For Children?

Hola, people of the internet. As you read a blog, scrolling up and down on a pixellated screen, I write on a blog, scrolling up and down on a pixellated screen. Who benefits? Well, you, because you get to read a blog, and me, because I get a hobby.

I think that some people, be them teens or adults, limit their reading only to "adult" books. Maybe they think that reading a children's book will make them look silly, or that they are too old and should be reading only adult books. But from my experience, all of the books that I consider good rest upon the kiddie shelves. The exception to this is some of the classic novels, which I enjoy reading, like, as I recently mentioned, The Adventures & Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. But I find that most modern day adult novels are not, when speaking of sophistication, very much on a higher level than children's books anyway. Picking up an adult book generally does not mean that the literature will be richer. And in fact, I believe that if a writer creates an adventure story without age in mind, but desiring it to be appropriate for anyone to read, and gives it a level of intensity of, say, the National Treasure films, then there is an extremely high chance that it will be put on the children's shelf, simply because it is an enjoyable read that does not overly try the nerves, or a person's integrity. However, its audience will be limited to children nonetheless, because adults will not be willing to pick up the book.

Now think of the grand exception to this rule. Can you guess it? Harry Potter is a children's book, but it was read by millions of adults. What broke the child-only barrier for this multi-million dollar series? Look at the cover of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. What does it look like to you? It looks sophisticated. I can't quite put a finger on it, but something about the covers of the Harry Potter novels put them on a more acceptable level for adults. In fact, I admit that as a third-grade child, I found the covers of this series to be very unattractive, and would not have given the books a chance had they not been so popular, while adults were reading the books all around me. Anyways, the point of this very long post is that the cover of a book, and whether or not people feel as if they are breaking their "cool factor" reading it, has a big influence on its success.