against childhood

When established older writers get all cranky about kids who are self-publishing novels (a new trend, I hear), I remember when my younger brothers were allowed to see movies that, up until then, only L. and I had been able to watch because we were older (not because, as we assumed and argued, we alone deserved to watch them). I felt disinherited and debated like a member of Parliament arguing for continued colonial presence in angry foreign countries. So, in a similar pattern, the adult writers go on and on about how true publishing (through a publishing house, with agents and editors and titles you don't like or want slapped on your book) is a trial by fire, a study in adversity and perseverance, and you come out refined and burnished like gold. Which is why these traditionally published authors are such noble wonderful people. Self-publishing, especially by dewy and innocent children (has no one read "Lord of the Flies" recently or visited a school playground?), misses the point and is only for the lazy, the passive aggressive and the unsuccessful. Or something. I think the traditionally published authors are just jealous and don't want these upstarts mucking around "where they don't belong" so they do the older sibling thing and try to invalidate whatever the younger sibling is doing and hold tight to what they see as their exclusive domain.

You could argue (and the established authors do) that a kid hasn't done the sort of living you need to do to write a truly good book. Therefore what they write shouldn't be published. The characters and stories will likely be one-dimensional spin-offs with lots of cliches. Good thing that never happens in books written by adults and published through publishing houses. Only quality is allowed there.

Age-discrimination is making me angry apparently today.

And related: The lady who wrote "Tuck Everlasting" argues against talking down to children and writing insipid books for children. Children become people early in life, she said in an interview on NPR. We're always asking children what they want to be when they grow up, she said. We should ask them who they are right now.

I was reading a satirical article about writing the great American novel and the writer was begging future authors to stop writing children's books if they themselves are no longer children.

"You can follow them around and put their clothes on and roll around with their Transformers and I’m still pretty sure there’s just no way you’ll even begin to comprehend what it’s like to be a kid," he writes.