Young adult literature is indefinable. This said there are current trends that help give parameters and categories inside young adult literature. Hunt in his 2007 article talks about the relatively new crossover novel phenomenon that is further blurring the lines between young adult and adult literature. Specifically now the length of the YA book is being extended and broadened to include longer and longer books in their awards to challenge the attention spans of today’s teens. I agree with some of my colleagues that perhaps the only requirement for being a young adult book is the quest for identity, a sense of self and individual agency, which may include a coming of age story, and/or one or more interwoven romances.
This goes right along with Roger Suttons interview with Parry Campbell. Where Campbell explains that the YA book is focused on character or characters who are becoming adults and who are “finding the answer to the internal and eternal question “Who am I and what am I going to do about it?” (p. 110-111) Basically YA books are about forming and shaping adult identity or developing multiple adult identities. Even this is ambiguous as many books of other types are about the growth and defining of identity or identities Wonder is an example as is the Freak the Mighty series, as is The evolution of Calpurnia Tate as is the a mango colored space just to name a few children’s books that fit this characteristic of YA literature.
The crossover phenomenon is doing even more to muddle things up. But if your like me you are encouraged by the quote on page 113 of the Sutton article. “Statistics from bookstores show that YA fiction is now outselling adult fiction by a large margin.” Cheers to the future of YA, teens and the future of reading!
