The “Breakout” or Crossover YA Novel
CATCHING FIRE by Suzanne Collins
A few days ago, I wrote about rejecting manuscripts we felt were too YA for our list. But I’ve also said we wouldn’t turn down really great YA that’s solidly for the YA market.
Are we being contradictory? Not intentionally. Certain YA novels are really wonderful and truly belong on teen shelves but they can also appeal to an adult audience. These are the “breakout” novels. HARRY POTTER, TWILIGHT, and more recent THE HUNGER GAMES are books that deal with an adolescent narrative, but many adults read and enjoy them. I, for one, am salivating at the mouth for the next HUNGER GAMES book (seriously, I haven’t been this excited about a book series since HARRY POTTER).
What about the “crossover” YA book? The definition of a crossover is a little harder to articulate and these are the novels we are the most interested in discovering at St. Martin’s Press. Some of these are novels with an “all ages” narrative and themes (however you want to define that) that may happen to have a young protagonist. But what makes a “breakout” or “crossover” YA?
PAPER TOWNS by John Green
A lot of YA novels we see submitted to us have narrow scope. This isn’t a bad thing in and of itself, but a novel that is primarily about the contemporary teenaged experience (high school, social hierarchies, etc.) is going to resonate less with adult readers than, say, a novel with a sixteen year old protagonist trying to save the world (a bad example but you get the idea). Most adult readers have put their high school years behind them and not many care to revisit them. If you can’t escape using the term “high school” in describing a YA book, then the book will probably be too young for Cap’n Sweet Valley and me to consider.
However, a book set during that time but deals with more universal experiences and has broader scope is one that will “break out” of its shelf and into the hands of older readers. I’ve dealt with the topic of voice before, but this time I am talking about content. I won’t delve too deeply into that discussion (which can touch on everything from propriety to censorship), but I do believe content and its treatment thereof can reach an older audience. I’m not someone who believes content should be censored–teens deal with sex and drugs too, it’s just how they handle it will be different from an adult, mostly by nature of circumstance. Teens are still legally bound to their guardians (even if not in practice). Adults are legally responsible for themselves.
An example of a really great YA novel that is a solid teen title but resonates with an adult audience is John Green’s PAPER TOWNS. This book made me cry. Yes, Q is in high school. But it’s not about Q’s high school experience, although the experience forms the narrative. It’s about perception and identity and expectations and the ways in which we create ideas of each other that say more about ourselves than the other. (This is grossly oversimplifying the book, but I don’t have the time to properly explicate PAPER TOWNS.)
This is a very, very fine line to walk and an even finer line to write. This doesn’t only apply to contemporary novels; fantasy novels can be too YA for us as well. It is easier in speculative fiction to include a more universal experience, but a lot of the time, I see novels that are straight YA with fantasy describing or illuminating the high school experience. A television example would be Buffy the Vampire Slayer (excluding the later season when they are in college). Joss Whedon was always clear that the show took the metaphor “High School is Hell” and ran with it. I like young protagonists–I relate to them more easily than older ones, but I find myself straying toward novels with young protagonists that aren’t about being a teenager.
THE ASTONISHING LIFE OF OCTAVIAN NOTHING by M.T. Anderson
A crossover YA title is a little bit different. The definition differs from publisher to publisher, reader to reader, but I define a crossover YA as a novel that features a young protagonist but doesn’t necessarily have to be a YA book; in other words, this is a book that can be cross-shelved. Obvious examples include THE BOOK THIEF by Markus Zusak and FIRE by Kristin Cashore (both of which were published as adult titles abroad), but one I can think of that was published as YA that could have easily been shelved in adult historical fiction is M.T. Anderson’s THE ASTONISHING LIFE OF OCTAVIAN NOTHING, both volumes. OCTAVIAN NOTHING is a slave narrative, a little bit gothic mystery, and an incredibly written and researched book. Is it YA? Yes. Is it also adult? Yes. This is, to me, a great crossover novel.
What about you? Can you think of examples in either the breakout or crossover categories?
I totally agree about Hunger Games and Catching Fire. They are brilliant and are my top two fave books ever and I’m almost 40.
I love YA, but usually like the books more that aren’t set in high school. The Awakening by Kelley Armstrong, teenage protaganist dealing with adult themes, loved it.
Soulless by Christopher Golden
Unwind by Neal Shusterman
The Faerie series by Holly Black
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Catching Fire rocks. Just a big wow.
Flygirl by Sherri L. Smith is pretty awesome. I’ve only just started, so I can’t say for sure, but it’s got some big themes going so far.
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You’ve mentioned some pretty great books so far. Ender’s Game (the whole series, really) is about a little kid, but appealed to many adults. Though, it was marketed to adults, as I understand it. Perhaps Eragon, Elder, and Brisingr fit the “crossover” definition better.
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Ender’s Game was a novella. I believe it was written for Analog (or maybe Asimov?), which is an SF mag. SF mags like SF novels, are often read by teenagers, but the stories are “adult” fiction.
The original cadre of sequels: Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind were similarly written for adults, thought they all featured prominent teenaged characters.
I do not know if the new series (Ender’s Shadow) or the new sequels are written as adult or children’s books. However, I often see Ender shelved in the children’s dept. now. Kind of like you see Wuthering Heights shelved in the children’s dept. now but it never used to be.
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I thought this was very interesting. Got here from friends of friends on LJ so I friended you there. I just used the word “friend” a lot in that sentence. hmm.
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