[ SECRET POST #4142 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4142 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 32 secrets from Secret Submission Post #593.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

07. https://i.imgur.com/5ORoMPA.jpg

[(Anonymous)]

I think the only people who think it is a child's book are people who don't know anything about it beyond "It is about rabbits."

[greghousesgf]

this!

[philstar22]

Absolutely. Children's books can have some death and dark things. But Watership Down is just simply an adult book.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, this is pretty much it. Their thought process goes: "stories starring animals are always for children, just like animated movies and shows are always for children too."

[(Anonymous)]

I mean, maybe I'm not remembering right, but a lot of my books when I was a kid were small print and fairly long-- with an illustration or two thrown in for sure, but not enough to really put a dent in the 4-500 pages of words.

That said, it is absolutely not a children's book, just from the standpoint of its content!

[(Anonymous)]

Can anyone transcribe? Brown on brown not working so well for me.

[(Anonymous)]

I do not know why this book is so often thought of as a children's book. I mean, yes, the author originally invented the characters to entertain his daughters on long car rides, but the finished product is nearly 500 pages of small print with no illustrations. Hardly the typical format for a children's book, even laying aside the frequent graphic violence and the political metaphors.

[(Anonymous)]

Because children's literature exists outside of picture book format, and a lot of it contains some pretty dark themes.

[(Anonymous)]

This. Also IME, most people first read the book as children.

[(Anonymous)]

Usually children's books aren't 500 pages of small text (with some exceptions, I guess). I doubt the OP thinks all children's books are picture books.

[(Anonymous)]

YES, THANK YOU

Watership Down is a lot like The Hobbit-- originally a story told to the author's children, with an epic quest, some conlang and worldbuilding goodness, and yes, plenty of darkness and sadness along the way, but ultimately a beautiful story with beautiful prose that doesn't talk down to a child audience.

GENERATIONS of children's lit was page upon page of small text that may or may not be illustrated. Adults read it to their children, and older children could read it to themselves, but the format doesn't make it not a children's book.

If your kid is ready to listen to The Hobbit, as I did at my own father's knee once upon a time, then that same kid is probably ready for Watership Down. It's worth re-reading as an adult, or even at different points in your adulthood, you'll get new things out of it, but it's not not-for-children.

(However, the cartoon is not for very young and sensitive kiddies! It's good and the scary/dark parts are often exaggerated, but like... that's the part that sticks with you if you see it when you're not ready for it, so it's not unfair to remember the movie as being a lot bloodier than it is. The book has exciting parts and scary parts and even sad parts, but it also doesn't deserve its reputation as the bunny death march story, like, at ALL)

[(Anonymous)]

There was no one like Richard Adams when it came to beating the whimsy out of books about bunnies and puppies.

[(Anonymous)]

I read Watership Down as a kid and loved it and immediately went to read Adams' other books. First one I picked up was The Plague Dogs and it was so fucking depressing I couldn't finish it.

[(Anonymous)]

People think anything with anthropomorphic animals is a children's book.

[(Anonymous)]

there are a lot of words to describe the animals in watership down but anthropomorphic is definitely not among them

[(Anonymous)]

I re-read it for the first time in years for the book clubs here - last year? the year before? And even as a kid I recognised how much it referenced history. But re-reading it I kind of experienced it with an adult's understanding. It can be read by all ages, which is the definition of a good book to me.

[(Anonymous)]

+1

Yeah, I think some people think anything that can be read by children is a "children's book" - like those designations are equivalent to movie ratings where "children's book" is like a G or PG rating and "adult fiction" (which is just regular fiction) is R-rated. But there are plenty of regular fiction books that can be read by children and are perfectly appropriate, but they aren't just for children and irrelevant to adults.

(not that I think all actual children's books are irrelevant to adults, but some people see it that way)

I know people who liked Watership Down as kids and I know people who read it for the first time when they were old and liked it.

[liz_marcs]

This!

I loved the book the first time I read it (I was 12). I loved it so much that I read it no less than three times between the ages of 12 and 14.

I recently bought the book and re-read it as an adult and it was like reading a whole new book. And guess what? I loved this whole new book, too.

It truly is a good book that really does seem to just "fit" in with whatever age level you're at.

[bio_obscura]

IDK I like that there are children's books that don't treat children like fragile little creatures who can't learn that the world is sometimes a dark, cruel, difficult place.

[osidiano]

Watership Down is a children's book in the same way that Ender's Game was a children's book. Which is to say, they aren't, but enough people read it as kids/young adults that the demographics got confused.

Weirdly, I never see Moby Dick cited as a children's book, and all the high-achiever kids I knew in elementary school read it before the sixth grade. *shrug*

[(Anonymous)]

I read it when I was around 10 years old which I guess most would consider a child still. I mean, kids can be better readers than you think. I was reading adult books before I was even officially a teenager.

[(Anonymous)]

I dunno, I read a lot as a kid and had a ton of books with small print and lots of pages. I think I was 8-10 when I read Watership Down the first time. That said, I think Watership Down is one of those books that transcend ages, so while it could be read and understood by a child, adults might get something more nuanced from it.

[(Anonymous)]

"Children's book" covers a wide range of ages and degrees of maturity. Of course it's not a book for little kids, but adolescents can read long books, books without pictures, and books that can get kind of dark just fine. I guess you could argue it's YA instead of for children, but I have no idea where the boundary is. We're talking a range of ages, here. It's not like you wake up on your 12th birthday and you suddenly want to read YA where before you only read short books with pictures.

[(Anonymous)]

For what it’s worth on a professional level, the American Library Association categorizes it as Rabbits > Fiction and places it firmly in the general/grown-up area.