You may think it's magic. We don't.
Sometimes, I accidentally get drawn in to conversations against my will. I don't mean to. I just have one very very very sore spot.
I will explain this sore spot with an analogy involving Muppets.
The movie The Christmas Toy (which you all should totally watch, although if you can get your hands on it, go for the original with Kermit the Frog rather than the DVD without) is about a bunch of toys who live in a playroom. The basic set-up is that "if [toys] can't play with girls and boys / then it only makes sense for toys to play with toys."
Among the toys are Balthazar the Bear (the oldest toy in the room), Apple the Doll (who scared me as a kid because she looked like the doll from Child's Play), and Belmont (a horse). It's Christmas Eve, so they're getting ready to welcome new toys. The toys all seem to get along with each other, except that they won't be nice to one of them. Mew is a cat toy, who smells like catnip, so Mew is immediately met with choruses of "Ewwwwwwwww!". Throughout the movie, no matter what Mew does, the best he gets is other toys referring to things he's accomplished as "good for a cat toy."
At the end, Mew does something brave and wonderful and awesome, and Rugby Tiger (the protagonist toy) tells him that he was really good. And Mew says "Good for a cat toy? :D?" and Rugby says "Good for any toy."
And every time people talk about how of course there's not crit, it's kidlit, or say that something's pretty good considering it's children's lit, I think of this scene. AND THEN MY HEAD EXPLODES.
I think what I am trying to say here is that people need to stop acting like YA smells like catnip.
I will explain this sore spot with an analogy involving Muppets.
The movie The Christmas Toy (which you all should totally watch, although if you can get your hands on it, go for the original with Kermit the Frog rather than the DVD without) is about a bunch of toys who live in a playroom. The basic set-up is that "if [toys] can't play with girls and boys / then it only makes sense for toys to play with toys."
Among the toys are Balthazar the Bear (the oldest toy in the room), Apple the Doll (who scared me as a kid because she looked like the doll from Child's Play), and Belmont (a horse). It's Christmas Eve, so they're getting ready to welcome new toys. The toys all seem to get along with each other, except that they won't be nice to one of them. Mew is a cat toy, who smells like catnip, so Mew is immediately met with choruses of "Ewwwwwwwww!". Throughout the movie, no matter what Mew does, the best he gets is other toys referring to things he's accomplished as "good for a cat toy."
At the end, Mew does something brave and wonderful and awesome, and Rugby Tiger (the protagonist toy) tells him that he was really good. And Mew says "Good for a cat toy? :D?" and Rugby says "Good for any toy."
And every time people talk about how of course there's not crit, it's kidlit, or say that something's pretty good considering it's children's lit, I think of this scene. AND THEN MY HEAD EXPLODES.
I think what I am trying to say here is that people need to stop acting like YA smells like catnip.