit genre allows the reader to connect emotionally and has captured imaginations worldwide. …
Why is that brilliant? Do we want kids to connect emotionally with vampires? I mean, he lists several things–darkness, horror, romance—why it is good to mix these elements together to ”capture imaginations” is not really clear.
Sure it’s dark, but the publishers are seeing a bright future for horror:
Reflecting the huge interest in the genre, Easons last week announced a nationwide promotion which they are calling Welcome to the Darkside. The promotion features a list of about 40 teenage vampire/horror books, including all the top authors and titles, and offers three books for the price of two from the list for the next month.
And parent’s and teachers are de-lighted with the dark fare.
The teenage vampire book craze has delighted teachers and parents, who have often struggled in the past to get teens to read and were worried that there might not be anything to fill the gap after Harry Potter. They should have had more bloody sense.
OK, wait, now. I loved Harry Potter and think the books were great reads in and of themselves. They didn’t need an excuse for existing. We didn’t need to hide them and if discovered say, “I know they are trash, but it’s all I can get my kid to read and I hope he’ll move on to bigger and better books after this.”
But if you are looking at the Harry Potter books that way, why then do you need something to fill the gap after Potter? If the kid has learned to read from reading Potter, why do you need to worry and wonder if there will be any horror to fill the gap left when Potter’s story is done.
Potter wasn’t horror by any stretch of the imagination. So I’m not sure why horror fills the gap left by Potter. I loved Potter and I don’t love vampires and zombies so they haven’t filled any gap for me. But then, the Twilight books don’t seem to be horror either, at least the first one wasn’t. So maybe I just don’t know what horror is.
Still, I don’t get the mindset that says, “Harry Potter taught the kids to read but we need to keep producing questionable/horrific/junky books so the kids will keep reading.” That makes no sense. If Potter teaches kids to read he can be introduced to each new generation and then they can move on. They don’t need more and more books to teach them to read.
I’m pretty much in agreement with you. Also, Potter worked on more levels than just magic and peculiar characters. It was classic good vs evil, standing for right when it costs dearly and it would be easy to give into evil.
Side plots, like Fudge’s refusal to admit the presence of the enemy, and the good guys fighting against the good guys instead of their common enemy. Or the house elves and freedom or slavery issues. There were also interesting facets of Rowling’s books. (I’ve only gotten through the first five. I’d be done, but they’re so long. They’d each be a 100 pages shorter if Harry, Hermione and Ron would stop saying ‘erm’ all the time!)
In a reality, I don’t think that kids will ever much be big readers. Somehow I think that the need to feel powerful is fed by these books. Also, the popular books are often quite simple and single-dimensioned, the characters are like Disney channel TV characters, barely developed and always predictable. Otherwise, why the big interest in graphic novels,i.e comic books?
Dans last blog post..Doin’ the Math
Thanks for commenting, Dan.
I agree that some of those potter books were a tad too long. Not that I wanted them to end, but that they were a little padded. I loved the first three. The last four were good but none of them compelled me like the first three did.
about those one dimensional characters–I must admit I love Nancy Drew when I was a kid. And the Black Stallion books. I’ve read them as an adult and I can stand the stallion books but I can’t even get through a chapter of Nancy Drew.
But, hey, I’ve read Narnia several times as an adult and loved them all each time. Same goes for Wolves of Willoughby Chase. So there are some great kids books out that are deep and popular. Although I guess Wolves wasn’t anywhere near as popular as Nancy Drew.