Young-adult fiction

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search

This article may be in need of reorganization to comply with Wikipedia's layout guidelines. Please help by editing the article to make improvements to the overall structure. (April 2011)

Young-adult fiction or young adult literature (often abbreviated as YA) is fiction written for, published for, or marketed to adolescents and young adults, roughly ages 14 to 21. The Young Adult Library Services (YALSA) of the American Library Association (ALA) defines a young adult as "someone between the ages of twelve and eighteen". Young adult novels have also been defined as texts written for the ages of twelve and up. Authors and readers of young adult (YA) novels often define the genre as "literature written for ages ranging from ten years up to the age of twenty" (Cole). Another suggestion for the definition is that Young Adult Literature is any text being read by adolescents, though this definition is still somewhat controversial.

Although YA literature shares the fundamental elements of character, plot, setting, theme, and style common to other genres of fiction, theme and style are often subordinated to the more tangible basic narrative elements such as plot, setting, and character, which appeal more readily to younger readers. The vast majority of YA stories portray an adolescent as the protagonist, rather than an adult or a child.

It is generally agreed that Young Adult Literature is literature written for adolescent readers, and in some cases published by adolescent writers. The subject matter and story lines are typically consistent with the age and experience of the main character, but beyond that YA stories span the entire spectrum of fiction genres. Themes in YA stories often focus on the challenges of youth, so much so that the entire age category is sometimes referred to as problem novels or coming of age novels. Writing styles of YA stories range widely, from the richness of literary style to the clarity and speed of the unobtrusive and even free verse.

1 History of young-adult fiction
2 Popular contributions to young-adult fiction
3 Genre
4 Themes
5 Characteristics
6 Usage in Education
7 Edgy content
8 Hyphens (young adult vs. young-adult)
9 Literature
10 Trends
11 Boundaries between children's, YA, and adult fiction
12 Awards
13 See also
14 Notes
15 Other publications
16 References
17 External links

History of young-adult fiction

The first recognition of young adults as a distinct group was by Sarah Trimmer, who in 1802 described "young adulthood" as lasting from ages 14 to 21. In her self-founded children's literature periodical, The Guardian of Education, Trimmer introduced the terms "Books for Children" (for those under fourteen) and "Books for Young Persons" (for those between fourteen and twenty-one), establishing terms of reference for young adult literature that remain in use today. However, nineteenth-century publishers did not specifically market to young readers, and adolescent culture did not exist in a modern sense.

Beginning in the 1920s, it was said that "this was the first time when it became clear that the young were a separate generation" (Cart 43); but multiple novels that fit into the YA category had been published long before. In the nineteenth century there are several early examples that appealed to young readers (Garland 1998, p. 6) including The Swiss Family Robinson (1812), Waverly (1814), Oliver Twist (1838), The Count of Monte Cristo (1844), Tom Brown's Schooldays (1857), Great Expectations (1860) and Alice in Wonderland (1865), The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), Kidnapped (1886), The Jungle Book (1894) and Moonfleet (1898).

A few other novels that were published around the turn of the century include Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson, Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll, Heidi, by Johanna Spyri, and Black Beauty by Anna Sewell. In 1937 The Hobbit, by J. R. R. Tolkien, was published, and Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943) also is a beloved by adolescents today. Some claim that the first real young adult novel was The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, and that it opened up a whole new eye to what types of texts adolescent readers read. Following this novel, other classic texts such as Harper Lee's, To Kill a Mockingbird; Maya Angelou's novel, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings; and Toni Morrison's, The Bluest Eye all entered the genre of Young Adult Literature as well, along with many others.

As the decades moved on, the stormy sixties became the era "when th

Nothing was found!