The Importance of Books by Vanessa Harbour

We all know how important books are. We know what a vital role they play. Sometimes though it really helps to be reminded why. Some of you may have seen a tweet I posted earlier this week about an experience I had when lecturing. In discussion with a group of students about character I asked them who their favourite characters were. The answers were diverse and eclectic but often what accompanied their answer was an explanation. This explanation nearly always included how the characters and/or the book had helped them and why. For some it had been through a darkest moment, for others, it had been to deal with difficult situations and overwhelmingly, it was how they had helped them get through adolescence. Sorry, I’m not listing the books here as I don’t want any student feeling they are being talked about.  Here I am talking in generalities. The majority of these books were young adult fiction. Another reminder of how important young adult fiction is and how vital it is that publishers continue to produce amazing YA by the incredible YA authors from the UK. I picked up one the other day at the mass book launch and publisher launch for Guppy Publishing. Gloves Off by Louisa Reid, is brilliant and so powerful. A must read.

But as I said, we know books do this. We know books can provide an escape and support when needed. Maybe that metaphoric hug just when craved. No character in a book will judge. Books are places where you can tell the characters your deepest darkest secret. A book can be whatever you need it to be. Between those pages is a safe place to be and that is what we, as writers, create.

Books do so much more. They can open a dialogue, providing a chance to discuss difficult and/or sensitive subjects. The reader can ask questions of the text, of themselves and, when they are ready, of others – whether that is parents, teachers, siblings or friends. Again, this is not news. Windows and mirrors, a chance to see someone experiencing the same issues as them or a chance to try and understand what it is like to experience those issues, walking in their shoes.

Back in 2011 in my PhD, the research I did highlighted how important it was that young adult fiction continued to cover challenging subjects. The thesis looked at the representation of sex, drugs and alcohol in young adult fiction, but I believe it is so much more, covering many more difficult and sensitive subjects, and not restricted to young adult fiction. Philip Pullman has previously stated that there are some themes too large for adult fiction and can only be dealt with adequately in children’s fiction while Melvin Burgess also suggests that children can cope with anything as long as it is in context. Both of these have helped me understand so much for many years now.

Melvin Burgess

Philip Pullman

The important phrase there is ‘in context’. I do have an issue when contentious subjects are used for shock value or the scene is just gratuitous. It needs to serve a purpose and be part of the narrative. I have been a little concerned in some areas of Twitter to see a call for some issues to be ‘white-washed out’ and never ever included.  This for me is a problem. The moment you exclude something and refuse to talk about it, there is a risk it will become mysterious and exciting. This creates the exact problem those who wish to 'white-wash' them out have been trying to avoid. The issue suddenly becomes something intriguing. If you include issues in a piece fiction, ensuring it is not sensationalised or glamorised, then it provides an opportunity for dialogue. A chance to discuss these issues in a meaningful way. I personally believe this is important.

More than anything I want to say to people and, in particular, young adult writers, keep writing. Your books make a real difference.

Dr Vanessa Harbour

@VanessaHarbour

www.vanessaharbour.co.uk

http://chaosmos-outofchaoscomesorder.blogspot.com

New Adult or Young Adult?

Open Book, Radio Four’s programme about all matters literary turned its attention to New Adult fiction last week. Was it, asked presenter Mariella Frostrup, just a marketing ploy? Or is there a need for a bridge between Young Adult fiction and Adult fiction?

Cue an intelligent and interesting  discussion between journalist Caroline Sanderson, writer Liz Bankes and editor Emily Thomas, which nonetheless had me grinding my teeth and throwing things at the radio.

It seems to me that the title New Adult could mean books about older teens  moving from the world of school, homework and exams into the adult world of further education, employment, unemployment, sex and parenthood.  These books already exist and are labelled Young Adult.  A New Adult label isn’t therefore strictly necessary but could serve as a useful label to identify books for and about older teens.  It might help them crossover into an adult market. It might encourage publishers and booksellers to see older teen books as a genre worth investment, and keep older teens interested in looking at the teen shelves in book shops. It could, above all, be a useful way of marketing e-books to older teen readers.

New Adult could be this...

..but is actually this

Recent books that might fit into that sort of New Adult category might include Lydia Syson’s A World Between Us – three young people caught up in the Spanish Civil War,  working as a nurse, a journalist, and a printer turned soldier.  Or Malorie Blackman’s Boys Don’t Cry, about a boy whose plans to go to university are hijacked by becoming a father. Helen Grant, Melvin Burgess, Meg Rosoff ,  Sarra Manning, Mal Peet, Kevin Brooks  and many other UKYA authors often write about older teens.  These books are labelled YA or teen fiction, they are shelved as such, they are received with enthusiasm by the supposed gatekeeper. Publishers publish them, and teachers and librarians are not scared of  coming of age books.  On the contrary, they often favour them over  books aimed at younger children -  just take a look at most Carnegie shortlists.

He's 18, having sex, bringing up a child. New or Young Adult?

My next book, Salvage, has two narrators. One is Aidan, 18, who is living with an older girlfriend, Holly and her two-year-old son, Finn.  Is Aidan a Young Adult or a New Adult?  His sister Cass, the other narrator, is 16 and embarking on her first sexual relationship. Is she Young Adult or New Adult?

Unfortunately New Adult has stopped being a useful label for my books and the books of the authors mentioned above, because New Adult has come to mean ‘books about teenagers having sex, generally originally self-published, and picked up by publishers who want a slice of the action.’ Unlike most YA authors writing about sex, they include an element of soft porn (generally the softest of soft porn, almost always from a female point of view, with far more about 'panties' than throbbing or thrusting Men's Bits).  The ‘Adult’ has taken over from the ‘New’.  The quality of writing isn’t great in any of these books that I’ve read, and the sex is often boring (one New Adult book that I attempted to read seemed to have been written by someone who’d never had sex in her life, so was hopelessly vague and boring, others are just a bit tacky and embarrassing). In a matter of months New Adult has come to mean ‘rubbishy’  and ‘put that label on my books and I will kill you’ for most authors writing books about new adults.

Having said that, I think that these New Adult books are not a bad thing. Porn is generally produced by men, for men, and it’s surely good for girls to have access to their own brand, written by women. These books do address emotional issues around sex, and they generally feature interesting  and engaging characters.  They may not engage me, but I’m not their target market. If I were 16 and in possession of an e-reader, I think I’d love them.  As Malorie Blackman said recently, books are a great place for children to learn about sex.  The 'New Adult' romances, or -  to use a word invented and only used by marketing managers - 'steamies', are part of that process.

For the last few weeks I’ve been taking my daughter to university open days. I’ve sat in lecture theatres full of 17 and 18 year olds and their parents, learning about the next stage of their lives. What will they study, how will they find jobs, where will they live, how will they make friends?  I’ve had fascinating conversations with my daughter about her hopes and plans for the future, watched as she was inspired, reassured and challenged by visions of her future. I'd love to have more books to suggest to her which focus on the transition from school to adult life, which tell you what it's like to unpack your suitcase on the first day of university (and I don't mean Charles Ryder at Oxford).

New adulthood is one of the most interesting and important times of anyone’s life. It  offers writers many exciting possibilities.  Right now, though, I’d rather steer clear of the New Adult label.

Y.A. at Hay - Celia Rees

I was recently at the Hay Festival, in conversation with Melvin Burgess and Daniel Hahn, talking about Young Adult fiction and our novels, This is Not Forgiveness and Kill All Enemies.

Daniel Hahn, Melvin Burgess, Celia Rees 

The discussion was interesting (I hope for the audience, too) and wide ranging. At one point, Daniel asked us if there was anything that we thought we could not write about, any taboo subjects, any darkness too impenetrable? I found myself giving the stock Y.A. writer's answer about leaving the reader with hope, etc., etc.. Melvin disagreed. This livened the discussion considerably, and his response gave me cause to pause and food for thought. He outlined a thesis which took me right back to where I began as a YA writer and also made me think about how far we have travelled since then but how little ground we had gained. 

It is an accepted shibboleth ( like the one about 'hope') that ‘at one time’ there ‘wasn’t much written for teenagers’, ‘nothing available for them’.Of course, this is not true. Teenagers have always found things to read, books and authors they felt comfortable with, even if those books were not written specifically with them in mind. Books like George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm, William Golding’s The Lord of the Flies, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mocking Bird, J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House and The Lottery. And then there are the sic-fi/dystopian fiction writers: Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, John Wyndam’s The Day of the Triffids and The Chrysalids, J.G. Ballard’s The Drowned World and Empire of the Sun, John Christopher’s The Trouble with Grass.

Quite a considerable canon. I read a lot of these books when I was a teenager, back in a time when novels for teens were not supposed to exist. I don’t remember feeling deprived, or thinking I’d have to stop reading because there was ‘nothing for me’. I thoroughly enjoyed the books I discovered on the adult shelves of the library, finding them myself, or being directed to them by friends who liked the same books I did. Reading these books was a rite of passage. I found my mind stretched, my understanding deepened, my assumptions questioned and challenged, my imagination

 fired. They weren’t writing for me particularly, but that didn’t matter, they were connecting with me on all sorts of different levels.

Melvin’s argument was that because these writers recognised no limits, there are no limits. I found myself agreeing with him and thinking that these books and these writers should be our benchmark. Perhaps we have compromised too far. In creating a specific Teen/Y.A. Lit. (although I still think that is important) we’ve wandered away from these writers who had the power to appeal to adults and teenagers alike. We have compromised, we’ve bowdlerised. We’ve listened to outside voices: gatekeepers telling us what is acceptable and unacceptable; Focus Groups and Target Readers; Publishers who tell us what the market wants, what it will tolerate.

Compare some of the books and authors I’ve cited, especially in Gothic, Dystopian and Science Fiction, with what is on offer at the moment in these genre, and you will see exactly what I mean. Where is the depth and breadth of the vision, the resonance and relevance, the imaginative reach, the complexity of the realised worlds, the quality and power of the writing? It is a salutary lesson. Of course, teen readers can go and read these books, and they should, but that is not the point. It is not good enough to mine them, to take from them, we should be producing books that bear comparison.

Creativity is a strange thing. Those books that I read when I was a teenager challenged me to think, fired my imagination, introduced me to ideas, and opened me up to possibilities. Maybe that experience is what led me to want to write for teenagers. True, or not, I’m thinking about going back. At least I’ll be guaranteed a damn good read!

I’m taking a break from blogging for ABBA but I’ve been proud to be part of the blog and to have seen it go from strength to strength. I’ll certainly be visiting regularly in the future to read and to comment.

www.celiarees.com

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