MarvellousMedicine

Children's books that I continue to enjoy as an adult are: Anything that's really well-constructed. I love good writing for its own sake, so even if I've outgrown the kind of story I can appreciate the craftsmanship. In children's books, I like very concise writing that manages to evoke a lot of mental image/ atmosphere with a few well-chosen words. Stuff that's beautiful and simple at the same time. Anything with a deeper message that strikes a chord, even if the events of the story when taken at face value are pure fantasy (I suppose the supreme example of this is The Little Prince, but also to a lesser extent stuff like Jonathan Livingston Seagull). And lastly, anything that appeals to the inner child in me to such an extent that I can actually enjoy it as much (and in exactly the same way) as I would have twenty years ago. That includes stuff like Harry Potter, Mortal Engines, Hermux Tantamoq (sp?), and so on. There's nothing clever going on when I read these, and I'm certainly not seeing any "deeper layers" that a kid wouldn't see. I'm just regressing.

It's hard to diss Harry Potter - it's an incredible achievement that has completely changed the style and tone of much juvenile fiction - but I thought the last three books failed to live up to the promise set by the first four. I think it collapsed under the weight of its own concepts a bit. By the end, JK Rowling had maybe introduced a few too many completely original ideas that seemed a bit... arbitrary? What I mean is, it's easy to feel emotionally involved if the kids go up against a troll or a giant spider cos these are familiar concepts. But once the plot got bogged down in Hallows and Horcruxes and Patronuses it felt a bit too abstract for me. Maybe that's just me. The final confrontation with Voldemort was a big let down for me. I won't say more in case of spoilers. But regardless of the things I would have liked JK Rowling to do differently, the whole series is, on average, brilliant. The fact that I was slightly disappointed by the last three books is more a comment on how good the first four were. Also, I don't think JK Rowling is a totally fantastic writer of descriptive prose. I find her prose style a tiny bit plain. It does the job, but never made me stop and think, "Wow, what a beautiful passage." However, I think she must write world-beating dialogue or something, because all of her characters seemed so real to me. Part of the joy was just sitting back and reading while Harry, Ron and Hermione had their little rows and disagreements about the most mundane things

Funnily enough... I felt the opposite. I felt that the books worked best in the first half of the series precisely because they were repetitive. There was quite a nice formula (e.g., the kids arrive with a new colourful foster parent; Count Olaf turns up in a ridiculous disguise that the adults seem strangely blind to; and so on). In those books, the fun for me was down to the humour and colourful character descriptions rather than any innovation in the plots, and the "disguise of the week" format was part of the charm. I don't like those sketch shows where the characters do the same thing every single time in slightly different ways... but... I imagine that people who do like them, probably like them in the same way that I liked the early Snickett books (if that makes any sense at all!). Once the books moved away from the new location/new foster parent/new disguise for Count Olaf format, I felt they just seemed less tightly-written, less colourful, less memorable. They just went a bit flabby without the tried and tested framework behind them. Sets like the Slippery Slope and characters like the man with a beard but no hair and the woman with hair and no beard, just seemed to lack the fizz and colour of the Miserable Mill or Uncle Monty. Anyway, I still enjoyed the series right to the end but definitely noted a downwards trend...

My favourite books when I was young are: The Redwall books by Brian Jacques. This is a sad story, actually. As I grew older, I felt that the stories were getting sillier and sillier... but I recently flicked through the first one, and think it was more a case of me getting less and less silly as I hit my teens! I am unashamedly a "big kid" and still read children's books. I really appreciate a well-written imaginative one - the only comparable adult genre in terms of inventiveness is prob'ly good horror - so part of the acid test for me is whether I can still re-read them as an adult and enjoy the characters and writing. Redwall was just what I needed when I was ten, but sadly didn't pass the test of time. The Little Vampire books. I still have very tatty copies of the first one and The Little Vampire in Love knocking around, and I can still enjoy reading them in the bath from time to time. The nostalgia is great and I still find the books very atmospheric. I'd love to buy the series but think they're out of print Green Smoke by Rosemary Manning. Fantastically imaginative with memorable characters. This one recently came back in print.