I’m rather curious, what’s the difference between YA lit, and anything else? As far as I’ve seen in this thread it seems to be a lack of sex. That seems to be somewhat lacking as litmus test though.
I have a friend who argues that the difference between genre and mainstream is the primacy of plot over character. With that as a start, I’m pretty comfortable saying that YA seems to comprise mostly genre. (typing this suddenly made me understand some of the genre reader vs. mainstream reader tension). Which makes it something I will tend to prefer to mainstream lit.
As for why I returned to YA, well, I was challenged to a few years ago. After reading some modren examples (Tamora Pierce springs to mind), I’ve tried to ignore YA as an identifier, except in the case of something trying to hard to appeal to “modren youth”.
I don’t know if it’s necessarily even just a lack of sex. Judy Blume’s one of the best YA writers of all time and she put quite a bit of the old nasty in her books.
I don’t seek out much YA lit now, but when I was in library school I read quite a bit of it. Our departmental library included a large children’s/YA section because the program had a large children’s/YA track, so it was very convenient for me to grab a YA novel. (This particular library did not contain any other fiction, it was primarily books about librarianship and related issues.) Since I didn’t have a lot of free time and was having to read a lot of fairly dry academic texts, it was nice to be able to read novels that were short and written clearly. There’s probably about as much lousy YA fiction published as there is lousy adult fiction, but since this collection was for the benefit of librarians it was mostly classic or award-winning novels rather than just whatever was new or popular. It was also fun to re-read some old favorites, like Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain series.
If I met an adult who still loved reading Sweet Valley High or Goosebumps novels for their own sake (not for nostalgia or kitsch) then I’d wonder about his or her mental state, but a good YA novel can be just as well-written and enjoyable as a good adult novel. A YA novel is perhaps less likely to challenge the reading abilities of an educated adult, but I think YA authors are also less likely to get away with pretentiousness or BS.
It’s something of a tautology, but the distinguishing feature of YA books is that they are designated as YA books. These books are normally written with a teen audience in mind, and they are identified and marketed as such by the publishers. Librarians and booksellers don’t usually make personal judgment calls about where a novel belongs, and most readers will accept a novel as a YA novel if they get it from the YA section.
I’ve seen YA described as being more focused on the maturation process than adult literature, but as Lamia noted, in practice it’s largely arbitrary, especially with fantasy. I’ve seen Madeline L’Engle’s Wrinkle In Time series, a classic by any standard, shelved in both sections depending on the library. Same with Garth Nix’s Abhorsen series, many of Diana Wynne Jones’ novels, C.S. Lewis, Robin McKinley, and the aforementioned Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series. All of the above wrote complex, often dark, and with some, occasionally sexual material.
As an aside, the Harry Potter series comes in both YA and adult covers, so that adults can buy it without embarrassment.
I grew up on historical fiction, and was really disappointed when I found that good historical fiction is almost rarer in the adult section than in the kids’. Way too much trashy romance. So I gave up on the genre for a decade and a half, and just recently starting rereading the books I enjoyed as a kid and getting caught up on some of the new books. Like delphica, I also have a sort of theoretical interest in them, as well - I’m interested in how we construct ideas of the past for kids in different eras, and what aspects of history are emphasized at different times.
And yeah, I like that they’re easier to read; I read a lot of heavy, academic stuff for my studies, so when I have ten minutes before falling asleep, a YA book is easier to get through. I’m not ashamed. Not much, at least.
I was just looking on my book shelf and noticed that Terry Pratchett’s YA Discworld novels (the Tiffany Aching books) are about as long as his adult Discworld novels, and I don’t think they’re necessarily much easier in terms of language. The main differences are that the Tiffany books have a teen protagonist, the books are divided into chapters (something Pratchett usually does not do with his adult fiction), and there’s less satire but if anything more dark/scary elements than in the adult Discworld books.
At the same time, the adult Discworld books don’t really have much “adult” content except in the sense of there being satiric humor and cultural references that younger readers might not get. There’s little swearing, no explicit sex (there are a fair number of bawdy jokes, but to my recollection only one actual sex scene and that a very discreet one), and although some have a fairly high body count graphic violence is also rare. So for Pratchett at least I’d say there’s not a huge difference in content between his adult and YA fiction, it’s mostly just that he wrote the Tiffany books about a young girl with a YA audience in mind.
I suspect that YA authors are under more pressure to make their historic fiction reasonably accurate, if only so the books can be promoted as having some educational value. You can get away with writing all kinds of trash for adults.
I have to pop in to say that Good YA lit is not dumbed down or condescending. Sure, there’s some like that, but that’s certainly true in “adult” literature. I’d rather read an excellent YA book (say Godless by Pete Hautman) than bother with Danielle Steele, Dan Brown, or whoever.
And whoever above said that there are better ideas in YA SciFi/Fantasy than in regular SciFi/Fantasy - well, big big dittoes to that. YA fantasy has its share of Potter rip-offs, sure, but also plenty more creative stuff.
There’s some very good, and yet pretty disturbing stuff out there for YA’s. It’s not all innocent or childish. Authors like Sonya Hartnett, Margo Lanagan, or David Almond (interestingly, all UK) can be quite dark. Successful books like **Holes **and Tangerine are rather gothic too. His Dark Materials discussed concepts far above the maturity level of most 11-15 year olds. Francesca Lia Block doesn’t pull punches either. I’ve always believed that Charles De Lint’s books should have all been cross-marketed to YA’s, and only in recent years did he begin writing some specifically for YA, and basically with no real difference.
I’d go so far as to say that much, if not most, YA is as complex and unafraid as much of adult fiction. But I think what they have in common is a younger protagonist. It occurs to me just now that maybe it’s easier to show a character’s growth and maturation within the confines of a novel when he or she is pre-adult.
I like coming of age novels; part of me wants to relive and on some level transcend my own experience of adolescence. But many adults don’t enjoy the perspective, don’t connect to the essential human experience as portrayed by a younger POV. It’s a shame.
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is another good one. It isn’t really dumbed down–in fact, it’s a lot darker than some of the cute, light adult fiction out there. It’s a book about a teenage girl dealing with the aftermath of her rape. LHA wrote another recent one, Wintergirls–pretty good but not AS good as Speak, in my opinion.
Just adding that there are many successful YA books and series that are quite long, such as the **Redwall **books and Garth Nix’s **Abhorsen **trilogy. Having volunteered in an elementary school library I saw many kids who loved nothing better than a long, satisfying read.
Same goes for complexity. Kids have great bullshit detectors when it comes to reading, and I’ll add dumbed-down detectors to that.
YA in general should not be judged solely based upon one’s experience with Harry Potter.
Robin McKinley is very much a love-her-or-hate-her writer, so YMMV, but I found Deerskin very affecting. It pretty much opens with the protagonist being violently raped by her father, and the rest of the novel is about her trying to deal with the aftereffects.
While we’re making recs, Sunshine ranks high on my list of all time best vampire novels. (Again, that’s far from a universal opinion, though I’m not alone, either.)
I don’t look for books labeled Young Adult, but many of the books I read are YA. In other words, I go to Borders and read the jacket and decide if it looks interesting. Or Amazon recommends it because some other reader bought something that I bought and I check out the reviews. Sometimes after doing so they turn out to be YA.
Once I find an author I like, I don’t care too much if they are YA.
One of the best fantasies that I have read is labeled YA, but I’m not sure why. It had all the quality of many adult fantasies.
I do think I prefer less sex in my fantasy books. I don’t mind reading about sex or watching it, but I guess I compartmentalize my book reading: when I’m reading fantasy fiction it is for a different reason than when I am reading about sex.
It is Garth Nix’s Abhorsen trilogy. It has a unique set of magic rules and a nice plot. I had a lot of trouble reading the first one the first time I tried it, but I was loaded down on pain meds and couldn’t concentrate. I put it away for at least a year and then picked it up again. I thought it was a good read and read the other two and enjoyed them all.
If I were completely honest, I’d say “Sometimes, it’s 'cause I’m lazy.”
And, yes, I did just get a quizzical look from a classy woman as I sat in a coffee shop (looking all artsy/scholarly in black sportcoat and goatee and grey hair) … reading an Animorphs book.
I chuckled and explained that I’d started reading them to my kids (and that the series was pretty hard-core SciFi, with fun characterizations), and that when the kids outgrew them before all 54 books were done, I had to finish them.
The aforementioned woman then went on at length about the high-brow stuff she was reading. After dutifully nodding and commenting on her long list of Prousts and Thackerys, I asked “Don’t you ever just let yourself have fun?”
Oh, and I’m listening to “A Horse and His Boy” right now. The way the horse snorts at someone riding a donkey, and gets all…well, on his high horse about people not eating “natural foods”, like grass, is very well-written.
And more fun than the Hesse I interrupted to “read” a Narnia book.
