Folks all over are talking about the value (resulting smackdown to be found here, here, here, here, and, even at GalleyCat, who calls for the dude to be replaced), classification, and fun of writing a YA novel (or not). (Updated to add: Susan Adrian was also posting about it here.)
This weekend at my writing retreat, I was asked “Why YA?” a good dozen times, by writers who would never consider, have never considered but were curious, and those who not only had considered, but really wanted to. At the last cocktail party I attended, I was alternately sneered at (“Oh, just children’s books,”) and applauded by an adult fan of Twilight.
I’m baffled by the assumption that the books are easier or simpler. High school students read more than the average adult, and the books they read are the big ones: Shakespeare, Hemingway, Faulkner, etc. If they can handle that in their classes, they are equipped to handle all kinds of stuff in their pleasure reading.
I wonder why this happens. I wonder why actors in movies and television made for children get markedly less respect than actors in movies and television made for adults. I wonder if it’s the same impetus that causes folks to look down their noses at teachers, or say, “just a kindergarten teacher?” to a friend who is a kindergarten teacher.
All of my favorite books were books I read as a child. That’s enough for me to say why YA.
8 Comments
February 5, 2008 at 2:21 pm
I’ve only read the first paragraph of that NYT article and I’m not sure I can go on. It’s not healthy to be this angry in the morning!
February 5, 2008 at 3:11 pm
You know, you just can’t be caring about what people think or it will drive you nuts! So learned the teen version of me, and I’ve held it to my heart ever since.
To put it more plainly, people who denigrate should be denigrated.
February 5, 2008 at 3:23 pm
There are those who would argue (I among them) that C. S. Lewis’s children’s books (the Narnia series) are perhaps his best work as a writer. Lewis wrote one of the volumes of The Oxford History of English Literature, The Screwtape Letters, a science fiction trilogy, and a host of other scholarly and theological works, but the Narnia books are by far the best-selling and best-known of the bunch.
Lewis would have had no patience with Itzkoff’s article. Nor does Carrie. Nor do I.
February 5, 2008 at 3:37 pm
How interesting…convergence of ideas. I blogged about this yesterday, without any clue of the other kerfuffles:
http://writers-tale.blogspot.com/2008/02/why.html
February 5, 2008 at 4:52 pm
I buy a lot of YA because I have 4 kids and I have to say it’s incredibly difficult to choose from all the talent that’s out there!
February 5, 2008 at 5:55 pm
I’m coming out of lurk to thank you for the great collection of YA stuff this week and thanks for including our guest Tina Ferraro (Isn’t she fabulous???)
Love your blog!
Bria (of the Purple Hearts)
February 5, 2008 at 10:47 pm
Personally, I love YA books. I have a 16 yr old niece and I have found so many new authors from books she has told me to read.
February 6, 2008 at 12:21 am
I haven’t read any of the hub-bub… Now I’m curious.
But what you say is so true. The bizarre snobbery in the publishing industry never ceases to amaze me.
And kindergarten teachers??? Probably the hardest job in the world. High school teachers don’t have to deal with “accidents” or paste eating so much, now do they? (Nor do they have to keep their energy high and sing songs and read books making character voices… Makes me tired just thinking about it. At least teachers of older kids can give them a test or some reading and just sit quietly and work on something else on occasion.