What is a YA book? (You know, books for the Kids and Young Adultsters?)
Part of my goals for writing is to turn out something in every genre. YA is a genre, thereforeto, I wanna write a YA novel.
There was some chit-chat about this a while back in that John Belushi book thread. But what do you consider to be a YA book? Does the protagonist need to be a kid?
At what point would a YA book go to far and just become a regular novel for adults? Are there topics that have to be in there for it to be Young Adult, or topics to avoid?
Like maybe you can't write a book about the troubles of someone having a job and paying taxes or something.
Is the whole notion of books being just for Young Adults just goofy?
With all the talk for and about this Damned book, it got me thinking about one of the first books I ever read when I was a kid, SuperFudge, and how much I really liked it. I was thinking about digging up a copy and giving it a re-read now to see how it holds up.
I also, kinda want to get that Mixed up Files of Mrs Basil Whatsherface. I remember seeing and liking the movie version of it, when I saw it 25 years ago, but it might be pretty cool to check out now.
Anyways, if you don't got any opinions on what a YA book is, feel free to just post what some of your favorite YA books or movies were/are. And even more importantly, why you like them.
The characters in YA books are young adults and usually expresssed with issues that a normal YA has in life.
By this definition though wouldn't books like Catcher in the Rye or even Huckleberry Finn be considered Young Adult?
Is it something about it has to have been written more recently?
also, the subject matter should be measured. FLIGHT by sherman alexie, was written as a YA book, but came out instead as a short adult novel. whereas THE ENTIRELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART TIME INDIAN is considered YA despite repeated reference to boners. its all about content.
www.triplebeard.com
http://darkroomreview.blogspot.com
“...There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one's head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people's pain. You ought to have some apprehension that the man you see before you was once even younger than you are now and arrived at his present wretchedness by imperceptible degrees.”
-James Baldwin
Yes, working in a library I see books that are YA but because the content is to "adult" will be moved to the adult section rather than just not buying it at all. Same goes for childrens books. If the content is challenged instead of getting rid of the book we just put it in YA.
As far as Huckleberry Finn goes, in the Childrens Dept. the book has been adapted because of strong language. But it is literature none the less. The original is in the adult section.
Same goes for Catcher in the Rye. It is a banned book. So, there is no adapted form it just stays in the adult fiction.
Ultimately, Atomos is right it is all about content.
The best thing about dreams is that fleeting moment, when you are between asleep and awake, when you don't know the difference between reality and fantasy, when for just that one moment you feel with your entire soul that the dream is reality, and it really happened.
i would suggest you read both the books i mentioned, so you can get an idea bout the band you're working in.
www.triplebeard.com
http://darkroomreview.blogspot.com
“...There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one's head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people's pain. You ought to have some apprehension that the man you see before you was once even younger than you are now and arrived at his present wretchedness by imperceptible degrees.”
-James Baldwin
I will put them on my list. We have Flight but not The Entirely True Diary Of a Part Time Indian in the system.
The best thing about dreams is that fleeting moment, when you are between asleep and awake, when you don't know the difference between reality and fantasy, when for just that one moment you feel with your entire soul that the dream is reality, and it really happened.
Nate,
Great conversation you started here. I have been thinking about this very issue a lot myself lately and have been reading many titles that are labeled 'YA' or 'Teen' hoping to get a better understanding of what makes them tick. Apparently a lot of others are doing the same because this topic tends to be recurring in discussions around the industry.
At present, finding a clear-cut definition might be difficult. In Teen and YA Lit lines Blur between PG-13 and R with regularity. Like Atomos pointed out, Sherman's works walk this fine line exquisitely--and that is precisely what makes much of this genre so compelling...so much is offered yet so much is left to the imagination. If there is one thing they all seem to have in common, it is the age of the main charachter. I have yet to see a Teen or YA work written without a character that fits that description.
One thing that seems clear: The boundaries are being pushed, and they are being pushed hard as writer's and publishers are discovering that these tweens, teens and young adults are being exposed to mature subject matter much earlier than generations prior. In other words the definition of these works is currently in flux. The books shelved in these categories today tend to be infused with increasingly 'mature' subject matter.
I agree "The Outsiders" was ahead of its time in many ways and there are a lot of comparisons that can be drawn between it and a good number of titles being released presently. But like Nate pointed out, works like Huckleberry Finn, Catcher in the Rye and Lord of the Flies are now being re-termed YA literature. Shit, I expect The Lovely Bones is scarcely out of the category.
Perhaps in earlier, more 'controlled' times, people weren't prepared to admit what they already knew...that their children were being confronted with very real, challenging and troubling situations in their lives. To label these earlier works YA or Teen would have invited younger readers to be exposed to the transformational themes that lurked somewhere beneath. Earlier generations were not yet prepared to go through that door because they wanted to keep blinders on their children.
Obviously times have changed giving birth to YA and Teen Literature (or at least more accurate labels for them) and the freedom to experiment has been somewhat untethered. And I will tell you, there is some really exciting work out there.
Fortunately I have two teenage boys who read incessantly, so the stacks that fill their quarters have enlightened me a great deal. I found myself 'sampling' works like M.T. Andersen's Feed,Markus Zusak's The Book Thief and Emma Clayton's The Roar only to discover that my boys were having to pry the books loose from my fingers to get them back. I think this literary tug-of-war started back with the Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer--high-tech fantasy thriller...ridiculously inventive.
Another one of these surprising discoveries is the book Blink/Caution written by the Übertalented author Tim Wynne-Jones which I am currently reading (If I can only get it back from my 15-year-old). It is a drug and sex laden murder mystery of sorts involving two semi-homeless teens. It is craftily written, humorous and quite the page turner. An excellent example of where the genre seems to be headed.
I feel more like I do now than I did before.
I'm jealous.
I feel more like I do now than I did before.
I'm jealous.
as am i
www.triplebeard.com
http://darkroomreview.blogspot.com
“...There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one's head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people's pain. You ought to have some apprehension that the man you see before you was once even younger than you are now and arrived at his present wretchedness by imperceptible degrees.”
-James Baldwin
When I think of YA lit I think of the books I've read and loved that are put into that category by booksellers. They're almost all fables. The Thief of Always, The Book Thief, The Book of Lost Things... The Book Thief has a very adult theme, but its written at a level where kids can understand it. These are the books that most likely fall in the blurred line. Both kids and adults can love them, the same with Harry Potter.
I'm not able to finish my thoughts really cause of painkillers. So that's all I got.
"I'm glad I live in the GPS era. In a different century, I would've set off to visit the other side of the village and wandered off into the mountains and been eaten by a carnivorous plant. Or discovered the Americas."
-LaJessica
I'm jealous.
as am i
Love my job.
The best thing about dreams is that fleeting moment, when you are between asleep and awake, when you don't know the difference between reality and fantasy, when for just that one moment you feel with your entire soul that the dream is reality, and it really happened.
I totally agree with this and I think it's the simplest way to classify a book as YA. Besides that, it's about marketing. I doubt if the YA category existed back when The Catcher in the Rye was published, so it continues to lack that classification.
The YA genre is interesting because while I read many children's books when I was a child, I read few YA books when I was a teenager. I'm not ever sure if the classification was that prominent back then. I was reading adult fiction when I was a teen. The one exception that I can think of is The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
I've read a few YA books lately I've enjoyed a lot. The first two books in Clive Barker's Abarat fantasy series, which would probably be considered children's books if it wasn't for a few "dark" things here and there. Although I found his horror novel, The Thief of Always, to be much darker, even though it's categorized as a children's book rather than YA.
I also read I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to Be Your Class President, which was awesome.
And Kung Fu High School. Which besides having a teen protag, I didn't really understand why it was categorized as YA considering how gruesome the violence was (one of the book's blurb's compared it to American Psycho). It was also in the adult section of my library rather than the YA section even though it was categorized as such. Really great book. And I would never expect a novel with a fifty page fight scene to do anything besides bore the hell out of me. (Actually, I just checked the book's Amazon page, and it doesn't list a target age group for readers. I could have sworn that it used to).
Anyway, I really can't conceive of a YA novel with a protag who isn't a teenager.
This book.
Judy Blume's books were my alternative to counselling.
Judy Blume's books were my alternative to counselling.
is that brittany spears?
"I'm glad I live in the GPS era. In a different century, I would've set off to visit the other side of the village and wandered off into the mountains and been eaten by a carnivorous plant. Or discovered the Americas."
-LaJessica
Judy Blume's books were my alternative to counselling.
is that brittany spears?
It's Katherine Heigl.
Ha, I read that book on a train from Burbank to San Francisco when I was eleven.
Totally forgot about those. Great examples and he does some really cool paintings that serve as the illustrations.
I feel more like I do now than I did before.
Clive Barker's Thief of Always is one of my favorites.
"I'm glad I live in the GPS era. In a different century, I would've set off to visit the other side of the village and wandered off into the mountains and been eaten by a carnivorous plant. Or discovered the Americas."
-LaJessica
Edit: Totally repeated myself without realizing.
I actually read a lot of YA books these days. When I was a teen, I read more Adult books. Weird how that happens.
Anyway...you can have an Adult book with a teen main character. However, the circumstances and emotions have to feel current in a YA book. A lot of adult novels with teen MC's are looking back...even with The Lovely Bones. She is already dead and is looking back. It makes it more Adult because of that.
Now you take The Perks of Being a Wallflower and it's happening in the NOW and the emotions are current and real. It's not looking back on something, like the movie NOW AND THEN.
I hope this makes a bit of sense. I know people mentioned Catcher in the Rye and Huck Finn. It's true, they aren't labeled YA because YA didn't exist then. There is often this discussion people have that if YA was a label at the time, would these books be classics now? It just seems like any books that are YA these days aren't the things that people really take notice of, and they should. Not all YA books are fluffy romance books.
Oh, and Harry Potter is Middle Grade. Well, Upper Middle Grade. It changes as the books go on and then they could be considered more YA.
The characters in YA books are young adults and usually expresssed with issues that a normal YA has in life.
If the character is paying taxes for the first time and working his first minimum wage job, and was 16 years old. That would be the exception.
The first book to be considered YA was S.E. Hintons "The Ousiders" That is a great example of what a YA book should be based around. Kids from the age of 12-17 living everyday teenage life with their everyday teenage problems.
So, far my favorite YA book is "I am not Esther" written by Fleur Beale. About this girl who I wanna say is about 15. Her mother ships her off to live with her family. Who happen to live on a commune and believe in some crazy christian cult. Her mother never talked about her childhood or really her family. Now she is dealing with who she really is where she comes from. She struggles until the end of the book to keep her identity her own and not allow this crazy family to mold her into what they want her to be.
Such a good book.
Also, Boy Toy by Barry Lyga. About this guy who was molested as a child by his female history teacher. She gets let out of prison and all these crazy emotions come flooding back to his mind. He keeps having all these flash backs about what happened. That is as far as I've gotten so far.
This particular book is banned in my library. Which is why I'm reading it. But it's so good. Can't put it down.
The best thing about dreams is that fleeting moment, when you are between asleep and awake, when you don't know the difference between reality and fantasy, when for just that one moment you feel with your entire soul that the dream is reality, and it really happened.