Young adult novels and their film adaptations

Abstract

When novels first originated in the mid eighteenth century, they were seen as lowbrow and unworthy of serious study. Now, the study of novels is a staple to academia, but certain types of novels are still considered with critical disdain, and young adult literature is among them. This disdain is perhaps due to the fact that as a genre, young adult fiction is fairly new: although authors like Judy Blume and S.E. Hinton were writing literature aimed at high school students in the 1970s, it was not until recently that the genre has been officially recognized as distinct from children's literature. In the past fifteen years, both bookstores and public libraries have created young adult sections. It also seems that with every passing year, these sections get larger and larger. In fact, young adult literature is one of the few areas of print books in which sales are rising.