Although the exact origin of young adult (or YA) literary fiction has been debated quite substantially over the years by literary scholars, the most plausible case for the beginning of the genre suggests that it has existed since the 1930s—specifically, since the publication of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie series. At this time, teachers and librarians were reluctant to legitimize what was known to them as teenage fiction. Instead, educators mocked the genre as lowbrow, and both culturally and mentally unstimulating. Above all else, teenage fiction violated the widely accepted Western literary canon that defined genre and novel conventions (Blakemore).

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It was not until the 1980s that literary critics finally accepted that a new canon had to be created to define young adult literature. Thus, after acknowledging the depth of which subjects within the genre explored, literary scholar Linda Bachelder and colleagues sought to compare young adult novels to the classics: Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War to Faulkner, and Judy Blume’s Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret to Dickens. It was through these efforts that young readers and literary critics alike began to truly recognize the legitimacy of young adult literature as an independent genre and as a medium for which a young mind might begin to critically examine socio-cultural expectations (Blakemore).

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Then, in 1989, an essay titled “Laughing with, or Laughing at the Young Adult Romance” was written and published by Brenda O. Laly. This essay demonstrated to literary critics—who argued that all works of young adult literary fiction were of the same plot, thematic structure, and character archetypes and therefore unoriginal in nature—that young adult literature was, in fact, quite popular with its intended audience. Laly’s essay invited critics to interrogate works such as Ellen Conford’s 1985 young adult novel, Strictly for Laughs, wherein Daly reveals to critics that Conford uncovered a new trend in the young adult literary genre: that is, the freedom for exploring the portrayals of teenagers and the female imagination (Blakemore).

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Conford is regarded as one of the trailblazers for what was, during her writing career, the budding genre that we recognize now as young adult literary fiction (Blakemore). By the beginning of the 21st century, adolescents and teenagers had become the fastest-growing age demographic in the entire U.S. population for publishing, which brought about a greater demand for young adult literature (Koss & Teale)

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The market for young adult literature boomed, and this genre continues to be a driving force within the publishing industry. In 2014, the genre gained approximately 22.4% in sales. Despite the intended genre audience, 55% of young adult novels are now purchased by adult readers. Today, new thematic trends such as racial and ethnic diversity, LGBTQ+ narratives, and disability studies begin to flood the industry and young adult fiction (Koss and Teale).

 

Thematic Trends in Young Adult Literature

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Typically, young adult literature explores the developmental stages of one’s early life, from childhood to adolescence, and adolescence into adulthood. Novels such as Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye present narratives on childhood and offer such explorations into the workings of novel protagonists Scout Finch’s and Holden Caulfield’s formative years as they traverse issues such as the destruction of their innocence and superficiality within society. These novels, both early examples of young adult fiction, demonstrate the qualities of a bildungsroman—the classification for a novel that depicts moral and psychological developments within a central protagonist.

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Across the entire genre, it appears that the characteristics of a bildungsroman are a necessity within a young adult novel. An additional qualification, and perhaps necessity, for meeting the requirements defined under the young adult literary canon includes age-appropriate narratives for young readers; these readers, then, seek to find themselves represented through the characters they read about. Until recently, readers might only find this relativism if they were among the dominant socio-cultural demographic: white, cisgender, and more often, male. Consider then, the popularity of thematic trends within the young adult literary canon, from Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie to Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give.