YA or not YA, that is the question...
This started out as a response to Dianeâs post here about YA literature and its long history prior to what some people think inspired it, but got longer (Oh! What a surprise!) and wandered far enough from the initial subject that I decided to post separately.
So here it is.
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Many years ago my town library (in Northern Ireland, so following UK library practice, I suppose) had just two sections, Adult and Children. There was no YA section, and the Childrenâs section covered everything from large-format picture books through to hardback novels and the usual amount of non-fiction.
(Library books were almost always bought in hardback for better wear, and even the softback picture books were rebound with heavy card inserts.)
There were classics like âTreasure Islandâ, Â âKidnappedâ, âKing Solomonâs Minesâ âUnder the Red Robeâ and âThe Jungle Booksâ.
There were standalone titles like âThe Otterbury Incidentâ, âThe Silver Swordâ, âThe Sword in the Stoneâ and âThe Stone Cageâ.
There were series about characters like William, Biggles, Jennings and his counterpart Molesworth, the Moomins, Narnia and Uncle.
There were authors like Alan Garner, Nicholas Stuart Grey, Rosemary Sutcliffe, Henry Treece, Ronald Welch⌠And of course there was J.R.R. Tolkien.
The first time I got "The Hobbit", "Farmer Giles of Ham" and "Smith of Wootton Major" they were shelved in the Children's section. This was about 1968-69.
In the early 1970s the library moved to larger premises, which allowed room for Very Young Children (where the picture books now lived) and Children (everything else), still with no YA section, though with more advanced picture books like âTintinâ and âAsterixâ * in a sort of no-manâs-land between them.
( * These included editions in the original French, which turned out very useful for making language lessons at school a bit more fun and gaining extra marks in exams through judiciously enhanced vocabulary.)
âThe Hobbitâ et cetera were still on the Children shelves, but now that the library was larger and more open-plan, volumes of "The Lord of The Rings", normally in the Adult section, occasionally got shelved there as well by well-meaning non-staff people.
I never saw âThe Hobbitâ mis-shelved alongside âLord of the Ringsâ among the Adults, but Farmer Gilesâ and âSmithâ sometimes turned up there, courtesy of those same well-meaning hands.
Itâs probably because the first, with its sometimes complex wordplay and mock-heroic plot, reads like a humorous parody of more serious works, while the second, if read in the right frame of mind, can seem quite adult in the style of Sylvia Townsend Warnerâs âKingdoms of Elfinâ - which is in fact a good deal more adult than âSmith of Wootton Majorâ, even if you squint.
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This âHobbitâ / âRingsâ confusion is a lightweight version of assuming a particular author writes every book for the same age-group. This is very much not the case.
Sometimes the thickness of the book is a giveaway. Compare, for instance, @neil-gaimanâs âAmerican Godsâ with âCoralineâ or indeed âFortunately, The Milkâ.
Sometimes the cover is a hint, for example the difference between âLive and Let Dieâ by Ian Fleming...
...and âChitty Chitty Bang Bangâ, also by Ian Fleming...
...although the original James Bond novels are â apart from some extremely dated attitudes â a lot more weaksauce than many YA books nowadays.
(More weaksauce still now that Fleming, like Roald Dahl and Agatha Christie, has been censored to conceal the extent to which - let's call them Certain Attitudes - were a standard feature in British popular fiction. Apparently (I haven't read any Newspeak Bond so can't confirm) the redaction was done in a curiously slapdash way, removing some things while leaving others.
These novels have become, IMO anyway, period pieces as much as Kipling, Doyle, Dickens and Austen, and erasure probably has less to do with sensitivity - maybe with some "brush it under the rug and they'll forget about it" involved - than with keeping them marketable, so Fleming doesn't go the way of other once-bestselling writers like "Sapper" and Sydney Horler.)
It would also be a mistake, despite advisory wizards Tom and Carl, to think that @dduaneâs âYoung Wizardsâ books are meant for the same age-group as her âMiddle Kingdomsâ series â although, once again, the later YW books and all of the MK slot into what a modern YA audience expects from its fiction.
But sometimes thereâs absolutely no doubt that This Book by This Author is not meant for the readership of That Book by The Same Author. Iâm thinking of one example which caused a certain amount of amusement.
âBee Hunterâ by Robert Nye is a retelling of the Beowulf story for children, though IIRC occasional bloody episodes as Grendel takes Hrothgarâs housecarls apart make it more suited to older children.Â
Iâd brought home a copy from the library when much younger, and borrowed it again years later in company with another Nye novel, âFalstaffâ...
...which was poetic, historic, melancholic, often bawdy, frequently funny and at all times most emphatically NOT for children, as indicated by some of these chapter headings - I draw your attention to XX, XXII, XXXII and especially XL... ;->
Yes. Quite... :->
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I was familiar with card index systems from quite early in my life, because my grandfatherâs grocerâs shop had a fairly simple one for keeping track of customers, suppliers, stock and so forth, and since the libraryâs index card system cross-referenced in the same way, I was already home and dry.
If I could remember a title, I'd find the author, and once found I could track down other titles by that author (which, as shown above, can be educational...) Even if I could only remember the subject - historical, adventure, comedy - I'd still have narrowed my search window more than somewhat.
(This from-here-to-there mindset later became virtual train travel by way of the electronic timetables which SBB â Swiss Railways â used to issue on CD, and which let me âtravelâ anywhere in Europe, complete with a map. Those CDs are long discontinued, but I can still do virtual travel courtesy of the SBB website. Complete with a mapâŚ)
This is the last one we got, kept for sentimental reasons and occasional outdated train-travel on an equally outdated XP netbook.
As you do.
Or as I do, anyway. :->
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I also knew about title request cards and interlibrary loans, and was a frequent user - never more so than when I started reading âThe Lord of the Ringsâ for the first time.
The town library didnât have all three volumes, just âThe Fellowship of the Ringâ and âThe Two Towersâ, so I checked them out on a Friday to read over the weekend.
You can already see where this is going⌠:->
I finished âFellowshipâ late on Saturday afternoon, went straight into âTowersâ and by Sunday evening was all of a twitter (no, not that one) or as my mum would have said, up to high Doh, as I fretted about Not Knowing What Happened Next.
Fortunately school was no more than a brisk bike ride from the library, so I devoted my Monday morning break to zooming down and filling in one of the most urgent title requests Iâve ever made, then spent the rest of the week on tenterhooks, looking in every lunchtime and each afternoon on my way home.
Just In Case.
Some kindly librarian must have pulled strings or stamped the request "Expedite Soonest", because when I went back to school after Thursday lunch, I had âThe Return of the Kingâ burning a hole in my saddlebag.
I wanted to start reading it at once, but good sense prevailed; imagine getting caught between chapters at the back of a boring Geography lesson and Having The Book ConfiscatedâŚ
I didnât pay much attention in class on Friday, due to being half-asleep after starting âReturnâ in the evening after prep and finishing it in the wee hours of the morning.
But being tired didnât prevent me from starting with âFellowshipâ again on Friday night, and this time being able to read right through to the end without needing to stop.
It Was GreatâŚ
