A Writer's Biography, Volume I, Part 5: Ambivalence Toward YA Fiction by a YA
I'm now a teacher of young adults. As part of being a teacher, I try to get kids active with reading. I've even taken it upon myself to collect some books in my own room for their reading interest. As part of this effort, I've acquired more than a few books with the "YA" (Young Adult) stickers on their spines, and they now are part of my improvised library.
If I were building a library from scratch, however, it probably wouldn't include many YA books. This was the case even when I was a YA myself.
In my memory, which can probably tell tall tales as well as anything, the label of YA fiction started sometime in earnest around the late 1960's and continued on since then. That always made sense to me, because the youth market was so big in those days due to the baby boom generation of my parents.
I missed out on the megahit YA genre series that have come to dominate the market in the 21st century, like Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Divergent, and The 5th Wav…
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