I just read this quote on an Amazon book review:

“Although the point of view shifts between many characters (with even the Coleman’s maid and cook getting their say, sometimes unnecessarily), Falling Angels is essentially the children’s story, since it is their lives that are most open to change. ”

(My added emphasis.)

It immediately made me think … more and more adults are reading books geared towards younger readers. (And, conversely, more and more YA books are expanding to include an older audience–think Harry Potter and Mockingjay.)

Speaking as an adult who has enjoyed reading MG and YA books since I was MG and YA, and has never actually given them up, this quote piqued my interest.

Why DO adults enjoy books for younger readers so much?

They’re safe, for one.

Even the books that acknowledge that The World can be a Scary Place aren’t usually too graphic or too consistently awful in the scope of the story. People might die, but not usually right in front of us. Or if they do, it’s not described as graphically as might occur in a book geared toward older readers. Ditto for sex and bad language. They appear, both of them, because they are part of Real Life, but not necessarily to the same, described to the last detail, degree as in, say, an adult romance novel.

The worlds in YA and MG (even the post-apocalyptic ones like Lois Lowry’s The Giver) tend to be real, but not quite so hard-edged as daily existence can be. It’s like the reader is standing in the doorway watching the harsh realities, but hasn’t quite entered the real world yet. You know, like television.

Nostalgia.

Those of us who have grown up, left school, and are just trying to make our livings, put food on the table, clothes on our backs, raise our kids, blah, blah, blah may well enjoy a look back to those halcyon days when the worst that could happen was that we’d get a failing grade in school, or that the bully might embarrass us during lunch. Even acknowledging that school isn’t the pastel-tinted wonderland we think we remember, as a rule, the consequences for most teen-aged mistakes don’t come with the same consequences as adult-aged mistakes. Teenagers aren’t usually responsible for the family finances, or for making the mortgage payments. (There are those that do, and certainly there are teenagers who are forced into being adults before their time because the adults in their lives aren’t cutting it. But, you know, generally speaking.)

But … other than that … that review has that line about “Essentially a children’s story since their lives are most open to change?”

Sometimes I think that … gritty and harsh and devastatingly real though YA is these days … there is an element of possibility that’s not always available in adult fiction.

It’s a simple fact that, as you grow older, your options get smaller. I’m not saying that you can’t decide at 20, 50, or 80 to do something completely new. You can quit your job and join the circus; you can tell your family you’re stepping out to the grocery store and run off to Taiwan for a week. People remake themselves and their images of themselves all the time.

The difference, though, between doing it at 16 or doing it at 66? Two differences, actually. (1) Baggage and (2) Time. The older we get, the more memories and experiences we gather–good and bad. You might be less likely to bungee-jump off a bridge now if you’d had a bad experience years before. This, of course, is the point of wisdom–you learn from your experiences. The problem is that that wisdom can weigh you down, especially if you’ve found a good place in your life and know that one wrong step could demolish it.

And, of course, older people have less time to explore options than younger people. You can decide to become a neurosurgeon at 72 if you like, but it’s going to take time to learn everything you need to know, and the years you’ll be around to practice are (presumably) going to be fewer than someone in medical school at 23. Nobody knows for sure how much time they’ve got in their account, but we all know it’s going to run out eventually, and like any other resource, the rarer it gets, the more precious it becomes. Old people don’t have time to mess around, darn it!

Which makes books for children and teenagers particularly appealing. When you’re young, almost anything is possible. You can’t change who your parents are, or the situation you were born into, but you can almost always change your future if you try hard enough. When you’ve got your whole life ahead of you, you can change almost anything about your life. Maybe not your skin color, or your obnoxious little brother,or terrible things that might have happened to you, but … where you’re going, what your destiny is.

I’m an optimist, folks. I like to believe that anything is possible. And too many books written for adults are just bouncing from one disaster to another. They’re depressing.

Optimism is worth it.

I like books written for younger people because–even the post-apocalyptic, gritty, life-is-awful ones–tend to have at least a hint of faith that, no matter how bad things get, there’s always a chance they’ll get better. The good guys usually win, people are redeemed, life changes for the better. Not every adult-geared book does that. I can think of any number that left me feeling depressed at the end. A book that makes me feel hopeful for the future? A Godsend.

You know, it just goes to show that you really can’t separate your own life, your own time, your own thought-processes from your historical research.

I was reading a book about the first two decades of the twentieth century (Pivotal Decades by John Milton Cooper), and came across this photo of General Pershing from WWI. You know, from around 1917-1918 or so?

See the man in the background?

Even knowing that this photo is over ninety years old, the posture was so familiar, so ever-present …

… My first thought was that he was texting someone or checking his email or tweeting, or something.

Yes, this makes me a momentary idiot. (Or at least, I hope it was just momentary.) But it also stopped me mid-chew as I ate my lunch.

How many other things do we take for granted just because they seem familiar to us … even when they’re not. I’m not sure what this soldier is doing–tying a knot? Checking a bullet? Folding a vital military order? Picking at a hangnail? Doing some obscure 1917 thing that has disappeared from usage in the last century? But I’m pretty confident in saying that he is NOT scrolling through music on his MP3-player. You know, unless he was a time-traveller who wasn’t paying attention to the photographer.

The point, though, is that no matter how hard we may try not to, we’re always going to perceive the world through what we KNOW.

History, religion, table manners … everything. We can know that Amish people don’t use electricity, but can we really understand what that means on a daily basis? We can know that a couple centuries ago, it might take months to deliver mail across country, but that seems impossible to people who mostly communicate instantaneously. And who can’t really imagine what a difference the telegraph made when it spread like wildfire around the world.

People say the only way to know another person is to walk a mile in their shoes–even if just in your imagination. The trick, though, is that those shoes aren’t going to fit, no matter how well they’re made, because your feet are used to the world you walk. Anything else is too unfamiliar for secure footing … and it’s when you make assumptions that you’re going to get into trouble.

Spammers, this is NOT the way to win my attention.

I think we can all agree that spammers are, well, annoying–like telemarketers used to be. They clutter up your comments and email with links for products and sites that usually have nothing to do with what you’re blogging about.

To be fair, some spammers at least try. They leave a legitimate comment about something you’ve posted–it’s just that their website link goes back to some site trying to sell you something. They’re at least trying to blend in, contribute, and aren’t being obnoxious about it. Spammers like that are okay in my book, like any poor wage slave just trying to make a living. Would I rather they weren’t passing out business cards in my living room, yes, but as long as they’re polite and don’t stand on the furniture, we can get along.

But, how about this comment I got recently? (Misspellings and grammar left untouched. The only thing I removed was the hyperlink because I’m not giving this person free advertising.)

Why have you taken out my post? It was very helpful information and i assure atleast one person found it helpful unlike the rest of the comments on this site. I’ll post it again. Sick of getting low amounts of useless traffic for your website? Well i wish to let you know about a fresh underground tactic that produces me personally $900 on a daily basis on 100% AUTOPILOT. I could be here all day and going into detail but why dont you just check their site out? There is a excellent video that explains everything. So if your serious about producing quick hard cash this is the website for you _______.

Oh, where do I start?

It’s rude. First, while I don’t remember seeing the person’s name in my spam filters before, it’s possible their comment got past the Akismet wall and that I saw it in the spam filter and thought, “Yep, that’s spam,” and deleted it myself. But, that’s my job. I certainly hold the right to delete any comments I wish from my own site–especially if they’re spam.

What does this person think they’re gaining by outright scolding me for deleting their comment?

Oy, the nerve!

Which, of course, is the number one rule for selling anything, isn’t it? DON’T BE RUDE. You never know who might be a potential customer. You never know who has power and who does not. There are countless fairy tales with fairy godmothers in disguise, testing good intentions.

But more than that, a comment like this is essentially hijacking my site for their own purposes (and doing it nastily).

If there’s anything I hate more than spam, it’s RUDE spam. No way on earth I’m letting this person’s comment through now, ever.

So, who is this person hurting? Me? I don’t think so. They’re only hurting themselves by burning bridges. Am I likely to ever have let one of their badly punctuated comments slide? Probably not, but I’m happy to have well-intentioned conversations. If they had tried to fit in or been a little nicer, there wouldn’t have been an issue.

Why … I mean, seriously, WHY … do you suppose they thought a comment like that was a GOOD idea? “Why have you taken out my post? It was very helpful information and i assure atleast one person found it helpful unlike the rest of the comments on this site. I’ll post it again….” They insulted me for my management, and insulted all of you, my readers, for allegedly leaving unhelpful comments.

Sheesh.

I wish I really were a fairy godmother in disguise so I could smite them with some nice, genteel curse like warts or bunions or something really inconvenient like chronic writer’s block.

Okay, thanks for letting me vent! Please come and leave REAL comments and share your opinions!