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Oh, my word, this kind of thing makes me want to bang heads. Like a lot of the commenters on the original thread, I went very quickly from the Narnia books and The Hobbit to Dune and Ray Bradbury. But that wasn't because I thought YA was for kiddies so much as because there was hardly anything I could find that actually fit that category. Sure, I read the big SF/F doorstops, but truth was I skimmed a lot of the boring blather, description of faster-than-light drives, obsessively detailed renderings of alien societies and such because those things got in the way of the story and characters for me. It wasn't until I was an adult that I could go back to read a book like Dune and actually be interested in some of those world-building details.

So basically it seems to me that YA SF is skipping the parts that a lot of teen readers would already be inclined to skip (or else just give up on the book altogether), and forcing writers to tell a more concentrated and condensed -- and in many cases more potent -- story as a result. What's wrong with that?

Some of the commenters on io9 seem to believe that length is the primary standard by which the quality of a book should be measured, and that their favorite "adult" SF/F books are superior because their length makes them automatically "more complex" than the average YA novel. Well, if that's the case, shouldn't that make the Harry Potter books automatically better than, say, The Left Hand of Darkness or many of the other SFnal classics?

Pfft, I say.

(Though after all that being said in the previous comment, I'd like to add a rec to a less-than-300-page standalone novel by one of the SF greats: Connie Willis's Bellwether. Not exactly traditional SF by any means, but it really is a great deal of fun.)

Seriously, nobody is listening, are they. I am SO TIRED of the "when I was a teen I didn't NEED YA books because I was smart enough to read ADULT books" argument! SO WAS I! My favorite authors in eighth grade were Charles Dickens and Lois Duncan. I enjoyed them both thoroughly then, and even nowadays I... well to be honest I think I enjoy Lois Duncan more just because I don't have the time for Charles Dickens anymore!

By standalone, do you mean something that isn't part of a series? Or do you mean something that has a beginning, middle and end of it's own? If you mean the second, I would recommend that you try Lois McMaster Bujold's Warrior's Apprentice. I think you'd like it. It's fast paced and it's funny and comfortably angsty as well. Space opera at it's very best.

"'s hard to deny your knee-jerk response that there's something slightly distasteful and pedophilic about an adult reading stories aimed at people under the age of 18."

...!?

I read both Sf and YA. There are some great writers in SF. The community as a whole? Disappointingly stupid.

They haven't realized that most of the Science Fiction that they loved so much as YA's was . . . YA. Most of the writing they honor and award and crow over-- is suitable for fourteen year olds. They insist that this is because fourteen years olds "have grown up brains that are ready for adult works." I say it's because most of SF readers are still reading books for young adults.

Scalzi? YA. Orson Scott Card? YA. Haldeman? YA. Heinlein? Most of his work was YA. The best of it certainly was. And the worst of it was . . . juvenile--a YA mentality trying to pretend to be grown up.

But these books have sex in them! Scalzi's have men with green penises! Yes, I know. It's shocking. And they are YA. People who think the books they read are for adult books just because there's sex and new ideas in them, those people should grow up.

Sorry. I was cranky. You labeled this post "RANTS," so I did.

SF under 300 pages? Hey, that's hardly fair, as it leaves out some of the best stuff by Walter Jon Williams, Vernor Vinge, and other wonderful writers. Would you accept 318 pages? Then try Sun of Suns by Karl Schroeder.

By the way, I read any genre for any age group, as long as the book itself is well-written and gripping. I guess that makes me a real pervert! :-)

This kind of story bothers me so much -- so much time spent marking off territory, so little time spent saying, "Hey, there's room for all kinds of readers and definitions here!"
My recs for sf/f under 300 pages:
Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner (though if court politics and such are not to your liking, this may not be the book for you.)
I second Connie Willis' Bellwether. So fun.
The Bone Key by Sarah Monette is a spooky collection of interconnected short stories.
The Book of Atrix Wolfe by Patricia McKillip.
Just some thoughts to check out!

I have a few favorites that all come in around 300 pages -
The Chronoliths - Charles Wilson
Replay - Ken Grimwood
THe Mirror - Marlys Millhiser
From time to time - Jack Finney
The Sterkarm Handshake - Susan Price (might be a YA title)
and I, too, love Bellwether by Connie Willis (and her Doomsday Book - but it's way too long to fit your page criteria!)

Hope you will enjoy some of these!

SSS

Idk. We label all kinds of stuff--just need to keep it in perspective. Not too profound today.

But I really need help with my list of recs for the library at my new school, which need a lot more YA as well as more of everything that teens like to read. Check my latest blog if you get a chance. :)

Uck! Reading things like that makes me break out in a rash. The most ironic line in the post?

Adults and teens are different in all kinds of ways, but surely they can meet in the world of fiction

Yes, surely they can, if adult fiction writers and readers can get over their god-complexes. Seriously dude, no one thinks you're a perv for checking out M. T. Anderson's FEED or Suzanne Collins' THE HUNGER GAMES from the YA section.

Kids self censor. Yes. My son picked up a book he thought he would like - started reading - admitted he wasn't getting into it - so back to the library for new books.

Things go over their heads. Yup.

My daughter was thrilled that I let her read the Princess Diaries - and it was a matter of "I let her". I re-read it, decided that she was old enough for it and gave my permission. And she knew to ask too.

When a librarian can guide a kid to a book that is right for them it is a blessing.

When a librarian says to a kidnergartner "You can't read Junie B. Jones those are only for 2nd graders. That's not a blessing.

When a mother - like the one I heard in the library says to her son (about 5th or 6th grade) "That's a girly book go get something else" it makes me really wonder what book it was (I couldn't see the title, darn it) and kind of cringe. Because there are a lot of "Girly" books that a boy might really enjoy.

I agree that it's a complex issue. Helping a child find what's right for them is good---assuming you know best what's right for a child isn't necessarily good. I was reading way above my age level when I was a child, often reading adult books before most were reading YA (in fact, I kind of skipped most of the YA phase). Either I handled the adult material or I decided I wasn't ready for it or I self-censored. That doesn't mean I'd expect someone to let me check out a book with explicit sex in it at age eight... there are limits. But as the previous commenter says, assuming too much about a book being only for a certain gender or grade can cheat kids out of great books.

I was old enough at age 13 to "get" Forever and also to know that these teens were light-years ahead of me in the sex department! One of my daughters (who has always been a bit squeamish/squirrelly) tried to read a certain YA book (can't remember which one - rats) at age 12 but was too overcome with embarrassment to even blip over the (fairly tame) sex scenes - just knowing they were in the book was too hideous to endure.
So yeah, I would never refuse to direct a kid to a book she or he asked for specifically, unless it was totally clear the book was way inappropriate (N&N for an 8-year-old,say) and the kid didn't realize.
There are "clean" titles in the YA section (historical fiction, fantasy) and plenty of really fabulous, challenging stuff in the juvy collection. If kids realize the huge variety of books available to them (and that's where we children's librarians come in!), they'll be less liable to ask for Gossip Girls simply because that's something they've heard of.

I had a similar reaction to the article. When a patron (whatever age) asks me for a specific book, I don't feel it's my place to put any judgment on their request-- hairy eyeball or something stronger-- unless they've requested my opinion, as parents often do for their children. On the other hand, if a kid asks for/is open to reading suggestions, *that's* when I pull out the great books I think are right on target for their maturity level.

I remember trying to read A House Like a Lotus by Madeleine L'Engle as a middle schooler, and my mom-- not a book banner by any means-- actually went so far as to ask the library to move it from the YA section to the adult section (they didn't). Meanwhile, all the sex and other "adult" stuff had completely gone over my head. I thought the book was a total snooze!

Count me as another one who didn't get everything in the "too-old-for-you" books - but read them anyway. I was nine when I first read Scarlett, and didn't catch any of the sex until years later. But I loved the book.

At least once I've made book recommendations for a mother who didn't mind her daughter reading scary or violent books, but absolutely no sex. I managed to keep my mouth shut, too. :-)

Hey Liz:
Well said. I think most librarians are at least a bit conflicted about this issue. I think the N&N example perfectly illustrates what I deal with on a weekly basis in my school environment.

If I kid asks me for a specific book, I hand it to them. In the Gossip Girl case, I'd probably hand it to them and also grab the first Clique novel and say, "Here's another one you might like." Depending on the teen, they may prefer the cleaner Clique books or they may like Gossip Girl better, or in most cases they'll probably like both.

Even for older teens, if I'm recommending something with extreme cursing or sex in it, I'll mention it and say "just wanted to give you a heads up in case you're uncomfortable with that" and then I'll leave them to make that decision for themselves. Most teens will take the books, some won't.

When I was in 5th grade, my favorite books were Matilda and Remember Me. 2 very different books, for very different ages, but... they were both perfect for me.

And, I was SHOCKED! to find out Deenie had masturbation. I had no idea when I read it the first time!

I definitely think kids self-censor. Yes, parents and librarians can and should be interested in what kids are reading . . . but in the end you need to trust that you've raised them right and that reading some book isn't going to send them on a unprotected sexing/ swearing/ binging spree.

If a kid makes a request, help them find the book. The time to comment is when they bring it back -- and I've seen my local librarians do this a lot. When the book goes on the counter, the librarians ask "how did you like that?" "if you liked that, try . . . "

Nick and Norah! That would have been a much better example to use than Twilight or the Gossip Girl and Uglies series. Because, frankly, I don't see a problem with giving the titles mentioned in the article to an 11 or 12 year old when asked.

I wonder if part of the difference in opinion is due to the fact that Stevenson is a children's librarian, not YA? I also wonder if her library has a children's reference desk, and if she's getting asked for YA books at a children's desk instead of another reference setup. Not sure if it makes a difference in the end, but I do wonder if it might matter.

Trisha

In our Pre-K to 8th grade school we see a lot of 2nd and 3rd graders wanting to check out the books we have in the middle school section (YA ). We use the question "what do you think your parents would think?" about books we've described to them as being for the older kids. Sometimes I'll even say its a book we bought for the older kids because it's about high school or about something they are studying in health class. That usually puts it in perspective for them and they self select from there. We have classroom teachers who are strict about kids reading from their "just right" lists as well, so I try to find the balance by being more lenient. Sometimes a book slips by, like a kindergartener checking out a book on Crack because of the skull on the cover, (he thought it was a scary story, I didn't see it get checked out) and I have parents calling up complaining about what they are asked to read for bedtime stories. It's an interesting discussion and I enjoyed reading the article you linked to.

Interesting varied comments.... if a kid is "reading up", I'm not into holding them back with stuff they don't want because it is too easy, but I also don't agree that the only "reading up" available is YA.

And a big point (which is why I think Nick & Norah is the good example) is so much saying "don't read this book" to the kid, as making sure the book is the book the kid thinks it is. Princess Diaries is a good example to use with younger readers (say, 3r graders). Those Princess Diaries readers (tho usually its the parent) who think they are getting the movie version are usually shocked, appalled, and loud in their complaining about the book being, gasp, a YA, even tho that is what it is.

I don't like "what would your parents think?" as a filter because it puts the librarian in the parent's camp rather than the child's. It also puts the child in the dubious position of feeling as if she needs to lie to get a book she is legally entitled to read.

I recently had a request by an 8 year old for Meg Cabot's Read or Not : an American Girl book.

Instead of simply sending it out to the requestor, I gave the requestor the summary description of the book and said, just checking that this is the book you want.

At which point I discovered that the requestor thought the Meg Cabot books were the Kit/American Girl books.

I don't think any greater good would have been served by giving the Meg Cabot books when what they wanted was the Meet Kit books.

(The person asking for the book was the parent of the girl).

Personally, I prefer to work with kids instead of parents for a ton of reasons. Kids usually have a better handle on their own reading interests; and parents expect you to read their mind (and the absent child's mind) in terms of matching.

That said, in terms of the confusion of the American Girl books, or perhaps a belief that Cruising is a movie about cruise ships, yes, I think it's good to find out what the reader/viewer really wants when they ask for a title that seems to be a disconnect with their usual books/movies. (My stepgrandmother was the one who thought crusing was about cruise ships.)

This is the first of your blog posts I've read and I thought I'd add in my opinion as the almost 17 year old teenager from London and avid reader that I am. I find it really worrying that YA fiction isn't generally embraced at all in the UK, but something criticised and dismissed as almost soulless, vacuous books. I'm lucky enough to work in an independent children's bookshop where our teen section is not hidden away and we pride ourselves on having collectively read most of the books, able to recommend the ones we love to the many teens who ask for a new read. The point, though, is that (from what I've witnessed) while the younger generations - the teenagers, the twenty-somethings, the young parents - embrace the idea of this brilliant genre. I know it's not a matter of grouping people off, because teens come in all the time who have, for example, read Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, every Dickens ever published, Kafka and endless numbers of typically adult books, but who want books that excite them in a different way, books with a different target audience. Yet traditionalists in the country bandy about words such as "accessibility" in the illusion that the only thing YA does is tell stories about hormonal teenagers, that it doesn't challenge you in a different way and that it's somehow for the less intelligent kids who can't quite stomach Austen. Boyce has made me sort of angry (and by sort of, I mean very) because he's taken a huge step backwards by almost suggesting in his argument against it that the expansion and growing popularity of YA fiction (although in no comparable scale to the amazing progress the US has done in expanding its YA publications) parents and teachers encourage teens to read only teenage fiction, but that is certainly not the case and teenagers definitely venture outside the YA genre whether parents want them to or not.
I wholeheartedly agree with you that YA literature opens up a new world; one only has to look at the books FCB mentions (Curious Incident, Noughts and Crosses etc.) to see what wonderful books have been created for the young adult audience, whether or not adults read them.
As for your point about varied choices, again, I see teens (and myself) reading books like To Kill a Mockingbird, Gatsby, 100 Years of Solitude who would happily pick up the newest Cornelia Funke or Eva Ibbotson. I fear that FCB is giving an inaccurate portrayal of what teens in the UK (or London at least) feel about the books they read and of the YA genre. He seems to be the only one affected by those boundaries from my personal experience, and parents here don't seem to worry at all about their kids reading YA books which Boyce posits keeps them from adult lit which is just.. arrgh!!
And don't worry, if these books go away, I will take a stand for sure!
I don't know how coherent that all was; it has been typed out in a thought process rant and I'm feeling a little deflated that I'm not so keen on picking up the copy of FCB's Cosmic that I have an old proof of. But of course I would never do such a think as it belongs in the 8-12 section and as a YA reader I never venture out of my demographic. *throws something* *possibly Cosmic*

*thing not think

& when I said "I find it really worrying that YA fiction isn't generally embraced at all in the UK, but something criticised and dismissed as almost soulless, vacuous books."
I meant by many book critics, not by the general public (although this is also probably true for the older generations also.

Rosianna, thank you so much for stopping by and sharing so much -- and of course I agree with you! I enjoyed FCB's Millions, but liking an author never means agreeing with everything they say -- and he kind of struck me a bit "grumpy old manish, back when I was a teen."

See, I think if the issue is "more adults should read books with the YA label," the answer isnt' to attack the YA label but wonder why those adults feel that label is a barrier.

Again, thanks so much for sharing!

The article was not an attack on YA though I can see the extract makes it read like that. It's worth pointing out that the article was giving a blisteringly good five star review to a YA book.
My worry is not about readers. Readers are adventurous creatures. I know that.
From Frank Cottrell Boyce

My worry is about what demographics do in the long term to the writers.
I really do know about this because I work in the film industry.
You start by aiming stuff at a demographic. You end up writing for that demographic. And that's very narrowing both for the writer and the audience.
If you don't believe me go and look at what's on at your multiplex this weekend. And compare it to what was on ten or fifteen years back

Frank, thank you for stopping by & joining in the discussion. Your review included a number of issues that would make great conversations; and as I was still thinking about it last night, and agree with some points and (obviously) not with others.

I really cannot comment on the film industry. It's a different process – film involves so many more people than a book, and needs so much more money to get a finished product for an audience. I would want to know more about specific data as well as how factors contribute to what appears on the big screen (cost, distribution, ticket prices, salaries, competition from TV, DVD) and then where the parallels are in publishing, especially in publishing YA. Is it that the writers self-limit? Or is it that the sellers (production companies, publishing companies) are narrow in what the work they decide to buy?

I can only look at this via books. I look at what books were available for teens 10 or 15 years ago compared with today (or for me, more like 25 years ago) and see that there is much more for teens to read now than then. It increases the great books that are out there.

Trying to force an author into a narrow category has been going on for ages; I find it quite annoying that when Stephen King writes end-of-the-world books he is dismissed as a horror writer; when Cormac McCarthy does, it is high literature. And authors have used other names for different audiences for ages (tho now, in the celeb-author world, I don't think that is as easy as it once was.)

I don't like the one-genre per book approach to titles, so that a love story between a vampire and werewolf set in 1870 is either a western, romance, supernatural, OR science fiction story – unless it's written for a teen audience, then boom, YA, or if its written by a Real Writer, in which case, it's literature.

I like the approach of shelving crossover titles in multiple places and having displays that cover an assortment of titles; because I really don't think that a library or bookstore that is A to Z by author, without juvenile, teen, adult, or genre listings, would work with most consumers.

As for the publisher perspective, if this is going to narrow the authors or their publishing choices, I'd like to hear from the authors on this one. Because I would hope that the answer to being able to write what one wants to write and connecting with an audience, is not to get rid of the YA area.

I remember being a teen about 6-7 years ago, not wanting to read books from the children's section anymore and moving straight on to adult books because there wasn't much there for teens. Now at the age of 24 I'm reading Young Adult Fiction, taking back what I couldn't get when I was a teen. I'm very thankful for this genre. I feel I was kept from the YA lit and forced into the Adult lit because there was no in between. I don't care who it's written for, that's obviously not why I read a book.

I think everything that you say is right - so far. My worry is that YA will go from being a shelving category into a genre, with conventions and cliches and then it WILL end up being all about hormonal teenagers. I think anyone who's honest can see this is already happening.
I thought it was obvious that I love loads of the books in this category. I keep giving them five star reviews. And lots of them carry cover quotes from me. Another of my concerns is that they are underestimated (and not read widely enough) because of their YA label. The drift of the article that has caused all this fuss was this is such a good book "Please don't let the demographic put you off".

Well, YA is a genre and has been for quite some time. It's just that some people are only now just noticing. I haven't been a teen for nearly thirty years, but back then, Richard Peck, M. E. Kerr and Robert Cormier were in their heyday. They were writing great books for a specific audience that were shelved at my local bookstore under a sign that said "Young Adult." And back then--and really, up until fairly recently--YA was a true ghetto in terms of revenue. Nobody was making any money. So I sometimes think that a lot of this current fuss about YA gettin' no respect comes from people who were drawn to the genre for the wrong reasons.

So YA as a genre has been around for a long time and yes, it has its conventions and its cliches, but I don't think you can look at the current boom in quality, variety and sheer invention without seeing that it absolutely hasn't narrowed the scope of writers who choose to write in this genre.

So there you go. What's the big worry? Thirty-plus years and YA just keeps getting better and better, not narrower.

I have always seen YA as about perspective. There's a terrific passage in Richard Peck's Invitations to the World where he talks about his days teaching in a girls' school in New York. He tried to get his charges to read The Member of the Wedding, thinking they would adore it. After all, they were the same age as Frankie, had her same fears and concerns. Nope. The girls rejected it as a book about a crazy person. Peck spent five nights re-reading the book to figure out why they felt this way and came to this conclusion:

"It wasn't written for the young, of course. It was for readers who'd made a safe passage to adulthood and dared to look back."

There is a clear difference and why shouldn't there be? Why shouldn't teens have a literature that reflects where they are in this treacherous journey? A journey and a perspective that is specifically theirs and not that of their parents.

Most of the YA authors I know--myself included--choose to write in this genre because they love it, because it is what excites, inspires and interests them. They were not pushed into it by demographic marketing. They know and understand the genre and the audience and they choose it. They are not interested in whether or not adults (other than editors, reviewers, librarians and booksellers, naturally) underestimate their work because that is not who they are writing for. Plain and simple. It really doesn't bother them if adults read or don't read their work. The author who writes ostensibly for teenagers but wishes for the approval of adult readers is writing in the wrong genre and should stop it, in my very unhumble opinion.

I agree with Melissa that it IS a genre - and there are always pros and cons to a genre. Some people won't want to touch a genre with a ten foot pole, and other people jump in and swim around and find what works for them in that genre. And if it's a genre - rather than an age label - to my mind that makes YA more accessible for adults. I wonder why no one fusses over children's lit and how adults are afraid of reading it? Maybe because age and reading levels are so much more at the forefront of that category, but I'm just as eager to get adults reading quality children's books as quality YA. There are picture books that an adult can enjoy just as much as a child (even an adult who isn't a librarian/enthusiast) but I'm not aware of anyone bemoaning the fact that they're shelved with the more age-limited picture books.

I love the YA books that are available now--like you, Liz, I am sometimes angry and jealous that they weren't available for me. But as a seriously nerdy, bookish kid, I wonder if I would have read them w/the YA label on them. That is, I made the jump straight to adult books even though there was YA available (not as much as now, but there was some really good stuff) because I wanted to be "mature" and "intelligent." I now see that as a trap (duh! I now spend my life w/children's and YA lit) but at the time...not so much. And it's not that anyone was keeping me from those books--far from it! It was my own misplaced (but, I think, not uncommon) sense that I was "too old" for YA. (Just like you're too old for Seventeen magazine by the time you're fifteen...)

So what I saw FCB as saying was not that the books are bad, but that labeling can be. Maybe the solution is multi-labeling? Because, yes, the YA label is necessary for librarians and bookstores and parents and teachers who want to know where to look, but if it is turning people off (and, honestly, I still think it sometimes is) it wouldn't hurt to shelve those same books (even with the same covers!) elsewhere as well...

Are the same people who oppose age-banding defending the YA label? What's the difference?

Again, I'm not at all opposed to the existence of YA lit--far from it. I think it's really opened things up for readers of all ages. But I do sometimes wonder about the labels--all of them.

Libby you have put it all more temperately and eloquently than I did. Thanks

Yeah, I read that and thought, Yay! So, that six months I had to move back in with my parents... counts!

Could the name be familiar because Michelle Trachtenberg played Dawn on Buffy??

Anon, I have to confess that may be it.

There are so many things about that article that bother me. At the moment I'll stick with the 'shaping' thing. I wonder if his experience with the more girl, alternate chapters, 1st person thing was just one house? Those are pretty huge changes. I connect this all to (perhaps without merit?) to Alloy, whose whole philosophy creeps me out. Doyle definately makes generalizations, and I wonder if the one house that made those suggestions (if it was one) turned it into a trend.

Jackie, I believe that editors can be very important; can see the "true" story sometimes; and at best do shape and help something become better. But there is a difference between shaping something and totally changing it. The idea that this is more than one house is almost scary (and flies against what we've seen published in the past few years, per Jonathan's article); so I wonder, does the publisher matter? Or is there a change, with publishers backing off the "ya to adult" crossover and instead saying "if it's ya to adult crossover, aka older readers, then it's best to publish as adult."

I'm a bit concerned with Doyle's addendum, also; that (if I read it rightly) it's not so much YA books in and of themselves that have a "stigma", rather it's the marketing plan and intended audience that are the problem.

I heard an editor at a retreat say that there is a "YA voice." When questioned, she said that, yes, it was a first-person voice.

To me, this attitude makes a lot of YA books sound alike. The voice often sounds the same even though the books are written by different authors.

I am in no doubt that editors are very important to the process, and I can't say that I even wholly understand that process. What I wonder about is that I can't see how making ALL of those changes can result in a better book - I would see it as resulting in a DIFFERENT book. Perhaps better as well, but only if it remains a story that the author wants to tell - which would be difficult with the scope he relates. I would think that if they want such huge changes that the author & house probably don't belong together. In that, I can understand Doyle. My thoughts are along the line that since Doyle makes generalizations, why not about what the YA publishers say too? Is he applying what one said to the voice of all?

I think that attempting to find a magic formula that results in "teens like this" is rather shortsighted. They will end up with the same problem TV has when they assume such malarky.

I guess, biased as I am, that I was unaware of a YA Stigma. But then, I really hate pretentious literature and tend to live in my happy YA cocoon.

Jackie, I think you and I are basically in agreement. The way the article presents it definately makes it sound like the book would have an Extreme Makeover; not only that, but that the changes seemed dictated by "what is ya" as opposed "how to make your book great." And one of the things I am also curious about is whether these are Doyle's generalizations or Trachtenbergs.

In terms of formula, and what Gail says about first person voice, my reaction is a loud NO. There is no formula; there are no absolutes; there may be trends, and right now first person voice is a trend. But a definitive characteristic of YA? Nope. Especially when, as Gail points out, it moves from first person making a book more personal to first person resulting in cookie cutter narration.

DEFINITELY. On all points.

Naw, it must be the Trachtenberg Family Players.

I, too, lived in a happy YA cocoon... unaware that my dearest dream, to write YA, was obviously tied up in my dearest dream to write blithering tripe and never pen a classic... grump, grump.

Have blogged about this in a confused sort of way. I hate it when I'm so annoyed that I'm inarticulate.

I do see his point about teenagers "reading up" - I think by high school I was exclusivly reading from the adult section in the library. With that being said, many of the "older" YA books that have been published lately are housed in my town's library in the adult section and some of the books that I see as middle grade (ages 9-12) are housed in the teen section (I am trying to think of an example and my mind is blank, but I know they are there!)
I think though that teens reading "adult" books is not new, and I think that somtimes if you market a YA book in an adult market, you might get a braoder readership. Of course when you market it to adults, middle school libraries have a hard time putting it in their collections.

Quick question: When was this article from?

The WSJ will only let you see the first couple paragraphs without being a subscriber, and it doesn't even have the date (making it hard to just pick up the paper and look for it.)

Actually, never mind... I found the article in E-Library.

I met with six different YA publisher/editor teams who were interested in the book. With only one exception, they all felt proscriptive changes were necessary for their "market." What was most disconcerting about the changes suggested was that in general they had nothing to do with the book I was writing, but simply genre cliches that I had somehow "missed." In contrast, the editors at the adult houses discussed the book as it was, and how it might be a better version of that. My eventual editor, Lee Boudreaux, did a quite thorough editting job, I assure you.

As to the WSJ article itself, it should be self-evident that these type of newspaper pieces do not have the luxury to cover topics as expansively or completely as some would like. Obviously I talked much more about the issues involved and my experience, but the writer and his editor needed to cover a lot of bases, and did quite well, I thought.

I stand by my contention that the current marketing of YA books as a genre will prevent many books of quality from entering the canon of classics. I've mentioned King Dork before. It's a wonderful coming of age book, and it did quite well. But it was not even reviewed in the NYTBR, which kept it off many end-of-the-year lists.

Larry, thank you very much for sharing more info with us. This confirms what I suspected, that your book is "adult" -- and the revisions were about "makeover," much like what would be needed to change a book from romance to mystery. Whether or not someting is YA or adult is more than just the age of the main character (or who ends up actually reading the book.)

I think the issue of marketing of/ and the mainstream treatment of YA is very interesting; but I guess we'll have to disagree about YA being a genre (I see genre as more for mystery, historical fiction, etc., and YA can and does embrace several genres.) Time will tell as to what survives years from now!

In the meanwhile, I look forward to reading your book.

I see a lot of ignorance here when it comes to the YA world.

First off, having a book reviewed in the NYTBR has nothing to do with year-end best-of lists (save that of the NYTBR). And really, the NYTBR coverage of both children's and YA is horrible from the get-go--and this, sadly, is the fault of the NYTBR, not of any of the publishers.

I disagree that the marketing of YA now is going to prevent books from becoming classics. On what basis can you come to this conclusion? How do you account for a book like Laurie Anderson's Speak, which by all accounts is a modern classic?

Just because you personally have not heard of a book does not mean that it's not a classic--it simply means that you are not as familiar with the YA world as you are the adult publishing world.

Kathy, I've seen a mix of ages as YA readers; the "looking to read up" sixth graders, but also the older high school kids who read adult work but also remain open to YA lit. This idea of "growing out" of YA (the way one grows out of Early Readers) may have been true in the past, but I think it's changing as we change the books that are in libraries & bookstores. I read a mix of stuff as a teen; but I also remember "hiding" my YA reading.

Where the books end up reflects the library & community, I think -- in many ways it's not a simple question. That's why I'm hesitant to use simple answers (YA is always first person, for example; or being published YA means de facto that it will never be a classic). And where the book ends up in a bookstore is just plain weird; I've seen clearly older YA titles in children's sections on display tables; and very young J books in YA sections.

Sara, glad you found it!

YA is more than ages 12 to 16.
Kids get books from the YA section.
Teens get books from the YA section.
Adults get books from the YA section.

One woman in this article talked about kids outgrowing The Princess Diaries series. What?! I try to steer 8-year-olds AWAY from the series, because although the first FILM was G, but the books are definitely not G-rated. When the movie came out, we had a surge of younger kids picking up these and other Cabot books, then we heard from a lot of upset parents who didn't understand that films and books are not always the same. The Princess Diaries are more appropriate for late middle schoolers and high schoolers than earlier grades . . . and my goodness, when the second All-American Girl book Ready or Not came out, you should have seen me trying to get my manager to understand why he should not put that display NEXT TO THE PICTURE BOOKS!

I agree that we could have the next Mockingbird, Catcher, and Huck Finn on our shelves ALREADY - and those who won't go to the YA shelves overlook them. It's a crying shame. It's something I fight every day. I give adults teen books and juvenile books. I give smart kids contempoary books as well as classics. I encourage readers to read, read, read, to pick up books because they sound interesting to them, not because of the way they look (covers) or where they are shelved (juvenile, teen, or adult fiction) or their popularity or status (bestseller, known author, unknown author, big publisher, small publisher, self-published).

This whole article is making me feel depressed. It all seems so negative. To me, YA fiction are some of the best books out there. You get all the angst, passion, love, and adventure of an adult book, but it is usually shorter. (Maybe?) The voice is usually clearer, and the plots make me laugh and cry. I read this book Perfect by Natasha Friend. It is about this bulimic girl, but is so funny. Most authors would have written a depressing book with a defeated protag, but the character's voice was so quirky, quick, and emotive, I felt no disgust. I think that's why I like chick lit so much, the protags remind me of ya voices. Give me Sophie Kinsella or Jennifer Weiner any day over large, pompous adult books. Oops, my fangs are coming out.

I agree with previous posters about the idea of growing out of YA books. While it's true that in my precocious early teen years I was interested in mostly adult book, I now find YA books to be some of the highest quality available.
I can't understand where the negative stigma of YA books comes from (maybe because I love them so much). I do think that YA should not be considered a genre, but if publishers are imposing so many restrictions on possible YA books then that may be where it's heading. I can only hope we don't begin to see cookie-cutter YA books taking over the creative and entertaining offerings out there now.

Is anyone going to Library Journal's Day of Dialog next month?

1:15–2:30 p.m.: YA Crossover
Many books speak to both adults and young adults, but how do editors and authors make the decision to pitch them to one audience or the other—or both?

I wonder if this session will clarify things or make it more confusing?

I love her artwork in this and previous GNs.
I must add her LJ right now.
I liked QB all right, but I saw the twist coming from far away, and that made it anti-climatic for me. Has a second in the line come out yet? Scholastic's Graphix site has not been updated in forever.

Heads up! My good friend Kiba has started a book journal:

http://lectitans.livejournal.com/

She linked to Tea Cozy. Yay! Feel free to drop by her blog if you get a moment. :)

Dropped by & updated my sidebar & my LJ friends list to add her; thanks for the link.

Gracias!

Interesting stuff, Liz! I liked the Mary Pearson post. The idea of genre fans as members of cliques resonates with me. I know that I like to talk YA (and mystery) with fans of the same genre, and that I tend (though not 100% to stay inside my preferred genres). The literary snobbery thing that annoys me is people who dismiss all of fiction reading as a waste of time. But mostly those are people to feel sorry for, because they are really missing out.

I think what intrigues me about the clique is that it shifts the focus from "I love mystery/comics/anime/romance and like to discuss it with other people who like it" to "there is something wrong with the people who don't like it" (not "sophisticated" enough to enjoy literary fiction, not "fun" enough to enjoy chick lit, not "edgy" enough to enjoy GN, not "real" literature) -- the shift from inclusion to exclusion, and along with that the change from celebrating something to attacking those who don't like what you like. Much like a telling sign of censorship is the focus on what one doesn't want others to read; the sign of being in a book clique is the not respecting the reading choices outside the clique.

Anyway, much food for thought and I'm still mulling...

Oh, and another negative thought I have about book cliques is it shifts the focus from the book to the type of person who reads the book; so, it goes from "I like nonfiction" (which is good!) to "I like nonfiction because I'm smart and those who don't like it arent" (bad, and yes I'm being overly simplistic) to "I'm smart, so I can only like nonfiction." In other words, if someone self identifies with a certain group (smart, edgy, artistic) they feel then they are limited to one type of book. In a way, it's like all those little kids carrying around Harry Potter volumes that they never read -- it's just to show others "I'm smart/ cool/ whatever enough to read this book."