The world of my book

I have been trying to work out what it is that makes a young adult novel what it is--what's the difference between an 'adult' and young adult book? Some of the differences are ambiguous and perhaps slight. For instance, I read How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff unaware that it was YA--because I'd listened to a radio adaptation and found it gripping. It was simply an amazing book--for anyone of any age.

I think there's an intensity of emotion in a YA or middle grade (MG: a book aimed at someone of roughly eight to 12) that's stronger than is necessarily the case in adult literature. By the time adults pick up a novel aimed at them they carry with them years of experience that may have worn away at that rawness of feeling adolescents know. But perhaps that's why adults like reading YA--there's a purity of emotion that hasn't yet been trampled on by compromise.

And MG and YA novels may tend to keep to one central protagonist's point of view: the structure is perhaps simpler. The choice of subject matter will also be key--there are certain subjects you wouldn't expect to read about in MG. YA seems more ambiguous, with books aimed at older teenagers covering just about everything you'd expect to find in adult works.

In my view one reason YA works so well (and appeals to adults as well as teenagers) is because it sets up its own world. Harry Potter's world is so familiar it needs no introduction. Classic school stories work because they are their own little universe. Jane Eyre can perhaps be seen as a prototype YA novel, at least in parts. Who can forget the world of Lowood School with its burnt porridge and epidemics, and the intense but tragic friendship between Jane and Helen? Great Expectations could simultaneously be read as a YA novel and a novel aimed at adults who've experienced a lot of life--the POV shifts between Pip as a boy and Pip as a wiser grown-up, looking back at himself in the past. This is one of the most fascinating elements of the novel for me. Pip moves between the flames of the smithy and the coldness of Satis House, between Joe's benevolence and the cruelty of Miss Havisham and Estella. His world is bipolar and I find it endlessly fascinating.

From this week onwards I'm going to be asking some YA and MG writers about the worlds of their book. Can't wait.