Huh. So that's the way you see things?

Monica Edinger highlighted Frank Cottrell Boyce's comments on YA contained in a recent Guardian book review. Monica has a conversation going on at her blog, but as my comment became longer and longer I realized I needed to post on it here, also.

To quote in pertinent part from FCB:

If I have one quibble, it is that I think it should be sitting proudly on the shelf next to these books, rather than being hidden away in the "young adult" ghetto. There's been a lot of fury among authors recently about the proposal to "age-band" children's books, but in a way they're too late. The real disaster has already happened. It's called "young adult" fiction. It used to be the case that you moved on from children's fiction to adult fiction, from The Owl Service, maybe, to Catcher in the Rye. There were, of course, some adult authors who were more fashionable with teenage readers than others - Salinger, Vonnegut, Maya Angelou. But these were chosen by teenagers themselves from the vast world of books. Some time ago, someone saw that trend and turned it into a demographic. Fortunes were made but something crucial was lost. We have already ghettoised teenagers' tastes in music, in clothes and - God forgive us - in food. Can't we at least let them share our reading? Is there anything more depressing than the sight of a "young adult" bookshelf in the corner of the shop. It's the literary equivalent of the "kids' menu" - something that says "please don't bother the grown-ups". If To Kill a Mockingbird were published today, that's where it would be placed, among the chicken nuggets.

This is not just a question of taste. It seems to me that the real purpose of stories and reading is to take you out of yourself and put you somewhere else. Anything that is made to be sold to a particular demographic, however, will always end up reflecting the superficial concerns of that demographic. I've lived through an era in which demographic-fixation murdered popular cinema and replaced a vibrant art form with a kind of digital holding-pen for teenage boys. I think we're in danger of doing the same to fiction. The best young adult fiction - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, A Swift Pure Cry, Noughts and Crosses and so on - strolls out of its category. I've no doubt at all that The Knife of Never Letting Go will do the same. Don't let the demographic exclude you.

Part of me doesn't want to comment at all, from the sense that I'm fast beginning to wonder just what the hell is going on over in the UK with books and reading. Do people really tell teens they cannot read adult books? Is YA Lit really being used as restrictive box to keep teens away from adult materials?

In my experiences, YA Lit offers us more choices, not less. That, at its heart, is my view towards books and reading: what expands our world rather than limits it?

Age banding (along with the implicit using of banding for censoring -- no kisses before 13! No divorce before 11! No death before 9! No GLBT ever!) is voiced in terms of limiting choices, not opening up a world. Yet, FCB uses language that says the existence of YA lit is itself limiting. And for that, I have to disagree; and the only thing I can really point to is my own experiences as a reader, and what I observe with others, and it's all in the US, so FCB may be entirely right for the UK. I don't know.

FCB recalls teenagers going from children's lit to adult lit, and worries that today's teens are being kept from that adult lit. He also seems to be saying that good YA books are really adult books with a bad label.

As a lifelong reader, my choices have always been varied. At ten I was reading adult fiction; but I was also reading children's lit. It was never an either/or; and there was never a "don't read this," either at home, in a bookstore, or in a library. So yes, I did read adult lit as a teen; but I see today's teens doing likewise, reading a bit from here, a bit from there.

As for what YA lit has become.... I look at what we have now and get angry and jealous that I didn't have the reading choices as a teen that teens have today. I recall looking at adult shelves to try to find something that was teen friendly -- so some of my adult book reading was not a choice, but a default. I would have loved to have the books that are available today; and I hope that these books don't go away.

Jezebel Defines YA

"Fine Lines will from now on define "YA" as any book read in one's own company from the time one learns to read to the time one pays one's own rent."

Fine Lines, Jezebel's Weekly Retro book review.

More on Editing YA

More on the editing YA books (aka they need more! they change the book!) aspect of the WSJ article (see my initial post) at Finding Wonderland.

Finding Wonderland linked to this interesting post about at YPulse, Is YA Fiction Different From 'Good Books'?

Edited to add: John Burns at Runnerland asks, If it looks like a teen novel and sounds like a teen novel...

YA: Older? Younger? In Need of More Editing? Who Knows.

So the latest article from the Wall Street Journal about YA lit is Teen Books Are Hot Sellers, But Formula Isn't Simple by Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg. (BTW, this name is awfully familiar but I'm not sure why.)

I found out about it from GalleyCat, and Andrew at Flux blogged about it. Full text is available at Media Info Center.

My reactions to the article:

- I find it very interesting that this article pegs YA at ages 12 to 16, while Jonathan Hunt's article from The Horn Book was about books at the older age bracket of YA. I think everyone is having a helluva time trying to define YA and I wonder what Trachtenberg would think of the three titles that Hunt highlighted. And it seems like all these people in various places are having the "what is YA" conversation.

- "determining whether a book should get a young-adult label is more art than science." True that, especially when we cannot even all agree on the age range that is meant by "young adult."

- Blogs are mentioned favorably in terms of being connected with teen readers.

- Potential YA editors told Larry Doyle how they would "'shape' his book for their readership." OK, here's my BIG question. The implication here is that YA books need more shaping than adult books; but isn't shaping what all editors do? Am I really supposed to believe that YA editors do more work on the manuscripts they edit, while adult editors do, what? Nothing? Most of the blogging authors I know are mostly YA/ children's, but I would really, really like to hear a "real live author" or "real live editor" respond to this. If you wish to do without using your name, email me at lizzy.burns @ gmail.com and I'll remove your name when I publish the ocmment.

-What is needed to "shape" the book included first person; increase the female quotient (huh? I guess all those "we need more books for boys" didn't make it to these YA editors); and "write chapters in which male and female narrators alternate." OK, this last part especially screams Nick and Norah to me.

- My guess is if the YA editors came back with more "we'll need to make changes to this" than the adult ones, it's because the book was indeed adult and not young adult. I'm further going on record as saying that when we eventually read this, the voice will be that of adult, not a teen.

- There is a mention a few times of "older readers", and appeal to older readers meaning don't publish it as YA. (Has Trachtenberg even heard of This is All?). I don't think they mean senior citizens; but I have a funny feeling they are talking either older teens or young twentysomethings, which, if this is true, is very interesting, as for a while I thought it looked like YA was being pushed into the older (16 to 24) age group. Seriously, read Jonathan's article at The Horn Book, then this, and I think you too will get confused.

- In mentioning how a book is published, Trachtenberg doesn't mention The Book Thief; and doesn't mention the Printz. In discussing The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, it's omitted that this book was published as both YA and adult in the UK.

- I appreciate the real! live! people comments (teens, teacher, bookseller), but as my friend Carlie would say, the plural of anecdotes is not evidence. And unfortunately, these individual experiences are not balanced by, say, a representative of YALSA talking about YA reading around the country or YA reading from ages 12 to 18.

- End result? Larry Doyle's book was published under an adult imprint. And he remarks on the stigma of being a YA author; something brutally reinforced by Trachtenberg's ending, wherein Frank Portman mentions how people ask him when he's going to write a real book.

My conclusions:

Neither Trachtenberg nor Doyle know as much about the current YA field as they could, but Trachtenberg tries to be fair about it.

The "what is YA anyway" fight continues.

The "are YA editors too controlling" fight begins (with a possible avoidance of said fight if this example is read to mean the book was never YA to begin with; Doyle's apparent unawareness of current YA titles, along with his statement that YA titles "wouldn't become classics", makes me think it was not a YA book. Yeah, I'm talking a bit in circles, but it makes sense to me. I wonder at how "old" the narrator of his book "reads.")

Andrew at Flux's reactions are here, including the interesting info about how an adult book sells for more than a YA book. He also delves more into the classics bit; per GalleyCat, Doyle says it's not that he disdains YA, it's that "I was wary of the prepackaged marketing of same, as a genre with specific conventions, then sold into a narrow channel of readership." Oh. Well that clears that up! Not.

Let me know if you've posted your thoughts on this, and I'll edit this & add links.

Edited to add:

TedMack at Finding Wonderland has posted thoughts on the article

Edited again to note:

Larry Doyle has commented here and at Andrew Karre's Flux Blog.

Queen Bee

Queen Bee by Chynna Clugston. Graphix, Imprint of Scholastic. Library copy. Graphic Novel.

The Plot: Haley is the new girl in 7th grade. She's glad she's in a new school; it's a chance to start over and be popular! The only problem . . . she's got this little thing called psychokinesis. Which can cause a wee bit of trouble.

The Good: It's classic middle school story line. Girl wants to be popular so doesn't hang out with the friendly girl. Popular group has a Queen Bee. There's a nice shy boy; but he's not cool enough.

The new twists: it's in graphic novel format. Haley manages to rise to the top of the social structure... but it's tricky staying on top. When new girl Alexa shows up, she not only becomes the new Queen Bee; Haley finds herself struggling to keep any of her popularity. It's not easy, because Alexa doesn't fight fair. Middle School politics are front and center, with a healthy dose of manipulation. All assisted by psychokinesis. Haley can move things with her mind! (But she has some control issues.)

The wrap up is interesting: a little American Idol, a little High School Musical, as the school's drama show determines who will be the Queen Bee. For this volume, at least.

Links:
Author's LiveJournal.
Review by TangognaT at Chicken Spaghetti.
The Goddess of YA Literature - GNs for gurlz

An Interesting Mix of Posts and Articles

I read Redefining the Young Adult Novel by Jonathan Hunt in the March/April 2007 Horn Book. One of my own reactions, or, rather, inspired musings, is that I often hear librarians say that the kids who read YA books are 10 to 14. But, many of the YA books being published and winning awards are more for those ages 13 plus.

The three books highlighted by Jonathan all fall within that older YA grouping: This Is All, which, while published YA, contained a note about it being for mature readers (my copy has been given away, so if you have the exact wording, I'll revise the post); The Book Thief, published in Australia as adult; and Octavian Nothing, which has been the subject of some musings as to the age of readership and whether it's an adult book published as YA.

I wonder, will the availability of "older YA" change the readership? Or does the reality of who actually reads YA mean that these books are in a limbo, because the YA readers are younger than the intended audience, and the intended audience is over in the adult stacks? (On a personal note, I don't believe that the only YA readers are those aged up to 14. I think readership varies from location to location; I know kids up to 18 and over who still read YA, it's just that once one hits high school, it's usually a mix of YA and non YA. And, as always, it depends where a library or bookstore puts these books.)

I also think that crossover in readership occurs with books that aren't aimed at the upper ages of YA; my mother loved Kiki Strike and cannot believe that it's seen strictly as a middle school book (and sadly, my copy, kept in her classroom for kids to borrow, hasn't been returned. On the other hand, how many high school math teachers have a lending library of fiction books in their classroom?) Hattie Big Sky is another book that can be read and enjoyed by any age.

Then I saw Alex Flinn's reactions to the article, which centered on the "literary novel" aspect of the article, adding more to my ever increasing list of "things to think about." Because I don't believe that literary is de facto better; and as I'm thinking and reading my bloglines, I see this post from Mary Pearson that also addresses the issue of literary versus genre fiction; and what attracts my attention there is how people use what they read to establish their clique.

Pearson's post was inspired by an interview with Melissa Marr at YA Author's Cafe. I think that Wicked Lovely is going to be read this weekend!

Anyway, interesting stuff and connections. What are your thoughts or reactions to the article? To the idea of literary fiction and YA? What is the definition of YA? And does YA fiction, and its writers and readers, need to be validated?

Other people talking about the Horn Book article: Andrew Karre's Flux Blog; Lowebrow