
The Percy Jackson Problem - jcater
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/percy-jackson-problem
======
joshdance
I have a younger sister who gives me her books to read. I have read nearly all
of the Percy Jackson series and I find them enjoyable.

Also, consider that since 1984, the percent of 13-year-olds who are weekly
readers went down from 70% to 53%, and the percent of 17-year-olds who are
weekly readers went from 64% to 40%, and the percent of 17-year-olds who never
or hardly ever read tripled during this period, from 9% to 27% - source
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/jordanshapiro/2014/05/13/kids-
do...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/jordanshapiro/2014/05/13/kids-dont-read-
books-because-parents-dont-read-books/)

Why are we even slightly worried that a kid is reading a fun story about Greek
mythology?

~~~
chimeracoder
Exactly.

This article repeats many of the exact same complaints that my parents and my
friends' parents had about the Wishbone[0] books (not the TV series).
Fortunately, reading kid-friendly adaptations of classics neither rotted my
brain nor destroyed my interest in the subject matter, and I remain an avid
reader today.

My first exposure to Greek mythology came from (I kid you not) a reader in
school[1]. It was probably intended for a 4th grade reading level. If
anything, this only enhanced my interest in the matter - I read the entire
D’Aulaires collection shortly afterward, studied Latin in high school, and
still know many of the stories by heart.

I actually read the entire Percy Jackson series recently. It's a quick read
for any adult, and like many kids' cartoons from the 70s, it's filled with
jokes and references that only an adult can appreciate[2]. The writing quality
is a little lower than _Harry Potter_ , but if I may, I never thought Rowling
was a stellar writer anyway (her talent is in plot development).

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wishbone_%28TV_series%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wishbone_%28TV_series%29)

[1] Do they still even have these anymore? They were basically consumable
workbooks that had stories that you were reading as you practice spelling,
grammar, etc.

[2] I actually am surprised in some sense that children enjoy the books,
because to me, it seems like much of the humor would fall completely flat
without a solid understanding of the stories that Riordan is adapting.
Apparently he manages to make it work, but I would say that his writing is
about as adult-friendly/adult-oriented as the first few books in the _Harry
Potter_ series. (As opposed to the last couple of books, which are
_definitely_ intended for a slightly older audience, and contain much darker
elements).

~~~
gknoy
Agreed. In middle school, my English teacher had a box of compic book (!!)
adaptations of classic literature -- Murders in the Rue Morgue, etc. I had
already read or heard of many of the authors, but this was a quick
introduction / plot-overview of many of the rest of them. It was like finding
a secret stash of new jelly bean flavors: Not the best thing, but damn if they
weren't enjoyable to devour.

Best of all, they gave me enough plot-summary of some of them (Fall of the
House of Usher) that one can recognize references to them in OTHER works (such
as Bradbury's works) which I might not previously have understood.

I've re-read several of those classics later, but I still have fond memories
of that box of comic books.

------
ggchappell
I have a problem with articles like this. The arguments _against_ the "just so
long as they're reading" position strike me as ridiculous. I feel like I ought
to be saying, "Both sides make good points," but I don't see it that way.

For example, FTA:

> [Tim Parks] enlisted the example of his own children’s reading habits, and
> those of his young students, to argue that there is little evidence to
> suggest that readers will make progress “upward from pulp to Proust.”

Well, maybe not. Most people don't read Proust, after all. But does he think
his kids will chose to read Proust if they are denied anything fun to read?

But ... perhaps these arguments are just badly stated. Would anyone care to
give me a good argument that the "just do long as they're reading" position is
a poor one?

\--------

EDIT. After some thought, I guess I don't take the "just so long as they're
reading" position to the extreme. There are some things I would never give my
kids to read; as a parent, I have limits. Perhaps these people that sound
ridiculous to me just put their limits in different places.

Still, my request for a well stated argument stands.

~~~
seanflyon
> I guess I don't take the "just so long as they're reading" position to the
> extreme.

Indeed. The way the article took that argument to the extreme felt like a
straw man with statements like: "The opposite argument—that the kind of book a
child has his or her nose buried in does make a difference"

I don't think anyone on the "other side" would say that the kind of book
doesn't matter, just that less good books are still good.

~~~
colomon
And for 99% of the kids, the choice isn't between Percy Jackson and
D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths. It's (at best) between Percy Jackson and
something else like Percy Jackson, only probably not as good.

------
xenoclast
I'm still on side with Neil Gaiman here. I read some totally inane non-
literature as a kid. Still do, on occasion. Now literature is a major
component of my life.

Do I think Percy Jackson is crap? Yes. Would I a tell a 7 year old not to read
it? No way.

~~~
logfromblammo
Just as YA fiction can encourage a reader to move on to more complex
literature, strong sales of their YA fiction can encourage a writer to keep
writing until they can produce more complex literature.

Compare JK Rowling's #1 versus #7. The first book is not very remarkable YA
fiction. It is stocked with tropes from cover to cover. The last book actually
seems handicapped by the need to maintain continuity with the first. The
awesome thing that happened there is that the readers developed along with the
author.

We need YA fiction of dubious literary value in the same way that we need
minor league baseball. Some players never make it to the major league, but by
playing at their own level, some can improve to the point that they can tackle
a greater challenge. Is watching Indianapolis Indians versus Nashville Sounds
as gratifying as NY Yankees versus Boston Red Sox? No, not usually. But the
minor teams allow the pool of available professional and semi-pro baseball
players to be much larger, which makes the top talent better.

In the same way, more readers support more authors, and more authors produce
more bestselling authors, and more bestselling authors produce more literary
masterpieces. To produce Shakespeare, you don't need infinite monkeys typing,
but you do need an awful lot of them.

~~~
npsimons
_We need YA fiction of dubious literary value in the same way that we need
minor league baseball._

This really hit me, because while I believe that most of the YA fiction is
crap that at least adults should try to move on from, I also firmly believe
that this country (USA) could use more exercise and reading. Even if it's just
pulpy YA fiction, or going for a walk, hey, at least that's better than
vegging out on the couch to some reality TV. Thirty minutes of reading and
thirty minutes of exercise every day would probably be a good idea for just
about everyone.

------
pessimizer
If crap books are pulling kids that wouldn't have been literate into reading,
that's good. If crap books are crowding out quality, and causing kids to read
garbage when 20 years ago they would have read something that wasn't wish
fulfillment populated by stereotypes, that's bad.

I think that the internet is good because more people are reading because of
it. I don't know that young adult trash is attracting people who would have
instead read good things if it weren't for massive marketing budgets aimed at
children. If it is, it's contributing to making (US) society stupider and less
competitive.

~~~
vec
I can't speak for anyone else, but (almost) 20 years ago I was finishing off
my public library's shelf of Hardy Boys books and starting to beg my parents
for whatever the newest Star Wars novel was. I don't think anyone is seriously
arguing that, by and large, modern YA fiction is high art, but it's a tough
case to make that they've gotten more pulpy than their predecessors.

~~~
colomon
The Percy Jackson books I'm reading now are radically better than the Hardy
Boys books I read back in the 70s.

------
colomon
I'm currently reading the tenth Percy Jackson book. IMO these are extremely
enjoyable books, right about on the Harry Potter level. Maybe not quite
reaching the heights of the best of HP, but more generally consistent. I've
not yet started my six-year-old son on the first of them, but I certainly will
soon, and I'll be delighted if he likes them, because they are good stories.

Personally, I don't get the anti-YA snobbery you see so often in this sort of
article. The median "adult" novel sucks every bit as much as the median YA.
Many of the classic novels of the 19th century would qualify as YA if written
today. YA mostly just means the protagonists are younger and the writing is
clearer.

------
zwieback
What's not mentioned: some of the YA stuff is superbly written and some of it
is pulp. Believe it or not, kids know the difference.

------
joshdick
One worrisome trend that the author didn't really consider is that YA fiction
isn't just for young adults anymore. Countless adults are reading it instead
of anything else.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Depends on what you mean by worrisome. Some adults who were not readers
earlier in their life, find it more approachable and less "preachy". I
wouldn't give someone Faulkner as their first novel. That said, my belief is
that they move on because eventually they aren't challenging to read and so
become less engaging. An author who is being explicit so that a younger adult
can catch the subtleties of a conversation, might make the more sophisticated
reader feel patronized. Its a fine line.

That said, I did enjoy reading the Harry Potter books with my kids (we read
them aloud), but reading the Animorphs was not something I could really do for
any length of time.

------
bstpierre
I don't understand the underlying argument from Tim Parks side ("we should
read more quality"). It seems to take for granted that "quality" literature is
in some way better for us. How does reading, say, Faulkner or Brontë make me a
better person? Is that effect stronger than the betterment I might get from
(at least what I would consider) well-written commercially successful genre
fiction like George RR Martin writes? Is "low quality" pulp like we get from
Rick Riordan, Janet Evanovich, or Dan Brown somehow harmful to people that
read it?

(Those are serious questions, I'm trying to understand the basis of where that
side is coming from.)

------
incision
I feel like both 'sides' are talking around each other here. Both have points,
both are overstated.

Personally, I'd worry less about the headiness of these books than what seem
to be common themes of characters whose defining characteristics are innate -
birth as a demigod, half-wizard or having a high midichlorian count.

Does anyone still write about 'normal' people doing great things?

~~~
CocaKoala
Can you provide some examples of stories with characters whose defining
characteristics aren't innate?

It seems like you're trying to say that you want to read stories about people
who are 'normal', but that doesn't really mean anything. Are you just looking
for books that don't have any element of fantasy to them?

~~~
LanceH
Game of Thrones has tons of examples. The characters act according to the
situation they are in, how they were raised, not generally because they are
archetypes.

Is this character conspicuous because things worked out for him?

Or did things work out for this character because he is conspicuous in some
way?

Game of Thrones has a lot of the first, virtually no teen book does. They are
imbued with something special and everything works out because of their
specialness. Sometimes multiple other characters join the cause sacrificing or
putting on hold their lives because this person is a prince(ss).

With all this dystopian teen drama going around, I wonder how many SF authors
are out there kicking themselves for not writing a romantic triangle into
their story.

~~~
CocaKoala
I haven't read Game of Thrones, so this doesn't clarify things for me that
much. It's hard for me to think of books I've read where the main character is
not notable in some way, but it's also hard for me to think of books I've read
where things simply resolve themselves for the main character as a result of
that notability, as opposed to effort on the part of the character. So I guess
the answer is "Yes, lots of people are writing those books"?

~~~
DanBC
> It's hard for me to think of books I've read where the main character is not
> notable in some way

It's a standard plot: ordinary person living an ordinary life feels
constrained by that life; _boom_ thing happens, causing ordinary person to go
on a journey. Character development happens on the journey.

I'm kind of surprised that you can't think of _any_ book like this.

~~~
CocaKoala
Please list some. I can easily think of books which follow the plot you
outlined; I have a much harder time thinking of books which follow the plot
you outlined where the main character remains normal through the duration (as
opposed to finding some innate quality within themselves which helps them
triumph over hardship).

edit: I mean, Harry Potter fits the bill you outlined, but is explicitly
called out by the parent post as a half wizard.

~~~
bstpierre
In "The Hobbit", Bilbo Baggins is a boring little non-noteworthy hobbit who
rises to his circumstances. The same thing applies to Frodo in LOTR.

I read James Patterson's "The Beach House" on a pair of short plane flights
this past summer. It's a commercial/pulp thriller. The MC doesn't acquire any
superpowers during the story except for becoming a badass willing to take
significant risks when his life and that of his friends is on the line.

Edit to add: Jack Ryan, especially in the early Tom Clancy novels.

In any story worth reading the main character won't stay "normal" for the
duration. The protagonist's change through the course of the story is part of
the point of telling a story.

------
zem
when i was young, the same people were railing against enid blyton. there
seems to be this unspoken belief that reading should be "difficult" or
"challenging" to have any merit, and that reading for pure pleasure was
somehow not just suspect but bad for you. a popular phrase was "rotting the
mind", by analogy with sugary foods rotting the teeth. even as a kid i thought
that was deeply misguided, and nothing has changed my opinion since.

