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Im not exactly shure where I stand in this issue, but I think that young authors seem to know what young readers want to read, (duh, I know)They get more publicity because of that, and because there young. (There makeing a Eragon movie! stare I hope they dont make it dumb!)

I believe that even though a person is young, they can still have genius thoughts and ideas. Usually when a young person gets a lot of praise on a book they've written nowadays it's because they actually deserve it. Most, if not all of them are considered high IQ and have skipped grades, even made through some college. Most of them are all a bunch of smarties, so when they write kick a** books, people know about it (and give them tons of praise).

Don't let that discourage you not-so-intelligent writers out there. Once you take some classes on English, grammar and writing in general, you're sure to come up with something amazing.

mrgreen

i like what is good i don't care if their 15 or 150 as long as its good and it gets finished. i believe paoloni is 18-19 is that second book any good i can't see the cover so i don't know if its something i would read

I agree with the idea that young author's know what young readers want, simply because they are in constant interaction with each other and therefore can gather ideas quickly and easily. There's also a form of near conspiracy theory behind the popularity of young authors, and again their might not be.

Like Sora wrote, they get the attention because they're young. Let's look at the vast majority of writers in the world, probably over 90% of them are adults, and a good portion of those adults are probably over middle aged. I'm not saying by any means youth writers should not get praise, if they can write something like Eragon and In the Forests of the Night, neither of which I've read but since joining this guild my Chapters Club card keeps calling my name, urging me to buy books. Anyway, back on topic, I have nothing but respect for kids being able to get published and since they're so closely related to their target audience, which just so happens to be the largest spending demographic in the world, if their books sell, they're going to sell a lot.

I'd also take into account, as noted by Crystal, that those child writers are normally kids with above average, probably MENSA level IQ's. I personally despise these kids. I knew about 8 of these big headed guys and gals back in grade school and believe me, they aren't a peach to spend time with, though I must admit there isn't much funnier comedy than watching said nerdy kids playing Jeapordy at lunch recess. Anyway, all I'm saying is that the kids I knew had relatively well off parents but saw fit for some reason to let their children dabble with the rest of us low IQ students. This brings into my overly suspicious brain meat that any MENSA child with so much as a glint of natural talent will be overly doted upon by their parents. We see this is cases of children who have natural talent to play classical instruments. Though I can't recall any of their names, I do like to indulge in the occassion classical music documentary, thank you Discovery. What I'm trying to say is that Paolini went to a very expensive creative learning school where literal studies weren't totally ignored but they weren't a key part of their course load. I have no dirt of the Forests girl but it's reasonable to assume these kids are famous because of their parents who can pull strings and write checks. I have actually tried to get a short story of mine published and I got shafted and put through a bunch of loops and holes and it's incredibly discouraging and I eventually gave up. I just find it odd that kids who attend well to do art schools are more capable, not likely, capable of getting published and recognized. It ticks me off but that's just me, I'll just have to wait until I'm old and grizzled before getting published.

As for the good reviews, it's like anything, there'll be an influx of good feelings, then as people go back and analyze it we'll see how Chris and Amelia took ideas from other authors and and writers and twisted them just like everyone else has since the dawn of time. There'll be hate groups and analytical studies and time, money and energy will be spent to study their works ultimately accomplishing nothing more than inflating the author's egos whole giving nothing back to the community. It's like anything else, if you like it, you like it and if you like it enough you email or write the author thanking them for putting something good into the world. If you don't like it, chances are you're going to rant and rave and join some focus group that deals with the meticulous deconstruction of the author's works until you can see it's very heart beating.

Media is just doing its normal job of over playing child genius. And whenever I go into Coles or Chapters these days and see a book that has a wide appeal factor I read the back, get a feel for the characters and then try and place who they might cast for each role. I'm getting tired of all these book to movie transfers. I figure it's just me, but I honestly don't think it's doing youth to give them an easy out of having to read the novels. Granted, Harry Potter is a great set of 4 adventure movies, the last 3 have been butchered beyond recognition to the books, but they were made to appeal to children. I think the Eregon movies are going to be good movies too, obviously we can't expect them to be novel clones, but I think anything with Jeremy Irons in it will do well, he's got that Look at me, I'm old, I'm cool, my grey beard was a gift from Sean Connery and I've been smoking since 12 and it's helped my acting career. I think he's a great actor, he usually get roles that are well above the knowledge of the protagonists and he plays to that extremely well.

Anywho, before my keyboard breaks I'll call it quits.

Have a good weekend everyone!

S.E. Hinton was 16 when she had The Outsiders published, which is a good book...One of my favorites <.< I think it's well written and entertaining, makes me think, etc.

I do think the media has a lot to do with giving young authors publicity (stupid media...). I haven't read any books by any teenages other than The Outsiders, but I would ASSUME, that if a teen's really smart and has had writing classes, knows how to write, that he/she show be able to write a decent story. I would think as long as any teen is mature about writing, grammar and his subject matter (whatever he's writing about) then he should be able to write a decent story too.

And just because a story is has some grammatical errors, doesn't mean it's a bad story...unless it's littered with them <.< then I get pissed

A-ha! Here's a cue from reading books. If you read a historical book and you don't take it in the context of the time period, you don't get it, it's crap, it means nothing to you, it's too wordy.

So...If a kid or teenage writes a book, shouldn't be kind of do the same thing? Look at his work in the context of his "career"--- his age, the amount of time he's been writing, how mature and serious about writing he is, the obstacles he's overcome from his previous writing, etc.

Sometimes, not always ~.~;, people do this when they look at a piece of art, like fanart drawings. They notice the artist has fixed some problems his previous work had. Like the eyes aren't so...loppy, like they were in the previous drawing.

You get my point? XP



One more! And isn't it okay just to read books, crappy or good, because you LIKE to? If the author is 5 or 90, does it matter if you like to read their stuff? You don't care if the story is corny. You like it. But I DO understand that if you're looking for a good book, not one to fall in love with, that you're going to want something with more substance to it. 3nodding

I'm just rocking the boat and trying to make y'all think. ^_^; Tell me if it works...

Demon,

I guess you're right. Still, I think that while some people like authors to go from bad to good, everyone likes to see authors go from good to great.

Like I said, a good fantasist weaves many different fibers together, but the necessary elements that make a good book are:
Plot
Characters (and their development)
Setting
The Ability to Raise Questions (you couldn't think of one word?)
Morals (perhaps "result" is a better word)
Flow (which I think many people undervalue)
If anyone has stuff to add to this, feel free. The list is incomplete.

Vale (a prayer, not my name evil )
-LD