Questions of classification
Saw a discussion on Twitter earlier today about the YA category of books, which apparently somebody had claimed was some new millenial thing? and people were saying no, it went back earlier than that -
- and I went to myself, hang on, when I was But A Young Thing, Penguin Books put out a list for people who had slightly outgrown Puffins for the littlies, Peacocks, and I remember buying some of these, in fact I think I still have my copy of I Capture the Castle in that very same edition...
And there is a list here, which only goes up to no 65, but does have pictures of the covers, and Library Thing has a longer list, though still not the full 150 -
But what I notice is that a lot of the things they published were works originally intended for the adult reader that were considered suitable fare for this demographic (I'm trying to think whether this would have mapped to the contemporary British Board of Film Censors categories, not really, I don't think), plus, a few works from the USA that probably represent the category written specifically for this niche, e.g. Beverley Clearly's Fifteen.
I'm a bit stunned at some of the works that were thought appropriate - The Constant Nymph for example. But I do wonder, about what, c. 1979, were the 'complaints that some of the titles included were not appropriate for the target group'. Enquiring minds would like to know.
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