Comic Reviews by Walt

Do you read books “meant” for other age groups? Adult books when you were a child; Young-Adult books now that you’re grown; Picture books just for kicks … You know … books not “meant” for you. Or do you pretty much stick to what’s written for people your age?

Definitely.

Really, this topic (to me) could probably be an entire academic paper, looking at what “age-appropriate” truly means.

A love of reading is one of the (if not THE) greatest gifts my parents gave me. I’ve never been discouraged from reading, and so have always read what suited me as an individual (exceptions being required reading for school stuff).

I’m pretty sure I was reading books aimed at teens before I was 10, whether or not that counts for this prompt. I’ve read comics for most of my life–and there are so many arguments there about age-appropriateness, when ultimately there are comics for all age groups and comics are aimed at all different audiences. (Recently, Boom Studios rebranded their Boom Kids line as kaboom, because supposedly kids don’t like comics that are FOR kids. I can’t speak to that, but I hate the kaboom logo–it puts me in mind of the old logo for the toy company galoob.)

Nowadays, if I’m not reading comics, much of my reading, intended reading, and the books that catch my attention in the stores tend to be the “YA” books. I just started reading The Lost Hero, and have every intention of moving on to The Red Pyramid next, then the 2nd in that series, and by then the 2nd in the Heroes of Olympus series should be out. I’ve lost track of all the books in the YA sections at Walmart and Target look highly appealing to me, while I’m totally UNinterested in anything found in the “adult” or “non-kids'” sections.

The Harry Potter series, the Percy Jackson series, (I’ve even read the Twilight series to have an informed opinion); and it seems that a lot of the sci-fi/fantasy (I’m thinking mainly Ender’s Game/Shadow, and series licensed from tv/comics/RPG properties) seems to be “aimed” to the teen crowd. At the least, I was a teen when I discovered Dragonlance, got into Magic: The Gathering, and really embraced the sc-fi/fantasy “genre.”

A couple years back, I bought my first-ever copy of Goodnight, Moon. I was inspired by some conversation with a friend, as well as Neil Gaiman‘s play on it in Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? arc in Batman.

And while I haven’t bought them yet, I’ve been known to stand in the aisle at Target or Borders and read cover to cover the Dewey picturebooks. And while I’m there, other stuff’ll catch my eye.

So…yeah. I read whatever. Maybe it’s not aimed at me, but if I enjoy it–why not? I’m not going to let someone “armchair quarterback” my life and what I read.

Surely I could have this post better organized…but as always…writing in the morning before I dash off to work. Hopefully this has made some sense. And if not…well, I’ve been actually posting more comic reviews lately, so at least there’s real content besides this meme showing up in the blog.

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And–the reverse of last week’s question. Name one book that you hope never, ever, ever gets made into a movie (no matter how good that movie might be).

Honestly…I can’t think of any that would fit this. My thinking can be rather one-sided in that regard: it’s easy enough to think of books that I might like to see made into film, or that would be good for being made into film, or that have been good being made into film.

But going the other way? To me, I think that for the most part…if a book’s one I wouldn’t want to see made into film, the idea of a movie being made for it just doesn’t cross my mind or stand out, or last in memory.

I can’t think of any books that I would actively/passionately be against being made into film.

On the other hand, when you get into talking of QUALITY…that’s another thing entirely. I’ll balk at a badly-made film, one that “goes through the motions” if it’s based on a book I particularly enjoy(ed). Often I find made-for-tv-movies are like this (but not always!).

I’m sure there’s plenty more I could get into, but I want to get this posted this morning.

A randomish, related thought for readers of this post: it’s Thor’s Day, with Marvel’s Thor debuting in the U.S. “tonight” (technically tomorrow morning). What do you think of movies that are based on characters and overall series, but have no direct singular source? I mainly see it with comic movies, but…they are not direct adaptations of any particular story, though they’ll incorporate aspects of many…

Filed under: Booking Through Thursday, NON-REVIEW CONTENT | Tagged: booking through thursday | 1 Comment »