The Truth About Young Adult Fiction

The Truth About Young Adult Fiction

It has always amazed me when adults dismiss a book as YA.  By dismissing a book and not bothering to give it the time of day because it is marketed toward the 12-14 age group is like only eating two of the major food groups.  There are a lot of gems out there.  Not to mention, it's only marketed to young readers.  Just because the publisher decides to put a book in the Young Adult track does not mean that the author wrote with teens in mind.

In the nineteenth century there was no classification of Young Adult, but many novels were written that were deemed acceptable for both young and old readers alike.  Some of these may even surprise you.  Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist and Great Expectations were common reading material for young readers, as well as Little Women, The Jungle Book, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Count of Monte Cristo.

The marketing classification of Young Adult did not emerge until after World War II in the late 1940s and the early 1950s, depending on where you live.  In this era J.D. Salinger presented the world with Catcher in the Rye, William Golding wrote Lord of the Flies, and Robert A. Heinlein published Tunnel in the Sky and Citizen of the Galaxy.   In 1957 the Young Adult Library Services Association, a division of the American Library Association, was founded in order to "advocate, promote and strengthen library service to [young readers]. . . and to support those who provide library service".

A little later, in 1960, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee was published.  A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle was published shortly after in 1962.  In 1963, the Canadian author Farley Mowat published Never Cry Wolf  which is still standard reading in grade nine classes around his native country - alongside the books I already mentioned by Salinger and Golding.  Oh, and do not forget George Orwell's dystopian satire, Animal Farm, and William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

In the 1970s, Stephen King writes Carrie, Judy Blume tackles menstruation in a different way with Are You There God?  It's Me, Margaret and V.C. Andrews tells her sordid tale of incest and abuse in Flowers in the Attic.

In current YA there is a trend to move towards themes such as sexuality, pregnancy, teen mother/fatherhood, rape, abuse, suicide, drugs, and alcohol.  And I'm just naming a few.

So, what am I saying here?  Just as you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, you shouldn't judge it by its marketing classification.  Young Adult fiction is full of well written, provocative reads.

- Victoria