Which books count as Young Adult, and which as teen or New Adult is ambiguous, and their readership is equally hard to define
YAs, NAs or teens? … young men reading. Photograph: Cultura Creative (RF) /Alamy
After the costume-crowded overexcitement of the first ever Young Adult Literature Convention, brainchild of current children's laureate Malorie Blackman, many authors, readers and bloggers have been mulling over what exactly it is that makes a book YA. Is "YA" the same as "teen", and who is it read by? What are its requirements and restrictions? And what about "New Adult"?
In the past, I've used the labels "teen" and "YA" interchangeably, but a quick straw poll of aficionados reveals two differing standpoints. Some feel they basically cover the same ground, and others think that while both refer to age categories "teen" covers 12-14, and "YA" is aimed at about 14+. For the latter, the later Harry Potter books, in which torture and murder come to the fore after the gentler series beginnings, would count as "teen". YA, meanwhile, is more likely to deal frankly with sex, tackle challenging issues and adult relationships, and feature swearing. Andrew Smith's Grasshopper Jungle, for instance, a genre-melting account of perpetual adolescent horniness against a backdrop of mutated, man-eating human locusts, pulls no punches in its frank examination of teen lust, expressed throughout in pungent and profane language.
However, the acceptability of the F-word varies widely from publisher to publisher, and its inclusion may mean a book falls foul of gatekeepers or won't be stocked by school libraries, limiting its potential readership. (This can be frustrating for YA authors, who feel that, as teenagers habitually swear, trying to create convincing voices for them without using anything stronger than "flip" can strain credibility – and seem, in a world full of sweary films, telly and video games, futile.
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In the past, I've used the labels "teen" and "YA" interchangeably, but a quick straw poll of aficionados reveals two differing standpoints. Some feel they basically cover the same ground, and others think that while both refer to age categories "teen" covers 12-14, and "YA" is aimed at about 14+. For the latter, the later Harry Potter books, in which torture and murder come to the fore after the gentler series beginnings, would count as "teen". YA, meanwhile, is more likely to deal frankly with sex, tackle challenging issues and adult relationships, and feature swearing. Andrew Smith's Grasshopper Jungle, for instance, a genre-melting account of perpetual adolescent horniness against a backdrop of mutated, man-eating human locusts, pulls no punches in its frank examination of teen lust, expressed throughout in pungent and profane language.
However, the acceptability of the F-word varies widely from publisher to publisher, and its inclusion may mean a book falls foul of gatekeepers or won't be stocked by school libraries, limiting its potential readership. (This can be frustrating for YA authors, who feel that, as teenagers habitually swear, trying to create convincing voices for them without using anything stronger than "flip" can strain credibility – and seem, in a world full of sweary films, telly and video games, futile.
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