Barnfantasy och vuxenfantasy? : en studie av tre fantasy-böckers presentation i deras barnversion och vuxenversion

Sammanfattning: The aim of this essay is to analyze and compare three books’ children and adult editions, in an attempt to enable a discussion about the book publishing companies marketing strategies of the separate target audiences. The literature chosen is Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban, The Chronicles of Narnia (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and the collection book), and Insurgent, part two of the Divergent series. The books are analyzed regarding cover, studying specifically style and language using image analysis and text analysis. The comparison of children and adult editions is discussed using theories about marketing, book genre, target audiences and book covers. The results of the study are that the adult editions of the books chosen are considerably toned down and rely heavily on the target audience’s already existing knowledge of the series, its characters and plot. The children editions are the opposite and are marketed to attract a new reader who has not yet been introduced to the series. In addition, indicators of fantasy are prominent in the children editions, while they are more toned down in the adult ones. The contrast of the different versions clearly shows how important the presentation and the impression of a book is, especially regarding the potential reader’s view of themselves and how they want to present to other people around them.