Mundane secrets of the YA-YA authorhood

[prog]

Here is a troll for my kid-lit friends: What defines a young-adult (or even childrens') novel? I mean, what makes a given work of fiction YA versus, er, "grown-up"? Is it just a matter of PG-13-or-lower content with (usually) young central characters?

Comments

[magid.livejournal.com]

Some of the most wonderful YA books pay no attention to those length/language general indicators. Joan Aiken's books have a huge range of words most kids won't have run into before, but frankly, that's how you learn new words. And Mildred Taylor's books (to choose just one author) are not short at all, and rightfully so.

Somehow, when I read those guidelines, they seemed to be more describing the writing-mill series books (Nancy Drew to Babysitter's Club to Animorphs, etc) than anything else. My favorites seem to break at least one of those rules each...