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Helen J Pilinovsky
Registered User
(2/23/05 12:58 pm)
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An interesting article on Francesca Lia Block in the NYT ...
The New York Times is running an interesting article on how Francesca Lia Block pushes the boundaries of genre in her YA work here. Food for thought ...
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Elizabeth Genco
Registered User
(2/24/05 9:59 am)
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Re: An interesting article on Francesca Lia Block in the NYT
Here's a chin-scratcher, as 'twere:
Not only are young-adult books more explicit, but the readership is also growing. And "the definition of young adult keeps expanding," Mr. Cart said, noting that more young people are living with their parents after college and still leading an adolescent lifestyle.
"Young adult used to mean 12 to 18," he said. "Now it's for readers as old as 25."
I'd be curious to hear opinions on that one, especially from the writers of YA in these parts.
Sherwood Smith has been touching on these issues in her LiveJournal over the past couple of days; here's a recent post:
www.livejournal.com/users...70991.html
Incidentally, I will never apologize to anyone for loving YA.
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What's that fiddle player in the subway thinking
about?
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darklingthrush
Registered User
(2/26/05 11:12 am)
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Re: An interesting article on Francesca Lia Block in the NYT
I certainly have a husband who often wonders why his wife with an English degree reads YA. But then again, I'm the unblushing reader at work of YA. I'm quite proud of the fact that the woman who runs the children's department at our store often asks for my assistance in recommendations for teens. I do have people asking me why I read these books and perhaps scoff at my love of them so I often ponder why so many of my favorite books are YA books. I have tried again and again to define why YA books speak so succinctly to teens and adults alike but I fail. Perhaps the real question is what makes a book YA and do the author's intentionally write for a YA audience. If the latter is true, I suppose we should start addressing the mindset of authors when they are writing for this audience in particular. Perhaps more mainstream fiction authors could draw from their responses.
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Veronica Schanoes
Registered User
(2/26/05 12:20 pm)
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Re: An interesting article on Francesca Lia Block in the NYT
I don't read YA but I do read children's books. I stopped for a while when I was a teenager and had something to prove, but when I was around 20 or so I wandered into Books of Wonder to browse and found that--horrors!--just because I was no longer reading children's books, that didn't mean my favorite writers had stopped writing them. So I started again. I think a more salient question would be "Why should I stop reading books that are fun, smart, well-written, and funny?" I read most anything that I find interesting--why should I declare one genre off-limits?
The only reason I don't read YA is that YA tends to be about adolescents and the plots tend to bore me--perhaps this is not unrelated to the fact I did not enjoy adolescence myself at all.
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Elizabeth Genco
Registered User
(2/26/05 12:34 pm)
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Re: An interesting article on Francesca Lia Block in the NYT
Books of Wonder! Truly, that place is a treasure.
I have to admit, I've never understood the embarrassment that comes from reading YA, nor do I understand why some folks choose to give adults who read YA a hard time about it. I mean, c'mon! The greatness of the books is self-evident!
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What's that fiddle player in the subway thinking
about?
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Erica Carlson
Registered User
(2/26/05 4:40 pm)
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Re: An interesting article on Francesca Lia Block in the NYT
A series of random thoughts spurred by this thread:
Scoffing at any reader's choice of reading, any time, is pretty much anathema to my chosen profession. Frankly, I'm happy if people are reading at all, even if they're only doing so because of Oprah. (I'm still doing penance for turning up my nose at Oprah's book club in my previous life.)
I find this thread very pertinent to the larger discussion board--novels that have anything to do with fairy tales often end up being labeled YA by one reviewer or library while labeled as plain old fiction or fantasy by another. It's a tangled liminal issue, and I'm still churning through ideas and theories of why this cross-categorization happens. TV seems to have escaped a lot of the labeling. Buffy: YA or A--does anyone who likes the show really care?
There are certainly plenty of YA novels out there with formulaic plots, but there are plenty of "A" novels about which you can say the same. "YA" as a category can be confusing, too. The general agreement is that there are younger YA novels and older YA novels (it's a broad, broad label).
I also find in the front of my mind the statistic (admittedly a very broad statistic) that profs at library school hand to us occasionally:
The average American reads at a 6th-grade level, and many, many popular books read by adults accommodate this reading level.
Reading level is only one facet of any novel, granted, but I'm not sure that "adult" novels are necessarily always as "adult" as people think.
And now I'm taking my tired brain away for the weekend!
Best,
Erica
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evil little pixie
Registered User
(2/28/05 10:49 am)
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Re: An interesting article on Francesca Lia Block in the NYT
Robin McKinley has some great quotes from an interview on her website: "I realise that there are so many books published that bookstore buyers and librarians and casual browsers and so on must have some guidelines, and that age groupings are a useful guideline, but I feel very discouraged sometimes when it seems to me that rather than being a guideline a suggested age group is used as some kind of standard that you and your book can be failed by" and "Fantasy and science fiction are a racket just like suitable age recommendations are: the implicit message is that fairy tales and space adventures are for children or childish grown-ups. (There’s a tangential rant here, most of which I will spare you, to do with the idea that patronising children and children’s books is okay. Sounds to me like a good way to teach children that reading is something you grow out of.)... The big fantasy books sell very well ... but they aren’t taken seriously. They’re, you know, fantasy. They aren’t real. Science fiction is at least based on science. Fantasy is mere escapism, it has nothing to say about the human condition, about our lives here and now. Ha."
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Terri Windling
Registered User
(2/28/05 5:25 pm)
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Re: An interesting article on Francesca Lia Block in the NYT
In the fantasy field, the matter is further confused by the fact that some books are published as YA and as Adult. Robin McKinley, for instance, was first published in hardback as YA and in paperback as adult fantasy -- as were Patricia McKillip and a host of others. And now editor Sharyn November, at Viking, is taking books that I first edited and published in the adult fantasy lines at Ace Books and Tor Books and putting them in the Firebirds YA line -- such as Pamela Dean's Tam Lin, Midori Snyder's New Moon trilogy, and Newford & Borderland stories by Charles de Lint (repackaged as "Waifs & Strays").
It's interesting how often books cross the YA/A line in the fantasy field. How often in realist fiction do you ever see a book published as YA in one edition and Adult in the next, or vice versa? I suppose some critics would say that's because *all* fantasy is childish (and then, of course, we'd have to hit them); whereas I think it has more to do with the fantasy readership being broadminded and inclusive in their reading tastes. If you read fantasy, you're used to going into sections of the bookstore that other readers scorn, so crossing into the YA section is not such a radical step.
Edited by: Terri Windling at: 2/28/05 5:34 pm
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lisajensen
Unregistered User
(3/2/05 9:17 pm)
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YA or not YA
My first published novel, The Witch From The Sea, is not even fantasy. I thought I was writing adult historical fiction, but because characters in the story are pirates, the book was "ghettoized" in some quarters as YA. This was not entirely a bad thing: Booklist rated it YA/M (Mature), which my publisher tells me led to lots of sales to libraries, where they apparently crave books for the female YA market—which my publisher understood to mean college-age women. It seems to me drawing a distinction between college age and adult is a very fine line. However, in practical terms, I'm thrilled when anybody of any age reads my book.
I've since broadened my own taste as a reader to include fantasy, where I find some of the best historical fiction is being written. In my own writing, I've been working with fantasy/fairy tale storylines the last couple of years, which I find very liberating. I encourage everyone—readers and writers alike— to forget categories and wander into any part of the bookstore they like in search of great stories.
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Elizabeth Genco
Registered User
(3/4/05 7:46 am)
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Re: YA or not YA
// I think it has more to do with the fantasy readership being broadminded and inclusive in their reading tastes. If you read fantasy, you're used to going into sections of the bookstore that other readers scorn, so crossing into the YA section is not such a radical step. //
Thanks, Terri. I've been thinking about things like audience quite a bit lately as I write my next story, and I feel, sometimes, like I'm being pulled in different directions. I know that booksellers like neat labels, and I want to do my best to help them. But the answer to the question of "Just who am I writing this for?" is not always an easy answer!
I'm not quite sure what to do about it, but I've still got some time to ponder (and the story still has time to develop). :)
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What's that fiddle player in the subway thinking
about?
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snovember
Registered User
(3/5/05 10:02 pm)
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Re: YA or not YA
for the record, i'm actually also francesca block's publisher, too. in this case i reissued her "adult" fantasies, *ecstasia* and *primavera.*
YA actually used to mean "16-21." then the age level plummeted. now it's rising, but the boundaries are wider.
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darklingthrush
Registered User
(3/8/05 1:07 pm)
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age ranges
I hadn't realized the change in age ranges. Thanks for pointing that out Sharyn. I work at a brick-and-mortar and love to suggest YA books to teens and adults. I've certainly watched the book content shift over the last few years towards what would be considered older subject matter. Even in the physical geography of the store I work in, the shelves for the teen books are on the outside of the children's department actually creating a physical barrier between "adult" fiction and non-fiction and the more whimsical layout of the children's department. I suppose this is in its own way a bit telling. The section itself keeps expanding too. When the store first opened it was a smaller section of the store. Now like our burgeoning manga, we have to keep shifting sections to make room for more titles.
PS. I can't help but gush a little bit about how wonderful the Firebird books are to Sharyn! I love pointing them out to some of the customers as something to keep an eye on. And for myself I finally bought a copy of Treasure at the Heart of Tanglewood.
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Elizabeth Genco
Registered User
(3/8/05 11:08 pm)
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Re: age ranges
Regarding the placement of YA lit in bookstores -- I've noticed that in B&N stores, too (B&N has pretty much taken over Manhattan and Brooklyn). It's very interesting, and a step in the right direction, I think. Incidentally, with regard to adults who feel embarrassed over their love or interest in YA, I had an interesting exchange with a fellow over on the Absolutewrite.com boards a short while back. He had asked about YA publishers (he was looking for places to submit his work) and at least one person had suggested taking a look at the YA section of the bookstore. He mentioned that he "felt weird" (or some such) about trawling the YA section, because he was an adult. I told him to get over it. :) (Politely, of course!)
In other news, Firebird books rock!!
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What's that fiddle player in the subway thinking
about?
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