The Evolution of YA: Young Adult Fiction, Explained (Feat. Lindsay Ellis) | It's Lit! 

I am here from 2 months in the future with some truly fantastic news!!!

im tired What is this about?

@@sahantheegala8560 The author is helping to create an accurate TV series of Percy Jackson

What movie I don’t remember one go away please I don’t want anything to do with this hocus pocus.

made me want to cry

If anything, Animorphs is more YA than Goosbumps imo

ChocoDoeEyes Animorphs is just bad. Too dark. Too nihilistic. Needed to be heavily edited if it was going to be aimed at the book fair crowd like it was.

Fair enough, I don't remember much about it other than being more serious and geared towards older kids.

I had the same thought about a couple of the examples given in this video. It seemed to be lumping Middle Grade into Young Adult... which, considering these are really just age distinctions and not genres unto themselves, isn't too surprising. The line between what qualifies as MG vs YA or YA vs Adult (or New Adult, which comes with its own categorization headaches) is incredibly blurry. The Harry Potter series is a good example - many would call the first books Middle Grade, but the latter books are solidly Young Adult. So what to do, then, when trying to label a series that ages with the reader? If you have a book with a teenage protagonist (which most would automatically call YA) but it deals with serious adult issues and features graphic sex/violence.... is it still YA, based on the age of it's protag, despite being written for a very mature audience? It's why I don't think it's really feasible to draw hard lines between reader-age-based categories.

Considering none of the Goosebumps protagonists are teenagers AND R. L. Stine has said that the books were written for the elementary school set, I totally agree. Probably should not have been included in this video.

The ending was so sad tho, is scarred little me

I never finished the series and searched up the ending... I was shocked.

That series is wh, to this day I always sequester potential romantic partners in my basement for 3 days feeding them nothing but oatmeal

It definitely evolved in tone from like power rangers to like war drama about child soldiers

I wish it was a bit longer... and more in depth.

I enjoyed her video essays on The Addams Family (although it's mainly because I unabashedly love those movies). And I agree, PBSDS is doing some amazing work online! Maybe they should give Lindsay her own show after The Great American Read is over?

She did a video essay on the Addams Family? Never saw it. Welp... here I go into another Ellis hole.

"Thanks PBS for giving yet another stellar content creator some work, and please keep this series going!" And here's me thinking I'd see Lindsay move to Brighton and create programmes for Channel 4!

She is one of the best essay portraier on youtube. She coud do just voice shorts on tv too, or another media plattform, or educational video games.

Morticia + Gomez = Relationship Goals

Katy Spencer heck yeah they are!

This was never in doubt.

Yeah I guess

Not really, but ok.

To quote Leslie Knope “librarians suck” lol

Britt P. :)

YA dystopia is amazing

I just love Dystopian in general. Give me 1984, The Handmaids Tale, Hunger Games, Divergent, Maze Runner etc. A lot of people are fed up with the "girl destroys corrupt government" trope but I actually love it. :)

Girl With The Black Hoodie Me too! I absolutely LOVE it!

Thats not unpopular but people are shamed for liking it (but i like it too!)

Agreed! Never really thought of them as YA/Teen books, but children's fiction, but going back and reading how dark they are, I second guess that.

Yes this! I'd say it's the really good books that kind of escape their genre - Harry potter, ASOUE to name a few. And these books have such wide appeal that you could name them a lot of different categories and it would still be accurate

Absolutely! Lemony Snicket has such a wild ability to expose the maliciously mundane apathy of adults that pay no attention, as just about every adult figure in that series is either bumblingly naive or nefarious. Kids are the only characters in that series with any common sense, and it really highlights just how overlooked the child perspective is in a world ruled by grown-ups.

I hated the netflix show. I know the movie isnt as faithful but i love it

Series of unfortunate events are superbly written books. Lemony snicket knows how to tell a tale!!!!! Loved them as a child and the Netflix series makes me want to read them again but as an adult my reading has been touch and go and i miss being a book worm. But the internet took off and yeah....

Thing good

IT'S FINE THIS IS FINE

Also known as "LEL."

Saaame!! Well, aside from Harry Potter being my all time favorite series, but yeah, The Book Thief is WAY up there in my all time favorites

I love HP as well. If ye enjoy a well-developed Death, I recommend ye read the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett, especially Mort, Reaper Man, Soul Music, Hogfather, and Thief of Time, where he plays a major role- though in full I'd recommend starting from the very beginning, as it allows you to see him and the universe grow linearly. Though be warned, TP was a new writer with the first books, so while I like them enough, some don't, but they do get much better!

I love The Book Thief! It really changed my view on death as a figure and a way of life. The Deathly Hallows from the Harry Potter series also influenced my view on death as well. The Book Thief though will always hold a special place in my heart as it shows so many things in a different light.

Is that YA?..

Hell yeah

Wait- it has a sequel????

I read that book in 5th grade omg i never knew their was a sequel

rkgk1517 I just finished it and I’m not sure we read the same book. Ponyboy isn’t really a bad kid. He’s in a gang, sure, but he saves kids from a burning building and is also one of the few characters to always do the right thing (him and Johnny). He gets his friend to stop harassing those girls. He runs away with Johnny even though he didn’t have to. He CLEANS UP A GLASS BOTTLE he broke in self-defense. Also, he makes really good grades. So I don’t think he’s super relatable to the “bad students”. S.E. Hinton said she wanted to write a “realistic teen novel” and just nothing about that book is realistic :\ but then again, I’m not a fan of a lot of books that are forced on kids in schools. I don’t think they should be put up on a pedestal when there are plenty of contemporary novels that are more relevant to kids today that are being regarded as trash because they aren’t “classics”.

Whitney Elizabeth S.E. Hinton was a teen herself when she wrote The Outsiders, the idea was based off her friend getting injured in a gang fight. I didn't find it super unrealistic for Ponyboy to be a good person who got roped up into a gang, since that does happen. And it was probably more realistic than most novels aimed at teens at the time.

@@whitneymouse note that I put "bad students" in quotations. I'm not saying Ponyboy or any of the Greasers are really bad - they've been labeled that way by society because of their social class. That's the point.

The boys in The Outsiders go to prison and always get in trouble, especially Dallas, and they're known to get in fights, steal etc. It's known in the book that Ponyboy isn't really like that, so while you passionately listed examples as to why, it is a known fact within the book already. Two Bit even says something along the lines of "stay as you are, don't become like us" during the broken glass scene to Ponyboy. This book is relatable because it highlights issues of social class and how children from broken homes/poverty are generalized as "bad" even before they are given the chance to be something else, and even when their privileged counterparts engage in dangerous behaviour as well. It's important for that reason, and to show that like Ponyboy, you are capable of becoming your own person and don't have to fall into the identity society may try to push you into. Also, Ponyboy does fight and even helped Dallas chase little kids away for fun, so he's not some angel lol.

Yes ! The Face on the Milk Carton :) That is an amazing book so is Tiger Eyes :) I loved those books! Thank you Genie for reminding of them :) I was also a huge HP fan so was my mom :)

The heart is a lonely hunter? I don't think it suits the label... unless I missed something.

I mean same, but rereading it as an adult I get a lot more out of it than I did then

As a kid I hated the adults in there for being so incompetent!!! Like 5th grade me waiting for the bus/my mom to pick up wanted to slap every adult in that book!

Kenneth Fender The distinction is a matter of snobbery. If the writer is a contributor to the new Yorker it slides more toward the legit fiction track.

Coming of age is a genre, YA is a marketing category.

Catcher in the Rye is also regarded as an early ancestor to what is now called YA fiction. I took a class that was just YA novels and my professor called it “one of the first”. They didn’t mention that other one (Seventeenth Summer?). It could be considered YA, though.

and I also think Catcher in der Rye isn't read by teens....I think they don't really get it. There are other great works like: "When I was five I killed myself" by Howard Buten ....or "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding....Some books simply feature kids/teens but are too complex for them to grasp.

@@FreyaEinde same thought went through my mind

GG Crono So much love for Tamora Pierce! Particularly the Protector of the Small quartet

Oh yes! I love them still. Circle of Magic universe in particular ^_^

The Protector of the Small Quarter shaped my life! I adore Tamora Pierce! She was way ahead of her time as well, particularly with progressive attitudes like with LGBT characters.

My friends and I would buy each other Tamora Pierce novels for our birthdays and pass them around so everyone got to read it

GG Crono Mug shot of lindsay www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=u-MYW9rgCOrP5gLR4qSgBg&q=lindsay+ellis+arrested&oq=lindsay+ellis+arrested&gs_l=mobile-gws-wiz-img.12...4597.8577..9400...0....440.3139.0j9j3j1j2......0....1.........0j35i39j0i24.JpQq4m%2BZhX4%3D#imgrc=XyN2jDsUv8KseM:

Hell yeah, I was surprised not to see him mentioned.

PERCY 4 LIFE

I hated the newest one. I mean it was a good book but **SPOILER ALERT** Jason is one of my favourite characters. A little underwritten, maybe, but I still love him.

Heralds of Valdemar is a great example...I discovered the series in a used bookstore a couple years ago, and while it’s definitely pulpy YA fantasy, the care for the world is neat, and I didn’t really realise for a while that it was intended to be YA.

BKgirl483 - it would technically be middle grade since Anne starts off as 11, but like in Harry Potter she does age as the story progresses and also like Harry Potter which is technically middle grade it does still appeal to audiences of all ages

If it is, than it was a comparatively innocent example and was still readable for children. But it certainly has the coming-of-age aspect...

I mean, that series does eventually mature, too. There's a (humorous, mostly) scene dealing with underage drinking, and IIRC eventually Anne's daughter deals with her boyfriend fighting in WWI.

BKgirl483 - I think technically it is YA.

Great example of classic YA, although I think back then it would be considered children's, probably cause as the video purports ya wasn't really a thing.

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Was just about to say the same thing. (for anyone who doesn't know, Lindsey co-wrote a satire of Twilight-esque YA romance in the form of a Lovecraft-based YA romance published under the name Serra Elinsen).

I'm a proud owner of a paper copy of Awoken.

I too! Still proudly sits on my shelf!

In his house at R'lyeh, great Cthulhu lies dreaming...of her.

Finally a person who remembers the Underland Chronicles! I admit that I've never gotten around to finishing all of them (made it up to the fourth one) but I did really enjoy the ones I did read and loved the entire world that was created. It was rather thought provoking at times.

Great to meet another fan! I think my favorite characters are Ripred and Temp. The last book is a great ending, and it also shows a softer side to Ripred.

I admit that it's been a long long time since I last read any of the books (it's all a bit of a blur at this point) but I do remember really liking Ripred! I should really pick them up and try reading them again. I'm a little sad that they've been completely over shadowed by the hunger games

I read them years ago, but as far as I can remember all your points are accurate. I think it's one of the first book series I read, and after finishing it I just sat for half an hour in shock.

Some of my favorite books ever! I remember reading them as a kid and being so moved by the themes and the characters.

That sounds awesome Violet! Thanks for letting me know it's based off a book series. I loved that movie:)

I love that series and recommend it so teens get introduced to and burned out of their edgy atheist phase asap.

Suspicious Squid Productions Still my favourite as well. I reread it at 30 and understood things I didn't at 13.

The movie adaptation was also really good!

I remember I put that book away when I first got it and one day out of boredom I decided to read it and was immediately hooked.

You know, in Ireland it’s one of the required reading books for school.

I'm so sorry, but am I only one who read this comment wrong at first?

Cendaquenta Books I loved the Inkworld and Tiffany Aching books! I should check out the other ones you mentioned!

Cendaquenta Books Aaaah the Tiffany Aching series ! The books that made discover the Discworld. Another YA novel buy the same author is « The amazing Maurice and his educated rodents » really worth the read. Scratch that, the entire Discworld series is worth it. I just love the witches subseries.

I'm glad you gave The Giver a try! Fahrenheit 451 was also an early favorite of mine, although now I think he's a much better short story writer. Did the structure of Moby Dick make it less enjoyable to read? Personally, I like that it's a mish-mash of different literary forms, it makes it feel very modern. Some chapters are even written in the form of a play, with stage directions! Melville's descriptions are great too, some fantastic metaphors. And lots of whale jokes, of course.

To be honest, I was probably 15 when I read it and I only read it to take one test to finish with that entire thing for the year. (Most people read multiple smaller books, I figured since I've already enjoyed so many I could just take the one test and be done. And I did and was done. While everyone else stressed about it throughout the year.). So.. I'm 36 now and know enough to know I'll never know enough where back then I knew it all. So I can't really comment on the memory too clearly. But of the two books I read for that test, Les Mis drew me in and I still remember it's storyline. Where Moby Dick... I passed the test, and I know Ahab wanted his wall and that They call the one guy Ishmael and that I thought it was information to become a whaler. So, to the 15 year old me. It was a very very boring story. And I enjoyed Ray Bradbury's short stories. Like the cream shoes and sitting in a tree to stretch a day out by watching it and the martian chronicles was a personal favorite. But in that mindset too, I avoided 1984 because it was past 1984 so it obviously didn't happen so I couldn't read it. (I've read it since and if I could tell my younger self that as far as the guy can tell, it's 1984 because they've messed with their own history so much nobody is clear on anything, I may have read it.) But that's what growing up's about, and at one point I decided to try looking into all those things I avoided for some reason or another and found a lot of books I loved.

n0nTox!c it bothers me that you distinguish certain books as “real novels” because of who they’re marketed to. The Giver is a “real novel” and a GREAT one at that! Just because something is considered a “classic” doesn’t mean it’s good or any more important than more contemporary novels.

I had to read The Giver in 6th grade. It was intense reading for 12 year olds but I'm glad that we did.

Well, I'd like to point out that I was writing from the perspective of my 15 year old self. I didn't read 1984 for so long because it was past 1984 and I couldn't see it as a "sci fi" book if it took place in a future that's passed. But I can't go back and tell myself to think differently than I did. I also would only "watch" rated "R" movies as a kid thinking those were the "Real Movies" My Dad owned a movie rental place for the first half of my childhood, then my Mom worked in a half movie rental place/half gas station and grocery store for the rest of it and the entire time I had free access to any movie. My parents never censored me, just told me that what's on the screen is not real. So I grew up loving horror movies, which... I don't so much anymore, but I can say it's done nothing to make me violent. I'm the type to throw myself inbetween people about to fight begging them not to. It' the only type of fights I've been in anyway. I've been punched twice but by strangers who were taking somethign from me. Otherwise, I've never felt the need to "hurt" others. Not that I haven't by accident, but never intentionally and when I did it was more with words than by actions. In fact, it turned out when I was younger I was good at calling out people's fears and making them feel like shit. But, thankfully I kept growing both physically and mentally. The trick is to never think you know enough. :P

My library has goes Picture Books - Learner - Early Readers - Middle Grade/Juvenile - Young Adult/Teen - Adult To be fair, Teen/YA books are just like any other books. There's some bad ones and some good ones. I personally enjoyed the Lockwood and Co series (which i've seen as both YA and MG) so if you're looking for something new, maybe try those?

No section for "New Adult" fiction?

I have read a lot of juvenile fiction in my library like Warriors Rangers Apprentice and Harry Potter but mostly as I got older I jumped right into adult fiction and I rarely venture to the YA part. I do read some of that though.

My favourite YA series is Australian- Tomorrow, When the War Began by John Marsden. I loved it as a kid, and I love it now.

Nicolle yeah, Hunterxhunter is awesome

"storytelling classics"

It was from Chimera Ant arc, of all things. I do think they meant well - otherwise they could have shown something from the Hunter Exam arc, when everything was bright, sunny and still marketed towards children for some reason.

The hunter eam features a creepy molesting murderer , a kid ex-assasin as hero and more darkness lurking . I dont think Kids were the intendet target audience. The best and most selling manga are generelly for adults too, like hunterxhunter one of the most popular complex worldbuilding manga.

Ned Barks it's a Shonen Jump series, though. It's not mainly targetet at adults. While volumes are released slowly, per book, hxh is one of the best selling series in Japan.

Same here! I'm kind of sad that they sort of stopped BYOA. I really enjoyed watching Lindsay and co. review books

I've just finished reading that and its sequel. I really enjoyed both, but am not really sure what exactly defines them as Young Adult. They seem to possess the same level of complexity and "adult" content as much of what I read in the common or garden variety adult fiction. Whatever the case, I'd throw my support behind 6 of Crows and Croooked Kindom too, if you're looking for something in the "grand heists in low fantasy world" genre while you wait for the next book in Scott Lynch's Gentleman Bastards series.

It might be lumped in the YA category because of marketing but also the age of the protagonists and as much as I love the series I do wish that Bardugo made some of the characters in their early 20s at least. Anyways I still love the duology and it's definitely Bardugo's best work so far.

TheFvpss Mug shot of lindsay www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=u-MYW9rgCOrP5gLR4qSgBg&q=lindsay+ellis+arrested&oq=lindsay+ellis+arrested&gs_l=mobile-gws-wiz-img.12...4597.8577..9400...0....440.3139.0j9j3j1j2......0....1.........0j35i39j0i24.JpQq4m%2BZhX4%3D#imgrc=XyN2jDsUv8KseM:

I loved the Jedi Apprentice books! They might be characterized as "Junior Fiction" now since they weren't that long, but they had some complex ideas, sometimes more complex than a lot of the adult Star Wars novels. Jedi Apprentice was the first time I read something with the concept of a quagmire and how to conceptualize pain (the way they talked about thinking of it as your body trying to alert you to being hurt really spoke to me). I reread them as an adult and they still hold up.

Last year I read the Rebel Force books, which basically ties up all the loose ends from the Jedi Apprentice and Jedi Quest books, and really loved them. Jedi Apprentice is absolutely on my to-read list. Fun fact: Jude Watson, the author of Jedi Apprentice, created the first LGBT character in Star Wars (that I am aware of), Ferus Olin.

That sounds good. I just wish they were more available at libraries. The ones I reread were so old. And they are so young looking I wouldn't want them on my bookshelf (I don't buy that many books anyway- I usually use the library). I would def buy them for my kids. Jedi Apprentice books were what made me like Qui-Gon. Certainly much more than the prequels ever did. He was still flawed then, but he was a lot more likeable.

Oh, I read them all as ebooks.

Young Jedi Knights was an awesome series. Fun adventure with great characters, but at the same time working in and examining some pretty heavy subjects like racism, responsible use of weapons, and the dangers of drug use - and not sugarcoating any of it or shying away from the real consequences.

I really agree! Also Chaos Walking (also by Patrick Ness)

Crookshanks Is Awesome I’ve been meaning to read that and just more Patrick Ness in general

snowcherryleopard Read More Than This and Chaos Walking. Those and A Monster Calls are his best books by far, I think.

< grabs and ore >

Ryan Hartwell yes omg!! those books were incredible!

right here with you! Torak's adventures were so well written you can see it in your head

Agreed, it was just a little ahead of its time.

i know, like don’t hate on animorphs. that was my jam

Animorphs is still one of my favorite books. I haven't read it in a long time (I'm sure some of its contents will feel dated), but it taught me a lot about complex things. And the ending itself is darker than most movies. I'm glad it's mentioned here!

I still have every single Animorph book. If I ever have kids someday I'm going to pull them out and be like "Check this out!"

I was one of those kids that was dedicated to picking up each monthly release of Animorphs while it was still being published, and is still one of the series I look back on fondly. I also have all the original books that I purchased (on a shelf displayed proudly, actually), and I think I read them over so many times I can recount certain segments almost moment to moment even years after reading them. I didn't get caught in the Harry Potter craze when they were being released, however, and I'm just starting to indulge myself in the series actually. I have seen all the movies, and so far do enjoy it. But, Animorphs will always hold that special place for me that HP does for a lot of Potter-heads ❤️😺

Mary Shelley too

Yeah and where does CS Lewis fit in this? Narnia is aimed to younger readers than Tolkien and Lovecraft, but the YA category didn't have a name back then.

They were not written 'for' or marketed to YA. It wasn't until the advent of pulp (as in the cheap paper -> cheap books) that marketing a book to anyone other than adults really made sense. Children's books were marketed to parents (maybe teachers too). Teenagers just weren't a thing.

Simon... I don't know the name, but it certainly had a market. CS Lewis was meant for parents to buy for (and probably read to) kids to impart good Christian morality. The Hobbit was a bedtime-story book also for parents to buy. That is children's, not YA. I don't know who Tolkien was thinking the audience for LoTR would be. My sense is that it was more of just the books he wanted to write and he imagined an adult audience. Lovecraft was certainly not writing YA. Neither was Mary Shelly. She expected her readers to already know Paradise Lost, Plutarch's Lives, and the Sorrows of Werter.

I think Tolkien wrote LOTR just because he wanted to, He wrote the Hobbit for money but he based on ideas he had since college. It's a known fact that for him the world of middle earth was just an environment for his made up languages like quenya and sindarin. He loooooooooooooooooooooooooved linguistics. After the succes of the hobbit he began lotr as a sequel but had so many ideas he abandoned that idea and wanted instead to have 2 separate books only partially conencted to the hobbit: silmarilion and lotr. Id remember what happened to silmarilion.. i think it just wasnt marketable. So he published LOTR alone and silmarilion was ony published after his death.

That series had no qualms about punching you square in the gut, and I loved every second of it.

Poor *SPOILER ALERT* Rachel! I was devastated when she died. Also love the section in book 15 - The Escape - where Marco talks about his view of humour and the world.

She was one of my favorites. I think every other character worried at some point that she liked the violence too much, but in the end she was the natural warrior who'd finally figured out what she was good at. And she was really good at it.

Yeah, but the series didn't always paint Rachel's approach to life as a good thing. I remember one of them had her taking temporary leadership of the group when Jake couldn't be there, and she nearly got everyone killed because she was too aggressive and didn't slow down & think things through. As pulpy as that series got, it wasn't shy about having serious consequences and examining the real tolls that war and killing can have on individuals and nations/races, and how different people deal with them for better or worse. The series finale was a stroke of brilliance, even though a lot of folks missed the point and didn't care for it. Also, K.A. Applegate came up with some of the most original alien creature concepts I've ever encountered.

Owen Symes YES. I loved reading the first John Carter book. I can never find any of the other ones at my library though... :(

You should see if your library has a loan program. Here in Michigan, we use MelCat, where you can get a book from another library loaned to your local one. Very useful!

from this thousand comments you're the only one who mentioned perks. I love that book. It's my favourite

@@smnrys mine too! i also kept scrolling to look for a mention of it XD

Those two omissions confused me, too.