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77-399: Internet Girls is a young adult novel series by American author Lauren Myracle published between 2005 and 2014. The series includes four books ( ttyl ; ttfn ; l8r, g8r ; and yolo), as well as a book companion (bff: a girlfriend book you write together). The series follows best friends Maddie (madmaddie), Angela (SnowAngel), and Zoe (zoegirl) through high school. In 2004, the first book of

154-439: A 2014 study shows that using Laurie Halse Anderson 's novel Speak aided in discussions on consent and complicity. Those who read about tough situations like date rape are more emotionally prepared to handle the situation if it arises. It is important to use diverse literature in the classroom, especially in discussing taboo topics, to avoid excluding minority students. Literature written for young adults can also be used as

231-705: A 2018 conference of educators found that the most frequently taught YA texts in America from 2013 to 2018, ordered from most to least taught, were Speak , The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian , The Giver , The Outsiders , The House on Mango Street , American Born Chinese , Monster , The Book Thief , Persepolis , and The Perks of Being a Wallflower . Many young adult novels feature coming-of-age stories. These feature adolescents beginning to transform into adults, working through personal problems, and learning to take responsibility for their actions. YA serves many literary purposes. It provides

308-487: A book. Fables had a further long tradition through the Middle Ages and became part of European high literature. Fables had a further long tradition through the Middle Ages and became part of European high literature. The Roman writer Avianus (active around 400 AD) wrote Latin fables mostly based on Babrius , using very little material from Aesop. Fables attributed to Aesop circulated widely in collections bearing

385-495: A consensus on a definition". Victor Malo-Juvera, Crag Hill, in "The Young Adult Canon : A Literary Solar System" note that in 2019 there was no consensus on a definition of young adult literature and list a number of definitions, including: Librarians first defined this new category of fiction, in particular librarians from the New York Public Library . The NYPL's first annual Books for Young People list

462-532: A designated demographic in most respects until around World War II, due in part to advances in psychology and sociological changes, like the abolishment of child labor". With this development came the marketing of "clothes, music, films, radio programs, and ... the novel" for young adults. All the same Sarah Trimmer in 1802 recognized young adults as a distinct age group describing "young adulthood" as lasting from ages 14 to 21. In her children's literature periodical, The Guardian of Education , Trimmer introduced

539-552: A genre". In 1942, Seventeenth Summer – called by some the first young adult novel – by 17 years old Maureen Daly, was published. Its themes were especially relevant to teenagers, underaged drinking, driving, dating, and angst. Another early example is the Heinlein juveniles , which were science fiction novels written by Robert A. Heinlein for Scribner's young-adult line, beginning with Rocket Ship Galileo in 1947. Scribner's published eleven more between 1947 and 1958, but

616-625: A lack of books with a main character who is a person of color , LGBT , or disabled . In the UK 90% of the best-selling YA titles from 2006 to 2016 featured white, able-bodied, cis-gendered, and heterosexual main characters. The numbers of children's book authors have shown a similar lack of diversity. Between 2006 and 2016, eight percent of all young adult authors published in the UK were people of color. Some consider diversity beneficial since it encourages children of diverse backgrounds to read and it teaches children of all backgrounds an accurate view of

693-431: A particular moral. In some stories the gods have animal aspects, while in others the characters are archetypal talking animals similar to those found in other cultures. Hundreds of fables were composed in ancient India during the first millennium BCE , often as stories within frame stories . Indian fables have a mixed cast of humans and animals. The dialogues are often longer than in fables of Aesop and often comical as

770-433: A phenomenon, a work has to "conform to the standards [...] set by the mass media and promoted by the culture industry in general." Zipes complains of similarities between Harry Potter and other well known heroes. Professor Chris Crowe argues that criticism of young adult fiction arises from the fear that the genre will replace classic works. He also suggests that because there is much poorly written young adult fiction, and

847-405: A pleasurable reading experience for young people, emphasizing real-life experiences and problems in easier-to-grasp ways, and depicts societal functions. An analysis of YA novels between 1980 and 2000 found seventeen expansive literary themes. The most common of these were friendship, getting into trouble, romantic and sexual interest, and family life. Other common thematic elements revolve around

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924-500: A pre-eminent role for speculative fiction in the field, a trend further solidified by The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. The end of the decade saw a number of awards appear such as the Michael L. Printz Award and Alex Awards , designed to recognize excellence in writing for young adult audiences. Philip Pullman 's fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials , published between 1995 and 2000, added another controversial topic to

1001-501: A rich story-telling tradition. As they have for thousands of years, people of all ages in Africa continue to interact with nature, including plants, animals and earthly structures such as rivers, plains, and mountains. Children and, to some extent, adults are mesmerized by good story-tellers when they become animated in their quest to tell a good fable. The Anansi oral story originates from the tribes of Ghana . "All Stories Are Anansi's"

1078-577: A stepping stone to canonical works that are traditionally read in classrooms, and required by many school curriculums . In Building a Culture of Readers: YA Literature and the Canon by Kara Lycke, Lycke suggests pairing young adult literature and canon works to prepare young adults to understand the classic literature they will encounter. YA can provide familiar and less alienating examples of similar concepts than those in classic literature. Suggested pairings include Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series with

1155-534: A young boy's adventures on the Mississippi in the nineteenth century". The same description can be applied to its sequel, Huckleberry Finn . Huck is 12 or 13. According to journalist Erin Blakemore, "Though young adult literature had existed since at least Laura Ingalls Wilder 's Little House series , which was published in the 1930s, teachers and librarians were slow to accept books for adolescents as

1232-548: Is "excellently accommodated to the fancies of old or young". A number of works by eighteenth and nineteenth-century authors, though not written specifically for young readers, have appealed to them. Novels by Daniel Defoe , Jonathan Swift , Jane Austen , Walter Scott , Charles Dickens , Lewis Carroll , Robert Louis Stevenson , Mark Twain , Francis Hodgson Burnett , and Edith Nesbit . Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll , published in 1865 and one of

1309-450: Is a well-known example of the YA problem novel. Following its publication, problem novels became popular during the 1970s. Librarian Sheila Egoff described three reasons why problem novels resonate with adolescents: A classic example of a problem novel, and one that defined the sub-genre, is Go Ask Alice anonymously published by Beatrice Sparks in 1971. Go Ask Alice is written as

1386-577: Is difficult. A Wrinkle in Time , written by Madeleine L'Engle in 1960, received over twenty-six rejections before publication in 1962, because it was, in L'Engle's words, "too different," and "because it deals overtly with the problem of evil , and it was really difficult for children, and was it a children's or an adults' book, anyhow?" In 1957 the Young Adult Library Services Association – initially called

1463-567: Is inside". YA has been integrated into classrooms to increase student interest in reading. Studies have shown that YA can be beneficial in classroom settings. YA fiction is written for adolescents and some believe it to be more relevant to students' social and emotional needs instead of classic literature . Use of YA in classrooms is linked to: Students who read YA are more likely to appreciate literature and have stronger reading skills than others. YA also allows teachers to talk about " taboo " or difficult topics with their students. For example,

1540-424: Is often labelled "children's literature", Garner himself rejects such a description. Critic Neil Philip, commenting on Garner's early novels, notes that "It may be that Garner's is a case" where the division between children's and adults' literature is "meaningless". Judy Blume author of Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. (1970), has significantly contributed to children's and young adult literature. She

1617-479: Is sometimes targeted by critics for religious reasons, including religious debates over the Harry Potter series and Philip Pullman's trilogy His Dark Materials . Criticism has also been leveled at young adult fiction authors for alleged insensitivity to marginalized communities or cultural appropriation . English language young adult fiction and children's literature in general have historically shown

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1694-414: Is usually seen as originating in the 19th century, though there were precursors in the 18th century, like Amelia by Henry Fielding (1751), and Caleb Williams (1794) by William Godwin . They are typically a type of realistic fiction that characteristically depict, in the YA version of this genre, issues such as poverty , drugs , and pregnancy. Published in 1967, S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders

1771-1000: The Percy Jackson & the Olympians series by Rick Riordan , The Underland Chronicles by Suzanne Collins , and Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney . Examples of young adult novels and novel series include the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling, The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins, the Alex Rider series by Anthony Horowitz and the Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare . Middle grade novels are usually shorter, and are significantly less mature and complex in theme and content than YA. YA novels are for ages 12–18, and tackle more mature and adult themes and content than middle grade novels. The latter usually feature protagonists between

1848-514: The Esopus or Esopus teutsch ). It became one the great bestsellers of the last decades of the fifteenth century. Several authors adapted or versified fables from this corpus, such as the German poet and playwright Burkard Waldis, whose versified Esopus of 1548 was influential. Even the artist and polymath Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) composed some fables in his native Florentine dialect. During

1925-685: The Iliad or the Odyssey , or Stephenie Meyer 's Twilight with Wuthering Heights . When discussing identity, Lycke suggests pairing Hawthorne 's The Scarlet Letter with Sherman Alexie 's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian . The trend to include same-sex relationships and transgender characters in young adult fiction has caused considerable controversy. Conservative activists and religious groups have also criticized young adult fiction for violence, explicit sexual content, obscene language, and suicide. Speculative young adult fiction

2002-709: The New Testament , " μῦθος " (" mythos ") was rendered by the translators as "fable" in the First Epistle to Timothy , the Second Epistle to Timothy , the Epistle to Titus and the First Epistle of Peter . A person who writes fables is referred to as a fabulist . The fable is one of the most enduring forms of folk literature , spread abroad, modern researchers agree, less by literary anthologies than by oral transmission. Fables can be found in

2079-651: The Old World . Ben E. Perry (compiler of the " Perry Index " of Aesop's fables) has argued controversially that some of the Buddhist Jataka tales and some of the fables in the Panchatantra may have been influenced by similar Greek and Near Eastern ones. Earlier Indian epics such as Vyasa's Mahabharata and Valmiki 's Ramayana also contained fables within the main story, often as side stories or back-story . The most famous folk stories from

2156-528: The son of Lorenzo de' Medici (now kept in the New York Public Library). Early on, Aesopic fables were also disseminated in print, usually with Planudes's Life of Aesop as a preface. The German humanist Heinrich Steinhöwel published a bilingual (Latin and German) edition of the fables in Ulm in 1476. This publication gave rise to many re-editions of the sole German prose translation (known as

2233-720: The "sons of the Hellenes" had been an invention of "Syrians" from the time of " Ninos " (personifying Nineveh to Greeks) and Belos ("ruler"). Epicharmus of Kos and Phormis are reported as having been among the first to invent comic fables. Many familiar fables of Aesop include " The Crow and the Pitcher ", " The Tortoise and the Hare " and " The Lion and the Mouse ". In the first century AD, Phaedrus (died 50 AD) produced Latin translations in iambic verse of fables then circulating under

2310-827: The 17th century, the French fabulist Jean de La Fontaine (1621–1695) saw the soul of the fable in the moral—a rule of behavior. Starting with the Aesopian pattern, La Fontaine set out to satirize the court, the church, the rising bourgeoisie , indeed the entire human scene of his time. La Fontaine's model was subsequently emulated by England's John Gay (1685–1732); Poland's Ignacy Krasicki (1735–1801); Italy's Lorenzo Pignotti (1739–1812) and Giovanni Gherardo de Rossi (1754–1827); Serbia's Dositej Obradović (1745–1801); Spain's Tomás de Iriarte y Oropesa (1750–1791); France's Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian (1755–1794); and Russia's Ivan Krylov (1769–1844). In modern times, while

2387-805: The Near East were the One Thousand and One Nights , also known as the Arabian Nights . The Panchatantra is an ancient Indian assortment of fables. The earliest recorded work, ascribed to Vishnu Sharma, dates to around 300 BCE. The tales are likely much older than the compilation, having been passed down orally prior to the book's compilation. The word "Panchatantra" is a blend of the words "pancha" (which means "five" in Sanskrit) and "tantra" (which means "weave"). It implies weaving together multiple threads of narrative and moral lessons together to form

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2464-493: The Philosopher's Stone , was published in 1997. Originally marketed in the UK under the broad category of children's literature, the books received attention and praise for their increasingly mature and sophisticated nature, eventually garnering a significant audience of adult readers. This phenomenon led many to see Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling as responsible for a resurgence of young adult literature. It also established

2541-464: The Rings (1954-5) by J. R. R. Tolkien are highly successful fantasy novels, which are read to young children and read by both children and adults They are found in the teen or young adult section of American public and school libraries. However, Lord of the Rings is generally not on the curriculum of high schools. This is because the paperback version can run to almost 1200 pages and the vocabulary

2618-766: The Tin Box " in The Beast in Me and Other Animals (1948) and "The Last Clock: A Fable for the Time, Such As It Is, of Man" in Lanterns and Lances (1961). Władysław Reymont 's The Revolt (1922), a metaphor for the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 , described a revolt by animals that take over their farm in order to introduce "equality". George Orwell 's Animal Farm (1945) similarly satirized Stalinist Communism in particular, and totalitarianism in general, in

2695-597: The Young Adult Services Division following a reorganization of the American Library Association – had been created. YALSA evaluates and selects materials for young adults, with the most active YASLA committee being the book selection committee. Michael Cart argues that the 1960s was the decade when literature for adolescents "could be said to have come into its own". A significant early example of young adult fiction

2772-599: The ages of 10 and 13, whereas young adult novels usually feature protagonists from 14 to 18. New adult (NA) fiction is a developing genre of fiction with protagonists in the 18–29 age bracket. St. Martin's Press first coined the term in 2009, when they held a special call for "fiction similar to young adult fiction (YA) that can be published and marketed as adult—a sort of an 'older YA' or 'new adult ' ". New adult fiction tends to focus on issues such as leaving home, developing sexuality, and negotiating education and career choices. The genre has gained popularity rapidly over

2849-649: The animals try to outwit one another by trickery and deceit. In Indian fables, humanity is not presented as superior to the animals. Prime examples of the fable in India are the Panchatantra and the Jataka tales . These included Vishnu Sarma 's Panchatantra , the Hitopadesha , Vikram and The Vampire , and Syntipas ' Seven Wise Masters , which were collections of fables that were later influential throughout

2926-407: The basic premise of A Wizard of Earthsea , that of a talented boy going to a wizard's school and making an enemy with whom he has a close connection, is also the premise of Harry Potter . As publishers began to focus on the emerging adolescent market, more booksellers and libraries began creating young adult sections distinct from children's literature and novels written for adults. The 1970s to

3003-453: The best-known works of Victorian literature , has had widespread influence on popular culture and literature, especially in the fantasy genre. It is credited as helping end an era of didacticism in children's literature , inaugurating an era in which writing for children aimed to "delight or entertain". The tale has had a lasting popularity with adults as well as with children. A shortened version for young children, The Nursery "Alice"

3080-444: The coming-of-age nature of the texts. This includes narratives about self-identity, life and death, and individuality. Some of the most common YA genres are contemporary fiction, fantasy , science fiction , historical fiction , and romance . Hybrid genres are also common in YA. The social problem novel or problem novel is a sub-genre of literature focusing and commenting on overarching social problems. This type of novel

3157-569: The diary of a young girl, who, to cope with her many problems, experiments with drugs. More recent examples include Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson , Crank by Ellen Hopkins , and The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky . The boundary between books for children and adult literature is flexible and loosely defined and in particular "the young have always been efficient [plunderers] of stories from all sources, and have carried off such literary booty as pleased them". This boundary has been policed by adults and has "alternated between

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3234-477: The end be added explicitly as a concise maxim or saying . A fable differs from a parable in that the latter excludes animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as actors that assume speech or other powers of humankind. Conversely, an animal tale specifically includes talking animals as characters. Usage has not always been so clearly distinguished. In the King James Version of

3311-618: The end of the fifteenth century. The most common version of this tale-like biography is attributed to the Byzantine scholar Maximus Planudes (1260–1310), who also gathered and edited fables for posterity. In the Renaissance, Aesopic fables were hugely popular. They were published in luxurious illuminated manuscripts, such as the so-called "Medici Aesop" made around 1480 in Florence based on the corpus established by Planudes, probably for

3388-408: The fable has been trivialized in children's books, it has also been fully adapted to modern adult literature. Felix Salten 's Bambi (1923) is a Bildungsroman —a story of a protagonist 's coming-of-age—cast in the form of a fable. James Thurber used the ancient fable style in his books Fables for Our Time (1940) and Further Fables for Our Time (1956), and in his stories " The Princess and

3465-507: The fable was the first of the progymnasmata —training exercises in prose composition and public speaking—wherein students would be asked to learn fables, expand upon them, invent their own, and finally use them as persuasive examples in longer forensic or deliberative speeches. The need of instructors to teach, and students to learn, a wide range of fables as material for their declamations resulted in their being gathered together in collections, like those of Aesop. African oral culture has

3542-716: The field by attacking established religion, especially Roman Catholicism . Northern Lights , the first volume in the trilogy, won the 1995 Carnegie Medal as the year's outstanding English-language children's book. Pullman has written other YA fiction, including the Sally Lockhart series (1985–94), as well as books for younger children. The category of young adult fiction continues to expand into other media and genres: graphic novels / manga , light novels , fantasy , mystery fiction , romance novels , and even subcategories such as cyberpunk , techno-thrillers , and contemporary Christian fiction . A survey of attendees at

3619-441: The genre's recent development, it has difficulty in establishing its value in relation to the classics of literature. Fables Fable is a literary genre defined as a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse , that features animals , legendary creatures , plants , inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized , and that illustrates or leads to a particular moral lesson (a "moral"), which may at

3696-507: The guise of animal fable. In the 21st century, the Neapolitan writer Sabatino Scia is the author of more than two hundred fables that he describes as "western protest fables". The characters are not only animals, but also things, beings, and elements from nature. Scia's aim is the same as in the traditional fable, playing the role of revealer of human society. In Latin America, the brothers Juan and Victor Ataucuri Garcia have contributed to

3773-449: The importance of British fantasy writer Alan Garner . According to Pullman Garner "is indisputably the great originator, the most important British writer of fantasy since Tolkien , and in many respects better than Tolkien". Similarly Ursula le Guin in a review praising Garner's novel Red Shift , argues that "Some of the most interesting English novels of recent years have been published as children's books". Although Garner's early work

3850-542: The last few years, particularly through books by self-published bestselling authors such as Jennifer L. Armentrout , Cora Carmack, Colleen Hoover , Anna Todd , and Jamie McGuire . The genre originally faced criticism, as some viewed it as a marketing scheme, while others claimed the readership was not there to publish the material. In contrast, others claimed the term was necessary; a publicist for HarperCollins described it as "a convenient label because it allows parents and bookstores and interested readers to know what

3927-565: The late 1960s and early 1970s, five other very popular books were published: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), an autobiography of the early years of American poet Maya Angelou ; The Friends (1973) by Rosa Guy ; the semi-autobiographical The Bell Jar (US 1963, under a pseudonym; UK 1967) by poet Sylvia Plath ; Bless the Beasts and Children (1970) by Glendon Swarthout ; and Deathwatch (1972) by Robb White , which

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4004-516: The literature of almost every country. The varying corpus denoted Aesopica or Aesop's Fables includes most of the best-known western fables, which are attributed to the legendary Aesop , supposed to have been a slave in ancient Greece around 550 BCE. When Babrius set down fables from the Aesopica in verse for a Hellenistic Prince "Alexander", he expressly stated at the head of Book II that this type of "myth" that Aesop had introduced to

4081-422: The lives of adolescents. Particularly noteworthy was S. E. Hinton 's " The Outsiders ". French historian Philippe Ariès argues, in his 1962 book Centuries of Childhood , that the modern concept of childhood only emerged in recent times. He argues that children were in the past not considered as greatly different from adults and were not given significantly different treatment. Furthermore, "Teenagers weren't

4158-451: The manuscript more than two years later. A number of novels by Robert Louis Stevenson were first published in serial form, in a weekly children's literary magazine Young Folks , including Treasure Island , Kidnapped , and The Black Arrow . This magazine was for boys and girls of an older age than many of its contemporaries. Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer is described by publisher Simon & Schuster as "The classic tale of

4235-527: The mid-1980s have been described as the golden age of young-adult fiction, when challenging novels began speaking directly to the interests of the identified adolescent market. In the 1980s, young adult literature began pushing the envelope in terms of the subject matter that was considered appropriate for their audience: Books dealing with topics such as rape , suicide , parental death, and murder which had previously been deemed taboo, saw significant critical and commercial success. A flip-side of this trend

4312-453: The name of Uncle Remus . His stories of the animal characters Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, and Brer Bear are modern examples of African-American story-telling, this though should not transcend critiques and controversies as to whether or not Uncle Remus was a racist or apologist for slavery. The Disney movie Song of the South introduced many of the stories to the public and others not familiar with

4389-608: The name of Aesop. While Phaedrus's Latinizations became classic (transmitted through the Middle Ages, though attributed to a certain Romulus , now considered legendary), the writing of fables in Greek did not stop; in the 2nd century AD, Babrius wrote beast fables in Greek in the manner of Aesop, which would also become influential in the Middle Ages (and sometimes transmitted as Aesop's work). In ancient Greek and Roman education,

4466-537: The number three spot in 2008, the number one spot in 2009 and 2011. Challengers content the book due to offensive language and sexually explicit content, as well as being unsuited for the age group and going against a religious viewpoint. Ultimately, the Internet Girls series became the ninth-most banned book between 2000 and 2019. Young adult fiction The earliest known use of term young adult occurred in 1942. The designation of young adult literature

4543-492: The resurgence of the fable. But they do so with a novel idea: use the fable as a means of dissemination of traditional literature of that place. In the book "Fábulas Peruanas" Archived 2015-09-23 at the Wayback Machine , published in 2003, they have collected myths, legends, and beliefs of Andean and Amazonian Peru, to write as fables. The result has been an extraordinary work rich in regional nuances. Here we discover

4620-430: The rigid and the permeable depending on the political and cultural climate". At the lower end of the age spectrum, fiction targeted to readers aged 8–12 is referred to as middle grade fiction . Some novels originally marketed to adults are of interest and value to adolescents, and vice versa, as in the case of books such as the Harry Potter series of novels. Some examples of middle grade novels and novel series include

4697-435: The role that storytelling played in the life of cultures and groups without training in speaking, reading, writing, or the cultures to which they had been relocated to from world practices of capturing Africans and other indigenous populations to provide slave labor to colonized countries. India has a rich tradition of fables, many derived from traditional stories and related to local natural elements. Indian fables often teach

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4774-491: The series, ttyl, gained attention for being the first book written entirely in the style of an instant messaging conversation. Despite the books' positive reception, the series became the ninth-most banned book between 2000 and 2019. The Internet Girls series has often landed on the American Library Association's list of banned and challenged books. The books received the number seven spot in 2007,

4851-409: The so-called "Romulus". In the later Middle Ages, Aesop's fables were newly gathered and edited with a prefatory biography of Aesop. This biography, usually simply titled Life of Aesop ( Vita Aesopi ), is more invented than factual, and itself a sort of moralistic fable; known in several versions, this Aesop Romance , as scholars term it today, enjoyed nearly as much fame as the fables themselves by

4928-561: The term young adult literature "first found common usage in the late 1960's, in reference to realistic fiction that was set in the real (as opposed to imagined), contemporary world and addressed problems, issues, and life circumstances of interest to young readers aged approximately 12–18". However, "The term 'young adult literature' is inherently amorphous, for its constituent terms “young adult” and “literature” are dynamic, changing as culture and society — which provide their context — change", and "even those who study and teach it have not reached

5005-1001: The terms "Books for Children" (for those under fourteen) and "Books for Young Persons" (for those between fourteen and twenty-one), establishing terms of reference for young adult literature that still remain in use. "At the beginning of the eighteenth century", according to M. O. Grenby: very few ... enjoyable books for children ... existed. Children read, certainly, but the books that they probably enjoyed reading (or hearing) most, were not designed especially for them. Fables were available, and fairy stories, lengthy chivalric romances , and short, affordable pamphlet tales and ballads called chapbooks , but these were published for children and adults alike. Take Nathaniel Crouch 's Winter-Evenings Entertainments (1687). It contains riddles , pictures, and 'pleasant and delightful relations of many rare and notable accidents and occurrences' which has suggested to some that it should be thought of as an early children's book. However, its title-page insists that it

5082-542: The thirteenth, Starship Troopers , was instead published by Putnam . The intended market was teenaged boys. A fourteenth novel, Podkayne of Mars (1963), featured a teenaged girl as the protagonist. In the 1950s, The Catcher in the Rye (1951) attracted the attention of the adolescent readers although it was written for adults. The themes of adolescent angst and alienation in the novel have become synonymous with young adult literature. The Hobbit (1937) and Lord of

5159-692: The title of Romulus (as though an author named Romulus had translated and rewritten them, though today most scholars regard this Romulus to be a legendary figure). Many of these Latin version were in fact Phaedrus's 1st-century versified Latinizations. Collections titled Romulus inspired a flurry of medieval authors to newly translate (sometimes into local vernaculars), versify and rewrite fables. Among them, Adémar de Chabannes (11th century), Alexander Neckam (12th century, Novus Aesopus and shorter Novus Avianus ), Gualterus Anglicus (12th century) and Marie de France (12th-13th century) wrote fables adapted from models generally understood to be Aesop, Avianus or

5236-524: The world around them. In the mid-2010s, more attention was drawn to diversity from various quarters. In the several years following, diversity numbers seem to have increased: One survey showed that in 2017, a quarter of children's books were about minority protagonists, almost a 10% increase from 2016. Jack Zipes , a professor of German and literature, has criticized the standardized nature of young adult fiction in Western society. He writes that to become

5313-417: Was S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders (1967). The novel features a truer, darker side of adolescent life that was not often represented in works of fiction of the time. Written during high school and written when Hinton was only 16, The Outsiders also lacked the nostalgic tone common in books about adolescents written by adults. The Outsiders remains one of the best-selling young adult novels of all time. In

5390-402: Was a strong revived interest in the romance novel, including young adult romance . With an increase in number of adolescents, the genre "matured, blossomed, and came into its own, with the better written, more serious, and more varied young adult books (than those) published during the last two decades". The first novel in J.K. Rowling 's seven-book Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and

5467-497: Was awarded 1973 Edgar Award for Best Juvenile Mystery by the Mystery Writers of America . The works of Angelou and Plath were published as adult works but The Bell Jar deals with a nineteen year old's "teenage angst," and Angelou's autobiography is one of the ten books most frequently banned from high school and junior high school libraries and classrooms. Authors Philip Pullman and Neil Gaiman have both argued for

5544-481: Was one of the first young adult authors to write novels focused on such controversial topics as masturbation , menstruation , teen sex , birth control , and death . Ursula le Guin 's A Wizard of Earthsea , published in 1968, had a significant influence on YA fantasy fiction. It won or contributed to several notable awards for le Guin, including the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award in 1969, and

5621-703: Was one of the last winners of the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award . With regard to the Earthsea series Barbara Bucknal stated that "Le Guin was not writing for young children when she wrote these fantasies, nor yet for adults. She was writing for 'older kids'. But in fact she can be read, like Tolkien, by ten-year-olds and by adults. Margaret Atwood said that ... A Wizard of Earthsea ... since it dealt with themes such as "life and mortality and who are we as human beings", it could be read and enjoyed by anybody older than twelve. Reviewers have commented that

5698-408: Was originally developed by librarians to help teenagers make the transition between children's literature and adult literature, following the recognition, around World War II , of teenagers as a distinct group of young people. While the genre is targeted at adolescents, a 2012 study found that 55% of young adult literature purchases were made by adults. Author and academic Michael Cart states that

5775-448: Was published in 1890. It was inspired when, on 4 July 1862, Lewis Carroll and Reverend Robinson Duckworth rowed in a boat with the three young daughters of scholar Henry Liddell : Lorina (aged 13); Alice (aged 10); and Edith Mary (aged 8). During the trip Carroll told the girls a story that he described in his diary as "Alice's Adventures Under Ground" and which his journal says he "undertook to write out for Alice". She finally got

5852-437: Was sent in 1929 to schools and libraries across the country. Then "In 1944 [...] NYPL librarian Margaret Scoggin changed the name of her library journal column from 'Books for Older Boys and Girls' to 'Books for Young Adults', and the genre was christened with a name that has lasted to this day". Initially the YA genre "tended to feature the same" boy and girl love story. But in the 1960s the novels developed to more fully examining

5929-470: Was translated by Harold Courlander and Albert Kofi Prempeh and tells the story of a god-like creature Anansi who wishes to own all stories in the world. The character Anansi is often depicted as a spider and is known for its cunning nature to obtain what it wants, typically seen outwitting other animal characters. Joel Chandler Harris wrote African-American fables in the Southern context of slavery under

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