The insanely talented Adrienne Martini has a piece in the Baltimore City Paper about the prevalence of science fiction and fantasy in YA and why it does so well, for which she interviewed the likes of Scott, Scalzi, Colleen and me:
Unless they are forced to do so, most adults don’t wander into the kids’ section of any major big-box bookseller. For your average science-fiction reader–a book shopper who gets itchy even around the "normal" fiction–the back of the bookstore isn’t on their map, as if they fear falling off of the edge of the world if they cross over its threshold. Which has been a puzzle, frankly, because most science-fiction readers cut their teeth on young adult fiction long before it existed as a marketing category. While Robert Heinlein is known for his adult fiction, like Stranger in a Strange Land, it’s his earlier works that were aimed at early teens, such as Have Spacesuit, Will Travel or Citizen of the Galaxy, that many current SF readers cut their teeth on.
Check it out.
For your average science-fiction reader–a book shopper who gets itchy even around the “normal” fiction–the back of the bookstore isn’t on their map, as if they fear falling off of the edge of the world if they cross over its threshold. Which has been a puzzle, frankly, because most science-fiction readers cut their teeth on young adult fiction long before it existed as a marketing category.
Yeah, I still don’t get that business of the teen (not to mention children’s!) section being like an alien country. Not just because I love YA–also because, how do you frequent bookstores without wandering beyond your own home section every so often, whatever that section is?