Young adult lit comes of age

[Michael]

Young adult lit comes of age

Authors may gear their novels toward the junior and senior high crowd, but adults are snapping up the books, often about misfit teens or fantasy worlds.

It used to be that the only adults who read young adult literature were those who had a vested interest -- teachers or librarians or parents who either needed or wanted to keep an eye on developing readers' tastes.

But increasingly, adults are reading YA books with no ulterior motives. Attracted by well-written, fast-paced and engaging stories that span the gamut of genres and subjects, such readers have mainstreamed a niche long derided as just for kids.

Thanks to huge crossover hits like Stephenie Meyer's bloodsucking "Twilight" saga, Suzanne Collins' fight-to-the-death "The Hunger Games" trilogy, Rick Riordan's "The Lightning Thief" and Markus Zusak's Nazi-era "The Book Thief," YA is one of the few bright spots in an otherwise bleak publishing market. Where adult hardcover sales were down 17.8% for the first half of 2009 versus the same period in 2008, children's/young adult hardcovers were up 30.7%.

"Even as the recession has dipped publishing in general, young adult has held strong," said David Levithan, editorial director and vice president of Scholastic, publisher of "The Hunger Games," as well as of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books, the series largely credited with jump-starting this juggernaut of a trend.

"You go on the subway and see 40-year-old stockbrokers reading 'Twilight,' " said Levithan, himself a YA author. "That wouldn't have happened five years ago."
Source (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-young-adult8-2010mar08,0,1082099.story)

I think the authors of this article are missing the boat entirely on this issue.

I'd venture to say that the rise in adult readers of YA fiction has far more to do with the fact that so few (less and less every year) are interested in the 'adult' fiction that is published.

Indeed, it is adults searching for something 'fun and interesting' to read that are migrating over to the YA category. That's a condemnation of the 'adult' lit as much as it is a vote for the rising quality of YA.

Indeed, the adults I know who've been buying up Harry Potter books are the type of person who would never waste their money buying 'hardcover literature' at all. Adult readers have a choice between some high-brow crap from some subsidized scion of a literary family, or yet another Robert Ludlum spy-thriller or some over-packaged formula 'forensics-thriller' pablum pumped out by the million.

These are people who want to buy good books, but aren't interested in the latest experiment in post-moderist narrative form. These are people who have been long ignored by the book publishing industry.

[The Drunk Guy]

I agree do an extent. I also believe that poor education has played a major role in this. Why bother attempting a wordy novel 1,000 pages thick when you could read an 8th-grade-level book in one weekend? Plus, you don't have to bother finding good books when you're done with one as your teenage child is constantly talking about them and how 'effin awesome' they are. :facepalm:

[Michael]

Yes, that's another possible explanation of the phenomenom. Certainly there are all kinds of examples of this 'trend' of dumbing down everything in every other sector of the economy - and it is always driven by consumer demand.

People may in fact be seeking easier to read books - or they might be seeking light-hearted escapism. YA literature fits both needs.

Indeed, I don't think this is a positive or good trend to be celebrated. :shrug:

[The Drunk Girl]

I agree do an extent. I also believe that poor education has played a major role in this. Why bother attempting a wordy novel 1,000 pages thick when you could read an 8th-grade-level book in one weekend? Plus, you don't have to bother finding good books when you're done with one as your teenage child is constantly talking about them and how 'effin awesome' they are. :facepalm:

My clinical instructor informed us last week (after a horrendous day of me having to listen to EVERYONE else talk about how they didn't have time to watch the new Twilight movie, because it came out at midnight Tuesday morning and clinicals started at 7 am) that she read the Twilight series due to the fact that is all her niece would ever talk about.

On the other hand, I myself am a Harry Potter fan. Note the Harry Potter series came out when I was in middle school and it took me quite a few years before I got on the bandwagon. I even pre-ordered the last book when it came out :erm: It could be the age group I am in, but it seems like all other series have seemed to follow the same pattern as that of Harry Potter. I have never bought it and still continue not to.

On the other hand, I suppose my interest in wanting to go to the theatre to view the "new" movies the night they come out, comes from the idea that this series was a part of my childhood/adolescents. I started it and it would seem "wrong" of me not to finish it (by the way the movies after the first three are shit! But!!! I still continue to fork over my cash to go watch them) Along with my lost adolescents I have my two young siblings that enjoy watching and reading Harry Potter, so it adds to my excuse:D

[Michael]

My sisters both read all the Harry Potter books and loved them - they both of course had 'prime-age' children that introduced them to the books.

The ONLY thing annoying about it is the incessant efforts they have both made to get me to read the books. They seem desperate for the 'validation' it seems. :shrug:

Both my older sisters are avid readers (my whole family are book-readers, but I'm the only non-fiction reader) and they read lots of paperback novels, so in this respect, they fall into my explanation above - they are just looking for decent books to read for entertainment and are bored of the same old mainstream stuff. That is to say, it is a comment on the lack of quality of the mainstream fiction as much as it is an endorsement of the increasing quality of YA fiction.

[Speakeasy]

I'm sure it also helps that YA fiction is easily translated into big budget summer movies that appeals to youngsters. After the purported "rags to riches" stories of JK Rowling and Stephenie Meyer, I'll bet a lot of other authors are trying to emulate the same success. Why write a 1,000 page novel that requires all sorts of research when you can just break that 1,000 page novel into several books each able to be made into a multi-million dollar movie and then set it in a fantasy world that requires nothing but imagination?

[Americano]

I'm sure it also helps that YA fiction is easily translated into big budget summer movies that appeals to youngsters. After the purported "rags to riches" stories of JK Rowling and Stephenie Meyer, I'll bet a lot of other authors are trying to emulate the same success. Why write a 1,000 page novel that requires all sorts of research when you can just break that 1,000 page novel into several books each able to be made into a multi-million dollar movie and then set it in a fantasy world that requires nothing but imagination?

I'm a fiction reader who has commented on the greatly reduced content in book publications over the past ten years. The formula has changed. To become and maintain being a best seller fiction author, that individual (or ghost) has to crank out at least one new effort each year. 400 pages are way out of the formula. Larger typeface is common. Most hardback fiction now goes to paperback at seven months to service that market. Not unlike Oscar winning movies being available for subscriber rental the week after the award ceremony.

[Donkey]

I greatly enjoyed Harry Potter. I would also point out that Rowling did an admirable job of evolving with her audience. If you jumped straight from Sorcerer's Stone to Deathly Hallows, it is quite a leap in the maturity of the content. I mean, she didn't even really kill anybody "on screen," so to speak, until book four. By book seven, she's hatcheting out characters like she gets paid by the head. Book seven is nowhere near the children's book that one, two and three are.

[The Drunk Girl]

I greatly enjoyed Harry Potter. I would also point out that Rowling did an admirable job of evolving with her audience. If you jumped straight from Sorcerer's Stone to Deathly Hallows, it is quite a leap in the maturity of the content. I mean, she didn't even really kill anybody "on screen," so to speak, until book four. By book seven, she's hatcheting out characters like she gets paid by the head. Book seven is nowhere near the children's book that one, two and three are.

Agreed...it gets pretty dark for children's lit.

Did you hear of a crew member getting drunk at a bar and leaving the new script for the movie lying around?

[Donkey]

Agreed...it gets pretty dark for children's lit.

Did you hear of a crew member getting drunk at a bar and leaving the new script for the movie lying around?
No... but it's ok, I already know what happens. ;)

[Michael]

I greatly enjoyed Harry Potter. I would also point out that Rowling did an admirable job of evolving with her audience. If you jumped straight from Sorcerer's Stone to Deathly Hallows, it is quite a leap in the maturity of the content. I mean, she didn't even really kill anybody "on screen," so to speak, until book four. By book seven, she's hatcheting out characters like she gets paid by the head. Book seven is nowhere near the children's book that one, two and three are.

But this just underscores the whole point we've been discussing doesn't it?

Rowling wrote a series of books specifically designed and targetted to the younger teen set with those age-graduations in mind. So why are so many adults reading (and massively enjoying) those type books - given that they are so obviously written with a 'young-maturing-teen' audience in mind?

[The Drunk Guy]

But this just underscores the whole point we've been discussing doesn't it?

Rowling wrote a series of books specifically designed and targetted to the younger teen set with those age-graduations in mind. So why are so many adults reading (and massively enjoying) those type books - given that they are so obviously written with a 'young-maturing-teen' audience in mind?
Innocence is always attractive. People are drawn to it like moths to a light bulb. They stare at it longingly while the world grows old and wilts around them.

[Greendruid]

But this just underscores the whole point we've been discussing doesn't it?

Rowling wrote a series of books specifically designed and targetted to the younger teen set with those age-graduations in mind. So why are so many adults reading (and massively enjoying) those type books - given that they are so obviously written with a 'young-maturing-teen' audience in mind?

We never leave our childhood in a box somewhere never to be opened again, do we?

As for your sisters getting you to read it, I don't think you'd like the series. You may enjoy some of the fantasy aspects to it but I'm having a hard time imagining you getting into the plotline at all.

I personally enjoy the series for three reasons:

1) It would have been one of the neatest books for my own childhood and I have read it to live a part of my childhood that didn't happen I suppose.
2) I read it in anticipation that I would one day share reading it with my future child(ren), very much like I re-read The Hobbit with this thought in mind.
3) It is also research into the minds of some very deranged yet disturbingly popular sub-sets of pagans who actually call non-pagans "Muggles" (I shit you not) and have a very fantasy based version of their beliefs. Rowling knows something about witchcraft of course and blends this nicely into the subject matter, but the fantasy of the series and the reality of paganism should not be mixed.

[Michael]

We never leave our childhood in a box somewhere never to be opened again, do we?
True, but should we celebrate the infantilization of adulthood for the same reason?

As for your sisters getting you to read it, I don't think you'd like the series. You may enjoy some of the fantasy aspects to it but I'm having a hard time imagining you getting into the plotline at all.
Very true. I have tried to read the books because so many people hound me to read the books (including my sisters). The weird part is that these people seem to be seeking some kind of 'validation' from me that the Harry Potter series is "good". These people seem to need me to read the books and pronounce them "good". Fools that they are, should have seen it coming because I found the books to be entirely unreadable because they were silly and childish from my perspective. :shrug:

That's not a critique of YA literature at all. That's a critique of literature meant for adults.

Btw, one thing I found obnoxious about the Harry Potter 'world' was the nature of magic was very ugly. Apparently it is an inate ability that only some special people are born with. This is the ground upon which racism and nationalism is built.

And once I spot something like that built into the system, the whole system starts to smell bad to me. I don't like the idea of celebrating aristocrats for being 'born well'. Rowlings may write well, but her setting is a very dark and disturbing commentary on humanity.

But this thread topic is not about whether or not Harry Potter is a good book or not. That's entirely beside the point.

[Donkey]

But I don't think Rowling does celebrate it. Indeed, the "good guys" are often born of "muggles" and progressive leadership in the Wizarding community advocate good, and even sometimes open, relationships with "muggles." Rowling does paint a very ugly picture, but I think it's an honest ugly picture, and she's not promoting it, per se.

There are a lot of subtleties in Harry Potter. I don't think it's the most amazing thing ever, but I think it gets somewhat discredited.