My opinion of the crossover YA to Adult fiction or "new adult" (too confusing of a name for me) issue is more of a case of a marketing problem, and not a content problem. I'm not going to sound old and crotchety here, and while I was not an avid reader as a teen, this genre's existence seems new to me as it is. I understand the need to categorize a book for merchandising purposes, but it should not really sway an audience or limit the audience. It is good for us librarians to be aware of the intended audience of a book, but we should not let that steer us from recommending a title. When J.D. Salinger wrote A Catcher in the Rye, do you think he was intending to write that book for teens to read in high school? Or was he just trying to tell a fascinating story about youth in the world? Since schools believe that book is geared for teens, should we catalog it as such? Many people read Tolkien's works for the first time in their teens, yet BCPL has it as an adult novel. And yet, I have plenty of adult friends who thoroughly enjoyed Harry Potter and Twilight, and felt the books spoke to them. Do we go back and re-catalog these titles as well? My personal opinion is that to keep the YA reader reading, the young adult material must still focus on strengthening the reader's ability to read and reading comprehension. They should push the mind to handle more characters and more complex and emotional story lines. The material must expand their vocabulary while still remaining enjoyable so that when they reach that awkward crossover at age 19 or so, where they are done with YA materials, they can feel comfortable coming to a librarian ask for recommendations and also feel comfortable to move over to the fiction section that is only for "old people."
Yes, Rich, you have a good point about classic authors/novels like Salinger and Tolkien. What actually make a book a YA genre and what doesn't. THE ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART-TIME INDIAN by Sherman Alexie, is in the Teen section, while FLIGHT: A NOVEL, also by Sherman Alexie, and also focused almost entirely on a teen charater (who, btw, is jumping through time and into the bodies of others) is cataloged in the Adult section. I wonder how these lines are drawn? Not just by our own catablogers, but by publishers and other catalogers?
ReplyDeleteRich, you raise a great point about Salinger! So many classic books that appear on high school reading lists were written for an adult audience. I bet if Lord of the Flies or The Catcher in the Rye had been written today, they would be marketed and classified as teen fiction. They would also probably be part of a trilogy with movie cash-in potential!
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