Is Fiction A Type of Fabrication? Part 4 of 10

If you are looking for the original email that started this all please see the last few posts. The email is in italics, so it is easier to find. Comments are welcomed, give me your view.

The more I think of fiction the more i find it to be thought provoking. Contrary to what the email implied. I sat down last night to read a bit of Harry Potter. Originally I had intended that this blog would be about literary fiction, but Harry Potter took over my mind. So children’s fiction it is.

Probably the most famous is the Harry Potter series. Whatever your beliefs, as in some cases it did spark a debate in the religious circles, the books are good. To suggest that J.K. Rowlings created it out of her head is one thing, (I think I heard that she herself said this in an interview) but to make the story so wonderfully believable and well constructed, well that take research and time. Also, many drafts. Yes, she knew the area she wanted to speak about. The rest, well after the first book there needed to be a lot of research done to make the rest ones which the reader would pick up, talk about, debate about, and tell friends about.

If she hadn’t done this I will say that Harry Potter and its movies would never have been created.

Another beloved children’s book, this time closer to home for me is the Anne of Green Gables series. L.M. Montgomery, used her own life as a background for her heroine. Anne is still beloved by millions, and that timeless character could not have been better done if Montgomery had used little research, or first hand knowledge to make Anne feel real. Her mannerism are that of a child, yet the character also grows, so there is an understanding of children, which is either learned or researched.

My point is that by far children’s fiction needs to be the most realistic and grounded of all fiction. At the same time there needs to be an element of magic or fun in it otherwise children will not read it. Children are intelligent and want to think, but in their own books, and in their own time. I would say that most of the children’s books out in the libraries or in bookstores all have that same element, one that requires the children to think.