From: "Kay E. Vandergrift" kvander@scils.rutgers.edu
Subject: Young Adult Literature
It sounds as if you are going to have an interesting scrapbook for your
project. Now, to try to answer some of your questions.
I think it's a combination of all the things you mentioned that makes young
adult fiction--character, theme, length, subject. (I'm sure you expected me
to say that, but it is true.)
Your second question is a little more difficult, and there are many
answers. Many authors say that they don't choose their subject matter; it
chooses them. It is fascinating to hear or read what authors say about
this. Some feel compelled to write a particular story; others tell of
planning to write one story but "finding another on the page." Often they
talk about their work in such mystical terms. Many novels which we now
consider young adult fiction were written for adults and later taken over
by young adults--a lot of the "classics" and Catcher in the Rye, for
instance. Even today an author may write a novel thinking it is for adults,
or with no specific audience in mind, only to have an editor decide that it
is a young adult novel. Of course, many writers do deliberately decide to
write for young adults. The best of them still have some sense of what it
feels like to be an adolescent and can use that in their storytelling. It's
not enough for an older person to remember his/her own adolescence because
so much changes so quickly. But some of the basic feelings are still the
same--even if the specific trappings change. The good writer of young adult
fiction finds ways to tune into today's kids and their concerns while
peeling back all the layers of time and adult concerns to get to those
feelings of what it was--and is-- to be an adolescent. As you can imagine,
this is very, very difficult and only a few can do it really well.
Your next question is easy. young adult fiction appeals to many adults
because, at its best, it is just good story! And one of the amazing things
about being a reader is that readers can, vicariously at least, be any age
and live through any experiences.
There are different opinions about the beginnings of young adult fiction. A
lot of people say Maureen Daly's Seventeen Summer in the 1940s was the
first young adult novel. In the 1950s Betty Cavanna, Rosemary Du Jardin and
Anne Emery wrote for young adult females and Henry Gregor Felson, John
Tunis, and others were popular with young men. Most publishers set up
special young adult divisions beginning in the late sixties or early
seventies. S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders, written when Susie Hinton was a
teenager is often considered the beginning of modern young adult fiction.
Poetry is more ageless than fiction and thus what you will find is a number
of collections of poems selected for young adults. Check in your local
public library or your school library and you should find a large number of
such collections. The same thing is true for short stories and drama--they
are least age-bound.
Among the most popular fiction writers for young adults are the following:
Robert Cormier, Cynthia Voigt, Robin McKinley, David Klass, Donna Jo
Napoli. There are many more but this is a start. If you visit my pages
called "Kay's 100 List" you will find a lengthy list of young adult titles
that I ask my graduate students to read. Go to:
http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/special/kay/100list.html
You will also find pages at my site on coming-of-age novels that are adult
novels written about young adults facing growing up under vastly differing
circumstances, but remember these are adult novels. Go to:
http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/special/kay/age.html
http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/special/kay/male.html
You can print out any of these pages to use in your scrapbook.
Hope this helps in your project! Good Luck! Kay
