Talk:Young adult literature

Genre fiction
Hi Dan Bloch, Re your recent deletion, can you explain why YA fiction doesn't fit this definition:


 * In the publishing industry the term "category fiction" is often used as a synonym for genre fiction, a term used in the book-trade for fictional works written with the intent of fitting into a specific literary genre, in order to appeal to readers and fans already familiar with that genre.

YA is described – and marketed – as category fiction. Wouldn't it have better to have edited, rather than delete, the section? Rwood128 (talk) 15:36, 23 May 2023 (UTC)


 * No. First, I'm pretty sure YA isn't considered genre fiction.  It is a genre, but in a colloquial sense, not a technical publishing sense.  As we say in the lead paragraph of the article, "The YA category includes most of the genres found in adult fiction".  I would argue that, e.g., YA science fiction is genre fiction, but realistic YA isn't.  Second, the section you added said nothing about YA.  It was just a definition of genre fiction, apropos of nothing.  But third, even if it were motivated, it would be wrong to copy a definition of genre fiction.  This isn't the Wikipedia paradigm.  You would say, e.g., "YA is an example of genre fiction, and if someone were curious they would click on the link.  Any time you find yourself copy/pasting between Wikipedia articles (which I see you've done elsewhere in this one), it should be a red flag. Dan Bloch (talk) 16:47, 23 May 2023 (UTC)


 * I note you are just "pretty sure" but not certain about this. And I focussed on the idea that YA was a category.
 * Aren't there genre fiction categories such as YA romance, YA sci/fi, YA fantasy, and more? Personally I dislike this kind of categorizing: there is just good, poor, and bad literature --Rwood128 (talk) 17:21, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm no longer sure what the issue is. If you don't want a detailed discussion of categories and I don't want a description of genre fiction, we should both be happy. Dan Bloch (talk) 19:16, 23 May 2023 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry if I was unclear. If fantasy is a category of genre fiction then isn't YA fantasy also? – and YA romance, sci/fi, etc.? That is the "genre fiction" section should be restored. --Rwood128 (talk) 20:43, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Still no. Of the three reasons I gave above, the most important is that we will be wasting the time of anyone who reads that paragraph, since they won't have learned anything about YA. Dan Bloch (talk) 22:51, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

The use of the word genre in connection with YA can be confusing and the early definition from the 1960s does make it sound like a sub-genre. Some of what I said may have been a little confused. However, if "The main genres are crime, fantasy, romance, science fiction and horror&mdash;as well as perhaps Western, inspirational and historical fiction," are examples of genre fiction(from the lede of genre fiction), then why aren't YA examples of these genres also genre fiction? In 2016 I thought I knew the answer Talk:Genre fiction.--Rwood128 (talk) 11:45, 24 May 2023 (UTC)


 * They are genre fiction. I said that above.  If you want to mention this in the article it's not out of the question, but it would need a source, and it's a tiny detail which doesn't add to readers' understanding of YA so I'd recommend against it.  But the paragraph I deleted was just about genre fiction and not about YA at all. Dan Bloch (talk) 14:48, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

On Harry Potter
I'm taking to the talk page on this.

I think people have difficulty placing this series because it evolves significantly over the course of the 7 books. I don't think there is any justification for counting Harry Potter as a "middle grade series" (a la Diary of a Wimpy Kid or Percy Jackson & the Olympians) given the lexile level of the books, their length, the age of the characters, the darker, more violent content, some of the conventions used (like the 7th book's epigraphs from Aeschylus and William Penn) and the very occasional use of language ("slut", "bastard", "bitch") that is not under any circumstance published in titles considered "Middle Grade". I acknowledge the somewhat subjective nature of this debate, but this makes it difficult to cite any one source to properly support either claim - many will say they are Young Adult, some will say Middle Grade, some say that the series progresses from Middle Grade to YA by about book 3 or 4, and the series is often casually referred to as a YA series. The Fantastic Beasts prequel stories to Harry Potter contain adult main characters, World War II imagery, and instances of infanticide. The wizarding world films are mostly PG-13 or 12 rated. The multimedia franchise overall, I'd argue, has complicated this by stretching the appeal and target audience of the franchise and its originating book series significantly. I don't think there is any meaningful argument to support the claim that Harry Potter is Middle Grade beyond "the first book is". I'm happy to revert the page back to where it was before my edits until a consensus is arrived at. Threefrgy (talk) 04:44, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
 * "the very occasional use of language ("slut", "bastard", "bitch")" Your point being? I live close to a kindergarten, and regularly hear the kids using the equivalent Greek words, and others of that type. Dimadick (talk) 07:12, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I’m sure you can make facile excuses as to why any content should be allowable at middle grade just because Harry Potter has it, but publishers don’t publish books as middle grade with that language period. I made a number of other points, too. Threefrgy (talk) 18:51, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 13 January 2024

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Procedural close. Withdrawn by nom. – robertsky (talk) 14:59, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Young adult fiction → Young-adult literature – We hyphenate adjective phrases on Wikipedia and the scope is "literature" not fiction. For instance, the page includes the "novel" 61 times and the word "film" only once, so it is far and away about a particular type of fiction: written fiction AKA literature. Wolfdog (talk) 19:01, 12 January 2024 (UTC)&#32;Wolfdog (talk) 19:01, 12 January 2024 (UTC) This is a contested technical request (permalink). – robertsky (talk) 02:17, 13 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Addition of a hyphen to the title has been reverted twice: in 2016 and in 2007. Those moves, particularly for the 2007 reason, lead me to believe that this is potentially controversial and should be proposed via a requested-move discussion, which you can open by pressing "discuss" on your request. There was also a 2007 move from "literature" to "fiction". SilverLocust 💬 20:06, 12 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Strong oppose - "Young adult" is the name of the literary genre. "Young-adult" is not.  It appears virtually nowhere on the web. Dan Bloch (talk) 04:21, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose per Dan bloch. This isn't how it's used in practice.  Names are just names, they don't have to be "grammatical."  See this 2022 Washington Post article for an example which uses "young adult literature" with no hyphen.  SnowFire (talk) 15:45, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @|SnowFire: No one was trying to be particularly grammatical; I was trying to be Wikipedian. Wolfdog (talk) 14:58, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Hi, all. I've decided, after Robertsky's bringing to light some history, that my actual proposal (which I did not recognize would be controversial at the time and therefore end up in a discussion) is to the name listed below, without a hyphen. Please feel free to close this discussion, however that works. Thanks. Wolfdog (talk) 14:58, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Requested move 16 January 2024

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) BilledMammal (talk) 01:44, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Young adult fiction → Young adult literature – The scope of the article is clearly "literature" not fiction. For instance, the page includes the word "novel" 61 times and the word "film" only once, so it is far and away about a particular type of fiction: written fiction... AKA literature. This is also an important term in the marketing world and education. Ngrams shows the slight preference for my label: thus WP:COMMONNAME. Wolfdog (talk) 14:58, 16 January 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. (t · c)  buidhe  17:23, 23 January 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. BilledMammal (talk) 01:12, 31 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Oppose A browser search returns three times as many hits for "Young adult fiction" as for "Young adult literature", so evidently "Young adult fiction" is the more common phrase for this genre. Additionally "literature" encompasses more than fiction (for example, non-fiction, poetry, essays), and I have never heard of any such young adult literature.—Anita5192 (talk) 15:29, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
 * 1) That's why we use ngrams, which encompasses more physically published materials. Try Google Scholar, where there are roughly half the hits for "fiction" as for "literature". 2) We're also talking about the scope of the current article, which is clearly literature. Furthmore, rest assured that there are plenty of young adult non-fiction works, poems, and essays. Do you need me to provide further evidence of those to convince you? Wolfdog (talk) 15:37, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Here is Google Ngrams as you mentioned. SilverLocust 💬 21:23, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Note: WikiProject Children's literature has been notified of this discussion. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 21:16, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Support A long overdue move to reflect the scope of the subject -- Robina Fox (talk) 09:37, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Support. The ngram count is a wash. Fiction is the more encompassing term, and should be preferred for this.  However, most convincingly, in the references, the use of “literature” to “fiction” is 28-15. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:31, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Support: Doesn’t matter that more people want to see YA fiction; we only have literature, and we shouldn’t oversell it Aaron Liu  (talk) 13:28, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Recent edits
Why were the following edits,, which were all clearly constructive and all clearly explained in the edit summaries, reverted? --Justthefacts (talk) 19:59, 11 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Why they were reverted was explained in the edit summaries. What you should do here is explain why your edits were warranted.—Anita5192 (talk) 12:35, 12 June 2024 (UTC)


 * The edits were all clearly constructive and all clearly explained in the edit summaries: . The reverts were not explained in the edit summaries: . --Justthefacts (talk) 01:08, 15 June 2024 (UTC)