We sent our publisher some words for Teen Literature Day and were pleased to see our names in their guest posts.
However, as it happened, the article is a compilation of many guest posts regarding Teen Literature Day. So to keep things short and practical, our publisher needed to amend and shorten some of the posts (or all of them? Who knows? We can only talk about ours)
So here is the full version of our Teen Literature Day guest posts. You can also check out our other teen literature day article on the blog!
Paul: Why I write … YA fantasy
One of my strongest childhood memories is of trying to sneakily read my latest book by torchlight – significantly past my bedtime. I would usually wake as the book bounced off my face and slammed onto the floor. I would normally only give up for the night once it took me longer to work out where I’d read up to than it took for the book to bounce off my head again. I also remember reading to my own children and it makes me happy that they are both still voracious readers.
For me, our teenage years mark the point where our childhood brains are starting to grow and think in different ways: starting to piece the complexity of the world together. As much as we ever do. These are the times when we still believe in fairy tales, while arguing against them. When maybe we think that the world of adults must be boring and ordinary to be considered ‘grown up’.
Of course, all of this doesn’t really explain why we ended up writing a book for young adults. Magical fantasy is a curious genre, in some respects: it sits at the edge of belief. It needs to be normal yet different. Ordinary yet full of possibility. Magical yet commonplace. A fairy tale that we can believe in, yet argue against.
You might argue that there is no better time of your life to appreciate this than during those years where we are quietly slipping out of our childhood. I might agree, while also arguing that some of us have always kept one foot heavily in childhood and can still enjoy this kind of fiction. I think that we’re those kind of people.
Celine: Filed Under: Teen Brain, YA Shelf
YA Isn’t Just a Genre—It’s a State of Mind
Happy Teen Literature Day!
According to a recent survey by the National Literacy Trust, only 34.6% of those aged between 8 and 18 enjoy reading during their free time.
With so many Young Adult (YA) books out there, why are we in a situation where so few teens enjoy reading during their free time?
First off, a lot of teens read in their spare time. Just not always in the way we expect. They could be reading subtitles in K-dramas, following crochet tutorials, or devouring fanfiction. They might not reach out to a paperback or an e-book, but they still engage with the written word.
So maybe the problem isn’t that teens have lost the joy of reading. Maybe it’s the book world that’s lost its teen sparkle.
Are books not good enough for YA readers?
I don’t think that was ever the problem.
Who are Young Adults?
The YA category roughly refers to readers between the ages of 13 and late teens or early tweens.
It reminds me of the film Rebel Without A Cause. In 1955, the world was rocked by an eternally young James Dean, drunk, and his toy monkey. While it doesn’t relate to the reading world, Rebel Without A Cause carved a space for teenagers to exist.
By extension, we now have a reading age category that specifically reflects the uniqueness of their needs, somewhere between those of children and adults: YA.
A round of applause for James Dean and his cymbal-playing monkey!
The teenage brain & YA readers
Teens do not just have different needs. Their entire brain is different. The teenage brain starts reshaping itself around age 12 or 13, right when YA books step onto the scene.
And it keeps evolving well into the twenties, around 25, when it’s fully formed, which lines up neatly with the upper end of the YA audience, too.
Happy coincidence? I prefer to think that YA is the one category built to meet the teenage brain in the middle: messy, growing, and wide open to the world.
So, for Teen Literature Day, let’s take a quick peek inside the teenage brain.
What does the teenage brain crave?
The teenage brain is wired differently. It’s still learning to handle big emotions, chase rewards, plan ahead, resist impulses, and figure out who it’s becoming.
Dopamine, the reward hormone, becomes the compass of the teenage brain. Teens don’t take risks, experiment with their identities, or follow peers just because; they do it for the dopamine.
The perfect recipe for a YA hero, right?
YA heroes may live extraordinary lives, but YA readers relate to the way they think and behave.
YA books & neurodivergent brain: a match made in heaven
Do you know who has a lot in common with the teenage brain?
There is a real and significant overlap between the teenage brain and many expressions of the neurodivergent brain. While different, they still share a lot of core traits when it comes to emotion, identity, sensory input, and social dynamics.
We’re not writing from memory; this is everyday experience.
Could neurodivergent writers be the key to helping the book world find its teen sparkle again? That’s for teens to decide; we’re already reaching out to connect, brain to brain, spark to spark.
