"A Lower Register"

You cannot write for children. They're much too complicated.   You can only write books that are of interest to them.              Maurice Sendak

Came across this quotation from Sendak today and it seems to me an apt retort to Amis Jr.'s latest foot-in-mouth-ism.

Here's what Martin Amis had to say:

People ask me if I ever thought of writing a children's book. I say, 'If I had a serious brain injury I might well write a children's book', but otherwise the idea of being conscious of who you're directing the story to is anathema to me, because, in my view, fiction is freedom and any restraints on that are intolerable. I would never write about someone that forced me to write at a lower register than what I can write.

And for a visual response to Amis's uppity attitude to children's writing, click on over to Booklust  where children's writer and illustrator Patricia Storms has created some fanciful caricatures.

Diary of a Grumpy Kid?