Is "Little Women" considered a Children's book?

[Alatar]

My daughter (15) is reading and analysing a novel for part of her studies, but she's afraid that "Little Women" might be considered a kids book. My initial reaction was that it's not, but some googling gave me conflicting responses. So I thought I'd ask the experts. Is "Little Women" a kids book?

[Impenitent]

I haven't read it so couldn't hazard an opinion. I've tried several times as an adult and have never made it to the end of the first chapter.


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[elengil]

I'd say it falls very firmly into the middle-grade or young adult fiction genre. It might come across as slightly young for 15, but it may also just feel less adult because of the age of the book - it doesn't have dystopian children-killing-children or magical curses trying to off the main character, it's a rather wholesome book about 4 young adults as they come of age and struggle with their place in the world.

While this does not always hold true, I find children's books usually feature child characters, and young adult books feature young adult characters. I realize that the categories are the target audience, but the point is the target audience often wants to read about the target audience, too.

Same with Anne of Green Gables. It started with her quite young but I would still say those books would fall into the young adult or middle-grade fiction classification.

I would not consider either of them to be Children's books as a genre, though they would not be inappropriate for children to read, of course. I think just in contrast to a lot of today's media or YA books they don't have the same heaviness.

[Frelga]

I think it's a reasonable book to analyze at 15, if that's what she wants. The language is simple and tends to a particular flavor of moralizing, but it deals with adult themes. War, illness, death. Art. Duty and sacrifice, creativity and self-fulfillment. Different life choices of the sisters could make for an interesting subject to review from the perspective of modern gender roles.

They made us analyze War and Peace* at that age and it was frankly lost on me. My teacher was amazing, and he really made me think about the use of language and writing as a craft, but I am really glad I picked up the novel again in my 30s. It hits different.

* Random trivia - it's not actually called War and Peace.