How YA books came of age.

[SFG75]

Found this article and thought our esteemed members might be interested in commenting on this phenomenon. I'm not that well versed in YA fiction, but I know that is rabidly popular with well.....the younger folks.

it's in the genre's unique viewpoints, which are often illuminated with emotion but not informed by experience. She offers a definition by way of an example: "If an adult character has an emotional issue and deals with it through drug abuse, that's probably not his or her first exposure to drugs. Meanwhile in young adult literature, your young protagonist is often simultaneously introduced to and taken in by the drug. It may be the first time they've ever seen heroin, so there's a kind of innocence there. It's the loss of that innocence that makes a young adult character so different.

The Atlantic article

 

[Peder]

An interesting but wordy article, which nevertheless is worthwhile for providing an insightful description of what distinguishes YA from A in ficttion that might be addresing the same issues -- the first cogent description I have seen.

On a different track, one could see the beginning of a trend, some years back, to gradually lower the grade reading level at which "adult" topics, e.g. mention of death, began to creep into children's books. And this cynic immediately surmised that the desire was to beef up sales at the expense of protecting the wee kiddies' minds. Well, it looks like the publishers may have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, and in a direction they might not have anticipated. On the other hand, children nowadays seem to be growing up further and faster than their parents' wildest fears, so maybe it all fits.

 

[Fantasy Moon]

Most of the YA literature I read is historical fiction, and I don't even really read that much of it. Most of the plots seem uninteresting to me when I browse the YA literature shelves.

 

[SFG75]

While YA is more popular, I'm not finding much about its effect on helping to increase readership among the boys.

 

[literatureutopy]

YA Books

I can remember growing up and there wasn't that much YA books, just SWEET VALLEY HIGH and THE BABYSITTERS CLUB, those are the only books I remember that were for the YA group. Now there are way more books out there then before. Have to say that I love reading these books then the adult books actually.