Defining YA (Young Adult) fiction is not an easy task. So it’s interesting when writers, editors, librarians, teachers, parents, and readers try to fit it into a neat little category. There’s such a wide range of topics, writing styles, character arcs, and even readers themselves. In 2012, The Wire started a weekly series in which they discussed YA literature for adults. After some middle grade titles were included in the first installment of the series, readers commented on the post pointing out the misuse of the term “Young Adult.” As a result, Jen Doll explores the question What Does ‘Young Adult’ Mean? in her article of the same title. The truest part of the article is a quote from former YALSA president, Michael Cart: “The term ‘young adult literature’ is inherently amorphous, and for its constituent terms ‘young adult’ and ‘literature’ are dynamic, changing as culture and society – which provide their context – change.” There literally cannot be one solid, unchanging definition for YA literature. I’ve thought about how hard it is to think of a definition that encompasses all of YA fiction, but I think that it’s even harder to define YA literature because of its ever-changing nature.

The article addresses a number of issues in defining YA literature. From one librarian’s perspective, it’s important to have an age range simply for categorical reasons. Although I agree with the technical reasons for having to categorize YA as books for ages 12-18, I think there’s something to be said for books that are YA, yet can be marketed towards a much broader audience. Maybe for purposes of the library there should be an age range, but when marketing a YA book, sometimes it does well to try to target adults as well as teens. We see this in a book like The Book Thief. It’s considered an adult book in Australia, where it was originally published. Yet, in the United States, it’s categorized as Young Adult. Realistically, The Book Thief is a book for everyone from teens to older adults. So, as far as marketing, I think that it was a mistake that the publisher chose to categorize it as YA, when categorizing it as adult would make adult and teen readers pick it up. Of course, this touches on a much deeper issue in YA publishing. Why don’t adults take YA novels seriously? Maybe if they did, we wouldn’t have to worry about the reach of a book with a younger protagonist if it was categorized as YA.

Some of the people cited in the article talk about the trend that more and more adults are reading YA. I think this is true, but there’s still a stigma that exists that needs to be challenged. Many adults either look down upon reading YA books, or only value them for their nostalgia. Although Cart says YA literature of today “welcomes artistic innovation, experimentation, and risk-taking,” Doll closes her article with a bit saying, “There’s no stopping its [YA books’] nostalgic thrall for adults.” There’s an issue with saying that adults only read YA for the nostalgia of it. There are many YA books that teach important lessons and force one to discover new things about his or herself. Lessons and learning about oneself aren’t things that happen once in the teenage years and then never again. These are things that we, as people, go back to over and over. I can learn something new about myself from a twelve-year-old narrator, and I’m not ashamed of that. There are many reasons to read YA literature, and none of them should be frowned upon or limited to a specific age group.

[Although the article that I reference in this post is from 2013, I think that the issues in it are still very relevant.]

In the article What Does it Mean that Most Children’s Books Are Still About White Boys?, Soraya Chemaly brings light to unequal presence of gender in children’s books. The intriguing statistics mentioned in the article point to a startling lack of female protagonists. It’s commonly discussed that boys are lacking books to read, or at least books that appeal to them. This article flips that perspective and shows that the problem might be boys’ lack of acceptance of female characters. Not that they necessarily inherently dislike reading about females, but society teaches them that they should. Chemaly says, “Children’s ability to cross-gender empathize is a one-way street—girls have to do it and boys learn not to.” She references an instance when her daughter had to explain what sexism was to a male classmate in third grade. Her daughter’s classmate didn’t want to read a book because the cover featured a woman. She responded, “You should read girl books, too. Not reading them just because they’re about girls is sexist.” Chemaly’s daughter’s response rings clear and true. If this is how boys are learning how to judge books, there’s a deep problem with what they are being taught.

This is especially important to think about when marketing children’s books. Is it the marketing team’s job to make a book appeal to both boys and girls? Or is this a societal issue that needs to be fixed on a fundamental level? This should be everyone’s burden to take on. It’s not as simple as publishing more books about girls, although that would be helpful. As a society, there needs to be a point where parents teach children that they can read about either gender and find it enjoyable (specifically for boys reading about girls). On the marketing side, it’s challenging because the audience is often required to be limited. It’s hard to say that a book featuring a princess in a sparkly dress should be marketed towards boys because boys are not included in the all-important target audience. Fiscally, it is a waste of time to market a book to those who will probably not read it. Therefore, this issue would be better handled by parents, educators, and librarians. If it becomes a more acceptable societal norm that both boys and girls somewhat equally enjoy stories about princesses in sparkly dresses, it would be easier to say that boys are a part of the target audience for those books.

The issue of gender presence in books gets even trickier with feminist texts for children and teens. Obviously, with a society filled with books about white male characters, there’s a need for strong females in children’s literature. But how do you teach boys about feminism when society is so firmly grounded in a masculine, patriarchal society? It’s important to think about, as a parent or teacher especially, because a fundamental knowledge of feminism early on could lead to greater cross-gender understanding in the future. By giving boys a book to read with a strong female protagonist, it’s teaching them that women are just as capable as men are. Maybe a straightforward book that defines feminism would even be beneficial to young boys (and girls). More feminist texts should be published in addition to teaching boys why it’s important to learn about. The first step to gaining gender equality is to start with the younger generations. Children’s books aren’t just entertaining texts, but learning tools for morals and values for the future.