What Is YA? Let’s Not Fight About It.

A peek into the writing life: I’m working on my YA book when suddenly a cold dread fills me. Do I even know what I’m doing? Am I really writing a YA book? And what is YA, exactly? Does anyone know? Can anyone agree? More to the point, who even cares? Shouldn’t we just get our hands on the greatest books we can find, and read them?

So I went scurrying to my revered sybil (you know her as ‘Google’) to see what other people had to say about it, and here is what I found: There are so many different ideas out there about YA, and what it is and isn’t, that it could make a person’s head spin. Not as impressively as the head of that unfortunate child in The Exorcist, but almost.

It seems that even the experts can’t agree on a definition. And they really, really can’t agree on particular books. Is Huckleberry Finn YA? What about Ready Player One? The Hate U Give? Is it enough for a book to have a teenage protagonist? Or deal with ‘teenage issues’? Is it an age range? Fight, fight, fight.

What is YA? First let’s decide what it isn’t

»»»YA is not a genre

If someone asked an adult, “What is your favorite book genre?” and they answered, “Adult,” you would be perplexed at best. What kind of adult book should you give them for their birthday? Mystery? Historical romance? Action/adventure? Erotica? Dystopian? Mystical realism? Western? Science fiction? Christian urban fantasy? Narrative nonfiction? Memoir? ‘Adult’ is not a genre, any more than ‘young adult’ is. All the categories that exist in adult literature exist in YA, too. Well, maybe not erotica. But who knows? Things keep changing.

»»»YA is not ‘kiddie lit’

This drives me crazy *gnashes teeth*. Bashing young adult books is one of the last socially acceptable forms of bigotry. Using ‘kiddie’ in this context implies ‘less than,’ ‘substandard,’ or ‘lite.’ Why would you want to do that? If teens get hungry, you don’t feed them ‘kiddie din-din,’ and if they get sick you don’t give them ‘kiddie meds.’ That would imply that food and medicine for young people are less important than food and medicine for adults. That’s clearly not true, and it’s not true of books, either.

Yet, sadly, the term is widespread even within the YA book industry (KidLitCon, anyone?). How I wish that people who love and respect YA would stop using this belittling term. I’ll never forget the sneers on the faces of too many of my fellow college students–and even professors in the English department–when I told them I was taking classes on children’s literature. In the years since then, things haven’t changed all that much. YA still has to fight for respect. Calling it ‘kiddie lit’ just makes it more of an uphill slog.

And this seems like a good place to point out that even books for the very youngest readers and pre-readers aren’t ‘kiddie lit,’ either. Let’s just agree that they’re simply books–age-appropriate books, yes, but not ‘less than,’ ‘substandard,’ or ‘lite’ books. The best of them are masterpieces that live forever in the hearts of those who have loved them. Goodnight, Moon. The Cat in the Hat. Where the Wild Things Are. The Little Engine that Could. The Polar Express.

End of rant.

»»»YA is not MG, and it’s not NA

MG–and here I’m talking about middle grades literature, not morning glories or the famed British motor cars–is aimed at readers a few years younger than YA readers. The subject matter can be just as deep, though, and the writing just as excellent. Bridge to Terabithia, Where the Red Fern Grows, Tuck Everlasting, and Sounder are just a few of the thousands of middle grade books that pull at the heartstrings of readers of all ages. But they’re not YA. They don’t have the teen sensibility that, in my opinion, is a necessary feature of YA. (More on this below.)

And New Adult, a.k.a. NA? The category is so new that a lot of people are still scratching their heads about what it is. Fans say it’s aimed more at people of college age. Detractors say it’s just YA with more sex. (Aside: More sex? Is that even possible nowadays? Well, possibly. A quick Google image search of new adult books will reveal many covers featuring bared torsos and copious embracing.) But do people of college age really need their own category of books? Aren’t they actually adults by that time? Or is that just me exhibiting the same prejudice against NA that I’m complaining about when it’s directed at YA? I’m honestly not sure. Time will tell.

So, then, what is YA? Let’s hear what some other people say

One short and über-pragmatic answer is: YA is a marketing category. And there’s some truth to that. Publishers have legitimate reasons to categorize the books they publish, and booksellers need to know where to shelve them. Ta-da! YA!

Yet, obviously, there’s more to it than that. If people have such strong opinions about what YA is and is not, they must be basing those opinions on something. In my cruise around the internet, trying to figure out how other people answered the question “What is YA?”, a few answers stood out. Here, then, is a roundup of some of the more useful discussions and definitions I’ve found. And at the end of this article, I’ll share the working definition I’ve come up with.

• For a crisp, profane, and wickedly funny take on it, you can’t beat this listicle: “25 Things You Should Know About Young Adult Fiction,” by Chuck Wendig. Want a taste before you commit to a click? The best thing about YA, according to Mr. Wendig, is that “[i]t’s not saying, You will buy this book because you’re solipsistic little shitbirds but rather, it’s saying, I will write this book because finally someone’s going to start telling stories about all the things that are happening to you and your friends.”




• On the more academic end of things, this white paper from the American Library Association makes the case that “[t]he term ‘young adult literature’ is inherently amorphous, for its constituent terms ‘young adult’ and ‘literature’ are dynamic, changing as culture and society–which provide their context–change.” It’s a short read, but an enlightening one.




• And from Stanford University, there’s this brainy take on the question “What is YA?”, which I include here even though they keep calling YA a genre (a pox on their house for that!).

  
  

• For fun, here are a few more articles from people around the web who are trying to answer the question: What is YA? We hear from a novelist, a YA blog, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and big media outlets including The Atlantic and CNN.com.

  
  

• And to round out this list, if you have ninety-nine cents to invest, here’s a lovely little ebook–more of a long essay, really–called Why YA? (And What Is It, Anyway?), by Atthys Gage. It traces the beginning of “modern” YA to the publication of The Outsiders, whose author (S.E. Hinton) was only fifteen when she started writing it in 1965. Her novel gave voice to the secret lives of teenagers–lives too often ignored, belittled, or misunderstood by the adults in charge. From there, Gage takes us through a brief and entertaining history of publishing trends regarding books for young people. He talks a bit about Harry Potter, and how it changed the YA landscape forever. And, in due time, he tells us how he answers the question, “What is YA?”

What is YA? My working definition

After all that, my personal definition of YA fiction is incredibly simple and broad. It has only two criteria:

1. It has a teen protagonist.

2. It has a teen sensibility.

That’s it. You could ask what a ‘teen sensibility’ is, but I guarantee that would result in another round of seeking with no definitive answer. To me, a ‘teen sensibility’ means a voice, a perspective, an awareness that teens can relate to, and that captures the teen experience differently than a book aimed at adults does. I can’t pin it down any closer than that. And now that I’ve explored how tough it is for everyone to define YA, I guess I don’t really have to.

So, without further ado, let’s get back to our reading!

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My current work in progress, We Still Have Us, tells the story of a seventeen-year-old girl in upstate New York who’s caught between poverty and privilege, dreams and duty, past and future. You can read more about it here. And for writerly updates, news, and commentary–and a free short story!–subscribe below to my newsletter.