Next Stephanie Harrington Novel

kenl511 wrote:The Flowers in the Attic series was considered YA. Incest, emotional abuse, neglect and flat out lies are all through the series. I was aghast at finding they were considered YA and the children's library collection had them.

All that is required for a book to considered YA is young protagonist with adult world considered from the outside according to a children's librarian friend of mine. Marketing is nice, but if a children's librarian finds a book meets the above standard it goes into the YA collection....

I would disagree somewhat with that librarian's description. I would say, rather, that YA books don't treat teenagers as little kids. I would not put YA books in the children's collection--they were never intended for people younger than high school. And high school readings these days include issues like incest, rape, emotional abuse, neglect... Not all YA will include these things, of course, but they are well within the scope of what teens are reading.

Some readers will recall the name Judy Blume. Others will note that Jean Auel's cave novels -- lots of interesting research on primitive cultures -- also have episodes that are of more interest to young teenagers (their parental units may differ) and that can be identified -- in the words of a college student explaining this to someone my age -- as the pages with paperclip bookmarks.

kenl511 wrote:The Flowers in the Attic series was considered YA. Incest, emotional abuse, neglect and flat out lies are all through the series. I was aghast at finding they were considered YA and the children's library collection had them.

All that is required for a book to considered YA is young protagonist with adult world considered from the outside according to a children's librarian friend of mine. Marketing is nice, but if a children's librarian finds a book meets the above standard it goes into the YA collection....

SWM wrote:

kenl511 wrote:The Flowers in the Attic series was considered YA. Incest, emotional abuse, neglect and flat out lies are all through the series. I was aghast at finding they were considered YA and the children's library collection had them.

All that is required for a book to considered YA is young protagonist with adult world considered from the outside according to a children's librarian friend of mine. Marketing is nice, but if a children's librarian finds a book meets the above standard it goes into the YA collection....

I would disagree somewhat with that librarian's description. I would say, rather, that YA books don't treat teenagers as little kids. I would not put YA books in the children's collection--they were never intended for people younger than high school. And high school readings these days include issues like incest, rape, emotional abuse, neglect... Not all YA will include these things, of course, but they are well within the scope of what teens are reading.

And if it is not what they are reading they are (without their parents knowledge) talking about things like this among themselves, just like we did back then.

Gunny wrote:
And if it is not what they are reading they are (without their parents knowledge) talking about things like this among themselves, just like we did back then.

Or posting their ownmade pictures of it on deviantart.com .



Seriously, many(most?) parents just cannot handle really knowing what their children do and talk about.

.

Tenshinai wrote:

Gunny wrote:
And if it is not what they are reading they are (without their parents knowledge) talking about things like this among themselves, just like we did back then.

Or posting their ownmade pictures of it on deviantart.com .



Seriously, many(most?) parents just cannot handle really knowing what their children do and talk about.

They go from helpless infants to adults (without money or job skills) in just a few years! It's hard to track where they are now in your head and heart, hard to adapt all that love and protective instinct to these gangling sudden-junior-adults - who sometimes seem like they don't need or want that love or protection anymore but really do need love on a different basis, and some protection of a very different sort.

Ideally, parents manage to change tacks as the children grow, but at any given time, there will be attitudes that lag behind and new ones that the child still has to grow into some. That's a normal case, anyway - on either side of it, you'll have parents who are more consistently aiming parenthood younger than the kid's functional age, and others (likely fewer, but I suspect I may be one myself) usually aiming it a bit ahead of where the kid is.

Anyway - yeah, I wish "Young Adult" would start being read as "Young Adult On Up". It'd fit the genre better in practice.

CLA wrote:It sounds like this series could use the same "promotion" as what was used (very successfully, I might add) for Anime here in the states back in the 1990's....

IF the authors and publisher would be agreeable, that is.

Would you mind explaining what you are thinking of?

I hope still to see more of Stephanie and Lionheart in the future. I, for one, was thoroughly enjoying the novels. But at 55, I don't believe I qualify as a young adult. Of course I could be wrong on that score.

It saddens me greatly that they didn't do well, but I never saw them promoted either. So besides those of us who are fans of the Honorverse, did anyone else even realize they were out there? Seems to me that the fault here lies with Baen for lack of promotion. At least I never noticed any promotions for the series, and I did look!

Jeff Donohue wrote:I hope still to see more of Stephanie and Lionheart in the future. I, for one, was thoroughly enjoying the novels. But at 55, I don't believe I qualify as a young adult. Of course I could be wrong on that score.

It saddens me greatly that they didn't do well, but I never saw them promoted either. So besides those of us who are fans of the Honorverse, did anyone else even realize they were out there? Seems to me that the fault here lies with Baen for lack of promotion. At least I never noticed any promotions for the series, and I did look!

When it comes to aging, I prefer my great uncle Jake's take on it.

"Growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional".

This from a gentlemen who at the tender age of 85 decided to go around the block on a pair of steel roller skates eg the kind you strap to your shoes.

saber964 wrote:

Jeff Donohue wrote:I hope still to see more of Stephanie and Lionheart in the future. I, for one, was thoroughly enjoying the novels. But at 55, I don't believe I qualify as a young adult. Of course I could be wrong on that score.

It saddens me greatly that they didn't do well, but I never saw them promoted either. So besides those of us who are fans of the Honorverse, did anyone else even realize they were out there? Seems to me that the fault here lies with Baen for lack of promotion. At least I never noticed any promotions for the series, and I did look!

When it comes to aging, I prefer my great uncle Jake's take on it.

"Growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional".

This from a gentlemen who at the tender age of 85 decided to go around the block on a pair of steel roller skates eg the kind you strap to your shoes.

As they say, "If you haven't grownup by the time you are 60, you don't have to"