Writing and Selling the YA Novel (4 page)

In the past, many cultures held (and some still hold) coming-of-age ceremonies where the line between youth and adulthood is definitively marked for all to see, but in our society, the path to adulthood is not usually as clear. When exactly is a person grown up? For Americans, the idea of adolescence has evolved over the years.

Would it surprise you to know that in 1900 only 6 percent of seventeen-year-olds earned high school diplomas? (
Teenagers: An American History,
Grace Palladino, pg. xv) Back then, attending high school was not something young people took for granted. Most adolescents were responsible for helping their families on farms or in skilled trades. It wasn't until the Great Depression forced so many young people out of work and, consequently, out of their homes, that the government stepped in to make a high school education accessible to more than just the wealthy elite.

This shift away from disparate jobs to mass education allowed adolescents to take on an identity as a group, and people began to look at them differently. Young people now had more opportunity to relate to each other, and they gradually began to define themselves through their music, fashion, and beliefs. Often their definitions conflicted directly with adult attempts to impose more traditional values on them.

The tension between adult values and those of adolescents was certainly not a new thing in terms of world history—one need look no further than nineteenth-century France when so many of the impoverished artists included in the Bohemian subculture were young people who lived their nontraditional lifestyles in sharp opposition to their parents' wishes. But in America, this growing group would gain added attention and power as marketers slowly realized the economic value of reaching out to them. In fact, it was marketers who first used the term teenagers, beginning as "teeners," then "teensters," and finally becoming "teenagers" in 1941 (Palladino, pg. 5?). Targeting adolescents with advertising was not new, but defining them as teenagers and viewing them as more than potential adults waiting to fill prescribed roles took some getting used to.

Teens and adults clashed about their choice of music and dress as the swing-loving bobby-soxers of the 1930s turned into the soldiers and V-girls of the 1940s, the rebellious rock-and-roll fanatics of the 1950s, and the long-haired hippies of the 1960s. As high school educations moved from being elite to commonplace, one thing was becoming quite clear: Young people were a powerful group who didn't intend to mimic their elders.

As teenagers took on their own group definitions, literature meant to address their specific needs and desires had a chance to catch on. Examples of books being written for young people can be found as early as the 1800s with books like Thomas Hughes's
Tom Browns School Days
and Robert Louis Stevenson's
Treasure Island
gaining enormous success, but it wasn't until the 1940s that novels like Maureen Daly's
Seventeenth Summer—
often cited as the first book written in an authentic first-person teenage voice—and Betty Cavanna's
Going on Sixteen
paved the way for what would become YA literature. Even then, it wasn't until the 1950s that publishers and librarians first began to take this literature seriously.

You can see this evolution in the history of the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA). According to its Web site (www. ala.org/yalsa), the Young Adult Services Division, as it was originally known, was formally established in June of 1957. This marked a splitting of the Association of Young People's Librarians, which was established in 1941, into the Children's Library Association and the Young Adult Services Division. Their mission was to "advocate, promote, and strengthen service to young adults as part of the continuum of total library service."

One of the functions the Young Adult Services Division retained from the original Association of Young People's Librarians was the compiling of the annual Best Books for Young Adults list, which began in 195? and was known throughout the years as "Interesting Books" and "Significant Adult Books for Teens" before finally ending up as the list we know today.

I mention these changes and the dates associated with them as a reflection of the way literature for teens has grown over the years. What began as a market where adult books might find popularity among teenagers has gradually developed into something much more deliberate.

This burgeoning interest in literature for teenagers took a giant leap forward when government money became available to libraries in the 1960s under Lyndon Johnson's presidency. Johnson saw education as a central part of fostering the American Dream, and libraries used this funding, in part, to create YA sections and buy the books that would populate these shelves. Not coincidentally, it was around this same time period that groundbreaking books like S.E. Hinton's
The Outsiders
and Paul Zindel's
The Pigman
burst onto the scene and expanded the boundaries of what could be included in teen fiction.

As the teens of the 1980s, 1940s, and 1950s grew up, they began to write books about their own experiences as teenagers. Rather than reflecting the view of teenagers as mini-adults, waiting to obediently take on their roles as homemakers and workers, they brought to the literature they created the same openness and honesty they'd fought hard for over the decades. By the 1970s books for teens had taken on a new realism that reflected the social issues of the time. Books like
Go Ask Alice,
which dealt with teen pregnancy, Judy Blume's
Forever,
which spoke frankly about sex and birth control, and John Donovan's
I'll Get There, It Better Be Worth the Trip,
which deals with homosexuality, didn't pull any punches in their portrayal of teenagers and the tough choices they face as they mature.

This tendency to focus on harsh realities was both a blessing and a curse for YA literature. The books from this time period broke down boundaries of acceptable subject matter and language, and they gave teens a voice of their own, but many of them also gave rise to the stigma of teen books as "problem novels"—underdeveloped stories, didactic in nature, that focused on issues rather than literary merit. Despite how varied literature for teens is today, the perception remains among many people that YA literature is somehow subpar.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

If the pendulum swung too far toward didacticism in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, it was probably because there were so many barriers to break down—barriers that didn't exist to the same degree in adult literature. Teenagers as a group had only just begun to define themselves, and this sense of shifting identity is evident in the books written for and by them. Multiculturalism and acceptance of other sexual orientations also were just beginning to gain a foothold in our country; the irony is that the same teens who historically have been so instrumental in bringing about change in these areas are also the very same group that adults often try hardest to shelter.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the banning of YA books that push the boundaries of what's culturally acceptable. YA writers have always had to fight hard to write what they see as true, even if that truth is uncomfortable, and this was every bit the case when the "problem novel" reached its zenith. Unfortunately, this meant that by the 1990s many librarians and booksellers were tolling the death knell for teen literature. Add to this the fact that in the 1980s not only had the percentage of teenagers in America declined, but library funding had been cut by the Reagan administration, and it's no surprise that teen bookshelves and teen specialists were the first to disappear in many libraries across the country.

We can thank two groups for the survival of YA books. First, the authors who consistently wrote amazing, literary novels through all of these decades, defying the negative stereotypes of books for teenagers, a nd second, the librarians, editors, and booksellers who championed these novels even when others were ready to throw in the towel. It's thanks to them that a field once thought to be on the brink of collapse has become a thriving, vital part of global literature.

Now, many people are saying that we've arrived at a new golden age for YA literature. Over the last two decades we've seen the population of teenagers in America grow tremendously and, by some statistics, that growth won't peak until 2010. We've seen the advent of the YA paperback, which made teen books affordable to their audience and easily distributed, and we've seen the emergence of graphic novels and manga as creative and popular choices for teens. Multicultural books have moved from being nearly nonexistent to being sought after, and more and more books are being written from perspectives other than white, middle class, or wealthy teens. In 1999 the Young Adult Services Division of the American Library Association established the first Michael L. Printz awards to honor literary excellence in books written for twelve- through eighteen-year-olds, so now it's much easier for excellent teen novels to gain the recognition and attention they deserve.

This is an exciting time to be a writer for teenagers. Authors today have fewer restrictions and more recognition than ever before, and with the prevalence of the Internet we have increasing opportunities to market our books directly to our audience. Though you may not always like what they have to say, rap and hip-hop artists have given teens an ear for rhythm and wordplay, and social networking sites like MySpace have given teen authors a fun, accessible image.

Are there still challenges? Definitely. Did you know that the Teen Choice Awards recognize just about every form of entertainment other than books? They give out awards for TV, movies, sports, fashion, and music, but I suspect if anyone suggested they include a "Best

Book" category the idea would never be taken seriously. Why is that? The answer to this question is something that writers for young adults should consider. How do teenagers today view books, and are we doing all we can to keep them reading?

Hopefully the answer is yes, and the books we write today will be part of tomorrow's history—a history other writers will draw on as inspiration for the work they will do in the future.

an easy reference tool, cutting down on the time it takes you to establish your YA reading list. So, don't stress yourself trying to read them all, but whenever you have a chance, choose a title and read it with a critical and historical eye. (I had good luck finding many of the older books on Amazon.com, at used bookstores, and through library book sales.)

1940s:
Seventeenth Summer
by Maureen Daly (Dodd, Mead, 194?)