BOOKS | Books can be embarrassing. Children’s books in particular. But it’s time to stand proud if you love YA.

One of the many covers of the retro classic, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, by Judy Blume, 1970

Great YA for grown ups doesn’t feel easy to come by. Just imagine you’re twelve. You’re at a birthday party and you’ve just unwrapped a bright pink copy of Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. There are boys at the party.

It’s hard to come back from this.

It’s no wonder that graduation into the world of adult literature is such a relief. Salman Rushdie, for example, isn’t likely to ruin your social life.

The thing is, safe as adult fiction may make you feel, abandoning children’s literature may have been a mistake.

Professor and lit expert Dr. Shelley King from Queen’s University, Kingston, says that despite common misconceptions, Young Adult (YA) novels have a lot to offer the adult reader. Here, Dose offers three good reasons to check out (or revisit) the so-called “kiddie-lit” scene.

Great YA for grown ups exists, and it isn’t stupid.

King says the biggest misconception about children’s literature is the assumption that it is “simplistic in terms of its intellectual content or that it offers a lesser literary experience.” Sure, in many cases, YA novels work with a limited lexicon, but that doesn’t mean their stories are less complex, or less compelling. Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy came third in the 2003 BBC search for Britain’s best-loved novel and the series’ third instalment, The Amber Spyglass, was the first children’s book ever to win Britain’s Whitbread Prize for book of the year.

You can’t trust publishers to know you.

At least, not when it comes to knowing what you’re going to like. “Many writers make the claim that they simply write the book and let the publisher decide whether it’s for children, young adults, or grown ups,” says King, “but even publishers are fallible when it comes to defining audience.” So categorization of genre is a marketing necessity, but if you subscribe to it absolutely, it’s easy to miss out. Bloomsbury re-issued the Harry Potter series with adult covers, disguising the books so as to appear age-appropriate. The fact that we carry so much anxiety about how what we read reflects on our personalities seems a bit silly.

YA is refreshingly hopeful. 

“Most good young adult fiction conveys a sense of possibility, of potential for growth and change,” says King. “Though the protagonists of young adult fiction may suffer incredible trauma, the narrative usually demonstrates their capacity for endurance and even personal triumph. In the midst of an unflinching acknowledgement of the worst that life can do to young people, these books offer assurances that change is possible.” She’s not promising a happy ending, but it sounds nice, doesn’t it? Think of it this way: if kids can change, so can you.

Great YA for grown ups to try today.

The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

A Gathering of Shades by David Stahler Jr.

Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

Upstream by Melissa Lion

The Minister’s Daughter by Julie Hearn

A version of this piece published in Dose on July 4, 2005. See clipping below. Want to read the whole interview with Dr. Shelley King in full? Go here.

More books pieces are here.

Published in Dose, July 4, 2005