Finished The Spell Book of Listen Taylor by Jaclyn Moriarty and loved it.
It's smart, and whimsical, optimistic, and trickily plotted -- and most importantly, great for my thesis! I disagree with several of the reviews that suggest the adult storylines will lose the interest of teenagers, (the book covers lots of extramarital affairs, and I have to ask where all these reviewers get the idea that adult romantic intrigue isn't interesting to teenagers? I think all manner of scandalous adult behaviors are fascinating to teenagers), but I think I agree with Roger Sutton's suggestion that teens who are the right readers for it might be more likely to come to it if it wasn't published as YA.
Interesting problem because what's wrong with a book that's great for young adults being published as a young adult book? Well, it might draw in some readers who wouldn't have found the book otherwise, but it risks losing both adult readers and sophisticated teen readers. And that shows how much stigma still surrounds YA, even as it's getting more interesting.
This seems like one of those cases where the desire to have a clear marketing package forces categorization of a book that resists categorization. In my library, this book's shelved in both the YA section and the elementary section. A different version of the book was published in Australia as an adult book. I'm the age of the majority of characters in the book, and I loved it, but would I have found it if I didn't need to read it for school? Probably not.
In an article on "The Adolescent Novel of Ideas" for Children's Literature in Education, Peter Hollindale writes:
We continue to overlook the fact that these 'teenage novels' are enthusiastically read by preteen readers. They answer in part to a social phenomenon which has won plenty of attention in this quarter century: the foreshortening of childhood, earlier physical matrurity, and the virtual coming to be of a two-phase adolescence, where the 'preadult' (roughly from ten to thirteen) precedes the 'young adult' (fourteen or so until the age of leaving school).
Lots of books originally written for adults are now standard in high school English curriculums. Just as these books have been appropriated for teen readers, it seems that publishers of YA are simply seeking to appropriate these books one step earlier. One of the reviews of Spell Book mentioned how the age suggestion for YA books used to be 12 and up, but that increasingly, you see books suggested for 16 and up. Will YA eventually come to represent what its name suggests (a true "young adult" rather than "preadult" literature) and cease to be an aspirational genre, read mostly by preteens who look forward to young adult status?
I think that might be a good thing, both for YA and for young adults ranging in age from fourteen through their twenty-somethings, but I also see a case for abandoning categorization altogether, freeing readers find the books that are right for them. I'm trying to sort out what I think, so please comment if you have thoughts on this . . .
4 comments:
I've been thinking about this a lot, as my own writing and taste in fiction tends to gravitate toward upper YA fiction (14 and up). I do think there is a stigma toward reading YA fiction, especially when many older people (non-teens) are only cognizant of teen fiction like Twilight, Harry Potter, and Gossip Girls—novels that, while popular, aren’t the most “literary” pieces of fiction out there. However, I think this will change, as novelists such as MT Anderson and Markus Zusak continue to publish novels marketed toward young adults.
Also, I think we’re starting to see more “YA-like” novels that fall into the adult market, but are probably read by just as many teens as adults. MTV Book seems to be a leader in this, with both THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER by Stephen Chbosky and SUCH A PRETTY GIRL by Laura Wiess being extremely popular reads for teens (yet shelved in the Adult section of B&N and Borders).
Is this a good thing…yeah, I think so. Sometimes, I find it troubling that “sweet” YA fiction is shelved right next to edgy fiction, and that a parent looking to buy a book for their kid may not realize the difference. In addition, the term “14 and up” can be terribly misleading--is the intended age based on the reading level of the material (i.e., the sophistication, plot structure, etc.) or is it based on the subject matter or story elements (profanity, sexual explicitly, violence, etc).
Part of me would love to get away from the categorization of YA, however, I don’t see that happening anytime soon. YA fiction is HUGE right now, with movies like Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist and Twilight on the horizon. Maybe it’ll happen one day, but it’ll take the big-wigs in NY to push for the change. Plus, selfishly, I wonder if my own books would have as much of an audience if I had to compete with adult novelists.
But then again, maybe I’m already competing with them.
You are, Varian, you are, and winning, in my book anyway. Thanks for such a thoughtful comment!
In my reading over the past year, I've noticed another sticky point to do with characters' ages. Conventional wisdom suggests that your reader's usually going to be about two years younger than your main character, but plenty of literary books feature pre- or early teenage protagonists. Han Nolan's DANCING ON THE EDGE for one.
It won the National Book Award and the ALA, is clearly YA because of sophistication of style and content, and yet the protagonist starts at age 10. I'm thinking the rule is, if you can write as well as Han Nolan, you can do whatever you want.
I've been thinking about this a lot, as my own writing and taste in fiction tends to gravitate toward upper YA fiction (14 and up). I do think there is a stigma toward reading YA fiction, especially when many older people (non-teens) are only cognizant of teen fiction like Twilight, Harry Potter, and Gossip Girls--novels that, while popular, aren't the most "literary" pieces of fiction out there. However, I think this will change, as novelists such as MT Anderson and Markus Zusak continue to publish novels marketed toward young adults.
Also, I think we're starting to see more "YA-like" novels that fall into the adult market, but are probably read by just as many teens as adults. MTV Book seems to be a leader in this, with both THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER by Stephen Chbosky and SUCH A PRETTY GIRL by Laura Wiess being extremely popular reads for teens (yet shelved in the Adult section of B&N and Borders).
Is this a good thing...yeah, I think so. Sometimes, I find it troubling that "sweet" YA fiction is shelved right next to edgy fiction, and that a parent looking to buy a book for their kid may not realize the difference. In addition, the term "14 and up" can be terribly misleading--is the intended age based on the reading level of the material (i.e., the sophistication, plot structure, etc.) or is it based on the subject matter or story elements (profanity, sexual explicitly, violence, etc).
Part of me would love to get away from the categorization of YA, however, I don't see that happening anytime soon. YA fiction is HUGE right now, with movies like Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist and Twilight on the horizon. Maybe it'll happen one day, but it'll take the big-wigs in NY to push for the change. Plus, selfishly, I wonder if my own books would have as much of an audience if I had to compete with adult novelists.
But then again, maybe I'm already competing with them.
You are, Varian, you are, and winning, in my book anyway. Thanks for such a thoughtful comment!
In my reading over the past year, I've noticed another sticky point to do with characters' ages. Conventional wisdom suggests that your reader's usually going to be about two years younger than your main character, but plenty of literary books feature pre- or early teenage protagonists. Han Nolan's DANCING ON THE EDGE for one.
It won the National Book Award and the ALA, is clearly YA because of sophistication of style and content, and yet the protagonist starts at age 10. I'm thinking the rule is, if you can write as well as Han Nolan, you can do whatever you want.
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