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Media Tie-ins and Monster High

So, one of the things that we talk about at MonsterLibrarian is the value of using media tie-ins and cross-platform media to get people involved in reading horror fiction. Given the way our world is evolving today, the natural targets for marketers are kids. I watch kids who do a great job integrating existing media characters and stories into completely different scenarios (the Monster Kid’s many stories about the classic mystery solving team of Detective Baby Godzilla and Scooby Doo come to mind) but, frankly, Godzilla and Scooby Doo are small potatoes when it comes to marketing to kids today.

In a discussion of this very topic, two very different people recently asked me  “What about Monster High”? I’ve actually read quite a bit about the problematic nature (to put it mildly) of Monster High, but I hadn’t done any real digging on the topic. Fashion dolls representing the “hip,” teenage children of Universal Horror monsters? I was done on a personal level when I saw the words “fashion dolls”– those are code words for “Barbie”.  In spite of her popularity, Barbie and friends aren’t coming into my house anytime soon. And Barbie is wholesome looking next to the dolls for Monster High. However, the dolls are mainstream, and they are a riff on the Universal Horror monsters, who in turn are tied to some of the great horror stories of our time. For example, there’s Operetta, the daughter of the Phantom of the Opera; Draculara, Dracula’s daughter; and the imaginatively named Frankie Stein who… well, I’m pretty sure you can guess her famous relative.

What I didn’t realize is how overwhelming the presence of Monster High is now.  I knew it was more than dolls– I see licensed items all over the place (and apparently even my daughter’s best friend has a Monster High backpack. My daughter is five). I even knew there were webisodes. But a musical? A possible movie? A series of books? This is merchandising that outstrips what Scholastic did with Goosebumps, or at least comes darn close. Are these dolls really drawing girls to explore the horror genre? I have no clue. MonsterHighMom, a commenter on a post about Monster High on Peggy Orenstein’s blog said she used the dolls to introduce her 6 year old to the Universal monsters (you’ll have to scroll down– she actually made several comments regarding sharing the dolls, and horror movies, with her 6yo), but that doesn’t seem to be part of  Mattel’s marketing scheme. Mattel is trying really hard to push the line as having an anti-bullying theme, but researchers and marketers are getting opposite messages from the actual content Mattel is putting out. “Mean girls” given monster guise to raise the “cool factor” of a toy line are, well, icky. Mean girls are monsters without looking like them.

But the idea is kind of a neat one, even if the execution isn’t. My own daughter is surrounded all the time by monster action figures and images from B movies (which she’s only mildly interested in, although she’ll play Mommy and Baby Godzilla anytime). But she also likes Tinkerbell and princesses. I think maybe there are a lot of girls who are elementary aged who like monsters and also like dress-up. I think there’s a place for a doll– not an action figure, or a miniature, or a model, but a doll.  If you look at the Universal Monsters franchise, there aren’t really any girl monsters (except the Bride of Frankenstein, but she’s not exactly a dynamic character). A doll could create a place for girls where it really doesn’t exist, and provide the opportunity for all kinds of creative storytelling. I might be convinced to buy a monster doll for my daughter if it wasn’t all sexed up. Melissa Wardy of Pigtail Pals, in meeting with Mattel about Monster High, told them something similar. Her daughter, who is not that much older than mine, loves monsters too.

It’s been suggested that the Monster High franchise could be used to teach media literacy, and it’s probably necessary to do that to get kids to think about the messages they’re internalizing. But how would you feel about promoting Monster High as a way of introducing young girls to the monster genre? I think it would make me uncomfortable, in a way that Goosebumps doesn’t. All media franchises are not equal, and Monster High’s adult messages aimed at little girls bother me a lot. There are so many strong, creative, and intelligent women in the horror genre that I think it’s really important for girls to feel like there’s a place for them there as readers, writers, and creators. Monster High is the mainstream, and I don’t feel like it creates that place for them: my question is, what are the alternatives to this powerful media franchise?

Posted on April 1, 2013 by , 2 comments

Crossover Readers

A lot of publicity has gone to the newly recognized audience of “crossover readers,” an audience that only really emerged into the mainstream with the success of Harry Potter. Crossover readers returning to (or discovering) YA fiction are now an audience to be reckoned with, and some publishers are even experimenting with marketing to an audience that might be outgrowing YA books and wants titles more reflective of those in-between years that exist now from the time at which you finish high school and the time you truly declare your independence.

It’s great that this crossover audience is getting some attention. But what’s interesting is that as we talk about adults crossing over to a genre aimed at teens, there is a group aged 10-14 (or, depending on who you talk to, 8-12) that most people refer to as “tweens” (which is a term I hate). And that group is crossing over to read not just YA fiction targeted at a teen audience of ages 15 and up, but adult novels. This isn’t new. YA fiction didn’t always exist, and the books that did weren’t necessarily the ones that rang the bells of these kids, who are maybe not quite ready to leave the children’s section completely (there are some extremely awesome books for middle grade readers)but are also ready to strike out for the books their parents have hidden in a box in the back of their closet. Today when we think of middle grade students and horror, Goosebumps is what usually comes to mind, but oh my gosh, do you have any idea how many kids between 8 and 12 have read Stephen King’s IT? I asked a group of women on Facebook what book had scared them the most as a kid, and one of them said IT, which she had read at age 8 (when asked if she would give it to her kids at that age, she gave me a resounding NO). Erin Morgenstern, on NPR’s Risky Reads, wrote about reading IT first at age 12 (link here). If you read through the comments, you’ll see how young kids often are when they start reading Stephen King. One commenter said “I went straight for Stephen King in fifth grade.” Another commenter started reading King at age 9. I myself remember reading IT when I was about 12… so, you see, those older readers in the children’s section of the library, are getting their books from everywhere. Morgenstern’s article appeared as part of a series by NPR called PG-13: Risky Reads, in which authors discuss the books that, as teens, changed their lives. Some of these are definitely YA, some would be considered adult fiction, but, in spite of the title of this series, many of these books were also read by kids much younger than 13.

This NPR series reminds me a lot of a book by Lizzie Skurnick, Shelf Discovery, that I read some time ago– it actually has covered some of the same books. Shelf Discovery was compiled from a column at Jezebel called Fine Lines (archives are at the bottom of the article), where she (and some others) write about fiction read by this same age group–middle graders and teens– mostly titles girls in that age group would have read as they grew up in the 60s, 70s, and 80s Crossing over directly from children’s books to adult fiction at that time really isn’t all that uncommon, and that may be why there are so many challenges to books for children and teens. It’s nice to pretend that each kind of reader stays sorted into their little box, and it’s true that some will take the path we expect, or direct them on, or that marketers try to push them on. But really, each reader is different, every kid is different, and there is no sudden revolution, just a world of books and assorted related media that lead in a multitude of ways to discovering who you are as a reader, and who you are in life.

Am I saying that as librarians, educators, and parents, we should be handing our eight year olds Stephen King? No, absolutely not. But many of you probably remember reading books like Flowers in the Attic and The Grounding of Group Six before you were fifteen, and it’s good to remember that kids aren’t getting their books just from the library, and to remember what it was like to be that age and read the books in that box under the bed, when you look at and think about your own young reader. And, as an elementary school librarian recently asked me (to paraphrase) “They’re beyond Goosebumps-, and ready for something more– what can I give them next?”

Posted on February 1, 2013 by , Reply

Poison Apple Books Alert! Check Your Kids’ Scholastic Book Club Flyer

In a recent post, I mentioned the Poison Apple Books as a series for the beginning reader who is looking for something spooky. Lo and behold, the books showed up on parent/teacher radar in the November book order from Scholastic. If you are the parent of a child who brings home Scholastic book orders from school, and would like to acquire these for your newly independent reader, they are available as a set in a slipcase in the” Holiday Gift Books” flyer for November 2012 at 55% off (the flyer is a little odd, in my opinion, as it contains both Goodnight Moon and The Hunger Games, but nobody hired me to market to kids and their parents and teachers, either).  A six-pack of  the Goosebumps Hall of Horrors books(which I know nothing about, except that it’s written at a 2nd-3rd grade reading level) is also available at 50% off. Parents are encouraged to order online, where the entire family of flyers for all the book order books at all grade levels are available, but unfortunately these are time sensitive. So if your child did not bring home a book order, you might want to contact the teacher, find out the classroom code, and see what’s available there.

 

Posted on November 2, 2012 by , Reply
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