Publication Is Falling Off In Country, Figures Show
It said that the publication of Juvenile fiction hits fallen off greatly during the last decade. If this is so, what is the reason for it? And the answer given—the most probable reason—is the moving pictures have pushed boy’s and girl’s books out of the field.
This may very likely be true. The moving picture does what the Juvenile book did, only does it better. Neither of these literary outputs goes deeply Into any analysis of human character, but relies mainly up on action, action, action.
And that is where the screen has great advantage over the printed page. Readers who are possessed of strong visual fancy can picture, with their inner eye the doings of the hero, heroine and villain with a vividness —if the story Is clearly told—almost equal to that of the screen, but a large percentage of the public lack this intellectual faculty. And they are the ones who miss half the appeal of the printed page. In historical and biographical works and in fiction as well.
The screen gets both these classes of readers, and the printed page of the book of Juvenile fiction gets only one of them. Thus the number of fiction readers falls off. the demand for boy’s and girls books falls off also, and the watchful publishers reduces their output of such publications.
It is again the case of the “surival of the fittest” and the “fittest” in this instance is the Juvenile book that speeds up action and throws in the highest colors possible.
Casper Daily Tribune, Casper, WY, January 4, 1925