Over on
Publishing Perspectives today, I'm asking a perhaps radical (and yes, of course, naive) question: What would happen if we stopped labeling books, YA or otherwise? It's a notion I've bandied about in my head for a while now—one that seems extraordinarily relevant as we consider the very notion of crossover books, classic books, and the role that labels have or have not played. From the essay:
Crossover books. Classic books. Aren’t they, at the very least, kissing cousins? And aren’t they also the books whose labels have been systematically sidestepped or blatantly ignored, whose labels, in the end, made no perceivable difference, save for the various honors and awards for which the books qualified? This conspicuous refusal to stay within the reading lines has represented, I think we can all agree, excellent good news for the books themselves, and excellent good news for readers.
What, then, does all this suggest about a label’s utility? What, indeed, would happen if the “young adult” label suddenly (in fantastical, whimsical, utterly surreal fashion) vanished? Certainly the YA label is not “protecting” teens from scandalous reads (however readers choose to define scandalous these days); it’s not the equivalent, in other words, of a PG rating. And certainly the YA label doesn’t tell us much of anything about the story we’re about to encounter, or about its relative artistry. “YA” tells us only that a teen or teens is involved. But so what, really, because at the end of the day, that’s the case for many an adult novel, too.
The whole can be found
here.
In the meantime, while I was posting this, I received word that
Kirkus named Small Damages the recommended teen book of the week.My head happily spins.
The other day
I pondered my own capabilities as an interviewee and concluded that I still need a bit of work.
A lot of work? Yes, indeed. A lot of work.
In this
New York Times By the Book interview, Kristin Cashore, author of the esteemed
Graceling (which I read and loved) and
Fire (and, now,
Bitterblue) shows us how a real interviewee chooses words rightly. For Cashore's unwillingness to cop to easy answers or generalizations, for her range of knowing and wisdom, I respect the
whole conversation. I especially respect Cashore's response to the question,
What makes a great young adult book — as opposed to a great book for full-fledged adults? Her answer:The fact that at the moment the distinction is being made, a young adult, as opposed to an adult, is the one reading it. In other words, I don’t entirely believe in the distinction. A great book is a great book, and it’s impossible to say what part of a person is going to connect to it. Age and experience aren’t always among the most relevant factors.
Perhaps I celebrate this response because I hold this opinion this myself—and have often tried to express it, with varying degrees of eloquence, in interviews and on panels. Just as I have fretted over the labeling of individuals, the attaching of classifications or lower-case nouns (oh, he's a manic depressive, oh, she's a workaholic), I do not cotton to the label-ization of books, to distinctions between young adult books and adult books, say, or to the assignment of fixed and self-limiting categories. What adult, for example, should not read Thanhha Lai's Inside Out & Back Again, and what teen should not read the never-officially-stamped-or-stickered To Kill a Mockingbird? Why should the first thing one is told about Julianna Baggot's Pure be that it is a dystopian novel, as opposed to an intelligent and artful and imaginative novel? Shouldn't the readership of Vaddey Ratner's astonishing, forthcoming "adult" novel about a child growing up in the Cambodian killing fields,
In the Shadow of the Banyan, be both teens and adults? Doesn't Ilie Ruby's forthcoming
The Salt God's Daughter have much to offer any age, and can't we talk about its gentle mysticism, its magic as poetry as opposed to brand or tag?
Certainly, I know how hard this would make things for booksellers and librarians. I know that commerce requires labels,
depends on it. But wouldn't it be lovely if readers talking to readers dropped the labels and distinctions? If we said, among ourselves,
You must read this book because it is, quite simply, a great book, and because it will transport you.
The good news for Small Damages just keeps rolling in! Congrats so many times over!
I've always said a good book is a good book, period. If I were still a child, though, I'd want to know there were books out there just for me (not that I couldn't step outside and read other things). For me, there's something warm and fuzzy in claiming a genre.
Hi Beth,
Thank you so much for saying what I've been complaining to friends and family for at least over a year! It finally worked had me work up the courage to tackle this controversial topic on my blog. I mentioned and linked to this post in my post. I hope you don't mind!
Amanda
http://www.hippiesbeautyandbooksohmy.com/2012/07/opinion-should-we-drop-ya-label.html