Censorship & Young Adult Literature

To assert that young adult literature exists merely as a transition from children's books to "real" adult books is to undermine young readers' astuteness. A young reader should never be made to feel that what he/she is reading is simply fodder for them to devour until they are apt enough to handle "true literature." This could be disastrous, discouraging the reader from reading entirely.

To begin with, young adult literature possesses the same literary elements that are present in adult novels. For example, Karen Hesse's Out of the Dust carries throughout it the theme of rising out of the nothingness and fury of the dust. This is evident in the literal plot events as well as in Billie Joe's metaphorical rise from the hardships she endures as a child of the depression in the Dust Bowl. In Lois Lowry's The Giver, readers are exposed to as poignant an allegory as in any adult science fiction novel. Lowry's portrayal of a dystopian society raises questions about our own. It is certainly not a sugarcoated, soft push toward more serious literature. There is nothing transitional about the literary quality of these novels. With regard to the writing, some young adult novels, such as The Giver and Gary Paulsen's novels Dogsong and Winterdance contain much more complex structure than adult novels. Reading one of these alongside an adult novel, one may not even be able to discern which was intended for young readers. In fact, I sailed smoothly from Lowry right into Kate Chopin as a young adult, without ever noticing the difference until I was told that the former was intended for young adults. If young adult literature serves only a transitional purpose, when is the transition complete?

Moreover, if we do not consider young adult literature as a legitimate entity in itself, we are in effect giving it over completely to censorship. The censors already thrive on finding vulnerable characteristics of a book, ignoring the overall value of the work. Demoting young adult literature to a tool that simply prepares readers for more "advanced" reading makes the genre even more susceptible to claims that certain works should be excluded because they are "inappropriate." At this point, the censors win. Everyone is reading cleaned up versions of the classics, and a wealth of literature is lost to readers. It is also important to note that, if young adult literature were merely transitory, the content of young adult novels would not vary so largely. From the lightheartedness of Hesse's nautical adventure Stowaway to the more mature subject matter of Ellen Wittlinger's Hard Love, a problem novel detailing a teenaged boy's love for his lesbian friend, young adult literature contains transitions within itself. The content of young adult novels is not tempered for milder digestion by readers. In fact, the only uniquely "young" element in some novels is the protagonist's age. In Hard Love, as well as in Paul Fleischman's Mind's Eye and Nancy Farmer's A Girl Named Disaster, the protagonist's youth is what marks it as a young adult novel, but the story could easily have happened to an adult. Again, where exactly does the transition occur?

Perhaps the most compelling reason that young adult literature must be evaluated as an authentic entity in itself lies in Rosenberg's First Law of Reading: "never apologize for your reading tastes." No reader, young or old, should be asked to justify the purpose of his/her reading, or to rank a book against others on some great scale of literary quality. After all, is it not the goal of the librarian to help young readers enjoy reading? What good is a book if there is no pleasure in the reading? An individual's level of comprehension or place in the transition from youth to adulthood has no effect on whether or not he/she enjoys reading.

At its core, young adult literature can serve a transitional purpose. It is often a young reader's first exposure to thematic elements, character development, and the differences between genres. However, young adult literature should never be viewed solely as an intermediary between children's literature and "real" books. To do so discredits quite a lot of excellent literature and those who read it.