YA Books

What are YA books

Finding more about Young adult reading within our libraries By: Lola Buitron

For a very long time, there was a whole group of people not being appealed to within literature. Then young adults or YA came into the mix. YA is a relatively new thing. But it isn’t really a genre.

Young adult is often classified as a genre of reading but that isn’t quite accurate. It is a large category of reading with many sub-genres within itself and its own tropes. A trope is a plot device, theme, character arc, or other storytelling elements that have become formulaic through repeated use. It is also a relatively new category. It was not as prevalent now as it was in the 70s or 80s. It was a very small genre.

Alanna Graves, a youth librarian at Carver Public Library helps young adults and people of all ages find books that people will enjoy.

“I think that YA is one of those categories as you are growing up and you’re in high school,” Graves said “I think that this is an opportunity to really encourage kids to read. And if kids don’t see themselves reflected in books, why are they gonna become readers? And that part of my job is to encourage and foster a love of reading. But it’s important to me to find titles who can learn about themselves and reflect in literature.”

So much of the way we contextualize books and our feelings about them relates to ourselves. It’s much easier to like characters that remind us of ourselves or have motivations, value systems, struggles, and backgrounds similar to ours. There is not a lot of diversity within books, so when picking out the books they put into the library that is a checkmark on the things to consider. There’s still a major gap with diversity within books. “What I don’t like about YA is diversity and this is a challenge with the publishing industry as a whole, we need more diverse voices, we need more diverse books in general,” Graves said.

There are movements to help increase diversity in young adult books. The We Need Diverse Books movement is loud and growing. We need a diverse movement and the demand for more diverse books within our libraries is available and accessible to us in general. So everyone can see themselves represented within literature.

New books display at Bowie High school Photo taken by Tara Leon The book was better, Austin Edition | 34

However, the shift toward equality isn’t happening fast enough, so it’ll be a long time before publishing reaches parity. It’s important to be mindful that not everyone is able to see themselves represented in literature. But that doesn’t mean things aren’t changing. When asking Elizabeth Switek, a librarian at Lasa high school.

“ Inclusion has definitely been increasing over the last 10 years in which both people are more aware of it,” And I feel like it’s increasing at the same rate. There’s a lot of white people who are writing books with diverse characters, and they themselves as an author are not diverse. I definitely saw authors not increasing as much, but the characters and books themselves are becoming more diverse.” said Switek.

YA books are often looked at like a vacation or maybe Lighter reads than maybe adult books. When asked if people who wanted to read YA books are looking for an “easy read”, Switek said. “Maybe that’s okay. It depends on what you are in the mood for. And also, what is your brain allowing you to, you just want to be treated, sometimes you want something kind to switch to high school because I really liked it reading YA books, I’m like reading middle grade, but I really was kind of wanting to spend more time being able to read YA books because I read tons of these books for my own personal reading and so it’s nice to be able to be more interested in the books that I’m reading and trying to recommend to kids so as opposed to a middle school book.” of light and easy. Like you just want to snack? You don’t want something super heavy. Maybe something easy to digest.” Publishers started to notice what kind of books were getting huge amounts of traction like “The book “The Outsiders’’ was so popular that it started to kind of change the publishing industry where they started to come out with more YA titles, fast forward to the 1990s. I think the 90s and early 2000nds was the first time that public libraries specifically started having enough books to make their own young adult separate collection.” said Graves.

Essentially, YA novels are marketed towards young adults aged between 14 and 18. But not just teenagers read YA.Young-adult literature typically centers on teenagers. But while the publishing industry markets these books primarily to young adults, that’s not always who reads them. Approximately 55 percent of today’s YA readers are adults.

Switek said, “When choosing what type of librarian to be one of the things that pushed her to be a high school librarian is ultimately wanted

New books being showcased in Stacked books Photo from Adobe stock

It is much more widely accepted for adults to openly enjoy YA books now, though at one point it was viewed as embarrassing. For example, Tara Leon, the librarian at Bowie High School, said, “ I follow these people on Goodreads. There’s a group called Crazy for YA and they’re adults. So there are definitely groups of adults that follow YA.”

YA books are also great for evoking nostalgia; they can remind older readers of their childhoods and teenage years, making them a comforting presence for those who just refuse to grow up and embrace their boring, often excitement-free adult lives.

When picking books, librarians are considerate and attempt to acquire books for everyone’s interest. So getting some adult books but also thinking of what the kids will want to read. “I do a lot of research. I read the School Library Journal. I take recommendations from kids. Because I want to get books the kids will want” said Leon.

Because Y.A. isn’t as subdivided on bookshelves, authors don’t need to worry about blending elements of different genres. They can write something that doesn’t fit into one particular genre. Which isn’t something that is very common or as easy to do with books aimed at different age groups or with adult books. “mystery, thriller, romance, fantasy, and Afrofuturism. Those would be genres. There are all of those within YA, it’s not just one” said Leon.

YA is less about the age of the reader and more about the age of the protagonist. The thing about grown-ups is, they were all kids and teens once; thus we would all be able to identify with books that have more youthful heroes, as long as there’s sufficient plot and subjects to hold our advantage. “I’m not a kid anymore but when reading YA I get to remember kind of what that was like.” Graves said.

A dominant part of any book’s success is its escapist appeal, and YA excels at providing this. The fantastical universes and sheer imaginativeness and creative mind of YA are seldom matched by grown-up writing. This might be one reason why so many adults enjoy YA so much. A big part of any book’s success is its escapist appeal, and YA is really good at providing that, said Graves.

People tend to want to read books that they relate to or can see themselves in. That is one of the reasons why Young Adult fiction has gotten so big because there hadn’t really been a category with characters that teens can really relate to or see themselves in.

But some adults may lose interest in YA because the situations aren’t as relatable to them. “Maybe as you get more distance from your teenage years, you’re not as interested in seeing a teenage character,” Switek said.

Carver Branch, Austin Public Library Photo by Preetesh V. February 17, 2017 From Yelp