PF as YA

Fernando Q. Gouvêa · 17 Apr 2009, 18:05 · from 2009-April.txt.gz

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From: fqgouvea at colby.edu (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=22Fernando_Q=2E_Gouv=EAa=22?=)
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2009 14:05:16 -0400
Subject: (urth) PF as YA
In-Reply-To: <456950.42606.qm at web50709.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
References: <456950.42606.qm at web50709.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <49E8C4DC.1060605 at colby.edu>

I actually thought a bit before phrasing it as "for young adults" 
instead of "YA", for that very reason. "YA", after all, is a marketing 
category. Today it seems to mean "preadolescent".

That said, however, the scuttlebut among authors is that folks have been 
asked to *add* sex and violence to their books in order to make them 
appropriate for the YA market. If you've read a review of Margo 
Lanagan's "Tender Morsels", to choose an example that I happened to 
notice, you know that the "YA" category today embraces a lot of stuff 
that junior high librarians used to frown at.

Fernando

Jerry Friedman wrote:
> --- On Thu, 4/16/09, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>   
>> From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
>> Subject: Re: (urth) PF as YA
>> To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
>> Date: Thursday, April 16, 2009, 12:21 PM
>>     
>>> Hmm, I thought it was obvious that PF
>>> (and, before it, The Wizard Knight) were
>>> intended as books for young adults!
>>>       
>> I haven't read PF, but I can pretty well guarantee that
>> WK will not end up in the library at any junior high I know
>> about. It's violent and overtly sexual. And it's
>> tone would definitely not hold the attention of any but the
>> most exceptional young teen. I'd as soon label "A
>> Voyage to Arcturus" as YA fiction as I would WK.
>>     
>
> I don't think "for young adults", quoted above, means
> junior high.  Maybe "YA", which I used, does, thought I
> thought it included high-school-age kids too.
>
> Jerry Friedman
>
>
>       
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-- 
=============================================================
Fernando Q. Gouvea             
Carter Professor of Mathematics   
Colby College                     Editor, MAA FOCUS
5836 Mayflower Hill               Editor, MAA Reviews
Waterville, ME 04901              http://mathdl.maa.org/mathDL/19/
http://www.colby.edu/~fqgouvea

A thing may be too sad to be believed or too wicked to be believed or too good to be believed; but it cannot be too absurd to be believed in this planet of frogs and elephants, of crocodiles and cuttle-fish. 
  -- G. K. Chesterton


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