in defense of YA

I’m just gonna come right out and say it. I don’t understand people who are dismissive of young adult fiction. I never have.

I was reading a blog post and the writer was reviewing several books at a time and she said one of the books she read, which was written for teenagers, wasn’t appealing because it wasn’t “serious literature.” Give me a break.

Artistic rendering of me walking out of the Tuckahoe Library with my Princess Diaries books

Last summer, I found out that author Meg Cabot had published like six or seven books in her Princess Diaries series (one of my favorites in middle school) that I never knew about and therefore hadn’t read yet. So what did I do? I hauled ass to my local library. Twenty minutes later, I walked out holding a towering stack of books, all with hot pink covers and titles like Party Princess and Princess on the Brink. And then I sat on my couch for two days straight and read.

Did it require a lot of brain power? No. Did I finish each book in approximately three hours? Yes. Did that detract from the enjoyment I got out of each book? Hell no. But I loved it anyway.

And that’s the point. I don’t necessarily read YA to be “challenged” (though that happens often—I will slap-fight ANYONE who says that Harry Potter doesn’t deal with heavy issues). I read YA because, more often than not, young adult fiction deals with characters that are caught in this crucible of figuring out who they are and what they want. Teenagers go through hell; there’s a reason that, when I tell people I teach middle school, the reactions are usually something along the lines of “Oh, God, I’m SO sorry.” They’re tough kids to deal with sometimes, and many of them have a reason to be.

There’s a reason that so many “classic” novels are written about (and sometimes by) teenagers. It’s an intense time, and intense times, for better or worse, make for great stories. To discount an entire genre of literature simply because the target audience can’t see R-rated movies yet is to deprive yourself of stories that are rich with complicated emotions that I think a lot of adults are quick to sweep under the rug. Young adults deal with a lot of “firsts” and good young adult fiction approaches with those “firsts” with grace, sensitivity, and power.

Anne Frank. Scout Finch. Huck Finn. The March girls. Romeo and Juliet. Holden Caulfield. Ponyboy. Matilda. Harry Potter. Percy Jackson. We’re still talking about these characters years (even decades) later, because their stories resonate with us. We remember what it was like to wade into the waters of how to deal with crappy home lives, or first loves, or our own personal demons. Powerful stuff.

And that, to me, makes YA infinitely worth reading.