rose_griffes (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rose_griffes) wrote2009-08-26 09:37 pm
rose_griffes) wrote2009-08-26 09:37 pm
Entry tags:
a post with no name
*runs in*
As a side note to all of the Twilight talk, I've been wondering about young-adult novels. Here is what wikipedia says: Young-adult fiction (often abbreviated as YAdult fiction, or simply YA) is fiction written for, published for, or marketed to adolescents, roughly between the ages of 13 and 20.
A poll first!
[Poll #1449513]
I'd love to know more information if anyone has it, but from all I've found so far, classifying a book as young-adult fiction seems to be largely a decision of the publishing company. Librarians would presumably play a role as well, unless there's some list that dictates where fiction books are shelved; I doubt there is. Authors may write specifically for the teen audience, but that's not always the case. (Stephenie Meyer apparently wrote for herself first, then added an adult sister to her reading audience, according to this Q&A.)
As for me, I'd say that classifying novels as young-adult does make a significant difference in the audience those novels reach. School libraries often have a much larger YA selection than 'adult' fiction. The public libraries I know best have the YA section between the children's books and the adult section. The ease of availability alone made a difference in what I read when I was a teen.
Flowers in the Attic was classified as a YA novel. I find that both fascinating and disturbing. V.C. Andrews' best-known (by me) series actually has some similarities to the Twilight series: both have first-person narratives by teenaged girls (at least at the beginning) and what I'll tactfully call it a straightforward style of prose. But prose style and the age of the protagonist both seem to me to be among the least-important reasons for classifying a book as young-adult fiction.
As frustrating as America's MPAA rating system often is, it does have more than just one rating and gives a reason/set of reasons for that rating. I'm not sure we need something like that for books. Maybe? What do you think?
*runs back out*
As a side note to all of the Twilight talk, I've been wondering about young-adult novels. Here is what wikipedia says: Young-adult fiction (often abbreviated as YAdult fiction, or simply YA) is fiction written for, published for, or marketed to adolescents, roughly between the ages of 13 and 20.
A poll first!
[Poll #1449513]
I'd love to know more information if anyone has it, but from all I've found so far, classifying a book as young-adult fiction seems to be largely a decision of the publishing company. Librarians would presumably play a role as well, unless there's some list that dictates where fiction books are shelved; I doubt there is. Authors may write specifically for the teen audience, but that's not always the case. (Stephenie Meyer apparently wrote for herself first, then added an adult sister to her reading audience, according to this Q&A.)
As for me, I'd say that classifying novels as young-adult does make a significant difference in the audience those novels reach. School libraries often have a much larger YA selection than 'adult' fiction. The public libraries I know best have the YA section between the children's books and the adult section. The ease of availability alone made a difference in what I read when I was a teen.
Flowers in the Attic was classified as a YA novel. I find that both fascinating and disturbing. V.C. Andrews' best-known (by me) series actually has some similarities to the Twilight series: both have first-person narratives by teenaged girls (at least at the beginning) and what I'll tactfully call it a straightforward style of prose. But prose style and the age of the protagonist both seem to me to be among the least-important reasons for classifying a book as young-adult fiction.
As frustrating as America's MPAA rating system often is, it does have more than just one rating and gives a reason/set of reasons for that rating. I'm not sure we need something like that for books. Maybe? What do you think?
*runs back out*