In Praise of Totally Awesome '80s YA

But while these books were popular, they weren’t acclaimed—parents and educators alike were often disappointed that tweens had dropped the “serious” novels of Judy Blume, S.E. Hinton, or Richard Peck, in favor of books about how, you know, sleepovers were fun. We absorbed these messages, too, and by the time we reached adulthood, most of us viewed these books as guilty pleasures, at best. Those books seemed silly and superficial, not to mention exclusionary—searching for stories about girls who weren’t white, straight, and middle-class in these books felt next to impossible. It seemed like they were best left up in the attic.

But I’d like to encourage you to dig them out (or, if your mom threw them out when you left for college, buy them on eBay). Because, as I learned while researching Paperback Crush: The Totally Radical History of '80s and '90s Teen Fiction, though these books were very imperfect, there was also more to them than meets the eye. They didn’t just help create the YA market that gave us Harry Potter and Katniss—they made us the women we are today.

Take, for instance, teen romances. The first YA series to appear in the ‘80s was Wildfire, a romance series which had two million books in print by 1982. Parents protested that Wildfire and its imitators taught girls to be shallow and boy-crazy—they even got a tie-in teen magazine pulled from production in 1981! But while some of the early YA romance featured teen characters chastely swooning and giving up what little agency they had, others suggested that love was something shared between two equals. Contemporary teen romances like Wildfire’s Nice Girls Don’t, historical romances like the Sunfire series, and even supernatural romances like the Windswept series said that the real Mr. Right would never ask you to make yourself small. In an era of great social change for women, these books could be lifelines for girls growing up in families that didn't yet believe a woman was entitled to her own identity.

And while the ‘70s are remembered as the era of the teen social issues novel, plenty of YA books in the ‘80s and ‘90s brought up social issues in a naturalistic way. Marie G. Lee’s middle grade novel, If It Hadn’t Been For Yoon Jun, examines transracial adoption and small-town racism alongside bullying and the cruel politics of middle school popularity. Cynthia D. Grant’s Uncle Vampire is both a spooky gothic horror novel and a sensitive exploration of how incest victims cope with the horror of their abuse. A. M. Stephenson’s Unbirthday walks confused, curious teens through every step of getting an abortion, while also spinning a sweet romance about a high school relationship.

Some series were obviously crafted to teach young girls that independence and creativity were cool—Ann M. Martin told The New Yorker in 2016 that “I certainly had a feminist perspective” when creating The Baby-Sitters Club. But while other, lesser-known series about groups might not have had such political motivation, looking back at The Gymnasts or The Pink Parrots makes their messages clear: It’s fulfilling to have your own passions, to work for the things that matter to you, and to find your tribe while you do it.

Of course, this isn’t to say that every book from this era was covertly progressive or empowering—many series had no higher agenda than selling books, and even series with ideals often fell short when it came to showcasing any kind of real diversity. But while this era wasn’t perfect, it’s still worth remembering. ‘80s YA was marketed directly to tweens, rather than teachers or librarians—which means that the books were about what they actually wanted to read, rather than what adults thought they should want to read. Without that, who knows if we’d have gotten Harry Potter, or The Hunger Games, or any other series fueled more by reader tastes than what your 7th grade teacher thought was proper.

Paperback Crush: The Totally Radical History of '80s and '90s Teen Fiction is on sale October 30. Don’t forget to add it to your Want to Read shelf!

Check out more recent blogs:
52 Books That Hooked Readers on YA
Riding the Tide: Sarah Henning Shares Her Top YA Picks for the High Seas
Sugar, Spice, and Ruthlessness: What Unconventional YA Heroines Are Made Of