One reporter reacts to JKR's revelations

[sistermagpie]

> Carol responds:
> 
> I'm not saying that sex isn't being depicted in "YA" books 
(although i
> think that's disturbing). I'm objecting to the term "young adult
> literature" for readers who are actually children or younger
> teenagers. They're not young adults. The term is a euphemism, as if
> "adolescent" or "pre-teen" or "teenage" were somehow insulting 
terms.

Magpie:
I know you're objecting to the term, but it's a standard term in 
publishing so it seems pointless to put it in quotation marks when 
it's long been the actual term for the books we're talking about. 
I've never heard anybody refer to actual teenagers as Young Adults, 
but I've been using the term for books I recognized as such for most 
of my life. 

Carol:
In the
> cartoon, little girls were labeled "prewomen" because "girls" was
> supposedly offensive. Thank goodness the extreme views of the early
> 90s have disappeared, but the fondness for euphemisms is still
> prevalent. 

Magpie:
This was being used before the political correct jokes of the 90s. I 
remember the term YA when I was a teen.

Carol:
And, IMO, "young adult" for readers who are actually
> children is both euphemistic and misleading. They're not adults and
> they're not ready for adult content in their books. If we have 
NC17 as
> a category for movies, surely we ought to have something comparable
> for books. (Even in the WW, where kids come of age at seventeen, a
> sixteen-year-old is considered a child.)

Magpie:
It depends on what you mean by adult content. What should be allowed 
in YA in your opinion is a different issue, that they might disagree 
with or not. I'm not saying all books in this category are 
graphically sexual by any means, but certain topics are routinely 
covered. Sexuality being one of them, of course, since it's often in 
adolescence that a teen might realize s/he is gay or their friend 
is. 

Carol:
> Carol, just clarifying her use of "so-called" and noting that "YA"
> literature is not an accepted literary genre but a category used by
> bookstores to classify their books

Magpie:
And publishers as well for the same reason. Whether or not one 
objects to gay characters in books for teenagers (or children, since 
they also appear in books for younger readers), or teenagers being 
called young adults JKR would not be the first if she had actually 
had gay people explicitly in her canon.

-m