I don’t think it’s gayer, but it is way more feminine in how it portrays conflicts and internal struggles. I dislike the whole thing, and read it just to understand the collective consciousness around it.
Although, on an interesting note, there was a statisticaly significant dip in kids going to the ER when Harry Potter books were released, so I’m happy that kids are inside reading books.
My taste is truly eclectic. Some embarrassing guilty pleasures too
…
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I never quite understood the hype around Harry Potter.
The books aren’t very well written, the plots don’t make sense and they’re too touchy feely.
America has a fixation with nerdy teenagers that live in a secret world of magic where they’re special and the good guy wins.
Build a story around that theme and become a billionaire.
yeah. Strange cultural quirk. Also ruins movies
I think its very telling that for a kid to feel special and part of something it has to be in a fantasy world.
I like this guy.
He’s great.
Don’t do this this early in the morning.
I’m happily masking everything by putting on pants and drinking zippy go-go bean juice.
Maybe I’m re-reading The Belgariad, but that dosen’t mean you’re right.
Muh brain exists in a moment without regard for time. 
I disagree about the fantasy world thing, unless you mean it differently than I’m understanding. For Christmas this year the kids in my life received:
The Black Stallion: Alec is coming home by ship from the middle east and notices a magnificent, unbroken Arabian stallion boarding. Ship sinks, horse allows kid to hang onto lead rope/halter, swims to desert island. Make best friends and survive via mutual aid. Back home, parents agree to keep the horse, and they board him at a neighbor’s - who happens to be a world class horse trainer. Success in racing follows. (Bought two of these for two 11-year-olds.)
The Secret Garden: Mary is an asshole who has been raised by spoiling servants in India because parents are assholes, too. Whole family dies of (disease, can’t remember which, cholera maybe) and Mary is sent to spooky uncle’s house on the moors, where she is left to her own miserable devices but has a caring young servant from a healthy, loving family - the first Mary has encountered. Finds garden and friends. Heals.
My Side of the Mountain: Kid runs away from home, as one does, and finds an old hollow tree to live in. Finds a falcon who hunts for him, also some nice people. Thrives.
Hatchet: I haven’t read this, but apparently a kid is dumped alone in wilderness with just a hatchet and presumably - I’ll have to ask to read it when recipient finishes it - heals/thrives.
It’s all the same theme, fantasy or wilderness or dropped-into-different-surroundings. A book with incredible staying power is (and you should buy all of these right away for your home library) From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, which features a girl and her younger brother - she is the driving force, he is a kid with a good head on his shoulders and some money saved - who run away to the Museum of Modern Art in NYC. They sleep in Queen Victoria’s bed and get money from the fountains for things they need. Big adventure. Grow/thrive.
Disney movies: the first thing they do is eliminate the parents somehow so the young (children or animals) are forced to find strength within while on their journey/adventure.
Oh how I love books.
It’s so true. I have this whole theory about The Dark Library thought process.
Probably better in the woo-woo thread.
“Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed."
C. S. Lewis
That’s why I keep reading those books, as you grow the dragons get bigger and you have to fight them for other people.
'Zactly.
Or befriended.
This is why I need your perspective. As a foil to mine. 
He finished that a couple months ago.
He finished this one just before holiday break!
Kiddo is a voracious reader. He has to go back and review what he was supposed to read for class to do the analytical/essay stuff. They go through a book for each grading period.
And since were on the subject - he just knocked it out of the park again in the 99th percentile for ela, math, & science. 
!
I think so. I meant it as a bone dry austere critique of our society. Not my actual thoughts on the value of coming of age stories. I read Sounder, Old Yeller, and a few sci-fi type books around that age too.
I erased a big paragraph in my post above about what these stories provided me, which could be summed up as a blueprint for the kind of person I wanted to be and the kind of family I wanted to create.
The books provide a sense of agency, which whatever a kid’s goals - magic or survival or a warm home - is what we need to get from here (helpless, undeveloped) to there (the owner of a desired life, internal or external).
Or befriend them, lol.
So what books or characters resonated with people as kids?
For me - Odysseus, Lord Soth, Silk, Captian Planet, Reepacheep, The dread pirate Roberts, Rick Hunter, Sherlock Holmes, and Link from Zelda sums it up.