When I was in graduate school I worked briefly at a book store in Harvard Square called "Curious George Goes to Wordsworth." It was a sweet little store and sold only children's books. Upstairs were picture and story books and downstairs was the young adult room. I got to know a lot of great books and readers there. One of the things that I liked about our young adult room is that we had an entire shelf of "transitional" titles. Honestly, I can't even remember if that's what we called them at the time, but they were books especially well-suited for mature young adults. Readers that were growing out of the young adult genre could find appropriate adult titles with which to "cross-over." I remember Girl by Blake Nelson was one of those titles.

Girl has recently been re-branded and is now being marketed as a young adult title. Personally, I think that's where it should have been living all along but things were different in 1994. I think both young adults and the publishing world has grown up a bit since then. Were teens younger then? Are they older now? Not sure. Possibly. It's also possible that we have a better grip on who young adults are and we are better at identifying that demographic. The need for cool, nuanced material however, has remained a constant. Finding books for that in-between stage is a challenge and keeping readers interested at that intersection is crucial.

On that shelf, I found books for confused shoppers who felt out of place in the young adult room but overwhelmed at the grown-up bookstore down the street. Titles included, Edwidge Dandicutt's Crick Crack, Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, and Alice Walker's, The Color Purple. What amazing titles with which to usher hungry young readers into the next phase of literature-loving.

In this great CBC.ca article the author reminds us that youngsters are always trying to read something slightly older than what their own age group allows for. It also includes some of of the history of cross-over titles, pointing out that the re-branding of books is often times the simple result of publishers getting it wrong the first time around. In addition, the re-designing of covers to appeal to different audiences is common and the placement of appropriate adult books in children's catalogs is also standard.

As usual YALSA gets it. Check out the Alex Awards. They celebrate adult books that are especially good for young adults. I love this niche because that young adult window can often be very small. Sometimes kids go from middle readers to adult books in just one year. Often they leap ahead of the appropriate good stuff and into material that is way too mature for them. And by the way, it's not neccessarily sex and swearing that make them inappropriate. (After all, there's more to being an adult than sex and swearing....I think.) That's not what scares me. It's the risk of BOREDOM. If a book is too sophisticated or childish young readers lose interest.

We really have to look at all the ways in which we categorize genres and target age groups. It is not an exact science and it is changing as often as we are. I love that Girl is being re-purposed. Why not? If the story is relevant to a new and different audience, all the better. Same audience, different name, that's fine too.

What do you think? Are there any transitional titles that you feel don't belong in the age-group they're living? What books do you think we should re-visit and re-purpose? Let me know.

Posted by alli