My experiences as a children's librarian tell me that children respond viscerally to things you can't predict, and often to things we all can agree are crap. I don't think that children automatically gravitate towards 'classics' because the classics are better, although they are; I think the reason for that gravitation is that the classics are works they can share with the adults and older children in their lives, and everyone reading the book gets something out of it.

Rather than the parents enduring yet another read-through of an incredibly bad tie-in picture book to the 70s Disney movie The Black Hole. (I had a toddler at my old library who was obsessed with that book, and the parents hated it, and prayed it was just a phase.) I think young kids in general tend to live in a soup of private knowledge, and can turn something pointless (like, a stick) into something pointful (a baby doll) with the application of imagination -- and they do the same to books.

When I was a kid, I "read" Tintin books in French, with zero reading comprehension. It was a totally different story from the translated versions I found when I was older.

My experiences as a children's librarian tell me that children respond viscerally to things you can't predict, and often to things we all can agree are crap.

I can agree. When I taught middle school, I taught a few creative writing units. My approach was very much of the "write what you want to, but you have to write, " sort. I noticed that the kids tended to write what they read--not plagiarism (except in one case, and that was ug-lee), but mimicry. If they liked the "Redwall" books, they wrote about talking animals. If they read romance novels, they wrote romance. With a few exceptions, the writing itself was very, very bare-boned, of the who-did-what, who-said-what variety. The exceptions were generally long, list-like descriptions of things like dresses (usually the girls' writing. Usually.), weapons, spaceships, etc. There was very little thought as to the quality or poetry of the writing.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that I think that while younger readers and writers may notice the difference between styles of writing, they haven't figured out how style plays into how the story works. They seem to be more interested in certain ideas (like the Black Hole reader, or kids who will devour every ghost story they can find) and in "what happens next."

The biggest disconnect between children as readers and writers, IMO, comes in the area of characterization. I do think that younger readers can appreciate well-written charcters and come to love them like their own friends, but it takes them a while to learn how to make their own characters have that effect on a reader.

I do think that younger readers can appreciate well-written charcters and come to love them like their own friends, but it takes them a while to learn how to make their own characters have that effect on a reader.

Having read some crap written by grownups, I'd hardly think of it as a "younger reader" issue.

I noticed that the kids tended to write what they read

The first thing I recall writing was a children's book for the "Written and Illustrated by..." contest, in third grade. It was called The Disastrous Dino War, and it was about some dinosaurs...having a war. They had names like Tyranno and Ankylo and that business. I think at the end some humans came from the future and killed them all. Or maybe it was the meteor. The book's got to be lying around somewhere in the house. I think mine was the best from my class or something like that, so I got to go to the little ceremony/convention dealie and meet Dennis Vollmer, one of the kids who'd gotten his book published.

In fourth grade, I wrote K.E.E.T. and the Invasion of the Insectoids. K.E.E.T. stood for "Kids with the Entomology Expertise of Tomorrow." I think that one had a gun which turned people into insects, and one of the kids ended up with a fly leg.

Anne's right in that the stories were more this happened and that happened, though I don't have the actual text with me. I know I didn't know much about writing a character until my first creative writing class in college.

I'm not sure whether using the word "entomology" in fourth grade makes me precocious enough for Deb to want to go back in time and throttle me. I would have been about...nine.

Huh, now I'm remembering something from maybe fifth or sixth grade, where I heard one of my teachers commenting on some sort of card we had sent to someone who'd had some trouble. I had written, "I'm sorry your [house? store?] was burglarized and vandalized thrice." I sure did like big words.

Can I make a request?

I would really like to get back to talking about our own writing again, only because I know that when we have gone down this path in the past it has caused dissension among us...and I value the harmony we normally have in here. (I fully include myself as one of the natterers, btw.)

I'm sorry; I don't mean to be a pain.

t waits for thwapping

I'm standing quietly next to Kristin, because I've been writing up a similar post since yesterday, and then closing the window, because I didn't know how to say it.

I'm talking about my own writing!

...Almost fifteen years ago.

But no, I get you.

then closing the window, because I didn't know how to say it.

I find that hard to believe. You're very good at saying.

My post above was intended as a gentle re-direct.

Also, what Kristin and Cindy said.

I agree--I think I liked better books, but then I became a writer. As I said, I didn't know why I hung onto "Roller Skates" and not "Marla's Big Date" but I did. I don't think kids only like great books, but kids, especially younger kids, do like the classics. "Goodnight Moon" still pleases tinys, and so does "Make way for Ducklings." The comfort food books kids glom onto and read over and over might not stay with kids the way better books do. I was obsessive about some show called "Circus Boy" (starring a young Mickey Dolenz!) when I was a kid and watched it every day. Yet I don't remember a scene of it. I DO remember, in detail, seeing a local production of "MY Fair Lady" when I the same age, though. Not the songs, which I could have gotten from the album, the actual staging of the the production we saw.

ETA-- and I posted this before I saw Kristin's post. Happy to get off my high horse and stop now!

And Robin brings it back full circle - Kristin, this does come back to the writing. I want to see if, and if yes, how, Amy, or Susan, will write an adult book with the influence of small children in the house. And honestly, my question wasn't about crit - it was about how a child processes what they read, or has read to them. That does link up very firmly in my head as a writer. Here's my example. Nutty said

When I was a kid, I "read" Tintin books in French, with zero reading comprehension. It was a totally different story from the translated versions I found when I was older.

I bounced when I read that, because the first book I remember seeing on my own was Le Petit Prince. I couldn't read English properly yet, much less French - I was probably about three or four - but I remember the little boy standing on the edge of the planet, with all the universe spread out behind him. I asked my sister - speaks French like a native and always has - to read it to me, and she did (I just called her at work, and she remembers this vidivly). And she remembers that I was enthralled by the language, even though I didn't understand more than maybe one word in ten.

The first full novel I ever wrote - piece of pretentious crapola, pondering the Big Questions with all the annoying self-importance a 15-year-old could summon up - was in Italian.

I don't think that was coincidental.

(edited because I can't type for beans this morning)