I kinda got to say that as far as official fantasy canons go, I go with Tolkien, Harry Potter, and A Wizard of Earthsea (though not necessarily the rest of the series), and pretty much nothing else. There are other fantasy books I think are magnificent, and truth be told, I don't adore LOTR, but those three are so influential in the genre that I would advise reading them in self defense. I would also advise reading the Odyssey and the Epic of Gilgamesh
But I also think that when you (general you) become a fan of a genre, you do yourself a service by reading the works that defined that genre in the first place. That includes YA too.
This is a little different. What it sounds like they meant was "But children are reading different things than what I read!" with a hint of if you don't read certain books as a child, then when you read them as an adult it doesn't count.
I would advise adults to be cautious when giving The Catcher in the Rye to kids... I read it the day the addict in the family went into rehab, and it reminded me so much of him that I spent three days crying hysterically. This isn't an argument for censorship, just an argument that a book can be fine for one kid and deeply traumatizing to another, because of what the second kid has gone through.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2011-07-20 01:36 am (UTC)But I also think that when you (general you) become a fan of a genre, you do yourself a service by reading the works that defined that genre in the first place. That includes YA too.
This is a little different. What it sounds like they meant was "But children are reading different things than what I read!" with a hint of if you don't read certain books as a child, then when you read them as an adult it doesn't count.
I would advise adults to be cautious when giving The Catcher in the Rye to kids... I read it the day the addict in the family went into rehab, and it reminded me so much of him that I spent three days crying hysterically. This isn't an argument for censorship, just an argument that a book can be fine for one kid and deeply traumatizing to another, because of what the second kid has gone through.