Billie Standish Was Here by Nancy Crocker

Not in Kundera’s deep-search-way or Salinger’s self-awareness-way.Â Just self-involved.Â Whiny. Like Stegner, Eugenides, Irving.Â There’s a vast scope.Â When I’m done reading I feel I’ve traveled.īut the YA I remember is inward looking, and I’ve always assumed most YA was inward looking.

Either by thinking about the world philosophically or metaphorically, or by exposing readers to new information, layers upon layers of psychology and envoronment and image. They are unabashedly gathering vocabulary, context clues.Â Good books for kids help them with this journey.Â L’Engle and Lewis and Dahl made my world BIGGER!Â They made anything seem possible.Īnd adult books, the ones I enjoy most, do the same. I LOVE Agatha Christie and comic books and sooo… what is it? Why don’t I like YA?Âįor me, children’s books (especially magical ones) are so incredible because theyÂ unlock Â the universe.Â Maybe because kids are new to the world, and in discover mode.Â Kids are looking outward, collecting new information, learning how to be, how to think. I thought these books (and the girls who read them) were kind of dumb.Â Sorry.īut really, when I really think about it, I don’t hate paperback fluff.

There were wonderful books for young readers, books that might be considered YA now.Â Because the main characters just happen to be tweens and teens.Īnd there were lots of adult books I loved, books that might also be considered YA today, for the very same reason.Â But there wasn’t much for the YA market that I enjoyed.Â A lot of pulp.Â There was a wire rack of paperbacks in the middle school library that the preppy girls all fluttered around. Â Well, partly because there wasn’t much YA writing when I was a kid. I don’t read much YA.Â In truth, I’ve always kind of disliked a lot of books for “young adults”.Â Â Â

Billie Standish Was Here by Nancy Crocker