Re: Some of our Franco-Belgian BDs certainly can stand next to these books. If not too many.
Legolas Send a noteboard - 25/05/2011 08:05:58 PM
Both of those became known through the TV adaptations. Ingalls-Wilder is less popular than she was in the 80s. Montgomery is also less popular than she was in the 90s, in Québec (she's anglo-Canadian, if not for the TV series she probably wouldn't be read at all). Both are back in demand, I suspect because the moms (more than the dads, though both my brother and me read "Little House"
who grew up on those now have kids.
who grew up on those now have kids. True, I think the TV series of Little House on the Prairie did have some success here at some point, but it's only people of a certain generation who know it.
I'm surprised about Laura Ingalls. She's a full-load of those American clichés European love so much. I thought the TV show had a lot of success in France .
It well may have, but if people don't make the jump to the books, there's not going to be any way for younger generations to be familiar with a TV series that was popular in the seventies or early eighties. Or it may be the books had success in France but not here - European countries sometimes have surprisingly large gaps between their tastes, or at least between what's famous in one country and in the next.
I'm guessing the BDs include Tintin, Asterix of course, some Spirous, maybe a few of the best Alix... Blake & Mortimer might be a tad overambitious for that age.
I know my brother would rather rank them Lukcy Luke, Asterix, Tintin, then Spirou, Yoko Tsuno, Achille Talon, Gaston Lagaffe.
Yoko Tsuno is great, if perhaps a tad technical in many cases.
Lucky Luke has his moments, but I'd never rank that one above Asterix or Tintin. Never read Achille Talon, though I'm familiar with the name (after I looked up the translation, that is). He likes the more recent stuff too. Some are more graphic novels. I know he has Shaun Tan, as I gave it to him.
I'm tempted to say I don't know much of the recent stuff that's all that great, but then I simply don't know much of the recent stuff, period.
I think there's too many for a list of 50 books. Of course if the kids like a book, they'll look at the others from the same author.
I only saw two... three maybe.
There are tons, really. In Québec the genre thrives since the early 90s and those books were bought in France after HP. There are series in France too.
But what about older classics - the kind I might've been reading when I was a kid myself? I'm more interested in those than in the French counterparts of all those HP clones.
We don't know them so much because there's been nothing like the anglo-saxon "breakthrough" of those books among an adult readership (and of course, we were not raised with them, as anglo-saxons were with Lewis, Dahl etc). Most of those I can name I can because I've worked on the movie or tv adaptations.
What were you raised with, then? Or your less precocious peers, rather.
Alas, the big disadvantage of these books is that their form is dated. Today's kids wants much faster paced storytelling. Publishers ask the authors to have an eventful start from page 1 - literally (you're not even allowed a kind of prologue anymore - it can kill an otherwise excellent book with the kids). Set up chapters (which have been turned into exposition/character development/introduction of side characters) have been moved from the opening chapters to beyond the fourth or fifth or more. Kids don't enjoy them or care for them until the story has them solidly gripped. According to a famous French publisher (retired, from J'Aime Lire), beginnings are the part the editors have the writers rework the most when manuscripts are bought. This came (in part, it's started earlier) from analysis of Harry Potter's success and the success of other kids's books (not from the financial perspective as such but by pedagogues aiming to find ways to make kids read more.).
That's certainly true, it's no wonder kids have shorter attention spans these days.
Verne is compelling once the kids get into the story, but apparently it's now terribly hard to make them pass his numerous set-up chapters and descriptions at the beginning, and teachers/parents who want their kids to read Verne are advised to read the first chapters with them, and anticipate the adventures to come to build-up some anticipation, or else the kids will get bored with the book before it gets there. Apparently it's TV writing that sparked this evolution in expectations about the way a story should be told (we see it in a lesser measure among adults, just look for e.g. at the way the younger generations of readers get impatient with Jordan's old-fashioned storytelling. To hear them speak, he goes on for pages with dress descriptions, when in truth they rarely go beyond a sentence (or a paragraph for other descriptions - with few exceptions like the few pages describing EF or Caemlyn), and collected together would not even fill the pages of more than two-three chapters, for the whole series. Hard to believe these people would still have the patience for writers like Flaubert, Austen, let alone Proust).
One does wonder why Austen remains as extremely popular as she is, considering how her books really don't match many of the criteria bestsellers are supposed to have nowadays. I don't know if I find your Jordan point entirely fair - he did at one point lose his pace to a point where even readers of a more patient age would have gotten annoyed. And there are no doubt readers who don't mind slow pace or extensive descriptions in serious literary works, but, with some justification, wonder what the point is in a fantasy series.
That said, when I read Jordan's books, even Crossroads of Twilight, without years of eager anticipation to influence my opinion, I certainly find them worthwhile and well-written, and the descriptions generally do enhance the story.
50 books for 11-yearolds
- 24/05/2011 11:11:20 AM
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Reasonably good list.
- 24/05/2011 01:32:40 PM
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Pretty good, but I'd like to see a bit more hard sci-fi in there.
- 24/05/2011 01:48:57 PM
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Re: 50 books for 11-yearolds
- 24/05/2011 01:57:09 PM
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Re: 50 books for 11-yearolds
- 24/05/2011 02:53:28 PM
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Re: 50 books for 11-yearolds
- 24/05/2011 03:40:51 PM
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Re: 50 books for 11-yearolds
- 24/05/2011 04:30:56 PM
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Re: 50 books for 11-yearolds
- 25/05/2011 02:12:48 PM
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Some of our Franco-Belgian BDs certainly can stand next to these books. If not too many.
- 24/05/2011 10:49:04 PM
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You don't know of any French-language books for that age? What about Le Petit Prince?
- 24/05/2011 11:59:37 PM
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Re: You don't know of any French-language books for that age? What about Le Petit Prince?
- 25/05/2011 01:59:59 PM
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I did forget that one, but I tend to think of it more as an ageless book than a children's book.
- 25/05/2011 07:48:09 PM
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Re: Some of our Franco-Belgian BDs certainly can stand next to these books. If not too many.
- 25/05/2011 03:04:27 PM
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Re: Some of our Franco-Belgian BDs certainly can stand next to these books. If not too many.
- 25/05/2011 08:05:58 PM
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I think most "reading" children will have read those books before age 11.
- 24/05/2011 02:22:49 PM
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As far as unforgiveable omissions go, Lindgren comes to mind, as does Ende.
- 24/05/2011 10:36:49 PM
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