Harry Potter and A Series of Unfortunate Events

­I find it interesting that these children’s books have evolved into some sort of cultural phenomenon, despite the fact that they place such great emphasis on death and other dark subject matters.

I find it interesting, but not necessarily surprising.

These two series have something in common that can’t help but be fascinating to young readers the whole world over: the books open discussion to those matters which have been, by tradition, considered best to avoid in children’s literature.

What impresses me most about the Harry Potter series and the Unfortunate Events series is that their concepts were so radically original. I mean, how many people would have guessed that a book about three children who, after their parents die in a tragic house fire, have no choice but to make their way through tragedy after tragedy while losing relatives right and left, would have become such a huge success? The first book alone (of the thirteen total books) has sold somewhere around 20 million copies worldwide.

And Harry Potter? Sure, I can see a pitch for a story about a boy wizard going well. (I don’t know that I could have predicted 325-million-copies-worldwide well…) But no one who has read the books could possibly say that they don’t contain some incredibly dark undertones.

I think these series have done well because young readers are intrigued by subjects that they hadn’t seen much of until these books arrived. Lemony Snicket and J.K. Rowling have handed over content that’s maybe been considered somewhat forbidden in the recent years of children’s literature, but both authors have handled it in clever ways. They can bring the reader close to danger and death -- a lot closer than most other children’s authors who have made the bestsellers list -- but not too close, so that the magic and whimsy of the books remains intact. Snicket and Rowling also don’t “talk down” to their readers or spoonfeed them the details.

It’s refreshing to me to see children’s authors writing a larger vocabulary and allowing the readers to make inferences on their own. I hope this is a style that "sticks" and that other authors continue to improve upon it.