Defining Young Adult Literature

Education 111x

People who deny the existence of a genre called young adult literature simply assert that people don’t have a need for the printed page, nor possess a literary voice during their adolescent years (i.e. after reading Peter Pan, readers generally move on to Lolita). People accept the existence of children’s literature as well as adult literature, so why not acknowledge a body of literature for the period of human life between 12 (end of childhood) and 18 (beginning of adulthood)? A majority tend to view literature for adolescents in the same way that they view adolescence: a period of uncertainty when kids are no-longer-kids-but-not-quite-adults.

In truth, young adult (YA) literature is not analogous to adolescence, in the sense that it’s a well-defined, well-crafted body of literature. But before going into the different factors that define young adult literature, it is necessary to dispel the notion that it is not a legitimate literary genre.

Literary Genre Defined

One can imagine that during Shakespeare’s time, literary genres numbered as many as the bard’s fingers. Yet with the passage of time, new literary styles, diversified reading preferences, and societal upheavals have resulted in more and more literary genres and sub-genres. One thing is for certain, the definition of literary genres has been almost entirely dependent on society and its institutions. As Alastair Fowler put it, “The concept of a literary work is dependent upon there being human institutions (of which indeed critics have become an integral part), governing its production, and guaranteeing its relationship to human purposes.” But more than saying that the literary genre is a manifestation of the interplay between different human institutions, what makes a genre a genre? Tzvetan Todorov once said that what is central to the genre is not the subject matter per se but rather the state of mind it induces. Prosody does not suffice as a determinant of genre; genre is also defined by the kind of feelings they evoke from the person flipping the pages.

Young adult literature qualifies as a literary genre in both Fowler and Todorov’s books: it reflects societal changes as well as induces a certain range of reactions among adolescent readers. Now that we’ve proven that young adult literature is a genre, how do we recognize this rose amongst other roses? “Like different personalities, different genres are distinguished from one another by which characteristics predominate,” Heather Dubrow asserts. So recognizing young adult literature necessitates going over its predominant characteristics.
Their Issues

In G. Stanley Hall’s authoritative fourteen-hundred page book about adolescence, he defines adolescence as a “universal, unavoidable, and extremely precarious stage of human development.” He goes on to say that behavior indicating insanity in adults should be considered normal in an adolescent. It is the issues and emotions that take place in this “precarious” and “insane” stage of human life that young adult literature tackles: independence, angst, confusion, uncertainty. In S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders, considered the first American YA novel, Ponyboy wants something that most teens can attest to wanting just as much—to fit in. Ponyboy’s struggle with the disparity between the greasers (social outcasts) and the socs (high society) speaks of how much teens are preoccupied with belonging to a group, or at least being perceived as cool by others.

A common misconception is that literature for adolescents deal with shallow themes. In an attempt at reality, YA literature has actually dealt with issues such as sex, violence and domestic problems—all of which are experienced by some teens. Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet may primarily be a tale of survival, but it also talks of how the main character feels about his parents divorcing. Lauren Anderson’s Speak has Melinda wondering aloud why her parents stay together despite their constant squabbling. Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War and The Outsiders talk about gangs and bullies. Victor Martinez’s Parrot in the Oven has a miscarriage scene that may be deemed unsuitable for the YA audience.

What is inherent in YA literature is how these themes cross gender and race. In The Outsiders, for example, Ponyboy comes from a low-income African-American family, yet his sentiments about wanting to belong are not uncommon among adolescents, regardless of race. Another example is Parrot in the Oven’s Manny, a stereotypical Mexican-American immigrant (complete with an overbearing father and martyr mother) whose actions are typically adolescent. He actually embodies Erik Erikson’s observation of “the adolescent’s willingness to put his trust in those peers and leading, or misleading, elders who give imaginative, if not illusory, scope to his aspirations.” And it doesn’t matter which historical era the writer chooses to set his story against. For instance, The Midwife’s Apprentice by Karen Cushman is set in a medieval village, but Beetle’s quest for her self-worth is a feeling that resonates with any teenager.

Another theme that is typically adolescent is subversiveness. By subversive we mean defying rules and defying the people who make these rules: adults. In Harriet the Spy by Helen Ericson, Harriet spies on adults and lists down all the foolish things they do. In Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass, Lyra defies adults and goes against even more powerful adults, in her quest to save children from the gobblers. More crossing of these adult-set boundaries happens in In E.L. Konigsburg’s The Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, where Claudia and Jamie run away, break into a museum, and land in the papers. Despite the havoc that they cause, the adolescent characters usually get away with subversive behavior. As Michael Newcomb writes in his article Adolescence: Pathologizing a Normal Process, “Teenagers must break the rules to a moderate extent if they are to establish a true and effective personal identity.” It is this search for their true identity that draws young adult readers to books that portray young adult protagonists who face the same identity crises, like Beetle in The Midwife’s Apprentice.

Adolescent themes are integral to YA literature, because they ensure that the readers connect with the text and understand it. It is this very first criteria for defining and recognizing YA literature that eliminates J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye from the YA bookshelf; the issues and images in the book are clearly very adult. Furthermore, Catcher is written in a language whose layers of meaning may elude young readers—which leads us to the next characteristic…

The ALA may frown upon the popularity of Meg Cabot’s The Princess Diaries, but it is one of the best examples of the language of YA literature. In Diaries, Mia speaks like any other adolescent girl, a language that displays an adolescent’s spunk, self-consciousness and excitement over things that will not even matter to her in 2 years. Many of today’s young adult writers have this gift of making their characters speak in a way that is authentically adolescent. Writing in this language shouldn’t be mistaken for “dumbing down” adult language, because it’s actually mastering quite a different language altogether. It is a language shaped by adolescents’ fears (about everything from getting a zit to kissing a guy for the first time), inhibitions, and views. It’s a language filled with terms they coined with their friends, secret code names and acronyms. A funny example of how crazy the language can be is seen in this passage from Tanuja Desai Hidier’s Born Confused:

Writing in the first person also helps readers gain access to the speaker’s innermost feelings—some of which remain unsaid to other characters in the story. Being able to find out the main character’s (usually an adolescent) real feelings adds to the honesty of the language. An excellent example of this is Laurie Anderson’s Speak, told through the viewpoint of Melinda, its main character, in a brutally honest voice. Melinda acts like she’s above all the madness around her but gives away her adolescence in the way she painstakingly describes things, and how some things—that adults may consider superficial--obviously matter to her:

Can everybody in the elevator

feel my whole body loving this boy?
The language used for YA literature is a language largely determined by the adolescents’ realm of experience. This is one of the remarkable things about YA literature: readers have to be convinced that the characters are speaking in voices that clearly show that they have only lived on this planet for at least 12 years and that being seen by your crush in a hideous outfit is like being burned at stake. Writing in a believable language will only lead to believable characters. And almost always, these believable characters achieve some form of…
Closure

This aspect of YA literature is the one that may not be necessary for adult fiction: YA literature offers a sense of closure. Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet lets the readers experience the hardships of Brian in the Canadian woodlands but sees him safely home in the end. Stanley in Louis Sachar’s Holes is the eternal loser who gets himself into seemingly inextricable, sticky situations, but ends up in a better disposition at the close of the novel. There are a couple of exceptions to this rule but generally, YA novels grant their adolescent readers a night of peaceful sleep. And so Deenie goes to the party (body brace and all) and even gets to kiss Buddy. Meg in a Madeleine D’ Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time makes it back from tessering through time and space.

Giving a sense of closure sends out a message to teen readers: yes, adolescence is hard, but you’ll get through it. Every single day of adolescence is filled with dilemmas and decisions concerning their family, their friends and themselves. They go on quests to discover who they really are and what things really matter in their lives. This is where YA literature finds a purpose: it gives adolescent readers characters they can relate to and stories that are actually slices of reality, to help them out at this stage in their lives.

Young adult literature is a celebration of that quirky, not-so-normal, unpredictable stage of adolescence. YA books celebrate everything about it--even the day you’re embarrassed in front of the whole 8^th grade class. And in this mix of stories that adolescents want told or remain untold, they find the courage, self-assurance and encouragement that they need to get through the crises of adolescent life. Through this literature, they’ll hopefully find the “time, space and guidance to help them weather the tumult and pain of adolescence”, that Hall wanted them to have.