children's authors

So, I've been on a kick of rereading my old books from childhood, partially inspired by my sister hauling them all up from the basement. I realized that I threw some of them out in the folly of youth, writing them off as too boring or "little kid" for me. Imagine my shock to find that some of them have been out of print for years, and that the classics of my youth are being replaced by Harry Potter wannabes.

When I was younger, Pippi Longstocking, The Rescuers, and The Cricket in Times Square taught me that imagination is wonderful, mice are resourceful, and cats like singing along with Slim Whitman. Good, silly, fun. Now the kids section of Barnes and Noble is filled with book after book about vampires, werewolves, magicians, and sorcerers. Is this necessarily a bad thing? No, I loved the Dealing with Dragons series when I was younger. But seriously, does a twelve year old girl need to be fantasizing about falling in love with a vampire, or a vampire/werewolf? Or whatever combo the authors of today will come up with next to sell paper?

There was only one copy of The Cricket, squelched in between multiple copies of the latest fad series.

If the writing was actually palatable, I might be able to look at this differently. But flipping through a few of these 'novels' reveals a liberal dose of melodrama and sensuality/violence in place of good writing.

There is another disturbing trend of the grade school author, most likely jumpstarted by the success of Eragon. Do I think young people should be encouraged to explore, create, and write? Yes. Do I think it should be published and held up as a standard of writing? No. Part of the reason we are so encouraged to read as kids is because reading helps us with our own writing and overall comprehension of the world. Twelve year olds should not be looking to twelve year old writing, but beyond.