​Young Adult Vs. Adult Literature

Based on readings, young adult literature should reflect the reader’s age and developmental levels while addressing their interests and reading comprehension abilities. The content usually includes contemporary conflicts and experiences with characters to whom younger students can relate. Young adult literature also considers contemporary world views including gender social cultural, and social diversity. Issues dealing with politics and environmental issues might also be included with literature for adolescents worded in terms easy for the younger reader to fully comprehend. With adult literature, there is a lot more room for gray area, complex character development, complicated plot lines, mature life situations, and the length of the text can go on and on.

The author of young adult literature must consider their main character’s voice, the depth of their point-of-view, how this character sees the world, how the world sees them while planning how lengthy the novel should be. The protagonist is typically focused on the here and the now, and how they feel in the moment. When you are targeting adults specifically, there is an understanding that the reader will be more analytical and reflective since they have a deeper understanding about life and therefore, consider various potential consequences to a character’s actions. In many cases, the adult literature plot line is drawn out since characters have family and other adult responsibilities causing them to act in a much less impulsive manner.

Example:

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling versus The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger by Stephen King.

For the young adult reader, this Harry Potter book is centered around a boy who finds out that he is the son of two wizards, which means that he also has special magical powers of his own. He leaves his life as an unwanted son to be a student at Hogwarts boarding school in England, created specifically for wizards. At Hogwarts, Harry meets many friends who help him to discover the truth about the death of his real parents.

 This novel has all the makings of good plot development, internal and external conflicts, the elements of fantasy and magic, but is also centered around characters that the young adult readers can relate to. Not to mention in the adolescent years, many of our students are facing the same issues coming from broken homes and families or trying to make new friends in a new school for the first time.

The Dark Tower on the other hand is set in a world of extraordinary circumstances and includes elements of horror mixed in with its fantasy and fiction. The main character Roland, is a gunslinger from a very young age and is on a mission to find the mysterious Man in Black. On his journey, he meets a lot of interesting characters, including a demon, receives tarot readings, and experiences a lot of violence. This book shifts between the viewpoint of many different characters and tries to explain various elements of their universe, space, and time which demands too much of the young adult reader. There is a lot of adult content, mature situations, and flashbacks which would be very difficult for the young adult reader to wrap their mind around, and is just not developmentally appropriate for them.

Some other good book/series comparisons between young adult and adult which share similar ideas/themes include:

The Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer versus Fifty Shades of Grey series by E. L. James. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins versus Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin

When all is said and done, young adult books are intended to express a voice for teens and adult books are meant to express a voice for adults. The writers of both probably want their readers to be able to relate and identify with their characters and the story. It boils down to matching up character traits and experiences to that of the targeted audiences. Some situations are appropriate for the young adult reader while others just are not, at least not yet.

 As an adult reader, I find that I do not care to read young adult novels for leisure since I am in a place in my life (work, college, kids, bills) where I just no longer relate to the character’s types of conflicts, experiences, or emotional state.

Short, K, Tomlinson C, & Lynch-Brown, C. (2015). Essentials of Young Adult Literature, 3rd Edition. Pearson. pp 1-38.

Short, K, Tomlinson C, & Lynch-Brown, C. (2015). Essentials of Children’s Literature, 9th Edition. Pearson. pp 1-50.