Becoming yourself. Growing into the person you were born to be. It’s the hardwired imperative of every human heart, the work of a lifetime—and you can never say: I’m finished, tick that box, done. Ever wondered why YA books are so popular these days? Maybe it’s because we’re never done becoming, and readers of all ages know it.
But the change you undertake as a teen is extra intense, and it hurtles along at light speed. One minute adults hold sway over your life. The next minute, you’re on the cusp of becoming one of them.
A switch will be flipped. When you reach the age of majority, society—which so recently viewed you as a child—will do a psychotic about-face. Overnight, you’ll be considered old enough to leave home, drive at night, have sex, drink alcohol, vote, marry, or go off to war. If you screw up, the justice system will accord you the same rights as any other adult—no more, no fewer.
No more childhood for you. You’ve crossed the Rubicon.
Why YA? In part, to help teens make sense of this crazy passage.
But maturity is not binary, not either/or. Growing up is not a once-and-done affair.
As the years march on, we keep going back to the past, turning events over and over in our minds, seeking the slow glimmer of insight, the sudden flash of understanding, that we can bring forward to inform the current version of our ever-growing self.
We may do this in solitary contemplation. We may do it by reminiscing with friends and family. If we go to therapy, we will surely end up examining the past, teasing out what happened to us, then, that helped form who we are today.
Again, why YA? To give readers well past their teen years a chance to revisit, as many times as needed, their own younger days. And, hopefully, to give adults a way to understand what the new generation coming up is thinking and feeling.
The child is father of the man, said William Wordsworth. The seed contains the harvest. Our youthful self gives birth to the adult we will be.
But it doesn’t stop there. The thirty-year-old gives birth to the forty-year-old, who in turn brings the fifty-year-old into being. We just keep sowing and reaping, sowing and reaping as long as we breathe.
And that helps explain why YA has grown. Books for youthful readers hold so much power. They are there at the beginning of a person’s journey through life. Like parents, teachers, and society at large, books form us—and never more than in youth.
Why YA? Because books read in youth yield an outsized harvest.
This is a hard age in which to come of age. Is it harder now than ever? I’m not trying to make that case; it’s never been easy.
It was hard to grow up when turning eighteen meant you might be issued a uniform and sent to kill or be killed in a steamy jungle thousands of miles away.
It can’t have been easy to grow up when life expectancy was thirty years, and pestilence stalked the land.
But today’s world holds challenges we haven’t seen before. A private mistake can go viral, and persist forever in the ether. The surveillance state burgeons. Earth herself strains to support us all. A mass extinction is underway. Climate scientists tell us we’re near a point of no return.
What is a young person to do?
Having good parents is a plus. If you can get some of those, I say go for it. Ditto teachers, spiritual advisors, and true friends.
But if you aren’t fortunate enough to have those people in your life (and even if you are), there are books. Good books show the way. They accept every reader without judgment. Their treasures are free for the taking by rich and poor, beautiful and plain, cool and nerdy alike. No matter how often we ask them a question, they never tire of answering.
YA books, in particular, address this seminal moment of growth in the life of a human. In today’s world, we need them more than ever. (And if a YA book is deep and true, adults will seek it out, too, just as they return over and over to the important moments of their younger years. But adults reading YA is a topic for another day.)
In 49 BC, Julius Caesar assembled his army on the bank of the actual river Rubicon in northern Italy. He had explicit orders not to cross. Doing so would be an act of insurrection and treason. Nevertheless, into the water he plunged. “The die is cast,” he is reported to have said.
Taking the plunge into adulthood can feel similarly risky and revolutionary. The far bank is unknown, and holds terrors. Reaching the other side means breaking some rules, and learning the wisdom of others. It feels as if there is no going back, and in a sense, that is true. In a sense, it is true of every single instant in a life. Of course, in another sense—as I mentioned above—our earlier self is never lost. We carry that self within us wherever we go, forever.
If you are a young person preparing to wade into the rapids to claim your beachhead in the future, I wish you courage and faith, strength and humility, allies and mentors.
And I hope you have some excellent books tucked into your backpack.
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.
