Recently, the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) awarded their 2011 prize for best YA novel to Paolo Bacigalupi’s Ship Breaker, a dystopian science-fiction tale set in a global-warming ravaged future. Nearly half of YALSA’s “Best Teen Books for 2011” are in the speculative genre (which encompasses fantasy and sci-fi), with four in the top ten.
Teen fantasy in general is receiving its share of recognition; the Harry Potter series has won a host of awards and other honours, while Neil Gaiman’s fantasy bestseller, The Graveyard Book, was awarded the 2010 Carnegie Medal.
For comparison, try to think of all the adult fantasy or science-fiction titles that have won major awards. To say that they’re few and far between would be almost an exaggeration.
This discrepancy is reflected in the sales statistics as well. A recent New York Times bestseller list includes just one fantasy title in the top ten adult bestsellers (print and e-book fiction), Deborah Harkness’s A Discovery of Witches. Comparatively, seven of the top ten bestselling children’s chapter books are speculative.
All of this points to a booming fantasy genre—in the teen section, that is.
The Success of YA Fantasy
“I see a lot of adults buying teen books,” says Michaela Staples, who works at a busy Vancouver-area Chapters bookstore. “Very often [the books] are fantasy.” And it’s not just novels about vampires and wizards that have adults browsing the YA section. Ms. Staples has had a number of conversations with adult customers about Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games series and Scott Westerfield’s Uglies. Alyson Noel and Holly Black are also popular.
It may be that the phenomenal success of the Harry Potter series (whose publishers, acknowledging the popularity of the series among adult readers, produced special editions with grownup-friendly cover art) enlivened the YA fantasy genre in a way that has not been seen on the adult side of the market since Tolkien. Publishers realized just how much money could be made, and new authors with fresh ideas began flooding the shelves. Profitable film versions (Twilight; Percy Jackson & the Olympians) became increasingly ubiquitous. The result was that more people—authors and readers—began paying attention to the YA fantasy genre.
“Fantasy will definitely stay popular,” says former YALSA president Sarah Debraski in an interview with About.com. "Teens have always been interested in the morbid and gothic." The same can be said for many grown-up readers.
Teen Fantasy Eclipsing Adult-Oriented Narratives
In fairness, there are a number of high calibre books being published in the adult speculative genre today—George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series is a notable example. But such books are not generating the attention of many YA fantasy titles in terms of bestseller lists, award nominations, or even film rights purchases. And this attention, I would suggest, is spurring even more innovation in the teen fantasy genre.
Teen fantasy fiction has its share of escapist novels, but it also has many that comment on contemporary issues in an original way, such as Ship Breaker. That’s what good speculative fiction should do, and it’s part of the reason why so many adults are shopping in the well-stocked fantasy shelves of the teen section.
Heather Fawcett - Heather Fawcett is a Vancouver-based writer and editor. She holds an M.A. in English Literature and specializes in teen fiction, having ...
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