WHEN THE BAR HAS NO LOWER TO GO ... CHOICES*

Adult readers, it appears, crave the comforts of young adult (YA) reading.

Lisa Santamaria is a college student who also enjoys YA fiction, particularly fantasy, which she said is often more imaginative than fantasy books written for older readers. Santamaria runs the children's department of the Barnes & Noble bookstore in Willow Grove, where many adults come in and ask for books for themselves.

"Children's books have a more upbeat ending, and a lot of people are looking for that," Santamaria said.

"They want something a little more entertaining or fluffy, so they come to the kids' section, only to find out that these books are not necessarily fluffy at all. Like Harry Potter - it makes you think."

It does, indeed.  Mostly, it makes us think about how blindingly wealthy J.K. Rowling has become.  Still, on the one hand, we remind ourselves that any number of great, enduring works started out as intended for children.  (The Little Prince leaps to mind, although even that's probably open to argument.)

On the other hand, it does ever so slightly feel like yet another stone of the great edifice of Grownupland has been gleefully kicked out from underneath us.  And there aren't many of those suckers left ...

* In deference to Cecil Castelucci's comments (see comments box), we've changed the title of this post to be a slightly more accurate, less incendiary reflection of our intentions.

Comments

[TEV]

Hey, all - serious sidebar here, and I hope you'll all take this in the spirit intended.

Have been advised via email that many of you commenting here today "are at the top -- or rising stars -- of their fields" and that I should be "honored that so many of the elite are showing up to participate in this argument."

I genuinely am. And I really want to thank everyone for this.

I have always hoped TEV would be the kind of site where exactly this sort of exchange might take place. Where thoughtful disagreements could play out and people would find a congenial place to toss this stuff around. The fact that so many of you have makes me extraordinarily happy, whatever the differences of opinion.

Anyway, what's there to talk about when everyone agrees, right? Seriously, whatever stances have been taken here today, I appreciate every one of you who've taken the time to weigh in, even when it's gotten a bit sharp in tone.

No choruses of Kumba-ya, I promise. But it's days like today that I'm glad I bothered to launch this site.

[Diana Peterfreund]

Ooh, I love this argument. Step one: declare a given genre of literature "sub-par" and charge its defenders with providing an example that transcends their opinions/stands test of time/appeals to outside readership. Step two: Defenders provide examples. Step three: Declare that the given example "doesn't really count" because it transcends whatever subpar restrictions you've decided to place on the genre.

Frankenstein not science fiction? How is that? I've always learned (and the dictionary backed me up) that science fiction is fiction based on imagined or actual scientific or technological advances.

Huck Finn not YA? But YA is a novel with a young adult protagonist marketing to young adult readers.

However, "'Classic.' A book which people praise and don't read." So maybe Twain would prefer being called a children's book writer, if it means he gets to avoid ever being called a classic.

[LMM]

"To Kill A Mockingbird, Huck Finn, and Catcher in the Rye come to mind."

Those books arne't YA in any shape or form, unless you define YA as "books you read as a teenager"... or more specifically, books you are required to read as a teenager by US public schools. But then you might as well call Shakespeare Young Adult fiction.

[LMM]

"Science Fiction: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Mystery: The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
Romance: Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
YA: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain"

Although I see the point you are ATTEMPTING to make, I think you make a total mockery of your position by using examples that pre-date said genres. It is pointless and, ultimately, fallicious to try and appropriate authors form other time periods to fit into your "side" when such authors have little in common with the acutal traditions of said genres.

It makes it look like you have no real groudn to stand on, since you can't name ACTUAL examples but rather must take already lauded books and pretend they count. If I want to make a case for how great punk music is it is much better for me to list a great punk rock album, not to list Bob Dylan or some other non/pre punk artist and pretend he counts as punk.

Most of the examples you list there, Holmes probably being the exception, only count as part of that genre in the most ignorant and superficial sense. Claiming Huck Finn is a YA book because there is a kid as a protagonist, or that Frankenstien is a Sci-Fi book because there is fake science in it, is a quite blatant fallicious conflation of name and meaning.

To use an analogy, there is a type of music called "emo" that gets is name from the idea that it is "emotional." But only a fool ould claim that ANY music with "emotion" in it is "emo" music. The term has a much more specific meaning. Likewise, romance means much more than any book with any kind of romantic relationship in it at all.

It just makes it hard to take the genre position seriously when the genre apologists dont' seem to take themselves seriously...

[LMM]

"Huck Finn not YA? But YA is a novel with a young adult protagonist marketing to young adult readers. "

Please. Huck Finn is no more marketed to Young Adults than it is to Adults. Yes, you have to read it in high school, bu tyou also have to read Shakespeare, Dostoevesky, Camus and a dozen other authors who no one would call YA.

Basically the only argument I can see is that the main character is himself a young adult. But pretending that any book that has a young adult as a protagonist is a "YA Novel" is just idiotic. That isn't how the genre is defined.

[Darby]

Forgive me if this has been covered--I haven't read every word of this discussion yet, though I intend to--but, question: when we talk about young adult lit, what targeted-at age range are we talking about? I see the word "teenager" being tossed around here but I suspect that 19 year olds and 13 year olds would cringe at the thought of being lumped into the same category.

[Colleen]

Darby, to answer your question there are no set rules for what makes a YA book. (Just like mysteries can be literature or romance can cross over into mystery - get the idea?) It's all a marketing ploy. Typically, YA involves a teen protagonist and will often involve coming of age type plot points. But James Owen's new book Here There Be Dragons has only one teen - the main characters are all grown men, one of whom is on leave from fighting in the trenches.

So yeah - those rules are fluid.

It is hard to compare a 19 year old and a 13 year old but it does happen that both of those ages could end up in YA. It just depends on the audience that the publisher thinks would be most receptive to the book. In some cases it's a no-brainer (say with Nancy Drew stories), but it can get rather complicated with others.

That's why adults reading YA is really not so uncommon.

And LMM - Catcher was published in 1951 and Mockingbird in 1960. Sorry, but YA books were certainly around by then. And even Huck Finn - you really don't want to compare a story about a boy on a raft seeking the world with a friend (could you build a better set-up for a coming of age novel?) with the greats of adult literature, do you? And hey - no need to get so angry, all the rest of us have managed to remain civil.

[Diana Peterfreund]

Please. Huck Finn is no more marketed to Young Adults than it is to Adults. Yes, you have to read it in high school, bu tyou also have to read Shakespeare, Dostoevesky, Camus and a dozen other authors who no one would call YA.

Basically the only argument I can see is that the main character is himself a young adult. But pretending that any book that has a young adult as a protagonist is a "YA Novel" is just idiotic. That isn't how the genre is defined.

Please explain to me, then, "how the genre is defined." What other argument is there for what is YA? I was under the impression that there was no argument here that Young Adult books were books written for adolescents with adolescent protagonists. That's how the ALA defines it, by the way. Huck Finn is both. It has been popular with young readers since it's publication (due in no small part, no doubt, to the frequency of its being banned), and yep, young protag.

Oh, and I also disagree with the idea that certain examples pre-date the invention of certain genres. In the case of Frankenstein, they begin them. The novel itself is not so old a form, and science fiction, especially, is a young genre. The science of Frankenstein, however, was not any more outlandish then (they knew that electricity can restart heartbeats), any more than the science of Jules Verne's descriptions of moon voyages were. Shall we retroactively disqualify only Verne's novels that have not now proved scientifically accurate as being part of the genre?

And roamnce is NOT a young genre. It's as old as it gets. Young adult literature is not a young genre, but then again, it's also not a genre in the way that science fiction or romance is. It's a marketing term, like children's tylenol. There was definitely children's literature at the time Twain wrote Huck Finn. He wrote literature for young readers. Guess who else did? Lewis Carroll.

As I said before, this is an old argument. Merely disqualify any example the genre's defenders choose to put forth and you have yourself an unprovable supposition. In this case, it seems that any candidate will have to exist on two mutually exclusive planes: be a book that has stood the test of time and thrilled readers for generations, and also magically been published in the current publishing climate so that it does not "predate" what you define of the genre.

The definitions I provided earlier, by the way, were from the ALA and the dictionary. I don't know which ones you are using. The ALA defines YA books as books recommended for readers between the ages of 12-18.

[Kestrella]

I woke up thinking about this so I'll add my two cents, even if it is rather late in the game.

TEV, you act surprised that people are angry with your sweeping statements, but of course they are! Because, though you insist otherwise, you're not putting forth an opinion, you're making a judgement. And not only that, you're trying to back it up with the established literary institution (Nobel Prize, ha!), an institution that most of us are well aware is FLAWED, baby.

Your problem doesn't seem to be with YA, per se, but with popular culture. You seem to believe that anything that isn't classified as "Literature" or as being "for adults" by marketing teams and high-tone publications is necessarily going to be lower in quality than things that are. But hasn't it become clear over thousands of years of literary history that the marketing teams and high-tone literary publications of an age are NEVER good predictors of what's going to last? of what's going to speak the truth about a certain moment in human history?

Because guess what people were saying about 17th century theater when it was in its heyday?

Another stone from the great edifice of the Christianity has been kicked out from under us!

Enlightenment philosophy?

Another stone from the great edifice of monarchy has been kicked out from under us!

Surrealism?

Another stone from the great edifice of LITERATURE has been kicked out from under us!

It's been clear for a looong time that we little people of the present have a very narrow perspective on the art of our times. We like what we like, and that's okay, but getting snobby about what the masses like, about what young women working in bookstores like, about who wins the Nobel Prize and who doesn't... it's a fool's game.

The power to move people, to really say something, to strip away the bullshit and get at some nugget of truth, the power of great art, is not and never has been limited by genre categories. Art bursts the seams, it pops up where the institutions of this world least expect it. The idea that any one person can point and say, "This genre is good, this one is bad," is utterly ridiculous. I mean, let's just step out of the way and let art do what it does, which is infinitely enrich our lives.

The fact that children and adults are reading what is classified as young adult literature says something. It says that something is happening here, that people are finding some kind of sustenance here. Isn't it more interesting to try to understand what that is than it is to cross your arms and put your nose in the air?

And, besides, if a person tells me, "I cannot be touched or moved or really affected at all by one entire category of art," be it YA or pen-and-ink drawings or rap or whatEVER, well, that says a lot more to me about the person speaking than it does about the genre.

What the popularity of YA does not say is that our culture is crumbling around us. It does not say that something irrevocably bad is happening. There are bad things happening these days, for sure, but people loving books is not one of them.

Besides, so what if the culture is crumbling? It's always when the surface falls away that the really good stuff is revealed.

[Larry M.]

"And LMM - Catcher was published in 1951 and Mockingbird in 1960. Sorry, but YA books were certainly around by then."

Um, sorry but I never claimed they YA books weren't around by then. You must be conflating mutliple posts of mine.

Anyway, in what meanginful sense are Catcher and Mockingbird YA books? The main definition being thrown around here is that its a marketing catagory, yet Catcher and Mockingbird were not marketed towards YA when the book came out. They were marketed towards the normal adult literary scene.

Is it merely because they have young characters? That seems like a pretty thin definition of YA, don't you think? Also, IIRC, Scout is a fair bit younger than the typical YA marketing group...

So I guess I'll have to assume To Kill a Mockingbird is properly a "children's book" then.

[Larry M.]

I was under the impression that there was no argument here that Young Adult books were books written for adolescents with adolescent protagonists. That's how the ALA defines it, by the way. Huck Finn is both. It has been popular with young readers since it's publication

You do realize that you changed arguments there. First you claim that it must be "written for adolescents" but then you switch to saying Huck Finn is "popular with young readers."

Being written for and being popular with are very different things.

Frankly, I'd say that Huck Finn is neither. It was not written for children, it was written for adults and is full of adult themes. I also doubt that it is truly popular with young readers. It is FORCED on them in school, no doubt, but in my experience it wasn't popular. We were too young to appreciate or understand it when we were forced to read it.

The people who praise Huck Finn are typically adult and read or re-read it as adults. If you make teenagers make a list of their favorite books, I doubt Finn would appear often.

Oh, and I also disagree with the idea that certain examples pre-date the invention of certain genres.

I personally think that any concept of genre that isn't historical is a waste of time. We can play a game all day long making new definitions to fit old works of art into modern genres, but it is ultimately pointless. Genres are less concrete strictly defined works and more historical catagories, in the sense they are more relevant and helpful when considered by how they developed, who influenced who, etc.

Definitions of arts genres are always hard to make and will always, if one trys to be pendantic, allow us to throw in lots of inapprorpiate works. I could try to define punk rock as something like loud rock music with angry lyrics and loud guitars... but such a definition would include a billion artists who predate punk or have nothing to do with punk.

I learn a lot more about punk from looking at it historically and seeing how it developed than by trying to make a definition for it and then retroactively seeing who I can claim as punk.

As I said before, this is an old argument. Merely disqualify any example the genre's defenders choose to put forth and you have yourself an unprovable supposition.

Yes, it is an old argument. Merely claim a work of indisputable literary importance as part of the genre and then pendatically claim they fit into the "definition" and you have an unassailable position.

[Larry M.]

The fact that children and adults are reading what is classified as young adult literature says something. It says that something is happening here, that people are finding some kind of sustenance here. Isn't it more interesting to try to understand what that is than it is to cross your arms and put your nose in the air?

Is there every a point where we can be concerned though? Or is any trend positive no matter what?

Should I be excited and interested that millions of people think Big Momma's House 2 is the height of comedy and that movies like that outsell well-written and quality comedies by billions?

When people claim they are too lazy to read novels and that its easier to watch re-runs of "Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire" should I say "wow, people are finding sustenance here" and leave it at that?

People find "some kind of sustenance" in a lot of rotten places these days. While I understand the pointlessness of getting angry about what people do with their free time, I also think it is silly to pretend that all art is created equal and we should jump for joy Paris Hilton wins an oscar...

[Frank Portman]

Yes, Larry M., because a YA title that crosses over to general readership is exactly like Paris Hilton winning an Oscar...

I may be wrong, but it seems as though TEV and the other YA-bashers here haven't even read what they're dismissing out of hand. That is predictably irritating to those being dismissed unread.

And thanks for the plug, Colleen.

[Kestrella]

I agree, Larry M., that every reader can and should have standards, but dismissing an entire category of writing in one sweeping motion suggests a total absence of standards, or of critical sense at any rate.

[Justine Musk]

Young Adult fiction: Robert Cormier, Robert Cormier, Robert Cormier (who is not exactly known for upbeat endings): 'The Chocolate War' and 'Beyond the Chocolate War'. Those were two of the books that made me want to be a writer in the first place.

For a more current title, Philip Pullman's 'Dark Materials' trilogy seems to be 'transcending' the YA genre quite nicely -- haven't read it, but wow, do I keep hearing about it. And hearing about it. (And the fact that it's a secular retort of a sort to the 'Narnia' series only adds to its appeal.)

[James A. Owen]

Colleen wrote: "Also, I read James Owen's Here There Be Dragons and while it is certainly fantasy, I am hard pressed to understand why it would appeal more to the Harry Potter crown as opposed to the Lord of Rings loving adults."

I'm hoping it will appeal to both categories equally well. ;)

Really though, it was because the editor who was most serious about acquiring it, who made us the best offer, was the VP of the YA imprints at Simon & Schuster.

I had had discussions with a couple of other publishers about it (when it was only an outline), both respected 'adult book' publishers. One in particular made me an offer on it (as a package with some other projects) with an immediate advance, that he knew I desperately needed. I declined, because he wanted to do it as a paperback, and I wanted it in hardcover. He offered me a larger advance (still small overall, but it would have been paid immediately). I offered to take LESS if he'd do a hardcover. We got farther apart and finally realized we couldn't meet in the middle.

So I had the opportunity to have it out as a book marketed to adults, if that perception had been my primary goal. But it wasn't. I wanted a greater long-term committment from my publisher, and the one who happened to come through was YA.

One aspect that I really AM thinking about: a lot of the reviews this far, incuding Booksense and Colleen's, have mentioned the art. Part of the deal was that I also do the cover myself, as well as illustrations for every chapter.

This concept is a LOT more common in YA and children's publishing than in traditional publishing. It isn't totally uncommon, but rare, in books marketed to adults.

Part of my motivation was anecdote from people like Neil Gaiman, who once mentioned being really disappointed with the cover of a new paperback of his. And I worried that if HE didn't have more input over that kind of thing, a neophyte would be in real trouble. So we made that intention clear from the start - I'd illustrate the interior AND the cover.

I'm pretty content with the final form - but that's the thought which lingers: if it hadn't been bought as YA, would it still have ended up as the finished book we have?

[TEV]

Frank, yes - you are wrong. Completely wrong, at least as far as I'm concerned. Can't speak to the others.

[Hal Duncan]

I suspect that the popularity of YA with adults may be born from a reaction against the conventionality of contemporary social realism as much as anything else. When it comes to those kitchen-sink (i.e. working-class) or drawing-room (i.e. middle-class) melodramas -- domestic narratives with an artificially heightened tension -- the downbeat (or poignant) ending has become trite, banal and often contrived, and we're tired of it. I think it was Michael Chabon who had an essay snarling about never wanting to read another bloody "moment of apotheosis" story again. I quite agree. So I suspect if readers are looking for "happy endings" it may be less about a desire for infantile solace as a dismissal of the sort of bourgeois miserabilism which wrongly equates "serious" and "solemn". There's nothing that makes an upbeat ending less profound than a downbeat one (my favourite upbeat ending, for example, is that of Joyce's ULYSSES; you'd be hard placed to find anything in any genre as *affirming* as "he asked me if I'd yes to say yes and yes I said yes I will yes."); but contemporary realism seems to have forgotten that this is the case, that we're allowed to end on another tone than grey, that -- indeed -- ending on that tone, with some cliches about regret and self-realisation, is not in fact all you need to make your work a literary masterpiece.

I suspect it's this banality (or at least, the perception of this banality) that is driving readers away from contemporary realism and towards YA or fantastic fiction where, in many respects, anything goes.

[Justine Larbalestier]

Wow, Hal, that was almost succinct!

[Lauren McLaughlin]

Thanks, Hal, for writing what has been burbling up in me as I read this intriguing/excrutiating discussion. I won't even get into the blanket stupidity of not counting Frankenstein as an SF novel. Self-obsessed, lamebrained, terminal psychoanalysis is exactly what I suspect drives readers screaming from the "serious" literature section and into the arms of Genre where, freed from the devouring needs of endless self-analysis, ideas both Big and small have room to breathe.

[Frank Portman]

OK, TEV, I stand corrected. I'll put it this way: your caricature of the YA novel (i.e., inherently, essentially constrained by "happy endings, clear villains, three acts," and consquetnly lacking depth and "interiority of character") does not square with many of the books mentioned by the YA defenders on this thread.

[Colleen]

Wow - go to sleep and run some errands and this whole discussion heats up, doesn't it?!

From reading a lot of YA/middle grade/children's books I can point to some differences there. Larry M is correct that Scout is younger than many YA protagonists - what makes Mockingbird YA as opposed to middle grade would be the storyline - it's very intense and serious and would be considered too much for say, an 8 year old. (That does not mean that books for 8 year olds aren't published on racism or violence or death, but it's all in how they are written.) A "Children's book" now is pretty much a picture book. "Middle grade" starts around 8 and goes to 12. There is a grey area then from 12 and up that is generally YA - although some are more geared to the 14 and over crowd. (This would include King Dork I imagine as it has sexual content.)

But please - don't look for an iron clad rule because you will not find it. We could argue ourselves silly over what is YA. Jim Lynch's wonderful The Hightest Tide is about a teen protagonist and is certainly a coming of age novel - but Bloomsbury marketed it as adult and when I went to a local reading there was not one teen in the room. When he went to Canada on his book tour he told me it was marketed more as a YA title - tons of teens everywhere. It worked both ways, the pub just decided how it should go. (And when I reviewed it, it was as an adult book because that seemed to be the audience who was propelling his sales.)

The bottom line for me - and I said this earlier - the appeal is always and only for a well written book. YA is no more about happy endings then adult literature and it involves all the serious themes of any literary genre. It is not even generally shorter in length anymore then adult lit. I consider reading YA to be no different then reading sci fi, mystery, etc. Just a different section of bookstore, that's all.

And here's something else - I just reviewed Tim Pratt's Strange Adventures of Rangergirl for my October column - it's an adult fantasy but I think it would be great for teens. So I'm introducing it to YA readers. It works both ways, we just don't often consider that direction.

[Larry M]

"Yes, Larry M., because a YA title that crosses over to general readership is exactly like Paris Hilton winning an Oscar..."

I never said it was. Are analogies that hard to follow? I was making a rhetorical point, not claiming YA literature is the same as Paris Hilton.

"I may be wrong, but it seems as though TEV and the other YA-bashers here haven't even read what they're dismissing out of hand."

You'd be wrong.

Although, for the record, I'm not dismissing TA literature as much as I'm annoyed by the disingenuous arguments being made here. Why can't a YA lover just defend YA literature by pointing out the best examples of the genre (Pullman maybe?) instead of trying to pretend that Shakespeare or Proust or Twain or whoever are YA authors.

[Larry M]

"But please - don't look for an iron clad rule because you will not find it"

Yet this is my whole point, you people are trying to make a rule based on a simplistic understanding of genre ("well if it takes place in the west it must be a western" "If it has a young person in it, it must be a YA novel" etc.) and using that as the basis of the argument.

Its quite clear that more is required of a book to be part of the YA novel tradition than to merely have a young protagnoist. What, is Ham on Rye a YA book now?

The fact is, To Kill a Mockingbird doesn't sit well alongside YA fiction and there is nothing about it that makes it stand out from general audlt literary fiction.

[TEV]

Thank you, Larry! I can't help but note the same thing. The co-opting of Frankenstein as a "science fiction" title smells like a desperate quest for respectability - especially when you've got Verne, Wells and any number of others to draw from, not to mention Asimov, Bradbury, etc.

Interestingly, I've just been reading Edward Mendelson's excellent The Things That Matter, which includes a thoughtful 40-page essay on Frankenstein - and I don't recall him once referring to it as "science fiction."

The engagement with issues of science in that work reflect a typical Romantic-era mistrust of science, and a repudiation of the Englightment emphasis on rational/scientific thought. That's the pertinent context for Shelley's use of science in the tale, not some Grandmother of Sci-Fi role that's being forced upon her.

And by the by, I think Pullman is terrific (yes, I've read him, too) - but scarcely an overlooked Nobel laureate. Sorry.