In fantasy (perhaps science fiction to a lesser extent) the boundaries between adult and YA are very ambiguous, I think, because adult science fiction and fantasy novels don't usually touch on the topics that are likely to alienate teenage readers (middle-aged angst, adultery and divorce, the problems of marriage and parenthood) and often have teenage protagonists. Adult fantasy books have always had a large teenage readership -- the folks at my high school reading endless Dragonlance books -- but the genre has been getting way self-conscious lately about adolescent wish-fulfillment stuff and pulpy writing. So, where do you put a book that's a little more wish-fulfilly, a little more id-vortexy, a little pulpier? In YA so that the people who originally ate those books up will still find them. (See for example Libba Bray's trilogy, which has a lot of teen fans and a lot of adult fans and is a perfectly great series (at least until the last volume) but has a teenage breathlessness that's perhaps best suited to YA.)
In contemporary realistic fiction, I think we're starting to see a niche for books that are a little less heavy and bleak than adult literary fiction, and more plot-heavy, while still being well-written. I think that niche is going to break out soon from the land of YA, but it's still there at the moment.
And in both genre fiction and realistic fiction, the perception of YA as a "hot" marketing category means that books that weren't originally written as YA, or originally marketed as YA, get slotted in there. (See: Peter Cameron's "Someday This Pain Will Be Useful To You," the Firebird reprints of older fantasy novels.)
A "middle-grade" book is one that's written for around the grade 4-5 level. Harry Potter is middle grade (though the later books are arguably YA). "Children's," I would say, encompasses everything up to YA. But the age boundaries are kind of blurry -- you have to take into consideration not just the problems of literacy, but the problems of emotional readiness as well.
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Date: 2009-07-14 06:03 pm (UTC)In contemporary realistic fiction, I think we're starting to see a niche for books that are a little less heavy and bleak than adult literary fiction, and more plot-heavy, while still being well-written. I think that niche is going to break out soon from the land of YA, but it's still there at the moment.
And in both genre fiction and realistic fiction, the perception of YA as a "hot" marketing category means that books that weren't originally written as YA, or originally marketed as YA, get slotted in there. (See: Peter Cameron's "Someday This Pain Will Be Useful To You," the Firebird reprints of older fantasy novels.)
A "middle-grade" book is one that's written for around the grade 4-5 level. Harry Potter is middle grade (though the later books are arguably YA). "Children's," I would say, encompasses everything up to YA. But the age boundaries are kind of blurry -- you have to take into consideration not just the problems of literacy, but the problems of emotional readiness as well.