Dr. Charles Fuller

November 4, 2003

I just got “4 Fantastic Novels” from the library for my 12 year old son. (Yeah, right.) I like Scott Simon’s foreword, which reminded me of a favorite quote of mine. Unfortunately, favorite though it may be, I can neither remember who said it, nor the exact words.

A rough approximation was that there is a lot of garbage that is passed off as kid lit, but truly good kid lit is recognizable as good by adults as well. The argument goes that although there exists adult stories and concepts that kids cannot appreciate simply because of lack of life experience, a truly good “children’s book” can and will be recognized as such by any adult because it is, simply, truly good.

Your books fall into that latter pile, as far as I can say.

Any hints about the exact quote, and who said it? My first guess (who knows why) is that it was W. H. Auden who said it.

Well, I've been saying it for years in various ways--maybe the quote is mine.