Kid Protagonists: Discuss!

[3113]

A local station has been showing a Harry Potter marathon in anticipation of the new HP movie, and it got me thinking about kid and young adult protagonists in books. I'm curious to know...who were your favorite young adult protagonists in books and why? SPECIFICALLY, young adult protagonists in young adult books. I'm talking "Anne of Green Gables" and the kid from "Old Yeller" that sort of thing.

Conversely, what books did you read, as a kid or older, with a protagonist you didn't like even if the book was generally popular or a "classic"?

I'd really, really like to have a real, analytical, indepth and, yes, even scholarly discussion of this topic. Because when I read the first Harry Potter book, I felt that Harry was a real cipher; almost no personality. We don't know his favorite flavor ice cream, or what he wants to be when he grows up--we don't know what he daydreams about or what games he loves to play. He barely says anything during the first half of the book. I wonder if that was part of the "why" behind his popularity as a character, that it was easy for readers to paste anything they wanted onto him like paper clothes on a paper doll. Did his lack of a strong personality in that first book make it super easy for kids to imagine themselves as Harry, as they might imagine themselves in a fairytale? Or was it just that they liked all the other stuff in the book and Harry was the symbol for all that stuff?

Would they have disliked Harry if the author had created a very strong personality and told them everything the character liked and disliked, as with Anne of Green Gables?

So think about kid characters. Think about Harry and Ron and Hermione. What was liked about them? Disliked? Why? Think about books like "Little House on the Prairie" and "Secret Garden" and "Little Women." Did you ever like those heroines who were proxies for the author? Avid book readers who want to grow up to be writers? OR did you prefer characters who weren't in that mold? The boys who went hunting and fishing, the girls who rode horses? Who did you like and who did you hate? Why?

 

[Recidiva]

I loved lots of stories with kids. Madeleine L'Engle was fantastic. Smart kids in outrageous circumstances. It avoided all the "authority" questions that to an extent Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew and Harry Potter face. They're in a normal society with intelligent adults, but somehow the adults are always unbelieving or unsupportive. I really actually don't like that.

But Madeleine always took her kids out of the world, and into a new world where there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

Robert Heinlein would do the same thing. Different worlds, different circumstances.

I like the kids who have to fight for themselves, I dislike the convention of "adults will always let you down, trick them and do it yourself"

 

[Vermilion]

I'd really, really like to have a real, analytical, indepth and, yes, even scholarly discussion of this topic. Because when I read the first Harry Potter book, I felt that Harry was a real cipher; almost no personality. We don't know his favorite flavor ice cream, or what he wants to be when he grows up--we don't know what he daydreams about or what games he loves to play. He barely says anything during the first half of the book.

That's what bugs me too. Ron shows bravery despite fear and Hermione is the brains behind the operation, but wtf does Harry do? his only special ability is the scar Voldemort gave him which offers some protection and it wasn;t even a special ability of his that allowed him to survive it.

IMHO, Hermione is the real hero of the books, but she gets a raw bloody deal.

I used to love Anne of Green Gables, Emily of New Moon and Laura Ingalls... they rebelled against what they were told they should do or be and they led interesting, daydream filled lives. I also loved that the crises they faced weren't so overwhelming that they made me too uncomfortable to re-read the books often.

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[Rumple Foreskin]

I read "Lord of the Flies" in the seventh grade and "Peyton Place" in the ninth and was reading Faulkner in the tenth so I kind of skipped over most of what passed for YA way back when. I recall reading the Alcott books "Little Women/Men" but the only characters that appear to have made any lasting impression are:

Twain's - Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn

Booth Tarkington's - Penrod and Sam

Rumple Foreskin

 

[rgraham666]

I mostly read stuff meant for adults when I was a kid.

The only 'kid' stuff I read was The Chronicles of Narnia. Thinking back Lewis did an excellent job with the characters in the first book. You knew what they were like very quickly.

I think what drew me to those books was the fantasy of them. Even England itself was a fantasy. Another place to escape to, away from the unpleasant area I lived in.

 

[buxxxom]

Colin, Mary, and Dicken of "The Secret Garden" are the first that come to mind. Burnett wrote about children, and their relationship with adults in a way that begins with a tragedy and ends in a happy ever after. Also, it's written both for children and adults. Very Disney-like, if you ask me. Colin and Mary both showed remarkable changes in their characters throughout the course of the book, Dicken not so much.

Other fond memories are Nancy Drew books, Trixie Belden books, Walter Farley's the Black Stallion books, and Julie of the Wolves.

 

[glynndah]

The boy from "My Side of the Mountain"by Jean George. He goes away to live by himself in a hollow tree. I was so upset when I found out that story was fiction.

 

[3113]

I loved lots of stories with kids. Madeleine L'Engle was fantastic. Smart kids in outrageous circumstances. It avoided all the "authority" questions that to an extent Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew and Harry Potter face. They're in a normal society with intelligent adults, but somehow the adults are always unbelieving or unsupportive. I really actually don't like that.

That's a REALLY good point, and I don't much like it either because it's artificial, a cheat. The author takes the easy way out rather than taking the challenge of creating scenarios where there are intelligent supportive adults.

My husband and I discussed this the other night when "Prisoner" was on as the Harry Potter movie. He has trouble with the books because he can never believe that in a school filled with magicians, even untrained ones, you'd have a real magical threat. I mean, who wants to threaten a school filed with budding magicians and magical teachers? Can't these people create safeguards, not to mention defenses?

And, then, of course, I don't buy the council agreeing to kill the hippogriff because he's "Dangerous." The stairs in the school are dangerous, the forest is dangerous, everything those kids are being taught is dangerous, the quidditch game is dangerous. Spells knock people across the room, explode, backfire...you don't just risk broken bones at this school, you risk death!

And yet one kid gets scratched by a magical creature and his dad is somehow able to convince the council to put it down because it's...dangerous? I don't care how much influence he has, he wouldn't bother bringing it up as it'd make him and his kid look like wimps. They'd be a laughingstock for even suggesting it.

I'll step off the soapbox for a now, but I had to get that off my chest. I never much like it when you can see the author being lazy rather than being logical because logical means it'll be a harder story to write.

 

[Recidiva]

I also loved two series I've never heard anyone else mention.

"Children of Morrow"

and

"The Sword of the Lamb" series.

Both excellent.

 

[Recidiva]

That's a REALLY good point, and I don't much like it either because it's artificial, a cheat. The author takes the easy way out rather than taking the challenge of creating scenarios where there are intelligent supportive adults.

My husband and I discussed this the other night when "Prisoner" was on as the Harry Potter movie. He has trouble with the books because he can never believe that in a school filled with magicians, even untrained ones, you'd have a real magical threat. I mean, who wants to threaten a school filed with budding magicians and magical teachers? Can't these people create safeguards, not to mention defenses?

And, then, of course, I don't buy the council agreeing to kill the hippogriff because he's "Dangerous." The stairs in the school are dangerous, the forest is dangerous, everything those kids are being taught is dangerous, the quidditch game is dangerous. Spells knock people across the room, explode, backfire...you don't just risk broken bones at this school, you risk death!

And yet one kid gets scratched by a magical creature and his dad is somehow able to convince the council to put it down because it's...dangerous? I don't care how much influence he has, he wouldn't bother bringing it up as it'd make him and his kid look like wimps. They'd be a laughingstock for even suggesting it.

I'll step off the soapbox for a now, but I had to get that off my chest. I never much like it when you can see the author being lazy rather than being logical because logical means it'll be a harder story to write.

I absolutely agree and that's the one bit of kids' books that I never can buy into and I consider to be about the worst plot device available, yet used so very often that it's cliche.

I prefer authors that recognize that trap and decidedly don't fall into it.

J.K. Rowling built a somewhat heartless, cruel world. It's part of what makes it unique. These kids are in constant danger, not from the bad guys, but from the magic they practice and the world that creates around them.

I think the Hippogryph choice was a poor plot device also, but I considered it to be just her point about power and politics and influence being inherently unjust.

She does fall back on the same devices, and they don't resolve. I'd love to see him have a good summer once, cleverly arranging for his own joy. I'd love for an adult to go..."Really? Let's do something about that."

Unfortunately too many childrens' books empower kids by weakening the adults.

Maybe that's exactly why they're considered childrens' books, though.

Just like romances have to have a happy ending, mysteries have to have the answer presented in the end...children's books have to have moronic grownups.

 

[cloudy]

My most beloved books when I was younger were the Narnia series. The protags, though flawed, were strong and intelligent. I need to reread them (if I can find my copies) as an adult.

 

[buxxxom]

My most beloved books when I was younger were the Narnia series. The protags, though flawed, were strong and intelligent. I need to reread them (if I can find my copies) as an adult.

That is the true test. If you can read them as an adult and still feel the same as you did when you read them as a child, they are literature. Even the simplest books can fall into this category; they need not be elaborate.

 

[cumallday]

Holden Caulfield.

 

[cloudy]

That is the true test. If you can read them as an adult and still feel the same as you did when you read them as a child, they are literature. Even the simplest books can fall into this category; they need not be elaborate.

Which is why Where the Wild Things Are remains my favorite book of all time.

 

[Recidiva]

My most beloved books when I was younger were the Narnia series. The protags, though flawed, were strong and intelligent. I need to reread them (if I can find my copies) as an adult.

I had a huge crush on Reepicheep.

 

[glynndah]

I absolutely agree and that's the one bit of kids' books that I never can buy into and I consider to be about the worst plot device available, yet used so very often that it's cliche.

I prefer authors that recognize that trap and decidedly don't fall into it.

J.K. Rowling built a somewhat heartless, cruel world. It's part of what makes it unique. These kids are in constant danger, not from the bad guys, but from the magic they practice and the world that creates around them.

I think the Hippogryph choice was a poor plot device also, but I considered it to be just her point about power and politics and influence being inherently unjust.

She does fall back on the same devices, and they don't resolve. I'd love to see him have a good summer once, cleverly arranging for his own joy. I'd love for an adult to go..."Really? Let's do something about that."

Unfortunately too many childrens' books empower kids by weakening the adults.

Maybe that's exactly why they're considered childrens' books, though.

Just like romances have to have a happy ending, mysteries have to have the answer presented in the end...children's books have to have moronic grownups.

Or missing or dead parents.

 

[Recidiva]

Or missing or dead parents.

I think Lemony Snickett did a good job of covering that too. There were loving, wonderful adults surrounding them, that just weren't a match to the true viciousness confronting them.

I think Jane Eyre was a really good balance. She had good adults, bad adults, good friends, bad friends, and real conflicts. That's one of my favorite books. I think it's entirely emotionally honest and audacious.

 

[Vermilion]

Or missing or dead parents.

True dat - being an orphan is almost a must.
-Jane Eyre
-Harry Potter
-Anne of Green Gables
-Emily of New Moon


because it puts the child in a position of power, almost, in that they become autonomous, in charge of their own life and not able to trust the adults who subsequently come in charge of them.

Hrmm... did that make any sense? My brain is scrambled today
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[NoJo]

The Molesworth Books


To any middle class person of British upbringing, the Harry Potter books are very familiar. I wouldn't exactly say Rowling stole Geoffrey Willans "Molesworth" books, she probably just absorbed them along with the rest of us. By the way, the "other" school in the Molesworth books, against whom Nigel Molesworth is always reluctantly playing football, is called "Hogwarts".

The Molesworth books were some of the best young adult books I've ever read (okay, Catcher In The Rye). I've never read such knowing and insightful writing from an adult into the mind of an adolescent boy: Willans knows that it's not sex, nor peer rivarly nor friendship that occupies the mind of a 13-yearol-old boy. It's a terrible sense of Disappointment, and almost unbearable Boredom.

The public school that Nigel goes to is as dull as Potter's school is exciting. His teachers are fallible, bumbling failures, in whom he sees, with characteristic cynicism, his future self, twenty years on.

Molesworth, puffing idly on a cigarette in the quiet solitude behind the bike shed, surveys the adult world, and muses:

"SKool according to headmasters pi-jaw is like LIFE chiz if that is the case wot is the use of going on? There must be give and take, fair weather and foul, triumph and disaster but he do not give the exact proprtions."

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Someone mentioned Heinlein, which would mean his teen series, and of course I loved those, but the protags were young people negotiating the transition to adulthood more than actual kids. I honestly cannot think of any beloved books in which children are the protag. Someone mentioned Huck Finn and that's a beautiful book but it's kind of in a class by itself.

Interesting that I don't really have any in that class (I don't think I do - maybe my memory will get tickled.)

 

[Recidiva]

Someone mentioned Heinlein, which would mean his teen series, and of course I loved those, but the protags were young people negotiating the transition to adulthood more than actual kids. I honestly cannot think of any beloved books in which children are the protag. Someone mentioned Huck Finn and that's a beautiful book but it's kind of in a class by itself.

Interesting that I don't really have any in that class (I don't think I do - maybe my memory will get tickled.)

Lots of Heinlein's early stuff were strictly children's stories. "Podkayne of Mars" "The Rolling Stones" "The Door Into Summer" and one of my favorites, "Red Planet"

 

[Vermilion]

Adrian Mole.

Just that stunning honesty about the hideous embarrassment of teenagedom.

Like when he paints his room black over the 'Noddy' wallpaper, and then has to go over the whole thing with a black felt-tip pen, colouring in the bells on Noddys' hats which haven't been covered properly by the paint.

It's am image which sticks in my mind with the infatuation he has for the posh Pandora.

Brilliant writing

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[NoJo]

Adrian Mole.
V

Yes but "Aged 13 3/4?" No 13 year old would say they're "13 and three quarters", that's the sort of thing an adult would write thinking it was cute. Or little kids would say. Like when Alice (in Wonderland) says she's "seven and a half, exactly".

 

[Recidiva]

Adrian Mole.

Just that stunning honesty about the hideous embarrassment of teenagedom.

Like when he paints his room black over the 'Noddy' wallpaper, and then has to go over the whole thing with a black felt-tip pen, colouring in the bells on Noddys' hats which haven't been covered properly by the paint.

It's am image which sticks in my mind with the infatuation he has for the posh Pandora.

Brilliant writing

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Oh! Just reminded of "Are you there, God? It's Me, Margaret" and "The Trumpet of the Swan" and "Charlotte's Web"

 

[Stella_Omega]

I ought to have a whole lot to say about this subject, and my mind is blank!

In general, the "moronic grownups" comment is right on the mark, and I remember telling my grandmother that I didn't want to read any more Nancy Drew or Trixie Belden stories, thanks. Also, my local librarian, who adored me and my sister for the way we gobbled books, used to search particularly for us. During the late sixties and seventies there was-- some YA fantasy being written. The "moronic grownup" trope makes more sense when the thing they can't understand is another dimension or world entirely.

She started buying the New Young Adult books-- "my darling, My Hamburger", "The Pig Man" and I hated all of it. It appalled me to think that children had no adult anywhere that they could trust. That was when I moved into the adult fiction sections...

The best thing about the Narnia series now, is the characterizations of the various children, all of them. (I had a crush on Reepicheep too, Recidiva!)

I loved Sam from "My Side Of The Mountain" and I hated the whiney little shit in "Catcher In The Rye" I appreciate both Mary and Colin much more now then I did as a kid, probably because I was more like them than I was the confident, dexterous Dickon, who I would rather have been.

Madeleine L'Engle's stories really are good. And there are grownups who are totally fucked up for reasons that have nothing to do with the kids, and there are grownups that are compassionate and trusting, and push the kids to think for themselves-- actively aid them in growing up themselves. Plus, the series doesn't remain in a timewarp where the kids stay kids; they do grow older, even get married and pregnant.

AS for Rowling... Several now-published novelists started writing because they were so dissatisfied with the way she handled the whole story. And for that-- I'm happy. Sometimes a second-rate is more inspirational than a first-rate writer...