More YA Chitter Chatter

Here from Scalzi, and here from Dave Moles.

Comments

[Colleen]

It is so odd to hear adult writers/readers lamenting the loss of adult SF to YA when I am constantly looking for YA SF to review. There is some out there but not a whole lot and nothing compared to what is in the adult SF market. It is hard for me to get enough well written YA SF to even put together an entire column, so this whole discussion strikes me as a wee bit ridiculous. If they are just going to talk about Scott Westerfield then okay, I get it. But trying to expand the arguement beyond him I think is a bit of a stretch.

As always though, the discussion degenerates down to whether or not adults should be reading YA and if YA is as good as adult. That is when I get off the bus. Read good books, ignore the target audience. That should be everyone's reading goal. The rest is just the literary equivalent to flag pins. ("Yes but, is the book REALLY good or just sort of good or just good if you are under 17????")

Scott Westerfield is brilliant and he writes SF - end of discussion. (If only such discussions could end so easily for politicians as well... :)

[Gwenda]

I know what you mean, Coll.

[Janni]

Cynical-me thinks adults (especially those who don't particularly enjoy reading YA as a genre--which is their right) just can't deal with things actually being in some small way better for teens than for adults.

Teens have to put up with enough nonsense. Why shouldn't the best books being written--or even, yes, the books selling the best--be written for them? I have no problem with this.

Adults control enough of the cool stuff. I see no reason to begrudge teens SF/fantasy market share.