How to miscategorise a book in one easy lesson, have all the categories listed on pieces of paper on the floor, throw up the book and use whatever it lands on. Flippant, I know, but sometimes I’m very tempted.
Every Thursday from 8pm (currently daylight savings time) there’s a fabulous little chat on Twitter for the South Pacific Region. You can participate wherever you are in the world using the hash tag #spbkchat. Last Thursday the discussion centred on Young Adult literature. Until then I thought Young Adult and Teen were the same category and I’ve broken down the categories my website under Children, Teen and Adult. How wrong can you be!
It’s much more complicated than that and I’m writing this to try and get some sort of clarity in my own mind. Garth Nix talks about it in his comment on this blog and he suggests Young Adult books have an entry age rather than an age range and that many adults happily read Young Adult books. From what I know about children and how they mature into adulthood it seems to make some kind of sense. He suggests the entry age is 13-14 which is generally about the time puberty starts and when they start getting bored with Children’s books. I do have to say this is just a guide as the onset of puberty varies as does the reading age of children/teens/young adults. One of the things you can use as a guide is the themes of the books or the types of issues it covers. Parents of gifted children have a problem in that they’re children may be several years younger than their reading age and the books they’re capable of reading may have themes they consider in appropriate. Consider a child of eight who has a reading age of 13 but the maturity of an eight-year-old. A 13-year-old would be up to reading books that might refer to sex but the eight-year-old would not be.
It’s an interesting dilemma and one that has been debated many, many times. I’m not going to change the categories on my website but I will give you the guidelines I use to help you and your teen/young adult choose books there. Children is very easy, it’s for any person under about the age of 10-13. Teens is for anything between there and adult. If I’m not sure I’ll put it in adult, if it’s Young Adult it could be in either Teens or Adult. Many of the science fiction books in Adult are actually suitable for Teens and Young Adult as well. If you have any doubt or questions please don’t hesitate to contact me and I’ll do my best for you.