Young Adult Fiction

[Alia]

What language, Gollum! And in the youth section!
Just teasing.

Hey I wanted to thank you for reading those stories for me. I think you nailed my problems right on! I appreciate you taking the time! And by the way, I called you 'The Master', I don't remember calling you 'a genius', or was that implied.

Also, I'm a bit of a math whiz (I actually went to college to become an accountant) and I was figuring out your age. If you started reading at age 5 and have been reading Scifi for 25 years, then your what? 30? Granted this is assuming that you started reading Scifi at age 5, and it is possible. So that means your younger than me! So watch the old timer jokes!

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Well I, for one, am hardly a mental giant. I've just been interested in these things for a long time. (If we're discussing age ...) I worked briefly in a library, mostly in the children's section (by choice), and years later even more briefly in a bookstore. In between, I raised four children, volunteered in the grade school library, and took up writing. It would be strange if I hadn't picked up some information about these things along the way.

I'm planning to clean up my little hobbit-hole of a home office one of these days, at which time I'll probably unearth some more books that I forgot to mention.

 

[Alia]

Kelpie, I'm sorry about the referrence to age. It was to tease Gollum with his talk about being old. He has mentioned it several times now. I love children books and I'm glad I have another child who hasn't started reading yet so I can read all his books too. Working as a librarian would be an awesome job, especially for book lovers! I choose to work at home to raise the children. I'm extremely busy and reading is a luxury around here. Youth books have been all I can squeeze into the schedule at times.
Alia

 

[GOLLUM]

Please chill out Y'all I was only jesting but I promise to refrain form using the "A" word in future.

UM.. not bad arithmetic mate, actually I'm just over my mid 30's, that it so say I was around when Mr Armstrong and friends landed on that shiny thing so I guess that makes me your senior HE HE..

Take care everyone and please keep smiling!!!

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Yes, I've always thought that being a librarian would be a great job. Me, I was always just one of the serfs that real librarians get to order around.

I also chose to stay/work at home, until my children were mostly grown up. By cleverly refusing to make laundry, vacuuming, and dirty dishes any kind of priority, I managed to get in quite a bit of reading, though. Helping out in the school library was a good way to present myself as a concerned and involved parent and get my hands on some good books.

 

[rune]

I could do with getting a job at my library, the books are never in order, quite often under the wrong headings and have hardly anything in stock

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I just finished reading, in the last week, The Singer of All Songs, by Kate Constable -- a new book by a new YA author. Interesting world-building, engaging characters. I liked her world so much, I would have liked a little more description, but even so there were moments when I could picture it all very clearly.

A book I should have mentioned before in this thread:

The Box of Delights, by John Masefield (lost my copy, just ordered a new one from Amazon, since it's one of those books I want to read to my grandchildren, as soon as I get some, and I intend to have a copy on hand). I read this one to my oldest daughter when she was in the hospital with an allergic reaction to a bee-sting, and always came home hungry due to descriptions of food in the book. It incorporates two of my favorite themes: magic and Christmas, and it is a thoroughly enchanting story.

 

[Mark Robson]

What does young adult fiction mean? How is it different from books for schoolkids? Or is this again one of those annoying PC terms?

The whole young adult thing is a marketing ploy. To the younger ones it says - 'Hey, read this and you're reading like an adult.' To the parents it says 'It's OK to read this, because it's in the young "adult" section, which is currently in vogue.'

In reality, many of the young adult fantasy books are easy reading adult fantasy in disguise. I would place my own books in this category, purely because that was the most effective way of marketing them to the widest possible audience. However, 20 years ago, if this section had been in the book shops, you might have found The Belgariad, or McCaffrey's Pern series there - they are written at a similar level to many of the books you will find in this section.

I would add to the list Katherine Langrish's 'Troll Fell' - see my review in the review section. Also, Phillip Reeve's 'Mortal Engines' 'Predators Gold' and 'Infernal Machines'.

 

[a|one]

I cant stand "Young Adult" fiction. I havent actually read that much (Eddings, Salvatore, Rowling(1) and some others I started but didnt finish - havent read any of it in a long while) but it feels like the dumbed down version of sf/f. Its like the antithesis of GRRM, no substance no reality no complicated concepts, just light predictable books about obvious morals. While I did go through a couple years where it was mainly what I read, I dont recall ever feeling "in to it", and once I had the vocabulary necessary for greater things I havent ever looked back. I apologize to Mark and others who write in this genre, but it just isnt for me and reading it makes me understand why so few "Young Adults" choose to read.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Well, actually, around here, there was a Young Adult section in most large chain bookstores twenty years ago, and they didn't put Eddings or McCaffery's books there. The term really had (and has) as much to do with the age level of most of the main characters as with the literary quality, vocabulary, or complexity.

I first encountered the term in libraries, about thirty-five years ago, when the drill for YA speculative fiction was generally this: in bookstores, in with the general SF and Fantasy, but in libraries, over in the kids section, either as a YA or Juvenile (or both).

 

[Alia]

The whole young adult thing is a marketing ploy. To the younger ones it says - 'Hey, read this and you're reading like an adult.' To the parents it says 'It's OK to read this, because it's in the young "adult" section, which is currently in vogue.'

There is actually more to it then just that. Parent piece of mind for starters. As a parent I'm more incline to let my children read from this section of the book store than the more adultish section. I know that these books are tamer in regards to violence, emotion, development and sex.
Also, this class of books is a good between section for the young reader to develop the skills he needs as a reader. As the child transitions between child reading material and adult reading material this is a good stop so he can find what entertains him and help him finish developing and polishing the basic reading skills. Most of the time it's a short stop, not more than a few years before they discover and develop what they need to move on to the more hard core books - 'the adult section of the store.' Not everyone is born with that desire to read. Some of us actually have to develop that ability. I actually find them entertaining. While I read them, I laugh at loud at the funny parts. It gets the kids attention and they want to know what is so funny. In reply I say 'oh it's complicated, you'll have to read the book to find out.' More books get read that way...

 

[rune]

There is actually more to it then just that. Parent piece of mind for starters. As a parent I'm more incline to let my children read from this section of the book store than the more adultish section. I know that these books are tamer in regards to violence, emotion, development and sex.
Also, this class of books is a good between section for the young reader to develop the skills he needs as a reader. As the child transitions between child reading material and adult reading material this is a good stop so he can find what entertains him and help him finish developing and polishing the basic reading skills. Most of the time it's a short stop, not more than a few years before they discover and develop what they need to move on to the more hard core books - 'the adult section of the store.' Not everyone is born with that desire to read. Some of us actually have to develop that ability. I actually find them entertaining. While I read them, I laugh at loud at the funny parts. It gets the kids attention and they want to know what is so funny. In reply I say 'oh it's complicated, you'll have to read the book to find out.' More books get read that way...

I can appreciate that parents dont want their children reading books that are beyond their maturity. However, I do believe some people mature quicker than others.
My Dad got me into reading, but I started getting adult books very young. YA books back then were just to immature for me. By my mid teens I was reading horror like James Herbet then after I had got through my pile of books swapping with my Dad's and reading his Kung Fu and Western novels which included even more adult material.
I dont think this is the right way for all young teens. I had up grow fast and was brought up in a disturbed family environment which contributed to my more mature tastes at the time.

I actually found it amusing that though my Dad liked violent western novels he found the horror i read disturbing

 

[Leto]

I cant stand "Young Adult" fiction. I havent actually read that much (Eddings, Salvatore, Rowling(1) and some others I started but didnt finish - havent read any of it in a long while) but it feels like the dumbed down version of sf/f. Its like the antithesis of GRRM, no substance no reality no complicated concepts, just light predictable books about obvious morals. While I did go through a couple years where it was mainly what I read, I dont recall ever feeling "in to it", and once I had the vocabulary necessary for greater things I havent ever looked back. I apologize to Mark and others who write in this genre, but it just isnt for me and reading it makes me understand why so few "Young Adults" choose to read.

Err, Alone, here GRRM is currently marketed as YA fiction, as most anglo-saxon fantasy book... At least at FNAC (equivalent of Barnes and Nobles) where it was right between J K Rowling and Goodking.

 

[Alia]

I can appreciate that parents dont want their children reading books that are beyond their maturity. However, I do believe some people mature quicker than others.

I agree with you Rune... Note, I never said teen. I said child. My 13 year old read what I read as long as it's 'good reading'. My 8 year old reads J K Rowling and I won't let him read outside that age genre. My 11 month old reads what I'm reading, when I read it out loud. Although I don't think he understands what I'm saying... Or he knaws on the board books.
Anyways, your right. Maturity does play an important role in the reading material.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

When I was 9 or 10 I was pretty much fed up with the school library because it didn't have enough of the more adult books I wanted to read. As a result of being so precocious, I missed out on any number of really excellent children's and YA books. Fortunately for me, a schoolmate called some of those books to my attention when I was in my late teens, and I had the pleasure of reading them after all. This had the added advantage of setting up a pattern of reading books and authors I like no matter how they are labeled. This was doubly fortunate, because otherwise I would have missed some wonderful books for younger readers that weren't even written when I was still a young reader myself.

 

[dwndrgn]

As a kid I never read them because my first adventures in reading were a direct result of being deadly bored and digging through boxes in the attic for entertainment. Found a box of dad's books and was hooked from there. I only started reading the more YA titles in the past few years (mostly a direct result of walking through the library noting that I knew where every title was located and had read anything remotely interesting to me that they had). Wandered over to the YA section for chuckles and picked up some Brian Jacques. Found it refreshingly innocent, amusing and entertaining and read my way through quite a few before they started getting some new titles in. I then got pulled back into the adult books and am now checking out the YA ones again for much the same reason.

 

[fallenstar]

personally, as a teen myself (I don't really like that term but that's the most accurate one), I don't have much appreciation for YA fics nowdays. For example, my English teacher once led us to the library for she wanted us to read at least 2 books a month. so our librarian gave us a complete account of books she would recommand people of my age (I am currently in Gr.10 and that happened this year), which is in a way all the YA books our small school library had. That took up half of the fiction section by the way. Anyway, the books she recommanded were books that does not even reach half of the size of Pride and Prejudice, and with plots like :" a sixteen years old girl ran away from home and found out she is pregenant, she then begins a journey of self-discovery." I found those books to be a disgusting cliche, with overwhelming themes like "self-discovery", "friendships are good", "bullying is bad". I mean it's not like those themes are wrong, they are just way overused they are not even enjoyable anymore. Our English class novel list are not that much better, filled with YA fics like "Where The Rivers Meet" which talks about how Natives were treated unequally in schools, and "The Children of River" which talks about how a Cambodian girl fled to US and fell in love with this American guy when her family wanted her to follow the tradition to marry her fellow countryman. I have nothing against the morally correctness of those themes, it's just that they are now becoming condescending, as if young people in my age can not mature and do not know better.

I personally begin to read abridged western adult novels at the age of seven...and nothing bad came to my mind. I read Kung Fu stories which involves violence etc., but they didn't affect me much. I think the genre of YA fics must be cleaned up, those cliche themes can be preserved, but just not in this overwhelming quantity. I mean surely there can be a genre for teens, but just not that whole thing about teaching teens. Entertaining must be one of the reason we read books, and the plots must be interesting, otherwise how can we enjoy books? So let's not blindly think that teens must want to read stuff happening in highschool with the "popluar kids" and the "nerds", or fairlands with friendly unicorns and pet dragon, and make YA a better genre.

 

[Mark Robson]

Well, actually, around here, there was a Young Adult section in most large chain bookstores twenty years ago, and they didn't put Eddings or McCaffery's books there. The term really had (and has) as much to do with the age level of most of the main characters as with the literary quality, vocabulary, or complexity.

I first encountered the term in libraries, about thirty-five years ago, when the drill for YA speculative fiction was generally this: in bookstores, in with the general SF and Fantasy, but in libraries, over in the kids section, either as a YA or Juvenile (or both).

Kelpie, the age level of many of the characters in the books by the authors I quoted ARE young adults! If you think back, you will find that Garion is 14 years old through the majority of the Belgariad. McCaffrey's characters were more often than not in their teens - Menolly in Dragonsong and Dragonsinger was 15. Piemur in Dragondrums was younger - about 13 or 14, I think. A lot of her characters in the Tower and Hive series are equally young. That is why I would have placed them in the YA section. I certainly recommend them to young readers.

 

[rune]

I personally begin to read abridged western adult novels at the age of seven...and nothing bad came to my mind. I read Kung Fu stories which involves violence etc., but they didn't affect me much. I think the genre of YA fics must be cleaned up, those cliche themes can be preserved, but just not in this overwhelming quantity. I mean surely there can be a genre for teens, but just not that whole thing about teaching teens. Entertaining must be one of the reason we read books, and the plots must be interesting, otherwise how can we enjoy books? So let's not blindly think that teens must want to read stuff happening in highschool with the "popluar kids" and the "nerds", or fairlands with friendly unicorns and pet dragon, and make YA a better genre.

I remember feeling the same way about YA books when I was around 11 years old. It didnt engage me at all. Like you I read some Kung Fu and Western novels which do tend to be of a more adult nature. I havent suffered any ill affects either
I do read more YA books now, but prefer ones for older teens. Saying that of course there are the odd exception like the Harry Potter series (which I am pleased to see if getting more mature) and the Keys to the Kingdom series by Nix (which is very imagative and fun)

Generally though I think books aimed towards young teens are quite immature and as you mentioned can be boring even for the age group they are aimed at.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I was thinking of the Dragonrider books, Mark; I completely forgot about the Dragonsinger books, which, as you say, were and are marketed as YA.

The Eddings books never did make it into the YA section around here -- perhaps because, in spite of Garion being so young, he's surrounded by much older characters rather than interacting with a group of kids his own age. If it was up to me, the Belgariad would go in the YA section, because as far as I'm concerned most of those supposedly older characters all act and sound like adolescents much of the time.