July 22
2009
As many of you may recall, Margo Rabb wrote an article on being published YA in the NYT earlier this year that set off a bit of a firestorm about what it means to be a YA writer vs adult and if one or the other is better. This comes up again and again, if not from authors (although Colson Whitehead found himself in the middle of it just a few months ago after a casual remark) then from readers. There is a constant and continuous question over what is YA and if YA matters or should even exist as a separate genre. We aren't going to solve those questions here today but at the very least I did want to delve into just what subject areas might be more important for a teenage girl than an adult woman - in other words, if YA did not exist would teens still be getting the best reading experience?
Before I post the question though, I wanted to point everyone in the direction of a new blogger: Young, Black, A Reader. "MIss Attitude" is a Black teen reviewing books with Black characters and after the last WAGW discussion I can't begin to stress how important it is to support this young woman in her endeavors. If you want to get a good taste of what she's trying to do - and how frustrated she is - then read her post on trying to find teen books with Black characters at the local B&N. It's a good blog and an important voice in the blogosphere, so let's send her some encouragement.
Now onto our discussion of just what sort of subjects do teen girls need to address in their reading that they can not simply find in adult titles. In other words, I asked the group why do we need YA titles for girls in particular and what those books could/should include.
Sara Ryan: I was struggling with my response in part because, much like the last question, I feel like I could write a dissertation and not think that I'd covered the topic adequately. So I asked a couple of writer friends why they thought we needed YA titles for girls. Both of their answers had to do with respect: respect for a group of people, teenage girls, who are not, as a rule, respected in contemporary American culture.
It's easy to look at pop culture and think that teen girls -- white, thin, straight, rich teen girls, to be precise -- are held up as some kind of an ideal. But there are, of course, a whole lot of teen girls who do not fit into those categories, and besides, girls -- not to mention adult women -- are only supposed to look like teenage girls, not act like them. How do you insult an adult? One way is to accuse them of acting like a teenager; especially a "bitchy teenage girl." You can denigrate a piece of art or music or literature by calling it adolescent. I don't want to turn this into Identity, Round Two, but I do think that part of why we need YA for girls is so that girls can read books that resonate with what they're experiencing -- or take them very far away from it, depending. The point Alyssa made in the Girl Detective comments is well taken: "As far as the serious/meaningful stuff goes, we teenagers live with the 'hell' of high school and all the moronic teenage angst in general. I've noticed that many adult authors of YA want to 'give us something to think about' and 'change our lives.' Those are the kind of books the teachers make us read in school. But the truth is, when we go shopping for a novel and spend our money, we just want to be swept away and entertained."
So one day you might want the Victorian-style magic, ass-kicking, and wit of the girls in Libba Bray's A Great And Terrible Beauty. Another day, you might want to read about a girl with a messed-up family, whose family is messed up maybe along different lines than yours, but still in a way you can recognize, like Deanna Lambert's in Sara Zarr's Story of a Girl. On yet another day, the matter-of-fact competence and scientific smarts of Dewey Kerrigan in Ellen Klages' Green Glass Sea and White Sands, Red Menace might appeal. Or the torturous crush on a teacher in Jillian and Mariko Tamaki's Skim. Or the hilarious Quinceañera for the Gringo Dummy in Nancy Osa's Cuba 15.
Another reason we need YA for girls is that it can be a way into subjects you might not otherwise encounter -- or admit to yourself you want to know about. I've heard from many girls for whom Empress of the World is the first book they've read that features girls in love with each other. This is, of course, an aspect of YA that causes controversy, since many adults seem unable to understand that you don't necessarily read fiction as a how-to manual. (Otherwise, judging from the popularity of mysteries among adults, the homicide rate would be considerably higher.)
And there's something about voice in the mix, too. I think the YA authors who nail teen girls' voices credibly -- and part of that is recognizing that a monolithic Teen Girl Voice does not exist -- respect girls and their lives in a way that authors of adult books with teen girl characters often don't. The YA authors who get it don't treat being a teenage girl as the best or worst time ever, or -- as is perhaps most common with authors of adult books -- as a time of such excruciating awkwardness that they can barely stand to evoke it. Instead, the authors who get it present girls' teen years simply as a time when a lot is happening, some of it confusing, some of it exhilarating, some of it tragic, some of it amazing. Much like, you know, the rest of life.
Zetta Elliott: I’m new to the field of YA lit so I can’t claim to be an expert, and I don’t remember spending much time on “teen lit” when I was a teenager myself. I recall stealing my older sister’s teen romance novels when I was a pre-teen, but that had more to do with wanting to seem grown. I vividly remember reading Mildred D. Taylor’s novels more than once, and despite the protagonists' young age, the subject matter struck me as very adult; it was my introduction to life in the Jim Crow South, and was probably the start of my lasting interest in the US history of racial violence. I wasn’t learning that history in my suburban Toronto high school, so I suppose I’d say that YA lit should make accessible those topics made “unmentionable” by (well-intending?) adults. When I teach my course on lynching, my college students are often outraged that such vital history wasn’t covered in their school curriculum. But what’s the “right” age to learn about lynching? I’ve written a picture book story that touches on mob violence but no publisher has expressed interest, despite the success of Bird, which also deals with “sensitive” issues. I think any subject can be made comprehensible to young readers without being gratuitously explicit or traumatic, but you’d need to find a press with the courage to take on potential controversy.
The more YA lit I read, the more I’m struck by the split: novels that are about teens versus novels that are marketed to teens. The latter are often marked by “lite” writing and silly gimmicks that aim to make the novel seem experimental or innovative in terms of form. But real daring resides in the writing itself, and I think teens deserve novels on every topic, told from as many different points of view as possible. Books that offer narrative possibility (instead of filling in all the blanks) open the door for continued conversation, so I’d also say that we need adults who have the courage to face the daunting questions that teens need to ask.
Laurel Snyder: Okay, deep breath.
In some ways, this is the part of YA I have trouble with as a writer. It's part of why I don't really write YA (I write MG), why I steer clear of "issues" in my books. Because I haven't figured out how to do it right yet. I don't know how to find a balance, a light touch. I'll be interested to hear what the others have to say.
I worry about writing "about." I would, of course, like to think that young women would find any issues they faced in the literature we provide. That our books would be of use to them as they grow. But what makes a good resource doesn't always make a good book. Right? It's the very process of writing "about" something like cutting or rape or food issues that can get in the way of the story or the language. The sensitivity we bring to bear when we write for the young, the sense of ourselves as educators or mentors or good examples... can turn literature into propaganda. It feels like there's never the option of a tragedy. Like there's no room for nihilism when we're trying to deliver a hopeful message. And that feels limiting to me. I'm intimidated that.
I read Wintergirls this spring, and it KNOCKED MY SOCKS OFF. Because it felt so true. I danced as a teen, and struggled some with food and body image. And the fact that the books explores the death of such a girl, and the near-death of another, in such a poetic, real, painful way, shocked and awed me. I want to think I can write like that, but I'm not sure. And there's so much at stake in such a book, I'm scared to fail.
Whew.
Beth Kephart: We are perpetually in the process of becoming ourselves; when we are teens the yearning, the needing, the bending and unbending is all the more intense. We turn, then, to books that make us feel less alone, that articulate or validate our choices, that embrace our apparent differentness, that show us a way, that make it clear that there is not only one way, that yield, to us, context. I think we also turn to books that help us understand how stories work, that help us find the narrative in our own lives.
Is To Kill a Mockingbird a YA book? Is the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time? I don't, in fact, care how they are labeled; they are books that are essential for teens. Beautifully written, searingly arranged, brilliantly instructive without for a second being didactic, they set down a path for younger readers - they broach the big issues, subjects, themes of identity, prejudice, toleration, and compassion. Can such things be found in adult titles? Of course they can. But books like these open doors to such issues; they open themselves freely to the hearts of younger yearners.
Lorie Ann Grover: I believe teen girls need stories that express their own voices and introduce them to new ones that speak outside of their worldviews. Any topic can potentially engage a teen if it's contained in a meaningful story. The teen protagonist is merely a conduit which connects the reader, with a shorter life experience, to the writer.
So, what can be found in the teen novel not found in an adult work? Nothing, aside from a guarantee of hope in some measure, even if it's small. At least today, I still find this to be true. Otherwise, there will be the same literary merit, engaging plot, and credible characters. There will be the same value.
At ALA, Libba Bray was recently telling me about her book tour in Germany where she found YA and adult works esteemed equally. I am hopeful we might reach this conclusion in the states. Let writers craft their stories and people from all walks find the words, regardless of age or place in life.
Jackie Kelly: Since I'm apparently the geezer in the group, I'm going to tell you all the things I couldn't read about as a young adult simply because they were not written about in any books. At all. Divorce, adultery, sex, pre-marital sex, sex of any kind, and I'm not kidding. Drug abuse, alcohol abuse, marijuana. Anorexia, bulimia, dieting, laxatives. Birth control, abortion, STD's. Periods, tampons, pads. Homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality, transvestism, transgenderism. Masturbation, puberty, body changes. Again, no kidding. Depression, anxiety, suicidality. Beer drinking, pills (although characters who smoked cigarettes were A-okay). Emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse. Shop-lifting, cheating, broken friendships. Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists. Native Americans, African-Americans, biracial characters. Asperger's, autism, mental retardation. Rape. Date rape. Murder.
All these things were forbidden, all these topics were locked away, so that any YA reader who had questions/concerns/anxieties about them had to look for the answers somewhere else, hopefully from an informed adult with good information delivered sympathetically, but more likely not.
Margo Rabb: The books that I read as a teenager were so incredibly important in shaping who I am, in figuring out who I was and who I wanted to be, that I sometimes wonder who I would've become without them. Anne of Green Gables, Jo March, Anne Frank, Scout Finch, Davy from Judy Blume's Tiger Eyes and Kate from Zibby O'neal's In Summer Light were as real to me as my friends and family. They were my role models and heroines, and most of all, they helped me understand all my complex and conflicting emotions--feelings that I didn't understand until I saw them on the page. I learned from Anne of Green Gables that my imagination and dreams were even more important than my reality; from Jo that I yearned to be independent and strong; from Davy that I could survive anything, even the very thing I thought I could never survive; and from Kate that I wanted to be mature and thoughtful when I fell in love.
Now that I'm a mother, I often think about the books that I want my daughter to read. I think that one of the best things my mother did--aside from raising us in a house overflowing with books--was always allowing me to read whatever I wanted. No book was off limits. I was allowed to read Judy Blume's Forever when I was ten years old, and it didn't scar me (if anything, I became the most chaste teenager on the planet.) Books helped me see what I didn't want to become as well, what I wasn't ready for, and what mistakes I wanted to try to avoid making.
What I'm trying to say (in a very roundabout way) is: I think that the heroines in YA fiction are even more important than specific subjects...I think girls need to see themselves on the page, and to see the strong girls they'd like to try to become.
The line between adult books and YA books has become completely fluid and often invisible (I wrote an essay about this subject here*)--while researching the essay, one publisher told me that "There is no subject that is off-limits in YA." I think that the incredible diversity and variety of the genre is amazing--and it thrills me to think of all the strong, complicated heroines in YA books today, and all the ones that will be published in the future.
Jenny Davidson: I am going to take a potentially contrarian view. I do not see why specifically YA fiction is necessary. It strikes me as a publisher's category rather than a writer's one, in many respects, and though I do see that so-called middle-grade books offer something that adult fiction can't mimic, this stops seeming to me true as far as the young-adult category goes.
Do I think that there need to be novels dealing with adolescence, figuring out of sexuality, what it means to grow up in a family, etc.? Yes. But I can't see a real difference between The Fountain Overflows (Rebecca West, published for adults) and Nobody's Family Is Going to Change (Louise Fitzhugh, published for children). There are "classics" that are suitable for teenagers to read (Jane Austen and Dickens come to mind, though I have always found it slightly perverse that people seem to think that Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre is a good book to assign to tenth-grade boys!). There is quite a bit of good contemporary fiction that's published for adults but that's highly suitable for teenagers (I'm thinking of specific examples like Danzy Senna's Caucasia, the novels of Tayari Jones and Joshilyn Jackson, Helen DeWitt's The Last Samurai, Richard Powers' The Time of Our Singing) - and if those are too challenging, well, there's a WORLD of genre fiction out there - whether you like romance or crime or science fiction or fantasy or westerns, there are books written in relatively accessible styles and narrative modes that will give the feel and experience of reading with deep enjoyment to people passing out of the years of childhood but not yet adults.
I'm not saying that YA doesn't make sense as a publishing category. To pick high-quality writers from two different subcategories of YA, Scott Westerfeld and E. Lockhart both have a real feel for writing for teenagers. But could their books be published for adults? Yes, with very few changes; and could the kids that love their books be reading books published for the adult market? Again, certainly.
Melissa Wyatt: What girls can find in YA that they will not find in adult books is an emotional experience more specific to where they are in their lives. But also--for teens more so than anyone else--a book needs to provide a safe place where you can try on emotions. A sort of emotional playground where they can take out ideas and thoughts that they maybe can't talk about with even their closest friends or are even embarrassed to admit and see how it all feels. A place where nobody is watching over their shoulder to tell them they're wrong to think or feel this way. It's the great hiding place and playground of the secret heart-of-hearts.
And it's tough, but I think this is where we have to trust girls and let them read where that need takes them, even if it's something that we don't think is obviously important--or we misunderstand what it is they are getting out of a book. Look at the enormous appeal of books like A Child Called It. I don't think this book is being read in an effort to develop empathy for children in such a terrible situation. I think it's the secret delight of utter utter horror and debasement. That sounds awful. It sounds callous. But it's important. It's a stretching of emotional muscles. It's not why I would read that book, but it's the way I would have read it at fourteen.
So I think this is something that's important to remember when we see girls responding to books that might trouble us for one reason or another. What they're getting from those books may not necessarily be what we--from our adult perspective--might fear. But it could be filling a need only they can define and one they ought to be allowed to pursue in that safe place of the book.
ETA A Late Entry!
Mayra Lazara Dole: When I worked at the library, YA books barely existed. Teen girls found what they needed in adult books. Girls now have their own books, addressing first-time issues and teen challenges. It’s my perspective that if we, the YA authors, keep focusing on writing emotion-centered stories that speak to teen girls, with all teen characters--work that isn’t polemic and bogged down with messages, issues or preachiness--they’ll keep finding what they "need" in A Book of their Own (Virginia never read a YA book, if so, she might have led quite a different life).
![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.chasingray.com/nav-commenters.gif)
July 21
2009
11:05 PM
Awesome collection of thoughts, Colleen. Thanks!