Attolia and YA

[sartorias]

As a reward for vetting textbooks, I treated myself to rereading Megan Whalen Turner's Attolia trilogy. Excellent books! For those who might not have sampled them, I highly recommend them--but please don't go any farther, as the discussion (if people want to discuss it) might get totally spoilericious.

In fact, here's a cut.

Comments

[intertext]

That's a really interesting question. I hadn't realized that there was so much debate about the Attolia trilogy, though I can to some extent understand where the "adult" label is coming from, particularly for Queen. (By the way, before I launch into discussion of YA versus A books I should just say I LOVE those books). But fundamentally I despise those labels. Largely they are a) a marketing tool or b) for the convenience of either educators, parents or librarians and under all circumstances are often just lazy and bound to be superficial and inaccurate. Books are books and should be read by whomever has the goods and the interest to read tham at any particular time in their life. Those of us who either write or read or teach YA books or children's books know that usually the worst are the ones written directly for an audience and the best, like Tolkien, just because they had to be written. I love Ursula Le Guin's essays on this topic - she gets so steamed about being "labelled" a children's book author or a YA author as if it

[sartorias]

Not blithering at all. What I'm curious about are the folks who feel labelling is necessary. somebody must, or these questions wouldn't come up. I know there are adults who want to protect their children against unpleasant discoveries in books (I always wonder if they also hide the news from their kids, which can be far, far

[therck]

I think that some of the desire for labeling comes from adults who don't read much but who want to buy gifts for children and adolescents and feel that books are sort of generically good for the recipients (or ought to be) as long as they're not the Wrong Books. A lot of adults who don't read want the distinction between YA and adult books so that they know what's safe to give without having to actually read the books (or the reviews). An adult who takes weeks to read one book (or who never reads anything beyond a newspaper) may still want to give books as gifts, and pre-reading can be prohibitive in such cases.

I know that my husband and his brother, as teenagers, received a lot of books from well meaning relatives who knew that they liked to read. None of the adults actually read the books first.

[sartorias]

Now that's a very good insight. (It also explains some of the extremely odd choices that parents will come up with for book reports for their kids. "But the sales person said it won an award." )

[buymeaclue]

I feel like, with these books, they were never firmly YA to begin with. I believe in YA fantasy and I believe in adult fantasy and I believe in just-plain-fantasy, and that last category is where I'd put this lot. Which isn't to say that I don't think they have YA appeal, or that I don't think they should be sold as such...but the progression to me didn't feel like "YA book to adult book" so much as "book to second book in series."

[sartorias]

Yes, this is how they felt to me too, but this discussion has popped up now and again at cons (on YA panels) and around the Internets.

[buymeaclue]

Yeah. And I can understand it, I think. It's a bit of a jar to think you were getting X and find out it's Y instead.

Just, not a jar that I ran into, myself. In this case, anyway!

[alfreda89]

I lean toward the just-plain-fantasy myself, and if there's sex or violence, I want it handled so that it makes sense in the story. My Allie books have fans from 8 to 92 years in age, but I did not write the stories as YA, or as adult fiction. Jane Yolen proposed a theme anthology for a YA series she was doing, and the character popped up there. Allie didn't go away, but she continues to narrate as if she is a surviving adult, remembering how she responded to things in her childhood (and young adult-hood).

Is there a way to write such books so that they reach the largest audience? I don't know. I do know I tried to switch her stories to third person, and they lost something. So I had to go with the first person.

What about the Earthsea books? The first three had dramatic moments, and scary moments, and talked about some very mature concepts. But when Tehanu came out, I don't know if it's because I read it as an adult, as opposed to finding it as a teen -- or is the book more adult

[lnhammer]

I confess I'm surprised that this is any more controversial than, say, the shift in age-genre in Harry Potter, or Betsy-Tacey, or Anne of Green Gables.

---L.

[intertext]

Well, originally the YA category was quite literally a marketing tool - created by publishers to try to attract a demographic that they felt was slipping through the cracks. Now that it's caught on, so to speak, people are writing "to" it, or some are, and there is, I guess, the perception that if there is a teenager in it, or sex, or whatever, then it's YA rather than "children's," but it can't be TOO heavy, because then it has to be "adult" and blahdidy blah. But you can see how blurry the lines get. And I think the Attolia trilogy is a really good example of that. Especially when the characters in it grow up. Like the Earthsea series - UKlG once said that "wizard" was about growing up and "atuan" was about sex and "shore" was about death. Well, what would Tehanu be about? middle age? And where would you put it in the A/YA category? (yes, I know that some people say it shouldn't exist at all, but I'm not one of them

[sartorias]

Yes, I remember the fuss about McKinley and Deerskin--although in some ways the late eighties were more out there about certain subjects than some books are now.

[buymeaclue]

Oh, wow, Deerskin. I see that fuss more easily than the Thief one. Great book, though. I should read it again.

[willow_41z]

I remember starting Deerskin when I was about twelve, without my mother's permission and without knowing what it was about. I got to the rape and the part where the dog was hurt and was so horrified I stopped reading. I never did go back and reread it, but it hasn't stopped me enjoying her other work, either.

[asakiyume]

I love The Thief; it's so original. I guess I vaguely knew there was at least a sequel but didn't realize it was a trilogy! More books for my list.

You know, you're asking about the people who feel a need for YA/A labels, and it really seems as if it all comes down to the sex and violence, yes? I don't know... I feel as if, in an ideal world, a plot synopsis, such as you read on a flyleaf to decide whether you want to try to book, would be enough to alert you as to whether the content is going to disturb you or not--or by glancing inside. The title of American Psycho pretty much said it all, and when in morbid curiosity I looked inside, yup, it was as I suspected, so I put it down