Maryland author gives reasons why YA is the new hotness

Paula Chase-Hyman

The publishing industry, searching for the next big thing, has hooked on to young adult (YA) novels as a savior of the bottom line. Much has happened since the Seattle Post-Intelligencer crowed in 2007 that a “new golden age of young adult literature” had dawned. Twilight author Stephenie Meyer has spawned a veritable cottage industry. Romance publisher Harlequin, after having ended a YA imprint in the 1980s, has remerged this year with Harlequin Teen. General fiction authors have entered the fray, including, surprisingly, James Frey. What explains the sudden resurgence of YA novels?

According to Paula Chase-Hyman, it’s not so much a resurgence as a refocus. Chase-Hyman’s YA bona fides are unimpeachable. She’s the author of five YA novels, including So Not the Drama, That’s What’s Up, and Flipping the Script. Concerning her career, Chase-Hyman insists that the YA genre chose her. She had always mentored and coached cheerleading, which fed her fascination with how young people in middle school through to the early college years process the huge metamorphosis that they undergo. When it came time to pen So Not the Drama, her first novel, she knew that the main character would be a fourteen year old. “Clearly I’m still just 13 or 14 inside,” she says with a laugh.

From her informed place, Chase-Hyman suggests reasons for the refocus on the YA genre:

Reason #5. YA novels enable their young readers to process problems and situations from a safe distance. They show how someone the reader’s age would deal with problems that are typical for that reader’s age group. Books are particularly useful here, because, by their nature, they can provide more context than a television. But, Chase-Hyman cautions, this safe distance does not mean that the reader might not explore some of the taboos written about in the book, but stresses, “reading it doesn’t make them go out and do it. My book isn’t going to raise you [the reader].”

Reason #4. YA novels, for the most part, depict characters coming across problems for the first time – the notorious “Firsts” in life. YA novels also show how characters process these firsts from their perspective, the perspective of their households, and the perspective of their peer groups. As Chase-Hyman puts it, it’s “Your way, your parent’s way, your friend’s way,” or a hybrid of these. The young characters make life-changing decisions from such effortful mental processing as they juggle academics, sports, and the like. “There’s a lot of tension involved in first time problem solving,” Chase-Hyman says. “Once we become adults, we take a lot of things for granted.”

Continued with Reasons #3 and #2…