The Rise of
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Fiction
by ChinLin Pan
W
HAT DO Harry Potter, Twilight,
and The Hunger Games have in
common? They’re all muchloved Young Adult series that have
been adapted onto the big screen in
Hollywood.
Young Adult literature, also known as
YA lit, as we know it today, is relatively
new under Fiction books. During the
past several years, there has been an
increase of YA books published, and
now many of these books have been
adapted into films and TV shows. YA
authors, English majors, professors
and readers all present theories as
to how YA developed so quickly in
publishing and production industries.
Prior to the existence of the YA
category, book genres under Fiction
were limited to Children’s Books and
Adult Fiction. Children’s Books are
books written for children, usually
from birth to the age of 12. These
books range from picture books, early
and easy reader books, and chapter
books; the purpose is to entertain and
educate the child so that he/she can
learn to read and build foundational
knowledge. Meanwhile, Adult Fiction
books target people in their twenties
and up. These books range in all
types of genres, such as mystery and
romance, and contain mature content
and themes unfit for children and
middle grade students, or “tweens”.
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As it emerged as a category, YA books
were written for teenagers from ages
12 to 18 and usually presented a
teenager as the protagonist. Recent
trends in the past few years show
that YA lit books are published to
additionally appeal to readers in their
early and mid-twenties. The storylines
contain teenage experiences like
peer pressure and love triangles; but
there are books that tackle more
edgy and controversial topics, such as
sexuality, abuse, and rape. Generally,
all YA books deal with the theme of
the characters accepting or rejecting
responsibility.
“So how did the
YA category
even begin?”
Cole Gibsen, author of Katana,
explains the writing style of most YA
books, and why it is effective for its
audience.
“Young adult novels have to move
at a faster pace than adult novels.
The action and pacing has to be fast
enough to keep younger readers from
being bored, but at the same time it
has to be authentic enough to keep
the older readers turning the page,”
Gibsen said.
So how did the YA category even
begin? Many reasons have been
debated and accounted for.
According to Marc Aronson, author of
Exploding the Myths: The Truth about
Teenagers and Reading, one reason
behind YA lit’s thriving existence is
due to demographics. The current
teenager population in the U.S. is at
its largest since the 1960s. Authors,
editors and librarians have tackled the
problem of what reading content is
too young or too old for this audience,
and they try to reach out to this
population by writing books with
characters and storylines that they
can relate to.
Taylor Nordstrom, a civil engineering
junior at the University of Texas at
Austin, argues that another reason is
due to a cultural change in the U.S.
during the 1960s.
“The culture was changing
drastically—among other things,
people began getting married later.
As such, a ‘teen culture’ began to
exist in a fashion that it hadn’t before:
suddenly, there were all of these
young adults who were still unmarried
and who are dealing with things like
dating and going to college. These
were issues that hadn’t existed in full
force in the past. So of course, a new
genre of novel was created which gave
teenagers books that they could relate
to,” Nordstrom said.
Around the same time YA became
its own category, the Middle Grade
category emerged as well. Middle
Grade books are targeted to tweens;
these books are more mature than
Children’s Books but do not quite
reach the level of maturity in YA and
Adult Fiction.
Dr. Veronica Covington, a professor
from the UT School of Information,
who currently teaches a Children’s
Literature course, discusses the
content found in Middle Grade books
that make them stand out from
Children’ Books, YA lit and Adult
Fiction books.
“The characters are younger and tend
to have problems that children of that
age encounter: sibling rivalry, jealousy,
afraid to go to school, egocentric, loss
of pet, etc.,” Dr. Covington said.
However, some books or series of
books may fit into multiple genres.
This is particularly the case for some
YA series. Some series will progress
as the character ages, therefore,
the marketing of those series also
changes.
YA author Cynthia Leitich Smith,
known for her Tantalize series,
explains using the Harry Potter seri