Roger,
First of all, most of the adults who review children's books aren't reviewing
them because adults will read them. They're reviewing them because parents want
to know about books before buying them for their children or allowing their
children to borrow the books from the library.
Second: There are books that are mistakenly classified as young adult books
because the main characters are adolescents or very young adults, but these
books are written at an adult level. I have read books like that. There's one
in particular, whose name escapes me. But there are other young adult books
that are written on a more simplistic level, one appropriate for a less
developed less mature person to read. You can't tell the difference by reading
an NLS annotation because the annotations are so inaccurate. But people who are
emotionally mature with normal intellects, who have led normal lives, generally
do not derive satisfacgtion from reading a book written for a child or an
individual who is under the age of 18. If fully sighted adults are doing so
now, this is a new phenomenon and is another symptom of social breakdown.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey
(Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2021 3:56 PM
To: blind-democracy <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: My Admission
As for the so-called young adult books, Frankly, the only difference I see
between them and adult books, at least in fiction, is that in the young adult
category most of the characters and always the main characters are teenagers.
Because that is the only difference I have no problem with reading a young
adult categorized novel at all. The nonfiction, on the other hand, tends to be
more simplistic and sketchy, By sketchy I mean that a lot of important things
are left out. But if it is a book on a subject that I know little about I can
read and benefit from a young adult nonfiction book too. Actual children' books
are a different matter though. I browse the Goodreads site quite a bitt and
read the reviews. The children's books, for elementary school age and below get
quite a few reviews and the reviews are all from adults.
People under the age of thirteen are not even allowed to use the site. I will
say tghat I don't get it that so many grown adult people are such fans of
children's literature, but it is obvious that they are.
___
Charles Bukowski “For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are
answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big
answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and
discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I
am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and
our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We
are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will
tremble to take us.” ― Charles Bukowski On 3/23/2021 9:38 PM, Miriam Vieni
wrote:
Well, I'll use the Blind Democracy list to confess my sin of
intolerance rather than the BARD Talk list although I suppose it is
obvious to all those poor victims of my intolerance how intolerant I am.
1. I am intolerant of people who complain about seeing large numbers
of foreign language books in the up to the minute category, but have
no problem going through large numbers of books written for elementary
school age children. All those people, like Nolan, go on and on about
how great America is but resent those foreign books, in particular,
the Spanish language books, especially those produced by NLS. And
people wonder why so many people voted for Trump?
And for folks who say that it's no problem to go quickly through
books you don't want to read, yes, you can go through foreign language
books fast, but not children's books. You usually have to read a bit
of the description before you know that the book is written for
children of elementary school age and you need to see the phrase
"young adult" before you know that it is probably written for teenagers.
But now for my real sin: I get that there are many books in the young
adult category that were put there because they're about teenagers but
they might be written on an adult level. But truly, how many normally
functioning adults enjoy reading children's books, even if that
article that Bill posted said that it's OK if adults like them?
Actually, the article said that they help explain complicated concepts
to people who may have problems understanding them and they help
people who don't particularly like to read, learn to like to read. But
on the BARD Talk list, there are all these blind adults who enjoy reading
children's books! Sorry, but I think that's weird.
I wonder if all of them are congenitally totally blind. I know two or
three of them who said that they like these books, are. I wonder if
any of them have now, or have had vision in the past.
Miriam
