It was tough, being the son of Kingsley Amis. One tends to pale by comparison. That's what children's book authors write about.

Guess he isn't as free as he thinks he is.

Well, I had not realized I was keeping such exalted company. I'm definitely the third wheel in that trio.

I don't think I said children are open and adept readers, I said they have intact imaginations. And adults generally don't. There's a fair bit of research showing that imagination is a declining asset as people age.

If I ask a 5 year old to tell me a story about something happy I can get back almost anything. If I ask the same of an adult I'll get back a series of clarifying questions: they'll instinctively push to narrow their options.

If you talk to kids' groups — as I do — you see the gap just between middle grade and YA crowds. And then there are the teachers, the parents and the professional book folk.

The problem with your response is that you think you're comparing readers of Junie B. Jones to readers of Rushdie's latest. Not so fast.

We start with a body of potential readers in childhood that is quite broad, approaching 100%.of say the 6 year-old age cohort. By the time they're in YA that's down by far more than half. By the time they're 50 years old we're down to what? 10% of people? That's probably too high, that would be 30 million Americans. And the number who read "serious" literature? One tenth of one percent maybe? 300,000 people?

So, Roger, when you compare "child" reader to "adult" reader, especially readers of literary works, you're comparing apples and oranges. The first is a vast, democratic population and the second is a tiny, insular tribe with outposts in Manhattan, Park Slope and San Francisco.

The average adult doesn't read. At all. The overwhelming majority of them don't read. So an honest comparison between kid and adult is a comparison between readers and non-readers.

But if you want to be a little more fair, then consider the "average" adult reader who actually does read. He's reading Dan Brown, not David Foster Wallace. The guy sitting in the business section re-reading Angels and Demons is the "average" adult reader if you generously subtract the vast bulk of non-reading adults.

Now tell me, in all honesty, that's a more sophisticated read than Yertle the Turtle, or Octavian Nothing or A Wrinkle In Time.

As for Amis not writing to a particular audience? Nothing could be more narrowly-defined than the body of readers of serious literature. Subtract all those who don't have a liberal arts degree from an Ivy or Seven Sisters university. You'd cut that demographic by two thirds.

The idea that children are somehow instinctively open and adept readers is balderdash, and the notion that books for adults are boring and overcomplicated is something that can only resound within the walls of an SCBWI conference. To say that genius cannot reside in children's books (as Amis implies) is nonsense, but to say that books for adults need to overcompensate for their unimaginative readership is laughable.

Where Martin Amis thinks his audience comes from, anyway? Apparently not from the children who read good, intelligent children's books. *His* readers spring full-grown out of his forehead. Or his ego, same difference.

The average adult reader is completely devoid of imagination. Which is why adult readers at their most refined read books that are all about writers showing off their command of the "craft."

The plot of the typical adult literary novel is, "Some dude has his head all the way up his ass and for some reason can't figure out how to extract it." A bright kid reader would be looking for a rational solution to the ass-head problem while the refined adult reader literally cannot imagine a world where ass-headedness can be successfully addressed.

The reason I write the way I do for kids is that I can count on the kids to bring their imagination to the book so I don't really need to spend 20 pages describing the exact feeling of ass-head syndrome in exquisite detail. I can say, "Dude had his head all the way up his ass," and know that my reader will, with nothing but her unimpaired imagination, do an infinitely better job creating the picture than any writer can manage.

So, no offense adult literary writers, but a lot of your words are expended for the sole purpose of compensating for the brain damaged condition of your readers.