Where The Wolves in the Walls was origional and brilliant, I was rather dissapointed with The day I traded My Dad For Two Goldfish. It started out in typical Gaiman fashion, with an idea most people would never even dream of, but It quickly fell into the trap too many children's books fall into; it got repetetive. Okay, so he traded one or two thigns, but the entire book was the same scene over and over again. I liked the beginning and end, but I felt he should, if he could not think of anything new, not had so many trades in the middle. Anyone else?

It's been about eight years since I took any kiddie lit classes, so I needed to revisit some textbooks to help gel my thoughts on this one.

Repetitiveness is very important in early children's literature. Memory skills, counting skills, teaching the pace of a story in a slow enough manner for them to see start to finish.

Here's what my flipping found :

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One reason beginnings come full circle is that this completes the logic. A good story is a tight story, which begins with a problem and derives the resolution from it. Start-and-finish pictures are the visual expression of this closure. The classic, archetypal closure theme is the quest -- home-adventure-home. Schoolchildren understand this sequence almost instinctively. It's the story of their lives, the essence of growing up. The child's quest consists of repeated sorties from the love and safety of the home into the uncertainty of the outside world. Going to school is part of this quest; the child returns each time to the safety of home, a bit wiser and better prepared for the next encounter.

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--from the essay, "Picture Books as Literature," by Sonia Landes, found in Innocence & Experience : Essays and & Conversations on Children's Literature


There's really a lot of things going on in this book. The one that struck me the most was cause and effect : effects of your actions have far reaching consequences -- much farther and more difficult than you can foresee. And sometimes it takes a lot of work to untie a knot.

There was also the sense of connectedness. Seemingly random people who you don't know can be connected to you through a variety of ways. ie, possesing your father.

There was the quest, of course, going out into the world to reclaim your family. Finding clues along the way that led to the next step.

The repetitive sequences are very important in this sense. It shows that what you want doesn't really come easily, that you need to walk through the tedious bits and through all the steps to get to your goal.

All those things you said may be valid, but I hardly count Gaiman's picture books as children's books. They are longer, more wordy, and more grim than children's books. Although there is no recognized place for them, I believe there is a calss of book that lies between childrens and adult, picture books that are too adult for children, but that adults won't read because they're 'picture' books. The Wolves in the Walls is like that, also a non-Gaiman book titles Mr. Maxwell's Mouse. If it were a children's book I guess it's all right, but I still believe that you can do better, even for children. Look as Chris Van Allsburg, David Weisner, Graeme Base.

Well, Neil (see entry for 11/15/03) and the Library of Congress (dewey class number "E" indicates Easy Reader book for young children) agree it's a Children's book.

*shrug* This is probably just an instance of the intended audiance and non-intended audiance clashing.

As far as being too grim for children? Not at all. DiTerlizzi's Spider and the Fly got a Caldecott Honor award -- children get grim, and they're okay with it. Granted, a lot of today's children's literature is light fluff, but let's not forget the original grim Grimms and fairy tales.

But I do agree about the adults who unfortunately don't read children's picture books. They're really missing out. There's incredible art and some really great stories out there. David Weisner's "Tuesday" is one of my more favorite books in any reading level.

Speaking as a dad, both books are very much children's books. Perhaps the idea that pictures books can be enjoyed by both child and parent is a more foreign a concept than it should be, but Gaiman's books are definately children's books. I've done what I could to stock my child's shelf with pictures books that I enjoy too. Maurice Sendak, Michael Gagne', The Bed Book by Sylvia Plath, lots of halloween books with good art, fables with illustrations by folk like Linda Medley or Jon J Muth, don't remember the creator, but the Brothers Gruesome is excellent! Cannibalism! They vary in wordiness (I have a Jane Yolen retelling of Baba Yaga that's mostly words for example).
I agree that Goldfish isn't up to par with Wolves, but my kid enjoys both. I just disagree with your reason though. I don't find the repetition a problem at all, I just the story a bit dull for a kid's book. It needed another twist of the screw to push it past where it is now.

Adult readers (heck, even older child readers) tend to forget how much fun repetition can be.

My very clever brother-in-law, who loved American Gods, gets very fed up with some of the things his 3-yr-old twins want him to read to them. Like the wonderful Shirley Hughes picture book Alfie Gets in First, where a crowd of neighborhood characters assemble to help 4-yr-old Alfie, who has locked himself into his house (he can't reach the latch), and his mom and baby sister outside. All the characters get listed as each new attempt to get into the house is made: Maureen from across the street, Maureens' mother, the postman, the milkman ... . The kids love it; Brother-in-Law hates it.

This sort of thing is classic tiny kids lit. Why shouldn't Neil be as good at writing that as he is at writing older kids' books and adult books? And why shouldn't it be different from the other books he writes, given that the intended audience is so different?

I mean, you surely don't fault him because American Gods doesn't appeal to kindergartners ... .

I would not fault American Gods for not appealing to little kids, because it is not marketed for little kids, The Day I swapped my Dad for Two Goldfish, however, is.

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Originally posted by The_Raven:
I hardly count Gaiman's picture books as children's books.

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Originally posted by The_Raven:
I would not fault American Gods for not appealing to little kids, because it is not marketed for little kids, The Day I swapped my Dad for Two Goldfish, however, is.

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I'm confused.

What it all means is, Gaiman's picture books strike me as too grim for children (most children at any rate) yet they are children's books, meaning, they are marketed to children. There is really no niche for picture books for adults, but there should be.

I think there is a niche for darker children's books, one that has been expanding in the past few years. It may have grown, consciously or unconsciously, from parents being unsatisfied with books their children liked but they couldn't stand. It isn't a unified movement, but as a parent who scans the bookshelves, it exists and I am SO thankful for it.
Now, to be clear, this is a separate thought from Day I Swapped My Dad. That book, though a little twisted, isn't specificly part of that group of books.
Wolves and Coraline, however, are. They match the feeling that also spurred Hot Topic to start stocking onesies for babies. Invader Zim and Nightmare before Christmas, the upcoming Mirrormask. These things aren't for all children of course, but... things made to appeal to everyone tend to be less appealing on the whole.

Kids love grim. It's parents with the fluffies and the whole "don't tell kids about the bad things" deal.
BTW, my grandma, little sister, and teenage cousin all love The Day I Swapped My Dad.
So did I