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Teens Read

© Mindy Rhiger

We’ve all heard the myths. “Teenagers don’t read books anymore.” “Teenagers only read adult books.” “Boys don’t read books.” “No teen would read a book published as YA.” “Books written for teens are less quality reading than adult books.”

Think about those statements for a moment.

Obviously they can’t all be true because they are contradictory to each other. But they are also contradictory to reality. Librarians, teachers, and others who work with teens would object to each of those statements because experience with YA publishing demonstrates that teens of both genders are reading, and they are reading books of all types, those published as YA and otherwise.

These myths are discussed in depth by Marc Aronson in the book Exploding the Myths: the Truth About Teenagers and Reading, which is a collection of essays about YA publishing and teen reading.

The first essay “’The YA Novel is Dead’ and Other Fairly Stupid Tales” trashes the myths about YA literature. It is clear throughout the collection, but more so in this opening essay, that Aronson has a genuine respect for teens and YA literature. He draws on his experience as a YA publisher to say, “In short, the YA genre now engages the profoundest, deepest, and richest issues that we face as a nation.” He points to authors such as Francesca Lia Block, Kyoko Mori, and Nancy Farmer as examples of YA authors who have written with “as much depth, beauty, and insight as they can muster.”

In another essay, Aronson attempts to define YA and YA literature, in which he explores what the term “young adult” has meant in the past and what it means now. The conclusion to which he comes is that “young adulthood is an unstable term for a period of life characterized by wild and uncertain swings between being a child and being an adult. In turn, the literature about this phase ranges over many styles and includes some of the topics of greatest interest to adult authors. All that remains rigid and unbending is our outworn set of categories.”

Aronson also discusses the power of books in one of his more interesting essays. He acknowledges that the written word has a definite power over readers, and he brings up what the implications of that power are in relation to intellectual freedom in youth services. He gives librarians and editors the responsibility of “guarding the bridge of words, not merely to protect it from attack but to prevent its being taken over and used to bring harm.”

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