Last summer, NPR gathered together reader votes to create a “Top 100” list for science fiction and fantasy books. This summer, they’re getting even closer to my heart with a “Top 100” YA list. And you can vote for 10 of the 200-odd finalists! (Though I'm not seeing when the voting ends for some reason, so get your votes in now.)
As I said about the sci-fi and fantasy list, whenever you try to assemble a list of the top anything, it’s bound to lead to heated conversations about who’s on the list, who got left off, and—in especially in the case of YA—whether certain titles even qualify for the list in the first place. Since I voted today, I thought I’d share my votes and some thoughts I had about the finalist list. Thoughts first:
I’m really glad NPR is doing a YA list! Public opinion about the merits of YA literature has improved dramatically over the last few years, with more and more people willing to admit that great books are being written for young readers—books that are as good as what’s being written for adult readers. But among adults who do read YA, there’s still something of a stigma attached to reading books “for kids,” as if they couldn’t possibly be as worthwhile as books for the older set. I think having a list like this, which showcases hundreds of great novels is important, and a great step for YA.What counts as YA? NPR says that they chose to view as YA books that teens “voluntarily read.” Unfortunately, I’m not really sure that definition is entirely helpful 1) because teens are diverse and may be “willing to read” more than NPR is giving them credit for and 2) because a lot of teens read books that are, in fact, written for adults, and including them as YA just because teens read them doesn’t make them YA. A few titles that jumped out at me as being questionable in this regard were
Dune,
The Lord of the Rings,
The Princess Bride, and
The Last Unicorn. While all are great books surely read by teens, these just aren’t YA in my opinion: they were
written for adults. Also, I’m a bit confused about some books which seem to have been considered middle grade and don’t appear on the list, while other books that read for the same age group were. For instance, we have Lois Lowry’s
The Giver, which to me is solidly middle-grade, but don’t have Madeleine L’Engle’s
A Wrinkle in Time or any books by Lloyd Alexander. (And, if we’re going to get technical,
Harry Potter is sold in the middle grade section of book store and at least starts out as solidly middle grade.) Perhaps
A Wrinkle in Time and Lloyd Alexander’s books just didn’t get enough votes to make the list, but I’m more apt to think that their non-presence says more what the panel thought was YA, and thus about the fluidity of “YA” as a category. In short, it’s a hard thing to determine!This list skews heavily toward recent titles. Tons of titles written in the last 5-7 years, and fewer of what I would consider classics from my youth. This seems to indicate a real excitement about recent books—fervent fan bases for various series and authors—and this makes me really happy, because it means that people are pumped about reading YA. But the lack of more older books also makes me wonder what it means for the more modern books in twenty years. Will they still be seen as the “best ever” or, like some of the books from my childhood that didn’t make the list, will the excitement and buzz that surrounds them have faded? I don’t know, so it will be something interesting to watch.So, what did I vote for?Suzanne Collins’
The Hunger Games trilogySusan Cooper’s
The Dark Is Rising SeriesS. E. Hinton’s
The OutsidersMadeleine L’Engle’s
A Ring of Endless LightRobin McKinley’s
The Hero and the Crown and
The Blue SwordTamora Pierce’s
Song of the Lioness quartetPhilip Pullman’s
His Dark Materials trilogyJ. K. Rowling’s
Harry Potter seriesSherwood Smith’s
Crown Duel
I'm pretty happy with this as a "top ten" list for me but, but there are some books that I’m sad didn’t get a mention:
Diane Duane’s
Young Wizards series (seriously, people, SERIOUSLY? This is probably my biggest complaint, because those books are absolutely wonderful, and I’ve loved them both as a teen and as an adult)Michael Ende's
The Never-Ending Story (a classic in any era, and which I would consider as YA as several other books on the list)Patricia C. Wrede's
Mairelon the Magician duology (though I love her Enchanted Forest Chronicles, I like these better, and think they're more authentically YA)Lloyd Alexander's
Westmark trilogy (again, as YA to me as several others on the list; I'll admit that the Prydain books skew younger and probably wouldn't have been appropriate)Madeleine L'Engle's
A Wrinkle in Time. (Without this book, we wouldn't have YA like we do today, folks.)So what did you vote for? What do you think should have made the list and didn't?
