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Jennifer Byrne Presents: Just big kids? Why adults are reading YA fiction

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Jennifer Byrne
Jennifer Byrne Presents: Just big kids? Why adults are reading YA fiction

SUBJECTS:  English

YEARS:  9–10


The Young Adult, or YA, publishing market might be huge, but not all readers of YA books are teenagers.

Perhaps surprisingly, increasing numbers of adults are choosing to read books written for the YA market.

Join in this panel discussion as four YA authors discuss the reasons why their books are being picked up by adult readers.


Things to think about

  1. 1.Did you know that Bloomsbury, the original publishers of the Harry Potter series, published each book with both children's and adult covers? See if you can find examples of these different covers and compare them. Why might adults want to read YA novels like the Harry Potter series?
  2. 2.Identify reasons that the panellists offer as to why adults read YA fiction. What sorts of textual features seem to be common to YA novels?
  3. 3.Before seeing this clip, were you already aware that many adults read YA fiction? If not, did learning this surprise you or not, and why? Do you agree with Steph Bowe when she says that YA novels offer a 'romanticised' version of being a teenager? How does this compare with your own experience of YA fiction? Consider the reasons why adults are reading YA novels. What does this suggest about the nature of adult life?
  4. 4.Ask an adult about their favourite novel when they were a teenager. Why was it important to them? Would they read it again now? Why or why not?


Acknowledgements

Image credit: ' Reading', courtesy Pedro Ribeiro Simões (Flickr).


Production Date: 16 Oct 2012


Copyright

Metadata © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia Ltd 2012 (except where otherwise indicated). Digital content © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). Video © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). All images copyright their respective owners. Text © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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