AdventureLand

I'm reading a new children's fantasy series, the first of which is titled, "The Key to Rondo". It's by a female author from Australia (I don't get to read much Australian fiction besides Garth Nix, so I was pretty excited upon finding that out!) and I'm very curious about how good it will be. Usually I don't read a book that was written after 2000 for a while, because a lot of new stuff is, quite plainly, crap. So I wait it out and see which books actually make the "must-read" lists. This one's from 2007, so we'll see.

I also just finished reading the first book of the Ga'hoole series by Kathryn Lasky, and although I've read some of her other work (and enjoyed it), this stuff is new. But it IS in an imaginary place completely, and she created her own genre of fantasy (I call it fowl fantasy), which is brilliant. So I have high hopes for that series.

I don't always wait for books to get old - whenever there is a new book by Kate DiCamillo, Cameron Dokey, or Sharon Creech, I find it as soon as possible and consume it, but these authors are consistently good writers and I've read their older books.

So, in "rare" cases (once a month) I'll try someone new, but oftentimes, if it's a newer book, I am disappointed in either the quality or content of the story.

I believe it's because I grew up on children's fiction written mostly between 1955 and 1980, and my favorite book was actually published in 1941, so I have a taste for that older style of children's fantasy - Lloyd Alexander, C.S. Lewis, Betty Brock, Natalie Babbitt, Joan Aiken, Kenneth Grahame, and Margery Sharp. (I must also plug the author of Freaky Friday and A Billion For Boris - Mary Rodgers. However stupid the newest remake of the movie is, the books are riotously, wonderfully funny)

Other older children's books I enjoy:

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (NOTHING LIKE THE MOVIE) by Ian Fleming
Detectives in Togas (translated from the German) by Henry Winterfeld
The Mona Lisa Mystery by Pat Hutchins (and continuing stories of those silly school children)
The Light Princess by George MacDonald (Also, the Princess & the Goblin/The Princess & Curdie)
The L. Frank Baum Wizard of Oz books (several people continued the stories but his are the merriest)
Jack and Jill by Louisa May Alcott (my favorite book of hers!!)
The Emily trilogy by L.M. Montgomery
The Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Time Quartet by Madeleine L'Engle

So you see, newer books have a LOT to live up to. I do discover new gems at times, but then I find older books that are just as good or better that I haven't read yet.

What I really wanted to talk about, though, was the sense of adventure you get in these books - a world wide open, where anything can happen (especially in the Oz books), and where a lot of people are good, evil is routed, and everyone returns home happily at the end.

These new children's books (and here we jump into broad generalization) are centered around things we know - urban fantasy is the new fantasy genre. Where authors would invent a new world or creature, today authors rely on whatever is trending - vampires, zombies, and werewolves, set in the real world, with whiny kids who suddenly realize one of their relatives was a powerful such-and-so and they have the power to defeat the zombie lunch ladies after all.

I'm not saying that's a bad way to write, I'm just saying...I wish there weren't as many authors who relied on trends, and what I really mean is that I wish publishers would take a chance with new authors instead of picking those who stay true to trend. I'd much rather read Toad Triumphant by Kenneth Grahame than the Goosebumps series any day. And believe me, several authors grew up reading the same books I did. The material's there.

I will say that while Violet's Monster: Volumes I-III partially take place in the new world...there are several trips to another place (no spoilers!) of questionable reality. The Chronicles of Narnia are the same way (and I'm not comparing myself to Lewis because I'll have to write 100 years before I come close to being as brilliant as he was), so there is definitely something to say for that plot device, but it just seems as if authors have lost imagination and only write what they know, instead of writing what they can know in their imagination.

J.K. Rowling is a good example of a newer author who wrote in an older tone - Harry is taken to a new, magical place, has adventures, but still visits 'the real world' from time to time, all the while preparing to fight it out with the big bad of the series and learning an important lesson on the way.

I think we as humans have lost our ability to have adventures (lack of money and time, mostly) and that is why a lot of us turn to fantasy, which I think is why we need more than just urban fantasy. I would love to escape to another planet for a while. Why not? Why stay here in the city and watch monsters invade when you can go to Perelandra and meet those awesome aliens??

Anyway. Just doing a lot of thinking about that lately.