A wonderful article in the LA Times this morning about how more and more adults are reading Young Adult lit, and how the genre is flourishing at a time when other publishing sectors are suffering:
It used to be that the only adults who read young adult literature were those who had a vested interest — teachers or librarians or parents who either needed or wanted to keep an eye on developing readers’ tastes.
But increasingly, adults are reading YA books with no ulterior motives. Attracted by well-written, fast-paced and engaging stories that span the gamut of genres and subjects, such readers have mainstreamed a niche long derided as just for kids.
Thanks to huge crossover hits like Stephenie Meyer’s bloodsucking “Twilight” saga, Suzanne Collins’ fight-to-the-death “The Hunger Games” trilogy, Rick Riordan’s “The Lightning Thief” and Markus Zusak’s Nazi-era “The Book Thief,” YA is one of the few bright spots in an otherwise bleak publishing market. Where adult hardcover sales were down 17.8% for the first half of 2009 versus the same period in 2008, children’s/young adult hardcovers were up 30.7%.
“Even as the recession has dipped publishing in general, young adult has held strong,” said David Levithan, editorial director and vice president of Scholastic, publisher of “The Hunger Games,” as well as of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, the series largely credited with jump-starting this juggernaut of a trend.
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[...] store/employees fail to see the value in YA lit (apparently they haven’t read the article in The L.A. Times about how “YA is one of the few bright spots in an otherwise bleak publishing market. Where [...]