Well not to bea a dead horse, but are you associating the various trolls, elves, goblins and the like as being an acceptable substitution for real humans who aren't caucasian? I wonder how all the non-white people living in the U.K. would feel about that?

I said in my original post - "middle and upper-middle class." You left out the "middle" in your response. You seemed to assume that I meant all fantasy in my statement. I'm sorry if that wasn't as clear as I hoped, but the connection with sit-coms is still a valid one - there are good, substantial and ground-breaking sitcoms, but I doubt that most people who watch Friends will be interested in anything more than the fluff type.

Grab seemed to think that I was suggesting that we should make kids read stuff that they wouldn't like or is above their heads. I didn't say that and never meant to even imply that. He at least says "If you think fantasy is fluff . . ." yet he goes on to say "For fantasy, think of HG Wells, CS Lewis, JRR Tolkein, Aldous Huxley, etc, and then dare to say that fantasy is all just fluff..." Which seems to imply that I am not aware those authors. He also seems to thinks that my dad primarily handed me answers to all my questions, which he did not.

Of course I could be wrong. If so, I apologize. But I do take people's statements at face value. But your response started with the "wet blanket" statement even though I was attempting to enter into a serious conversation. I didn't mean to offend and you didn't offend me, but I didn't really appreciate that comment.