The discussion is on at the NY Times about adults reading YA. Hunger Games, Potter, what’s going on? Is there something unique to YA that draws adults as well as teens? Patricia McCormick, author of Sold, says YA authors take risks writers don’t take in the adult literary world, while Jeff Stein, columnist, contends that adults should read adult books.  Lev Grossman, The Magicians, identifies differences in style between YA and adult fiction: “The writing is different: young adult novels tend to emphasize strong voices and clear, clean descriptive prose, whereas a lot of literary fiction is very focused on style: dense, lyrical, descriptive prose, larded with tons of carefully observed detail, which calls attention to its own virtuosity rather than ushering the reader to the next paragraph with a minimum of fuss.”

Read up. Join the discussion. As we age, we begin to realize we don’t have it all figured out. YA agrees with us–there are more questions than answers, and adds something much of adult lit. forgets we crave…hope.  In the end, Emily Dickinson’s “thing with feathers” sings.

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