Well, we here at Tea Cozy are just the busiest people in the world!
What now?
Frequent Tea Cozy contributor Carlie Webber has an article at Publishers Weekly, What They Don't Know Won't Hurt Them: Persuading adults to read YA literature.
Personally, I love introducing adults to YA books. What books do you give to adults that are YA?
11 comments:
Luxe, Twilight, Octavian Nothing, Wintergirls, Chains, Papertowns, Three Clams and an Oyster, Acceleration, Tenderness...
I once gave a very elderly, well-traveled lady a copy of Betsy and the Great World (in which 21-year-old Betsy travels Europe in 1914), and she read it with a schoolgirl's glee.
Rats Saw God (especially good for those of us now in our thirties who when to high school in the '90s, and/or Veronica Mars fans)
Come in from the Cold by Marsha Qualey and The Road Home by Ellen Emerson White (both Vietnam War stories)
Lately, The Green Glass Sea and White Sands, Red Menace by Ellen Klages
I've had a lot of success handing out How I Live Now and The Book Thief. Also anything by Ellen Emerson White!
Twilight reccommends itself, but I've had tons of success with Zusak's The Book Thief and Satrapi's Persepolis. The newest book I'm pitching to adults who love TV's Survivor is Collins' The Hunger Games.
Kenneth Oppel's Airborn books, The Giver and John Green. More recently, Chains.
I use my husband as my guinea pig for YA crossover books; if he likes 'em, I figure I can recommend them to any adult.
Some books he's loved:
THE HUNGER GAMES, AN ABUNDANCE OF KATHERINES, and FEED. Oh yeah, and he also read mine (not until it had three starred reviews, which I thought was rather mistrusting of him ;)). I think the protagonist's voice makes a huge difference as to whether a book will have crossover appeal.
The ones that my older friends universally turn their noses up at are the ones with extremely "teen" sounding voies -- which ironically were the ones that I disliked as a teen. Personally, I think it's why sci-fi/ fantasy and historical YA are more frequently successful crossovers.
Carlie is my guiding light.
I try to give adults YA lit and YAs adult lit. I spent most of the summer pushing the idea of a family book group that included things like Stormbreaker and James Bond or Speak and Secret Life of Bees. I did this because of her presentation at NJLA last year.
Right now, I am pushing vampire alternatives to Twighlight. Again, the cross-over potential is huge--Devlish, Otherworldlies, Peeps, The Undead Series, Carrion Comfort. Some of these are good, some are great, and some are trash--but all are fun to read for people of a wide range of ages...
I always recommend His Dark Material to anyone whose read Harry Potter.
The Book Theif and anything by John Green and The Hunger Names seem to go down well people who don;t usually read YA.
Laurie Anderson, M.T. Anderson, Marcus Zuzak,Cormier all work well.
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