10.

[kathleenfoucart]

Ten years ago I walked across a stage in a blue polyester gown and morterboard. Blue and "gold" cords were draped around my neck, I shook the "stealth principal"'s hand and graduated high school. There's a picture on my desk today of six of us from that morning

Comments

[chaz_lehmann]

Yesterday was 20 years for me. I'm an old fart.

[amieroserotruck]

18 for me. I think the first YA I read that wasn't "classic" like Catcher in the Rye or The Outsiders was in college. And YA fantasy did not exist. I went from MG to adult.

I think that's why I'm a mg writer. The MG stories are what were imprited on me, what I love, what I read once a year. Do I love YA? Absolutely! Is it for me as a writer? Not now, anyway.

Hm, this should be it's own post. Sorry to hijack!

[readthisandweep]

Thank you for this. By the time my generation became aware of YA we were so cynical, we tended to dismiss it as too youth orientated to be of any interest to us. In doing so, some of us became a bit 'snobby' about it.

I have certainly dismissed it. But reading you, I have an image of my 12 year-old granddaughter who, about a year ago, gave up on all the previous 'good literature' she had lived & breathed. She began reading the dreaded Twilight; & Harry Potter. Plus a plethora of other YAF a great deal of it dealing with the real issues that affect young people. Divorce; sex; drugs; school; loss; friendship & rivalry etc.

Not only did she read them, she re-read them, sometimes on a loop until her parents began to wonder if she would ever read anything else again.

Something in these books clearly resonates with her & after reading you, I realise I no longer need to know what; just to accept that it is so.

I'll never be a Twilight fan; I consider S Meyers to be an apologist for misogyny. And I don't reckon Rowling either. She