It got E. Lockhart all riled up. It sparked rebuttals on A Chair, A Fireplace and a Tea Cozy and on Monica Edinger’s blog, via Jenny Davidson’s. It’s a review of The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness, and it was posted in The Guardian.
What follows is the text by Frank Cottrell Boyce, the text that has gotten YA authors and readers all up in a tizzy:
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.
Yeah, that’s worth a tizzy or two. Here are a few of my thoughts on the whole thing:
1. It is a shame that more adults are not reading young adult literature, specifically because it is marketed to young adults.
2. It’s amazing that young adults have something good to read, something they can connect to, something better than what I had as a teen ager.
3. The ghetto? It’s an imaginary place. Young adult authors are writing young adult books on purpose. It’s not like they go into their cubbyholes, write a book, and then an agent or editor says, “Oops! Sorry, you accidentally wrote a young adult novel. We’re going to have to take you to the ghetto now.”
4. There are a few authors out there who have written YA books and then revolted because of the perceived ghetto. They’ve said to their agents and editors and publishers, “Look, I don’t want my next book stuck in the young adult section. I want it available to everyone.”
5. But the reason for that revolt is the incorrect perception that young adult fiction is only interesting to teen readers. What we need to understand is that it is indeed great for teen readers, because it’s generally about teens and about issues that are important to them. But it’s also fantastic for older readers. And so, if you’re over the age of twenty-one and you want to walk down the YA aisle in your local Barnes and Noble, you shouldn’t feel as if you’re a weirdo or a creep.
Let’s stay with this for a minute, okay? Young adult fiction is an amazing thing. It’s opened up worlds for both writers and readers. And there are authors going both ways now; Nick Hornby has a foot inside the doorway of the YA Ghetto. Meg Cabot and Sarah Mlynowski have their feet firmly planted on either side of the line. Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy caught on with adults, as did Harry Potter.
The aim is not to get rid of the YA label, but to make sure we all know YA is for everyone. It’s inclusive, not exclusive. It means, “Yeah. This is a book you might like if you’re fifteen. It’s also a book you might like if you’re fifty.”
The problem, of course, is one of perception. There are book buyers who don’t stock very much YA, specifically because they think it won’t sell very well. Publishers are making the mistake of marketing only to teens, when a lot of the stuff they’re putting out would be — and is — appreciated by people of all ages.
If there is indeed a YA Ghetto, it’s not because there exists something called “young adult literature.” It’s because people think that young adult literature is something it’s not, that it’s regressing, that it’s less than. That it is, in fact, not literature at all.
Right. Enough ranting for today. You want more? Go look at my manifesto.
I’m loathe to admit it, but I must: I’m a Twilight virgin. If you’ve wondered these last few months why I didn’t say anything about Stephanie Meyer, or anything about Breaking Dawn … well, it’s because I wouldn’t know what to say. I’d be like, “So, these are some really popular books about vampires, right? And this author is like the new JK Rowling? Is that the deal?”
