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Originally Posted by lmp
It depends on what one means by "realistic", doesn't it? If by that one wishes to bring in all the typical stuff of the modern day world, which includes a tendency to NOT let the imagination have its play, then realistic is what this article's author is talking about.
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I think that what they mean by 'realistic', certainly in terms of children's books, is to focus on the 'everyday', to have tales of family strife, divorce, crime and so forth. There are a lot of books written for children which are like this, and while I do not say that this is
wrong, it is wrong to assume that only books like that are 'worthy'.
The article criticises Harry Potter for having a boarding school as it's location, and while most children do not go to boarding school, what the writer has missed is that this provides a focussed environment for the story to happen within. It is also a school and most children go to school, and it has all the features of an everyday school, with the added element of magic. So while it is not set in 'the real world', it certainly does feature a lot of the things children will find in the real world. Hogwarts has bullies, swots, prefects, rebellious older kids, the teachers everyone fears, all those things which are in a normal school.
So in my opinion, it is a book which does have one hand in 'reality' and another in 'fantasy'. I find it quite disheartening that an adult should deride a children's book for having fantasy in it; all children need to be able to use their imaginations and not merely have to read that which only reflects the world around them.