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<DIV>Jon writes:</DIV>
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<DIV>> <FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>For those of you who suggested that Pirate Freedom</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>> was a YA novel, does your definition of that genre</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>> include an element of didacticism?</FONT></DIV><FONT
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<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>I'm baffled. Why should a YA novel include "an element of
didacticism"? Some YA novels have that, I suppose, but hardly all of
them. Read, for instance, Megan Whalen Turner's <EM>The Thief</EM> (and
sequels). Or, going a bit older, John Bellairs' novels, which are entirely
fun and not at all didactic. I don't know if you'd say there's a didactic
element in, for instance, N. D. Wilson's recent <EM>100 Cupboards</EM> and
its sequel <EM>Dandelion Fire</EM>.</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV>If you find a didactic element in these novels, I suppose you could make
just as good a case for saying that adult novels include "an element of
didacticism." In fact, it would be easy to make that case for Flannery
O'Connor or Walker Percy or G. K. Chesterton or C. S. Lewis. Or Gene
Wolfe, whose books frequently (and especially recently) seem designed to teach
wisdom and spur the reader (as well as the characters) toward maturity.
That's something you see pretty strongly in Short Sun and Wizard Knight, for
instance, the latter of which especially is about a boy becoming a man and a man
becoming a true knight.</DIV>
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<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>John</DIV>
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