3:05am June 8, 2014

“Critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”

—

C.S. Lewis, “On Three Ways of Writing for Children,” 1952

(via the comments section of TNR’s excellent response to The Slate Article That Shall Not Be Linked To.)

#but also because this is fucking important#haters gonna hate#but they can do it elsewhere in their childish ways#because i’ve got shit to do#like#reading#some fucking fantastic#YA#books
(zooeyscigar)

Wherein Ray nails in the tags. As per usual

(via hedwig-dordt)

Agreed with everything. But would like to point out again that as someone with a developmental disability, I have to be consciously aware of what is considered “adult”, because there are misguided people in the field that gives me services, who would take away all of my YA and children’s books and picture books, as well as many of my toys (bead mazes, etc.) if they got the wrong whim. All in the name of making me “adult enough”. I wonder what that says about the Normalization Police and their relative maturity.

Notes: