In 2003, Mark Haddon, the British author of more than a dozen children's books, published the novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. It was marketed as an adult book but, told from the point of view of an autistic 15-year-old, it became a bestseller with readers of all ages.
At the same time, the phenomenal success of the Harry Potter books was well under way, the series not only attracting millions of young readers but adult readers as well, which is why the publisher produced adult editions of the Potter books: same text, different covers and design. That way the Potter books would be shelved in the adult section of the bookstore where older readers were more apt to buy them.
Book cover and design, shelf placement and display are key factors in book marketing. But in neither Haddon's nor Rowling's case was the “Young Adult”, or Y/A, label used as a marketing tool. By then – thanks to the pressure applied by writers' organizations – UK publishers had stopped using the dodgy Y/A label for children aged 12 years and up. Instead, publishers and marketers worked with two categories: under 12, which referred to books shelved in the children's section of bookstores, and over 12, which meant books shelved in the adult section of bookstores.
Road to Bliss, by Joan Clark, Doubleday Canada, 288 pages, $14.95
The Y/A label limits a book's placement on bookstore shelves and second-guesses who its readers will be. Based on the assumption that the book will be of interest to early teen readers, the label overlooks the fact that many adults enjoy reading a wide range of books for young readers. It also overlooks the fact that early teen readers are naturally drawn to stories about people older than themselves.
For those readers, the Y/A can be off-putting, suggesting as it does a reading level passed several years earlier. As one reader put it, the Y/A label dumbs it down. For a 12-year-old who has been gobbling up books since she was four and has already sailed through Potter and Tolkien, a novel labelled Y/A doesn't hold much attraction. Nor does the Y/A label attract the 15-year-old who has just finished reading Cormac McCarthy's The Road and looks for his reading material in the adult section of the bookstore and library.
The Y/A label is also a disincentive to adults who might be interested in reading fare marketed for a younger audience, a problem that publishers overcame with the Harry Potter series by designing a separate series for adults.
Simply put, the Y/A label influences whether a reader is likely to choose or ignore a book. As someone who has worked in both the adult and children's book fields, I have often been asked to explain the difference in my approach between writing stories “for” adults and “for” children. The problem with the use of the word “for” is that it carries with it the assumption that the story being written is aimed at a particular audience rather than being free to find itself.
In a similar vein, I have been asked if it is more difficult to write a story for children than it is to write a story for adults. Yes and no. Some stories, whatever their complexity and point of view, can be particularly difficult to pull off for any number of reasons that have little to do with genre and everything to do with the challenges of writing fiction.
The fact is our literature has been too easily labelled and corralled into genres – not only children's books but science fiction, fantasy, mystery, historical fiction and so on. Which is why the recent breakthroughs of Annabel Lyon's The Golden Mean and Mary Novik's Conceit, both historical fictions, are thrilling beyond measure.
Is it too much to hope that there will be other breakthroughs? Is it too much to hope for that the Y/A label will be dropped?
After all, literature is a country without borders, where readers should be encouraged to roam freely.
Joan Clark has recently published a novel, Road to Bliss, which bears the Y/A label.
