Is it really pathetic to go to the children's section of your local library to check out books for yourself?

I think the whole Harry Potter thing killed any stigma that adults reading YA or kid's fic might have had.

Which is to say, no, not pathetic.

Is it really pathetic to go to the children's section of your local library to check out books for yourself?

Oh heck no. Reading children's books is fully sanctioned as an enjoyable activity for all the Nerd Girls I know. YMMV, especially if nerds bother you. But if that's so, why would you be reading Lit at Buffistas, anyway? (Pippi rulz!)

Okay, I'm not a usual poster in here but since we're talking about Sci-Fi books, according to Sci Fi Wire - [link] - these are the top 10 selling SF books on Amazon:

1. The Da Vinci Code
2. Angels & Demons
3. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland pop-up
4. Eragon (Inheritance, Book 1)
5. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
6. Wolves of the Calla
7. The Time Traveler's Wife
8. The Slippery Slope (Lemony Snicket)
9. The Cat in the Hat
10. Inkheart

Am I the only one who sees something wrong with some of these classifications?

Note: the Sci Fi wire link has a headline story about Angel which has nothing spoilery in the headline, but some TV guide type spoilery plot points for an upcoming episode in the article. Don't click on the story if you don't want to know.

I spent a good chunk of winter two years ago re-reading some favorite children's books, and finding out some new ones. I felt weird skulking around the kids section, but it was all in my mind. People figure you're a mom sans kids or a teacher.

ZK Snyder! Loved her, but have only ever been able to find "The Egypt Game" and "The Witches of Worm." WoO FREAKED my shit as a kid, and I was pretty sophistitated. Maybe it freaked me out BECAUSE I'd seen scarier stuff and was extrapolating, I dunno.

Oh, another recomendation for an 11-year-old: The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, or really anything by Avi. A 13-year-old girl, very prim and proper, is the only passenger on a ship from England to America. (It's sometime in the mid 1800s, I think.) It's fabulously creepy and mysterious, and has a murder mystery and a storm and a trial and mutiny, and it's got lots of discussion about proper women's roles without ever getting preachy. (It's also where I first learned the words keelhaul and barnacle.)

Dude! I JUST finished a review of that book for my Adolescent Lit class! I hadn't read it before, and it was ok until the until, in which I thought it was utterly ridiculous that Charlotte became captian and I also thought the ending would most likely result in her getting raped and murdered within a week, rather than finding her true self. YCMV.

I was going to say something else, but my brain is fried. I wrote three papers last night.

I think I would have liked true confessions of C.... more if I had read it as a child.

Am I the only one who sees something wrong with some of these classifications?

Depends on what you mean, Wolfram. I'm not familiar with all of them, but I don't see TCITH as SF in any way, shape, or form. It belongs in the children's book section. Ditto on the pop up book.

I'd classify HP as fantasy -- it has too much of an adult audience to be left in the children's section. And the SF section has accommodated fantasy for years. (BTW, if the AIW weren't a pop up book, I might accept it as fantasy, too.)

I'd classify HP as fantasy -- it has too much of an adult audience to be left in the children's section.

I guess this is where my decision to not go into library science whaps me upside the head. How are these classifications made? Is it the audience of a book or the writing?

I guess some of both, Calli. Since I didn't go into library science either, I'm working on gut instinct -- so I won't quarrel with anyone else's views. But HP doesn't feel like a children's book to me -- I think of children's books as aimed at a pre-teen audience. And there are some things, especially in the more recent books ( Umbridge's pen , anyone?) that I'm not sure I'd want a younger child (under 9 or 10, certainly) reading.

While Rowling's idea of maturing the series as it goes along is a brilliant way to keep her current younger fans interested, it's likely to create a problem for future parents. An 8 or 9YO could easily handle Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone or Chamber of Secrets, but Order of the Phoenix or even Goblet of Fire? Or, since I'm not a parent and rarely deal with children, am I misestimating what kids can handle?

Depends on what you mean, Wolfram. I'm not familiar with all of them, but I don't see TCITH as SF in any way, shape, or form. It belongs in the children's book section. Ditto on the pop up book.

I don't mind including children's books in the SF category, but Cat in the Hat? Classifying the book as SF is almost as bad as classifying The Cat in the Hat movie as a comedy.

An 8 or 9YO could easily handle Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone or Chamber of Secrets, but Order of the Phoenix or even Goblet of Fire?

I think that this is pretty accurate and what librarians in my acquaintance have been facing. As the series gets darker, it will be less and less appropriate for 2nd/3rd graders. I've read interviews herself where Rowling says it wouldn't be approrpriate for those kids.

But HP doesn't feel like a children's book to me -- I think of children's books as aimed at a pre-teen audience.

Young Adult, which is in my brain a totally separate category, often is not treated as a separate category in bookstores. So if you are looking for a book like Go Ask Alice (about drug addiction) or Speak (a fantastic and actually sweetly funny book about a girl who has been raped) you would find them in the same section of the bookstore as ABC books.