I've always thought the go to answers for this question would be along the lines of Frog and Toad, The Berenstein Bears, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Green Eggs and Ham, If You Give a Mouse A Cookie, The Cat in the Hat, Captain Underpants, Junie B. Jones, Beverly Clearly books, Goodnight Moon, The Velveteen Rabbit, Courduroy the bear, Amelia Bedilia, Charlotte's Web, Madeline, Bridge to Terabithia, Shiloh, Clifford the Big Red Dog, and so on and so forth. However, I've read stuff such as Alice in Wonderland, Coraline, Percy Jackson, Artemis Fowl, Harry Potter, The Bartimaeus Trilogy, The House of the Scorpion, Anne of the Green Gables, The Wizard of Earthsea, and The Prydain Chronicles. Though those books were enjoyable, I was wondering why they would be considered children's books also. Typically the duration is longer, the writing style is denser and more complex, the plots and characterization and world-building require extra attention, and the themes may be heavier.
So what defines a "children's book"? Is it the level of difficulty? The simplicity or complexity of the themes? The prose? The duration? The maturity of the themes addressed? Another pattern I noticed were some of the heftier "children's book" tend to be older; Earthsea and Prydain was from the 60's and Anne of Green Gables was from 1900's. Was the expected reading level and reading comprehension of children different back then?
by thunderdragon517
21 Comments
A children’s book in my opinion is usually more about the illustrations than the text, but make sure there’s actually enough for the child to- you know- learn to read?
Harry Potter, Artemis Fowl, and them would be more considered Young Adult books.
A book where children are the target audience.
Every book is a children’s book if the kid can read.
That is why more specific categories are useful: picture books, chapter books, middle grade, young adult, etc.
Four year olds and ten year olds are both children but are not going to be at the same reading level. It’s not rocket science jfc
It’s like porn. You know it when you see it
Children range from zero to 18, that’s a big difference in cognitive and reading abilities, and also interests.
Everything you named falls under the umbrella of children’s books, but there are further subdivisions within that.
Largely books for children cover topics and themes that are of interest to children (or developmentally appropriate for children to learn about), using language that is developmentally appropriate.
As you move into YA, the lines blur slightly, and lots of adults are more than happy to read YA, partly because themes that begin to crop up at that level (coming of age, overcoming adversities etc) are relevant into adulthood, but also because many people have a reading age around YA level
You’ve got three levels of books in your list there and you’re lumping them all in as children’s books. Children’s books are geared toward under 8. Middle grade books are geared toward children 8-12. Young adult is geared toward 12-18.
If you are having trouble telling the difference based on reading level and don’t want to Google it, look at the age of the characters for a clue. Most of the time, if a book is geared toward a specific child audience, the MCs will be a year or two older than the actual children it’s geared toward.
As for reading levels in the past, yes. They, children and adults, absolutely read at a higher Lexie level than their current counterparts.
“Children” ranges from infants to teenagers. There’s a lot of ground to cover the.
[Lexile and Quantile](https://hub.lexile.com/find-a-book/search)
Books should be rated more on level of difficulty/grade level.
There are categories all over the place, but many are purely marketing.
There’s a spectrum of intended ages, from picture books and first-alphabet books, to young adult novels like “Johnny Tremaine” or “Harriet the Spy”.
I think it’s a children’s book if the author says it is. Sam Jackson and go the fuck to sleep is a good example.
I don’t think you’re giving children’s book enough credit. Keep in mind that most children’s book, certainly all the ones you have mentioned, are written by adults. And, like all media, while the intended audience might be children, a talented writer can write something that appeals to all ages in a way that is simple enough for children to appreciate, but deep enough to resonate with adults.
My favorite example is *When you Reach Me* by Rebecca Stead which won a Newberry (so middle grade). The general plot is simple enough for a 10 year old to understand but I read it as an adult and man… I don’t want to spoil the ending but the love and guilt of one particular character punched me in the gut in a way that a kid will never understand.
That is to say, a great children’s book will have many layers that the same person can experience differently with age.
There’s an unclear line between children’s books and books that can be enjoyed by children. The existence of teen or YA lit also complicates matters.
The first books you mention I think would be properly categorized as picture books, which you could argue is a subcategory of children’s book.
The thing to remember is that children’s media is not necessarily lower quality than media for adults. The distinction is that it’s using simpler vocabulary and construction, but says nothing of the actual quality of the writing or story.
I understand your question. Ignore the aggressive comments. They are made by the sort of people who maybe inspired your post in the first place.
I don’t really have a definitive answer. I will say that those latter books are considered Young Adult, which I believe is different from children. It can get really tricky to put a definitive answer on why things are categorized the way they are. This goes even beyond books. Some people use “it’s for children” as an insult to say no adult should be entertained by it. I’m struggling to put it into words, but I’ve always gotten the feeling that to be adult is to be less joyful. The darker & more negative something is the more it’s going to resonate with adults vs children. Rape & murder are the easy examples. Both are negative & bring no joy. Both are deemed unsuitable for children.
Harry Potter as a YA series deals with more negative themes such as a verbally abusive household, depression, trauma, & murder. What puts it in the Young Adult category other than mainly featuring teenagers is that it hands those topics in a more hands off way. We know that Harry doesn’t have the best living circumstances with the Dursleys but at the time he’s introduced to us he quickly finds out he’s a wizard & gets sweep off to a magical wonderland. People would view it as more “adult” if he was being molested by Vernon. If instead of founding out he was a wizard as a way to lighten the mood, it was instead taken the opposite direction & his story was instead about him feeling trapped & suffering from suicidal ideations. If instead of just inferring that Vernon & Petunia were toxic people the story instead zeroed in on it. Have Vernon’s abuse be due to him being a closeted homosexual that can’t accept himself. Have Petunia be aware that her husband isn’t truly attracted to her but she puts on a mask & is willfully blind in order to keep up appearances that she has the dream white picket fence American dream family that she desperately craves due to her own feelings of insecurity developed from years of torment by her mother.
Ah, a fellow wayward soul from the BerenstEin universe. Any idea when you crossed over?
Edward Gorey was definitely not a children’s book author. Except I would have loved *The Gashlycrumb Tinies* when I was 9.
Any book where the kid is the audience. Typically with larger books, an adult reads it to small children, and explains anything they don’t understand, until the children are old enough to read and understand it themselves. That’s why a book like Narnia is “technically” a children’s book, even though most young children cannot read it by themselves.
As someone who works part time in a bookstore I often have people ask me what age a specific children’s book is for or if it’s appropriate for a specific age. Usually what I do is look it up, because publishers often include an age recommendation, but in the end I tell them, that they know their child better than me or a publisher and have to decide if they think it would work for them or not. No child is the same and what might work for one two year old might not for the next.
For a rough idea the publisher recommendations work I guess, but beyond that it’s a question of individual ability/interest of each child.
I talked to someone in the publishing industry once, and he said that what made a book “children’s”, “middle grade” or “young adult” had to do wtih the age of the MC. I forget what the cutoffs were, but I think they had to be around 17-18 for it to be young adult.
“Children’s book” is an umbrella term that includes all books where adults are not the primary intended audience, especially books where the primary intended audience is kids younger than high school age. Picture books, easy readers, chapter books, middle grade, and YA can all be considered children’s books.