Why It's Okay For Adults To Love YA Books Just As Much As Teens

nytimes.com:

[B]ig type and short, plot-driven chapters aside, the erosion of age-­determined book categories, initiated by Harry Potter, has been hastened along by an influx of crossover authors like Stephenie Meyer and interlopers like Sherman Alexie, James Patterson, Francine Prose, Carl Hiaasen and John Grisham, to name just a few stars from across the spectrum of adult fiction who have turned to writing Y.A. According to surveys by the Codex Group, a consultant to the publishing industry, 47 percent of 18- to 24-year-old women and 24 percent of same-aged men say most of the books they buy are classified as young adult.

Read the whole story: nytimes.com

Comments

[kareemachan]

12:23 PM on 08/10/2010

One of the perks of working at a school library is that I have to keep up on YA books. Sigh. It's hard but somebody's gotta do it! ;-)

And the author is SO right - there is some amazing YA lit out there, and people shouldn't be ashamed to be seen reading it.

[mady]

09:59 AM on 08/11/2010

School librarian here too. I've said for years that young adult literature is where the best literature is being written.

[cnobody]

10:51 AM on 08/10/2010

taking a class in YA lit right now. There's a lot of great stuff out there. As already mentioned, everybody'­s waiting for Mockingjay­.

[exBFF]

09:22 PM on 08/09/2010

Couldn't agree more. I stumbled on "Life As We Knew It" by Susan Beth Pfeffer and was immediatel­y hooked on the series. A metor strikes the moon and shifts it's orbit slightly..­.but the effects on earth are devastatin­g. Ms. Pfeffer's trilogy is realistic and thought provoking - more than many of the similar "adult" books I've read. I hope they get optioned for movies (even tv movies) at some point.

[inkongirl]

07:13 PM on 08/09/2010

I love reading YA books. They're book candy.

[Jond0]

03:27 PM on 08/09/2010

Is Archie and Veronica ok too?

[inkongirl]

07:12 PM on 08/09/2010

Yes!

[Huffingbrownbag]

01:34 PM on 08/09/2010

I cried when Ol' Yeller died.

[ZDuck]

12:48 PM on 08/09/2010

Love Carl Hiaasen.

[farka]

12:02 PM on 08/09/2010

No. It isn't.

[kareemachan]

12:23 PM on 08/10/2010

Why? I can't enjoy the Potter books or Carl Hiaasen's environmen­tally-awar­e ones or Watership Down or CS Lewis' series or Alice in Wonderland or the His Dark Materials trilogy or Virginia Euwer Wolff's books or.....?

[Nick2]

11:34 AM on 08/09/2010

Oops. I believe it's Mockingjay­.

[Nick2]

11:33 AM on 08/09/2010

I can't wait for Mockinjay! I love YA lit!

[FBuchan]

11:14 AM on 08/09/2010

I put in some votes for a series about Walter the Farting Dog. me and the wee one laugh endlessly about it, and that's my gauge for saying it's great stuff.

But specific to this revelation­: it's just nice to know people are reading,a nd a bit of escapism never hurts.

[dvoconnor]

10:33 AM on 08/09/2010

James and the Giant Peach is a Great book. Charlotte'­s Web, too. It doesn't matter if you're 8 years old or 88.