Fictional Facelifts

The books we read as children can be clever, complicated, dark, funny, and intelligent story-tellers. Little wonder, then, that adults are choosing to re-read their childhood books. But this has become something of a guilty pleasure now that we are all growed-up in our long trousers and with our silly haircuts. The answer? A fictional facelift.

Frances Hodgson Burnetts and Eva Ibbotsons cosy up to The Hobbit and the wonderfully illustrated The Edge Chronicles on my childhood bookshelf. Stories have been read by young people ever since the early fairy tales. It was only in the late 1600s, however, that books came to be written specifically for a young audience. In the Victorian era, the literary-commercial spotlight was to fall on children. Today, children’s literature is ever-expanding, and becoming increasingly specialised. Bookshop departments, and prestigious new prizes that recognise children’s authors, are still in their relative infancy. Young adult fiction has eased the transition between child and adult reading material. But the division and subdivision of literature is creating new embarrassments for its readers.

Let’s say you decide to ditch that cranium-aching classic in favour of an enjoyable tween read on your way to work. Perhaps it’s a pick-me-up, a comfort read, or simply a stunningly told story, but suddenly you’re convinced that the commuter community is silently judging your choice of reading. Outwardly, yes, they’re slumped in their seats, blearily flicking through a Metro or slurping their coffee like half-conscious autobots. Inwardly, you just know that they’re sniggering away at your fictional faux pas. The cover of the book is screeching ‘LOOK AT ME’ across the carriage. Your hands tremble. You repress the desire to hurl it violently from the train window. But there is an alternative. You pull out a sombre-looking tome from your bag. It’s the same book, but in a plain-clothes cover, hiding your literary disgrace.

On publication days, I would read each Harry Potter book from cover to colourful cover. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was booked in for a nip and tuck when Bloomsbury realised that adult readers were enjoying the series as much as children were. The children’s versions have illustrations vividly splashed across their covers. In an act of cosmetic wizardry, adult jackets became stormy and photographic, with a new sartorial style to cover up their contents.

With pre-orders for these covers surpassing the children’s ones, Waterstones predicted that the final instalment could be read by more adults than children. This cover change could just signify a simple matter of personal taste in the style stakes. But it also asks whether literature can be defined by its age-appropriateness, and could this lead to the restriction of reading? As a reaction to complaints that Harry Potter was monopolising its charts, the New York Times controversially created a separate children’s bestseller list in order ‘to clear some room.’ Segregating the series from the other adult bestsellers, Harry Potter was classified as a book read only by children, despite the fact that 35% of its sales were generated from older readers.

A book’s cover is its paratext; the material threshold to its story. But this threshold can also become a barrier to the pleasures of reading. Books are commodities, to be packaged and marketed to a certain readership. But judging a children’s book by its author, cover or title is superficial, and can distract from its literary merits. ‘Children’s’ authors, such as Philip Pullman, make for fantastic reads for adults. Elsewhere, Roald Dahl’s literary creations are brilliantly twisted, bizarre, and downright creepy. Contrarily, there have been concerns at the adult nature of some books for children. Jacqueline Wilson, for instance, has been criticised for her controversial subject matter.

Books are being increasingly sorted into the genres of child, young adult, and adult fiction. In practise, however, ten year olds read Thomas Hardy, and their parents Harry Potter. Enjoyment of the PGs or 12As of the book world does not have to be something that is tucked away under the rug, or disguised under an adult cover. Books don’t need facelifts in order to overcome the embarrassment of reading them, and adult readers don’t have to let style eclipse the substance of a good book. Stories, like Peter Pan, are un-ageing: they never grow old.

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