The Harry Potter books have created a new phenomenon, as more adults pick up books aimed at young readers. Are we yearning for old-fashioned stories, seeking spiritual solace, or merely dumbing down? Jasper Rees investigates.
This December, as every Christmas, theatres will be keeping all the family entertained. As ever, some plays will be adapted from much-loved books. In London, the National Theatre is mounting a hugely ambitious version of Philip Pullman's trilogy, His Dark Materials, while at the Young Vic David Almond's bestselling novel Skellig is being staged by Trevor Nunn. Parents will take their children, just as they have taken them to cinematic versions of Harry Potter and Louis Sachar's Holes. And when the adults profess to enjoy these plays and films, no one will bat an eyelid.
It's a different story when an adult picks up the book on which any of these adaptations are based. Until recently adults were assumed and even expected by publishers and bookshops to stick to their side of the fence. But in the past five years, as the full impact of the Rowling revolution has made itself felt, the literary landscape has changed. Adults, all of a sudden, are devouring children's books. Some of the best writers are confining themselves to the children's and young adults' sector. Meanwhile, books written for young adults have never been more grown-up. The result is that the line between children's fiction and adult fiction has blurred. In the case of Pullman's trio of Miltonic fables, it has blurred almost to invisibility.
This is nowhere more apparent than in the BBC's Big Read poll, in which a third of the 21 finalists are books written for children but voted for, at least in part, by adults. Outside this literary census, there are two areas where evidence of a tectonic shift is starkest: prizes and advances. As if the growing prestige and visibility of the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian children's fiction award were not enough, children's authors are now contesting the adult gongs. It was a landmark moment when Pullman became the first children's author to win the overall Whitbread Prize in 2001. This year Mark Haddon's remarkable book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, narrated by an autistic teenager, became the first children's novel to be longlisted for the Booker Prize, emboldening its publishers, when forced to choose, to enter it for the Whitbread's adult novel award rather than the children's award. The gamble paid off: his book was shortlisted this week for the best novel prize (the winner is announced in January). This month Sonya Hartnett's Thursday's Child, an immensely moving child's-eye view of the Great Depression in Australia, has won the Guardian children's fiction award and has also become the first children's book to be shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize.
Meanwhile, the astronomical sales of Harry Potter, and the success of Pullman's trilogy, have sparked a feeding frenzy of five-, six- and even seven-figure deals for authors with no track record
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