Is there such a thing as children SciFi?
There are and have been many Fantasy movies and books around lately, and the way these stories get portrayed by the media makes me think some people still believes this subgenre is solely focused to children, when it obviously (IMHO) is not. Examples? Bridge to Terabithia, Harry Potter, Lord of The Rings, Pan's Labyrinth and Stardust, just to name a few.
But you might ask, aren't Bridge to Terabithia and Harry Potter childbooks, according to their own authors? And to this I answer: there are kids dying in these stories; would you, knowing this, leave a children alone while reading them? And by not leaving them alone I don't mean you should sit with them while the reading is taking place -- but that you should be ready to discuss the topic with them, were it to arise. I know that the idea of death is not that surprising to children these days, yet I'm sure that even if a kid doesn't talk about it, an unexpected death in a book or a movie shakes them. How much and how little, it doesn't matter. So yes, these might be stories 'for children', but they are not for children on their own.
And there are Lord of The Rings and Pan's Labyrinth. I'm sure these two get a classification according to who classifies them: anybody who has seen the movies or knows the plot will hurry to declare these are not child-friendly; not for little children anyway, and certainly not for children alone, at least the first time. But those who don't know what they are about will very likely tag them as children stories, because they are Fantasy. Because fairies and elves and fauns belong to childhood realms, right?
Tsk.
I guess not everybody is aware of how dark and adult (according to today's standards) the folk tales were before Disney et all took them. Think of The Grimm Brothers (not the movie, although it gives an idea), think of Sherezade, think of the Iliad and the Odyssey. These are the root of many child stories today, yet they were certainly not originally written for children only.
But let's go back to the topic, even if I haven't make clear what the topic is =). I should say instead, let's go back to my title question: is there such a thing as children SciFi? I called Fantasy a subgenre earlier (although I'm sure not everybody will agree with me) because I tend to put SF/F/H (science fiction or SciFi, Fantasy, and Horror) in the same box (ETA: and that box is called Speculative fiction), no matter how different they are -- because these three get looked down a lot.
And just as Fantasy is mostly focused to children nowadays, Horror is a mostly adult land. BUT, just as there are adult-cathered Fantasy stories, there are child-focused Horror books, especially during October and November. As a fact, I could say that it is easier to find Horror books in the libraries' children section, than there is to find Fantasy books out of it. They are different, of course (Horror books, that is): much more gore, blood and human villians on the adult ones, while, let say, more fantastic creatures on the child versions.
But the thing is that they exist, both in Fantasy and Horror: child books, adult books, all-ages books (and by books I refer to movies and TV stories too), while in SciFi ... what do we have? I guess that science might not be something most kids enjoy reading about, right?
Then, explain me Jules Verne. Some of his most famous books are part of many Young Readers books Collections: Journey to the Center of the Earth, Twenty Hundred Leagues Under the Sea, Around the World in Eigthy Days. But are these SciFi, or should they be called Adventure? Sure, Verne is one of the most famous names in SciFi history, but those books of him are mostly Adventure with only an element of SciFi -- especially the chopped versions kids get to read. And, even if we call them science fiction, there's again the fact that they were not written with only the children in mind; it was time what made us classify them as this.
So where is the children SciFi? Is it maybe that this genre is too adult, that we adult readers and writers and SciFi lovers think too high of ourselves to allow it to happen? or maybe our all-ages stories are enough? I know there are children who enjoy current SciFi stories; Star Trek is an example -- but there are not children-cathered ones, not that I recall. Not current ones, and certainly not to the level that the Fantasy and Horror most famous stories and characters have. Star Wars doesn't count, either; not only it is not a 'children story', I'm not even sure it can be called just SciFi (Space Opera, ok).
So, where is our J. K. Rowling in SciFi?
---
There's also the fact that SciFi and Fantasy are not as separated as some would like. From the Wikipedia Science Fantasy entry:
Science fantasy vs. science fiction
A definition, offered by Rod Serling, is that "science fiction makes the implausible possible, while science fantasy makes the impossible plausible." The meaning is that science fiction describes unlikely things that could possibly take place in the real world under certain conditions, while science fantasy gives a veneer of realism to things that simply couldn't happen in the real world under any circumstances. For many users of the term, however, "science fantasy" is either a science fiction story that has drifted far enough from reality to "feel" like a fantasy, or a fantasy story that is attempting to be science fiction. While these are in theory classifiable as different approaches, and thus different genres (fantastic science fiction vs. scientific fantasy), the end products are sometimes indistinguishable.
Arthur C. Clarke's dictum that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" indicates why this is so: a writer can write a fantasy using magic of various sorts, and yet turn the story into science fiction by positing some highly advanced technology, or as-yet-unknown but ultimately thoroughly provable science, as an explanation for how the magic can occur. Another writer can describe a future world where technologies are so advanced to be invisible, and the effects produced would be classified as magical if they were only described as such. A world might include magic which only some people (or only the reader) know to be in fact technological effects.[...]
But you might ask, aren't Bridge to Terabithia and Harry Potter childbooks, according to their own authors? And to this I answer: there are kids dying in these stories; would you, knowing this, leave a children alone while reading them? And by not leaving them alone I don't mean you should sit with them while the reading is taking place -- but that you should be ready to discuss the topic with them, were it to arise. I know that the idea of death is not that surprising to children these days, yet I'm sure that even if a kid doesn't talk about it, an unexpected death in a book or a movie shakes them. How much and how little, it doesn't matter. So yes, these might be stories 'for children', but they are not for children on their own.
And there are Lord of The Rings and Pan's Labyrinth. I'm sure these two get a classification according to who classifies them: anybody who has seen the movies or knows the plot will hurry to declare these are not child-friendly; not for little children anyway, and certainly not for children alone, at least the first time. But those who don't know what they are about will very likely tag them as children stories, because they are Fantasy. Because fairies and elves and fauns belong to childhood realms, right?
Tsk.
I guess not everybody is aware of how dark and adult (according to today's standards) the folk tales were before Disney et all took them. Think of The Grimm Brothers (not the movie, although it gives an idea), think of Sherezade, think of the Iliad and the Odyssey. These are the root of many child stories today, yet they were certainly not originally written for children only.
But let's go back to the topic, even if I haven't make clear what the topic is =). I should say instead, let's go back to my title question: is there such a thing as children SciFi? I called Fantasy a subgenre earlier (although I'm sure not everybody will agree with me) because I tend to put SF/F/H (science fiction or SciFi, Fantasy, and Horror) in the same box (ETA: and that box is called Speculative fiction), no matter how different they are -- because these three get looked down a lot.
And just as Fantasy is mostly focused to children nowadays, Horror is a mostly adult land. BUT, just as there are adult-cathered Fantasy stories, there are child-focused Horror books, especially during October and November. As a fact, I could say that it is easier to find Horror books in the libraries' children section, than there is to find Fantasy books out of it. They are different, of course (Horror books, that is): much more gore, blood and human villians on the adult ones, while, let say, more fantastic creatures on the child versions.
But the thing is that they exist, both in Fantasy and Horror: child books, adult books, all-ages books (and by books I refer to movies and TV stories too), while in SciFi ... what do we have? I guess that science might not be something most kids enjoy reading about, right?
Then, explain me Jules Verne. Some of his most famous books are part of many Young Readers books Collections: Journey to the Center of the Earth, Twenty Hundred Leagues Under the Sea, Around the World in Eigthy Days. But are these SciFi, or should they be called Adventure? Sure, Verne is one of the most famous names in SciFi history, but those books of him are mostly Adventure with only an element of SciFi -- especially the chopped versions kids get to read. And, even if we call them science fiction, there's again the fact that they were not written with only the children in mind; it was time what made us classify them as this.
So where is the children SciFi? Is it maybe that this genre is too adult, that we adult readers and writers and SciFi lovers think too high of ourselves to allow it to happen? or maybe our all-ages stories are enough? I know there are children who enjoy current SciFi stories; Star Trek is an example -- but there are not children-cathered ones, not that I recall. Not current ones, and certainly not to the level that the Fantasy and Horror most famous stories and characters have. Star Wars doesn't count, either; not only it is not a 'children story', I'm not even sure it can be called just SciFi (Space Opera, ok).
So, where is our J. K. Rowling in SciFi?
---
There's also the fact that SciFi and Fantasy are not as separated as some would like. From the Wikipedia Science Fantasy entry:
Science fantasy vs. science fiction
A definition, offered by Rod Serling, is that "science fiction makes the implausible possible, while science fantasy makes the impossible plausible." The meaning is that science fiction describes unlikely things that could possibly take place in the real world under certain conditions, while science fantasy gives a veneer of realism to things that simply couldn't happen in the real world under any circumstances. For many users of the term, however, "science fantasy" is either a science fiction story that has drifted far enough from reality to "feel" like a fantasy, or a fantasy story that is attempting to be science fiction. While these are in theory classifiable as different approaches, and thus different genres (fantastic science fiction vs. scientific fantasy), the end products are sometimes indistinguishable.
Arthur C. Clarke's dictum that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" indicates why this is so: a writer can write a fantasy using magic of various sorts, and yet turn the story into science fiction by positing some highly advanced technology, or as-yet-unknown but ultimately thoroughly provable science, as an explanation for how the magic can occur. Another writer can describe a future world where technologies are so advanced to be invisible, and the effects produced would be classified as magical if they were only described as such. A world might include magic which only some people (or only the reader) know to be in fact technological effects.[...]