1. Kessie says:

    I too was an avid Sonic fan. The difference is, one hot summer day, my parents banned me from the Genesis after too much play (Hyper Sonic, oh yeah). In rebellion, I began writing Sonic fanfic. 34 novel-length fics later, I went into publishing. 😀

    Your books sound fascinating! I’m glad that you found a love for good storytelling.

  2. dmdutcher says:

    To be fair though, Harry lives in a world where adults are useless if not actively harmful to him, and he’s in the middle of a rather nasty war in which the good side is ineffectual to the point of being unable to defend their children’s school. There’s a limit to how moral he can be, and still be realistic. I’d go tell Dumbledore to fight his own battles myself; the man can’t even keep his own school free of trolls, basilisks, harmful trees, etc.

     

    • Brock says:

      Hahaha. And know that I still love the Harry Potter series. I look forward to these new spin off movies, and hope their is a novelization to go with, for my collection. (I doubt the Hogwarts Library book that was the basis will hardly touch the story being developed for a three movie spinoff.) That said I agree with what you said about Harry and what he faced, and it was great storytelling. That said, the thought behind his character and struggles, is what inspired me to write what I did. Which was your favorite book in the series?

    • Julie D says:

      The whole ‘Harry doesn’t get in trouble for stuff’ turned me off the books for a long time, and even now that I like them, I still think the lack of responsible adults in the books is absurd. Oh, there are some ‘good’ adults, but like, parent figures? Just the Weasleys.

      • Brock says:

        Yeah, I agree with that as well. There are many other books that do this, in order to focus on a young hero. Having an adult in some of these series would take all the adventure and danger out of the story. It’s sort of like that YouTube channel that does all of the “How the movie should have ended.” 

  3. Sparksofember says:

    My husband isn’t much of a reader but the Harry Potter books, and the Left Behind series, both motivated him to really read.

  4. Autumn Grayson says:

    I think one reason why people tolerate more violence in kid’s books than they do movies is because books are less vivid.  I know growing up I could read something gory and barely notice, but if I saw that same violence in a movie I might have cringed a little.  I think the violence in media thing can be tricky.  I wouldn’t necessarily advocate a huge amount of violence in kid’s stories, but at the same time I think kid’s stories have a bad habit of trivializing death and violence.  While they may treat the death of a hero as tragic, and a hero might feel some remorse for killing a certain arch villain, battles are still often treated like a big adventure, with opponents being carelessly mown down as if they were faceless puppets.. There have been many more violent shows that treat violence for the horrible thing it is, and show how traumatizing a battlefield can be, rather than passing it off as fun.

     

    As far as deceptive chars, I agree that kids need good moral examples, but as authors we need to ask ourselves if we are writing realistic characters.  Even the best people often make huge moral mistakes.  I think we should show kids what to do when they make such a mistake, in addition to showing them how important it is to avoid mistakes.

What do you think?