Isn't that something you do with wine?

[threemonkeys]

I have been mulling over this general area of juvenile SF some more. One thing I just keep coming back to is the definition of "juvenile". I think it is clear that you cannot simply use fixed age ranges. In my own case I was reading adult (but not Adult) fiction while I was still in primary school. Any definition has to be behavioural or skill based, not age based. Where I am at a loss is how to characterise those behaviours, skill sets, developmental characteristics or whatever it is we decide to use.

Where this takes me to is an interesting segment of the population. There are a lot of people who are past the physical symptoms of youth but who are in some way still at a developmental level that we might think of as juvenile - I'm talking here just about reading, not other life skills. I think any consideration of juvenile fiction has to include this population segment. For example, although much has been made about how much Harry potter has "got kids excited about reading again", much less is made about how it has impacted on an older audience - including many who had not read anything more detailed than a glossy magazine for years. To me, that older audience of people who had given up reading is perhaps the most remarkable of all.

Comments

[mashugenah.livejournal.com]

Hey, you don't know me, so feel free to ignore me. :) I was recently discussing the issue of what is Children's Lit with Steph Pegg, who I believe you know. I won't quote her stuff, but my contribution:

One last point I wish to make in advance of my definition: that any kind of enjoyment is not a sufficient and necessary criterion for classification. A book may be enjoyed outside of its ideal context, without making it an appropriate form of entertainment. For example, parents will enjoy watching disney movies _with their children_, but that does not make those movies a generally applicable choice of entertainment even for those same adults.

A book for children is one whose content is comprehensible to children (by limiting its use of language to simple forms, limiting the depicted discussions and activities to topics children could conceivably engage in and limiting the scope of the narrative to actions with only one or two consequences), of a nature which will not cause the child discomfort (by limiting the depiction of violence, sex or abusive relationship forms) and whose narrative structure is clear (by which I mean that time moves forward, that the rules of the world as understood by children are generally obeyed and that the narrative voice does not rely on the audience to interpret the actions described)

When we are talking about "children", we have, generally, to decide who is childish. The age at which a person might generally be capable of forgoing the shelter of their parents and support themselves in some menial way seems like as objective a benchmark as possible. This age was something in the order of 9-10 in victorian times, and many children opt to seek employment via paper routes or similar by 12-13, so I'll discuss the cut-off as 11. (Although the Florida supreme court is trying to entrench in case law that 13 is not old enough to make decisions about your own life)

Let me justify the comparasin of the books to my (or indeed, any) definition. In your post you raised the analogy of a clock. In order to _use_ a clock, you must first know _what it does_, and be able to interpret the clock face. In order to determine how one works, you do need to look in the insides. If, though, you were not familiar with the purpose of the object, and went straight to looking at the insides, you might open either a metronome or a clock and be unable to distinguish easily between the mechanisms of the two. In this way, when you begin to dismantle a book, to seek the essence, it would be well to know first whether you are looking at a metronome, or a clock. By using a definition to determine the general nature of the work under examination, you select the parameters of your investigation into its mechanism.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, I see what you are getting at. There is a distinction between intent and actual application and it is the latter I was interested in with my post. Any discussion of the field should first start with a definition that incorporates the intent (and other things).

Since posting the above, I have had some interesting discussions around the distinction between targeted juvenile (specifically "young adult") fiction and general genre fiction which happens to also be accessible to the youth adult population. It is a good topic for starting analysis of the field.

By the way, since you are from the Welly region, feel free to drop in for the Phoenix meeting in August which is aimed at addressing this topic. I am chairing the discussion in the sense that I will be asking questions of people who know more about the field than I do.

[mashugenah.livejournal.com]

The what now?

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

Assuming you are referring to the last paragraph...
The Phoenix Science Fiction Society (http://www.phoenixsf.blogspot.com/) meets on the second wednesday of every month at Turnbull house, Bowen St, 7.30pm. The topic for the August meeting (10th Aug) is "Juvenile SF" or some title like that. It will be a panel discussion which I'm chairing - hence my musings.

Visitors are always welcome, hence my invitation. Steph and Mundens are members - ask them if you want more info as I see them on your friends list.

[mashugenah.livejournal.com]

Wednesdays are generally committed to sport, but I'll see if the team can cope without me.

Star Wars coming up this month eh? Are you guys like the SFMC in auckland?

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

Better in that SFMC does not exist any more ;-). Well OK, it has transmuted into Stella Nova.

Phoenix and Stella Nova have very similar structures actually. There is a main monthly meeting and then, through the month, special interest groups for writers, board gamers, social animals, video watching etc get together. Phoenix has a monthly news magazine as well which has some reviews and maybe a bit of short fiction.

[mashugenah.livejournal.com]

Don't pay attention for 10 years and look what happens. :)

All your stuff happen on a wednesday?

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

The main meeting is on Wednesday - second wednesday of the month.
Board gaming is on a friday evening - I think its the friday of the week after the main meeting.
The social gathering ("PIG") is on a saturday night - usually the last of the month.
If we have a video eveniong, it will be on a Saturday - usually the 3rd of the month
The Writers group meet on Saturday afternoons.
If we have a group cinema outing, these are early evening screenings on Sunday.

Most of these events apart from the main meeting and cinema happen at somebodies house - Dates & venues for each meeting are in the magazine and on the blog site.