Children's Literature is not Baby Formula

Children's Literature is not Baby Formula is currently the title of my dissertation-- we'll see if I want to keep this title and if I'm allowed to keep this title, but as I'm reading about people's views of popular culture, I'm realizing that not only is pop culture considered less than high culture, it's considered to be culture in its simplest form--already broken down so it's easy to digest. Sort of like baby formula.

The argument that some (I realize I need to figure out who all the somes are) make is that popular culture is what is left over after high culture has decided what it wants to claim. But it can't be that simple. I keep thinking of the old proverb-- what is popular is not always right and what is right is not always popular-- but, sometimes it is. Sometimes something that is well done can be appreciated as well.

Stuart Hall argues that people need to be more discriminating in their views of culture. That not all high culture is good, while not all popular culture is bad. I think this is really important when it comes to thinking about Children's Literature. There seem to be 2 schools of thought when it comes to children's literature-- those who think all children's literature is a pre-digested form of literature-- that none of it is as good as high culture literature, and those who think that there are high culture children's books and popular culture children's books. In reality, I think I fall in the second category--but I want to challenge myself, and others, to think beyond the 2 divisions of high culture and popular culture. Because, I see well-done popular books getting bypassed in the high culture division, and that drives me crazy. The most obvious example of this is Harry Potter. Because the Harry Potter books are so popular, they don't seem to get nominated for some book awards that they might deserve. On behalf of the librarians who make those decisions, I understand why-- the librarians hope to bring to attention well done books that might not get the attention they deserve, and Harry Potter already gets his fair share of attention. But, Rowling also deserves some credit for her style of writing. Although, it's not the book awards that jump out at me the most with the Potter series, it's the films. The fourth Potter film was nominated for several Oscars-- of which it won none, and not because it didn't deserve to win, but because Oscars seem to go only to films that are not popular. The Potter books sometimes seem like an overdone example, but because of their popularity, they are one that people understand.

There are some children's and young adult books that are better than others. But, it doesn't take a Newberry award to determine that, just as it doesn't take a Pulitzer or Nobel prize in literature to determine if an adult fiction book is of the highest quality.

I don't want to turn my dissertation into an argument that says Children's Literature is a true form of literature. But I also don't want to give in to the idea that what is good isn't' popular and what is popular isn't good.

Culture and Children's Literature

I'm trying to think about how culture is in children's literature. I am thinking about all the new young adult texts that reference television and technology. YA authors are aware that their readers live in a world outside of books, and they want to reference that world.

BUT...

YA authors are also trying to reshape culture. Now culture is a complex word-- it doesn't have one simple definition-- for starters there is high culture, mass culture, and popular culture. But, what I think YA fiction is attempting to do is to alter popular culture. It is circular though-- there are ways culture is influencing the YA text.

But in regards to literature influencing culture--For kids-- peer pressure has always been an issue spoken about-- one child behaves as another leads him/her to do. So, now, books want to change that. Books like When Zachary Beaver Comes to Town tell you to be nice to the fat kid. Freak The Mighty teaches to be nice to the disabled. Hoot teaches kids to honor the environment. Monster tells you to not give in to peer pressure. Somehow it's not the same didactic lesson that showed up in the nineteenth century. In the books, it's not the adults telling the kids how to live-- it's kids telling other kids how to live. It's almost like there is a high culture among children. Children's high culture is living up to a higher standard than popular children's culture. Children's high culture calls YA readers to care about the environment, to realize that brain is more powerful than brawn. It's a subculture of children who are aware of things their parents weren't aware of in their youth.