Saturday, August 16, 2008

Point/Counterpoint: Young Adult Science Fiction

Here's the latest literary tempest in a teapot. Both posts are found at http://www.io9.com/, a blog for those "strung out on science fiction".

Excerpt: The biggest growth in science fiction publishing these days, hands down, is happening in the young adult market, and that's great news. While the "real" science fiction publishers are chasing a shrinking — and graying — readership, tweens and teens are discovering SF for themselves, thanks to books from a diverse range of writers. Best of all, YA science fiction isn't aimed at a subculture, but at everybody of a particular age.

Excerpt: Whenever I hear that a favorite author of mine is working on a young adult novel, my heart sinks. "Oh, that won't be for me," I say to myself, "I am not a young adult." Sure, I know adults can read YA fiction: I read the His Dark Materials trilogy and the Harry Potter books along with the rest of the universe. But I object to the idea that young people need their own special, segregated genre of books, as if their minds are so dramatically different from adult minds that they require their own category of fantasy. Once a person has reached adolescence, relegating their reading material to its own gated subgenre seems at best condescending and at worst censorious.

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