JILL CORCORAN BOOKS: CHERYL KLEIN'S DEFINITION OF YA LIT

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

CHERYL KLEIN'S DEFINITION OF YA LIT

Read. Digest. Contemplate. Discuss.

5 comments:

Paul Michael Murphy said...: That's pretty good. I've got no quarrel with any of it.; June 10, 2009 at 6:26 AM
Angela said...: I like the adult 'outward look at the world' focus vs YA inward character focus that she describes. I think that's a very clear difference with adult lit having teenage characters and a YA book. Very true.; June 10, 2009 at 7:36 AM
Steven Lee Climer said...: This is one of the most logical genre definitions I've seen regarding YA. You're spot-on about inner-directed growth as a key feature.; June 10, 2009 at 9:37 AM
Shelli said...: this was awesome!

BTW thanks for you sweet comment on my agent post - almost made me cry *sniff* ;); June 10, 2009 at 9:09 PM
anicalewis said...: This is a great list. As others said in the comments, I'd love to see a similar one for middle-grade, or a key to how MG novels differ from YA as defined in this list.

There's content, obviously - if a faithful movie of the book would be rated above PG-13 for sex, violence, etc., then the book might not belong in MG - but I wonder whether it also relies on the difference in protagonist experience based on age. After all, a book might follow an eleven-year-old, focusing largely on her personal growth and using an active style as described here, but an eleven-year-old's personal growth might be different from a young teen's. (I'm thinking in particular about the wacky world of hormones.)

That said, where does one put a series (the obvious example being Harry Potter) wherein the protagonist ages from child to teen over several books?; July 6, 2009 at 7:42 PM

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