Former leading New Zealand publisher and bookseller, and widely experienced judge of both the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Montana New Zealand Book Awards, talks about what he is currently reading, what impresses him and what doesn't, along with chat about the international English language book scene, and links to sites of interest to booklovers.
Saturday, August 24, 2013
WHY ISN'T YA TAKEN SERIOUSLY?
via We Love This Book
C.J. Daugherty on why Young Adult fiction isn't taken seriously
by anyone other than its fans
There
are a lot of theories out there about why things are as they are. My personal
theory is it’s a kind of snobbery. It seemed to begin around the time the Harry
Potter books became popular. You’d often read articles in the major UK
newspapers about how absurd it was to see adults reading children’s books on
the tube. Pundits bemoaned the 'dumbing down' of literature. The Potter books
broke sales records but were not included on many bestseller lists because they
were technically children’s books. In some cases it was the Potter books that
made newspapers decide to separate children’s books out from adult books for
their bestseller charts – so the sales figures of 'real' books weren’t
diminished by the presence of children’s books on the list.
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1 comment:
YA 'should' be taken more seriously - there are many great examples. Try Annabel Pitcher, John Green, Mal Peet, Meg Rosoff, Sonya Hartnett Malorie Blackman or Maggie Steifvater. But please don't start with 'City of Bones'
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