Crossovers, not Young Adult

I attended the mid-winter conference for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators last weekend and was privileged to hear two talks given by Michael Cart, an expert on young adult literature. Cart noted that the market once referred to as young adult was now dividing roughly into three age groups: 10 to 14 years, middle grade novels; 14 to 18 years, teen novels; and 18 to 25 years into a market he proposed referring to as “crossover”. He and many others have long decried “young adult” as derogatory; the books and the readers who are their audience are not somehow less than adult. These crossover books are sometimes books published as teen fiction but read by an older audience, or books marketed to an adult audience that are also read by teens. The marketing department of the publisher makes the call whether teen versus adult. Cart wondered why publishers in the U.S. couldn’t do as some have in England, putting books out in different formats for different markets.

Some books that were published as adult but that featured teen protagonists include The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, Life of Pi by Yann Martel, and Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld.

Francesca Lia Block, one of my favorite authors, was this year’s recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards award, which honors an author’s lifetime achievement for writing books that have been popular over a period of time. The Margaret A. Edwards Award is sponsored by School Library Journal and administered by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA). Cart noted that Block was one of the first crossover novelists, whose teen novels were also read by adults.

A recent link from Blog of a Bookslut, though, points out other, less impressive and enlightening crossover books, including the Sisterhood of the Pants books, the Gossip Girl series and others. In a damning comparison, one of the authors hopes that her book will be as popular as Sweet Valley High and Goosebumps books were. For her sake, I hope her book has somewhat more literary merit.

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