Feb. 23, 2012 at 9:04pm with 3 notes

Anonymous asked: Do you consider The Giver to be a piece of literature? Children's Literature I can see as I read it in 5th grade, which is the demographic it's aimed at. Sure, the concept of The Giver is unique, but it's not. Actual pieces of literature deal with the idea of Utopia & the internal decay of it. Fahrenheit 451, Utopia, and 1984 all ring bells are are far better examples. You do Frost's character a disservice in this fic by having him read that particular novel and not a more sophisticated one.

I completely disagree with you, and I think your definition of literature is very narrow minded. Literature is more than the high brow, oblique landscapes created by post modern authors in search of trying to display some questionable meaning through vague interpretation of their work.

As someone who majored in literature, I’ve read a great many novels, probably more than I can recall, honestly, and novels are more than the cannon of a very small group of people who say ‘this is what makes a good book’. The Giver has some very adult themes in it, just as Harry Potter does and as many other children’s novels do.

Just because its marked as children’s literature does not exclude it from the adult realm, and I feel you are doing a disservice to both those novels and those authors to be so dismissive of those works. 

  1. ratherberaidingkick3 said: I remember when we read that together, and I cried at the end.
  2. admhawthorne posted this