Wednesday Writing Workout: Bestsellers

Analyze your favorite children's novel to see how it conforms (or doesn't) to the criteria identified by James W. Hall in Hit Lit: Cracking the Code of the Twentieth Century's Bestsellers (see my Monday post).  These features include:

1. A page-turning "high concept."
2. A controversial issue of the day.
3. A setting against the backdrop of an important time or place in history.
4. A main character ejected from his/her childhood home/country/Promised Land (e.g., Tara).
5. High information about a topic the reader likely knows little about (nuclear subs, the Holy Grail).
6. A secret society
7. City mouse vs. Country mouse
8. Grappling with one's concept of a higher power
9. The American Dream (or nightmare)
10. Rebels, misfits, loners -- characters who feel out of place among their peers
11. Broken families

We can probably discount feature #12 -- sex -- when examining most books is this genre. :)

To be honest, most novels that I can think of aimed at kids over the age of 8 or 9 seem to meet at least half of these criteria.  Numbers 10 and 11 seem almost universal.

What do you think?  --Jeanne Marie