What books come under this genre and what do you think defines it?

Just trying to wake up people to this new opportunity of discussion as you may not realise these topics are now open!

What kind of books would you class Action/Adventure?

* Most Gary Paulsen books
* Alex Rider series by Anthony Horowitz
* Most books by Will Hobbs (although some of them could be called historical fiction as well)

I think action/adventure is a tough one to pin down because it is in so many books that can be classified in other genres - fantasy, science fiction, historical fiction, etc.

Luann wrote: "I think action/adventure is a tough one to pin down because it is in so many books that can be classified in other genres - fantasy, science fiction, historical fiction, etc."

I agree. I think a lot of the survival stories could fall under this category. Stories like those by Gary Paulsen, as Luann said. I always think of the Maximum Ride books as Action/Adventure but really, they're Sci-Fi. So maybe we have to consider our genres differently? Or the wording? In this case, Sci-Fi as the genre, with Action/Adventure as one of the aspects? Or something.

I'll add a few to the list:
*Young James Bond series by Charlie Higson
*Gordon Korman - Everest series, On the Run series, Island series, Kidnapped series

And what about the Shadow Children series by Margaret Peterson Haddix? I haven't read them, but they seemed pretty adventurous. Or would those be more Sci-Fi, too?

I put this up in the news andwebsites topic but I thught it might be useful here too: http://guyslitwire.blogspot.com/ as I think the whole action and adventure books will be a lot more appealing to boys - and recently in the UK anyway they have become very popular.

I know for sure that action adventure is more interesting to this girl than it is to my brother.

Dragon Eyed ...ha ha the girl sounds a bit like me! (??)

I love the idea of this group..I find YA fiction hugely entertaining and even inspiring. Is there a defining character to this genre? Some may think I have been living underground, :) ...anyway I was pleasantly surprised to find a section in the library some years back for YA fiction. For someone like me who is a binge reader on and off believe me it made my visits to the library a delightful experience. I wonder if all those old books from Those days would be considered YA fiction...like The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew (can't imagine youth fighting crime in the context of literature except if they are costumed in today's times)

It's good to be young! Thank heavens I don't need to act old before it's my time just cos there was childhood with dare I say Enid Blyton and the Narnia kind of books, and then right afterwards there's Maturity (which I think means premature grey and having children of your own).

I'm sorry I'm just a bit jaded with all those English children finding magical things and creatures at the beach, guess I watch too much tv....

I like the Narnia books Star Princess, I agree that they are juvanile, but that is one of the things that makes them so good. I know that I'm planning on reading children's and YA books until my eyes are so old and bad I can't read.

Luann wrote: "I think action/adventure is a tough one to pin down because it is in so many books that can be classified in other genres - fantasy, science fiction, historical fiction, etc."

I have to say I agree with you, Luann - I can't think of a tougher genre to identify as there is so much cross-over. I suppose you have to look at a book and then decide if you categorise it on the theme, or the content.
Taking the Maximum Ride books as an example, as Alexis points out, the theme of the books has its roots in sci-fi, whereas the content sees the bird children flying around, escaping the bad guys etc - what I would class as action/adventure, and correct me if I'm wrong (it has been a while since I read them) but I can't remember if the plot has them trying to discover all that much about how they were created, and the processes involved. Now for me, if they had done that, I'd be more inclined to class them as sci-fi - as they are, I'd class them as action/adventure, because that is what the plot focuses on.
But that's just my view of things.

it's all it comes down to really is genre vs. content