The Weird Reason Why I Read Children’s Books
And this is also why I’m over YA books.
So I might as well tell the world a big secret: I generally either read adult non-fiction or children’s books. There’s no in-between. Some might say this is because I was a children’s library page when I was young, but it’s not that true.
When I want to learn something, it’s an adult, grown-up book I read. When I want to have fun, I tend to read books geared toward younger audiences. For a while in the 2000s, I’d read YA books. However, that stopped in recent years.
If you’re like most people, you might be wondering why I don’t read YA books or adult fiction for fun.
It’s rare that I read adult fiction outside of bizarro lit, primarily because that particular niche is “brain stretchy” enough to kick up my creative mind. It’s gory, but it’s hypercreative.
Being a children’s library page gave me a major appreciation for children’s books. There’s an art to them that I don’t often see with most other books — and no, I’m not just talking about the actual book artwork, either.
Here’s the big difference I noticed between children’s books and adult novels…
Did you notice that most children’s books don’t focus on sexuality? Or cheating? Or enormous amounts of blood and gore? Or zone in on extreme violence, taboo talk about topics, and similar?
Children’s books (and YA novels, back in the day) have to be squeaky clean due to the audience’s age. A general rule of thumb is that you won’t see any of the following in a typical children’s book:
Sex
Graphic depictions of abuse
Graphic depictions of murder, violence, or sexual assault
Casual, open drug use
Rage-inducing political hate speech
Maybe it’s just me, but I enjoy the lightheartedness that I always found in children’s books. For a while, back in the 2000s, YA novels didn’t always have the ambiance of Twilight.
They often had that same jokey vibe of a children’s book, though they tended to be longer. Even when they were not lighthearted, they tended to have a certain clean way of depicting a tragedy that was heartfelt and still easy to understand.
Even back when I was a teenager, I couldn’t help but notice how often novels relied on sex and tawdry themes to sell.
Adult novels tend to lose me more often than not. They almost always have one of the following things as their main storyline base or a main theme:
Sex
Casual drug use or addiction
Violent crime
Themes of racism, mental illness, or domestic violence
Political intrigue
After a while, the adult novels I read just started to blend together. It was hard to find that same whimsy and lightheartedness I often found in kid’s stories.
Moreover, most of the fiction I read for adults was just hackneyed. There were always some type of great war between factions, a person trying to thwart a terrorist crime, some romantic drama, a crime thing, or something sexual.
Blah. Blah, blah, blah, blah. When I want to escape into a world of fiction, I don’t want to deal with the same themes that I keep dealing with in my main day-to-day American dystopian life.
There is a certain magic to the clean way that children’s books are written.
In a weird way, I often wonder if most regular fiction writers would have the same ease writing for kids’ books. I personally think I might be okay with making books for very young kids, but it would be hard for me to write a YA novel that would still be clean enough for kids to read.
Think about it. Children’s books are held to a very high standard of quality. When you really think about it, children’s books have a lot of constraints on them when it comes to storytelling. They…
Can’t involve excessive sex as a theme.
Can’t involve drug use in a positive light, or really much drug use at all.
Can’t use profanity to enhance a point or get a point across.
Can’t use taboo subjects for shock value.
Can’t use excessive violence or disturbing crimes as a way to gain shock value.
Generally don’t do well when it comes to writing entire novels about countries with intrigue and political plays — something that YA now heavily relies on.
Often are encouraged to be educational as well.
Must be fun enough to keep kids’ attention.
In other words, they have a strict code of that requires it to be digestible for everyone. They also have to be able to keep kids’ attention for the entirety of the book, which (as we all know) is extremely difficult to do.
Due to the restrictions and rules in the genre, children’s authors are forced to get extra creative.
You can’t really have a torrid affair, a drug addict, crime bosses, or other common “edgy” tropes in most children’s books because it’s generally not seen as appropriate.
Even in genres like horror or children’s crime/mystery novels, when crimes happen, they’re not always described in full gore. It’s an explanation or a description that leaves some stuff hidden — just enough to make it digestible.
Many adults find this to blunt or even dull a plotline, but I actually get pretty enamored with the ways authors make up for it. One of the things I noticed, in particular, deals with the types of twists, world building concepts, and plot ideas I see…
The whimsy is off the charts.
I’m a sucker for stories that take place in idyllic, whimsical worlds. For example, let’s look at one of my most recent obsessions: the Moomins. This is a book series about troll-like creatures that live in a pipe-like house in Moomin Valley.
The Moomins have to escape a massive flood in the Valley, often adopting people into their family, learning how to share, and reminding one another about the little joys in life.
For those who wanted something more niche, the Chrestomanci quartet of books had that same magical, “anything wonderful can happen” vibe that make kids’ books so fun. And those involved an interdimensional wizard who just manages to solve everything for those who summon him.
I could also get into The Worst Witch when it comes to whimsy, but that’s a given. Of course, it doesn’t always have to be fairy tales. I’ve seen fairly good sci-fi series marketed toward kids as well.
Oh and there are also some whimsical books that don’t quite fit into any particular genre — such as the Wayside School books, which were an obsession of mine as a kid.
Many of the youth fiction writers I’ve seen also scratch an itch I didn’t realize I had.
For every borderline-standard-adult-novel like Ender’s Game I’ve seen in the YA section, there’s at least one child’s book that has some interesting historical fiction or historical memoir vibes I’m enamored with.
Though I dislike her political stances, Laura Ingalls Wilder was a truly amazing children’s book author because she was able to write perfect “slice of life” pieces about a time that was very, very alien to our lives right now.
I mean, Little House on the Prairie is basically the polar opposite of how I grew up. And yet, she made it seem so absolutely normal — so relatable. When I read it, I wanted to live like that because it sounded fun.
I often find them to be funnier than the more adult-oriented books.
It’s rare to see a book that actually makes me laugh out loud that’s written for adults. Kids’ books, on the other hand? You’ll hear me chuckle quite a bit — especially when it comes to the funny scenes that books tend to feature in school.
Heck, one book I read (The Twinkie Squad) was so funny that I actually caused a scene in a train because I kept giggling while reading it. It actually was the inspiration behind a prank I pulled in high school and I re-read it from time to time just for a laugh.
One of my favorite books in the children’s section is Interstellar Pig by William Sleator. This one features a game played by a bunch of aliens from different planets.
The game is simple: chase and obtain a pig from another planet and keep him until time runs out to get the prize. No one knows what the prize is, but they are all competing.
As it turns out, the pig has a sneeze that has world-destroying powers. The prize? Well, he really has to sneeze. In other words, whoever “wins” the prize ends up getting blown up, with the moral of the story being that winning isn’t everything.
Later, it’s revealed that the pig most likely made it up so that they had a way to learn about other species. I still like to think that the sneeze is low-key true.
Much of the more powerful messages are done in metaphors.
We all have heard about how. Dr. Seuss wrote The Butter Battle Book as a metaphor for the Cold War. It was one of the most unique anti-war books released for kids…and yet, it never mentioned guns or knives once!
Let’s take another example. Moomins author Tove Jansson grew up in World War II and her writing around the Moomins is actually a metaphor for the struggles of the war. Despite that, war isn’t really heavily mentioned.
The message of equality for all, pushing through to overcome, self-expression, freedom, and the importance of friendship are what are emphasized more.
When I stumbled upon The Moomins, I was amazed at how cuddly and comforting the characters were. Tove’s message was subtle, optimistic, and nuanced — and it really makes for a surprisingly comforting read for a person of today’s near-fascist era.
And when kids’ books are disturbing, they are bone-chilling.
While I emphasized the lighthearted, campy vibes I love in kids’ books, I want to point out that not all YA books are cutesy. Some are downright creepy or disturbing.
We all know about the nightmare fuel that is the Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark series. The images alone have become iconic because of its unsettling, grim, and mildly abstract-surreal appearances.
If you really want to see disturbing, though, check out As The Wind Blows. This anti-war graphic novel was so gruesome, the movie based on it made me lose my lunch. Believe it or not, this was a book designed for children.
What I’m saying is that children’s books are incredibly undervalued.
It took me a long time to try to figure out what made kids’ literature so appealing to me. And eventually, I figured it out: their lack of “edgy” content was their true edge.
People assume kids’ books are just cutesy rhymes or fun comics. While some are, many aren’t. Children’s books can be works of high art, universally appealing and meaningful in a simple yet beautiful way.
Oh, and it also helps that they're shorter in length. It’s a real reminder that big things can come in very small packages.
The memory of the lost beings (Jordi Sierra I Fabra) and all the Narnia books.
Forwarding this to my writers’ group! We have several children’s-book writers (including me!) and this is a very interesting take on it. Especially since some of us are also writing New Adult/Young Adult fiction.