Young Adult Literature

Posted by Mechele R. Dillard Jan 27, 2007

Floating around the Web today, I ran across a rather heated discussion on young adult literature: Genre or Audience? Odd question, I think. But, hey, if it is a question under debate, then it is one that should be addressed.

YAL is a literary genre, and it contains within its spectrum the many topic genres one would expect--science fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, realistic fiction, etc. Honestly, the idea that it is simply an audience is, well, rather silly, if you think about it. I mean, if that were true, everything read by young adults would then be young adult literature, whether it be Jane Austen, Ernest Hemingway, William Carlos Williams, Stephen King, or Chris Crutcher--it would all fall under YAL, simply because of its audience, and that is just, well, asinine.

The idea that YAL is a literary genre seems to be a threatening point for many dissenters, which I find puzzling. Why, really, is the idea that YAL is a separate literary genre so upsetting? Probably because it is not a "classic" literary genre, and many academics and purists are extremely rigid about the idea of what qualifies as "true literature." But, guess what? Times change, whether you roll with the flow or not.

My guess would be, actually, that most of the people who are so set against the idea of YAL as a literary genre are not well-read in the area. It would be hard to imagine that anyone could read YAL extensively and not recognize it as a unique category in the world of literature.

Let's open our minds and enter curious.