Children, teenagers, young adults, juvenile readers - Terminology discussion

[Buckwheat]

I stumbled upon the expression "juvenile narrative prose" in a magazine about children's and ... that other literature that I am not sure how to name.

This question was partly opened in the "Good YA recommendations" thread, but I wish to discuss it a bit more in depth. I never know which expression to use in English when talking about that part of literature which is not exactly Peter Rabbit, but not meant exclusively for adults either - that which is written, published and marketed for and mainly consumed by people between, lets say 12 and 18 years. The expressions I have read include (but are maybe not limited to, as I might have forgotten one or two) are:

Young adult / YA literature: I see it most often on this forum. I think it is problematic because it stil has "adult" in it, and does not refer to the group of readers as anything but a "subcategory" of adults. Also, this group of literature texts consists of different texts, some of which are closer to children's literature, and some to adult - and the expression refers more to the more adult side of the spectrum. I am surprised that the term has been used since the 1960's, I thought it was much younger.

Juvenile literature: I read the word in two articles which have been directly translated from Slovene (where this type of literature is called "mladinska literatura", and the term is much less problematic) and started wondering if that is really used by native speakers of English. Wikipedia mentions juvenile novel as a synonym to young adult novel, but I have not managed to find any more online articles that use it. I have mostly heard juvenile as a derogatory word before ('childish') and wonder if it also sounds like that to native speakers. I would guess that it is not really used, and just found an instance of clumsy translating.

Teen literature: I like the expression because it sounds objective, it is just a description and does not seem like it is skewing to the "adult" side. It looks like it is used quite a lot on the Internet.

Youth literature: Forgot to add this one.

Middle grade literature: I only found this expression now that I am doing some googling about this and I must say it seems to me like unnecessary crumbling down of the already fuzzy categories. It is supposed to be for readers between children and teenagers apparently.

Children's literature: Just throwing this one in the mix to say that the groups are not that clearly separated, and some books might be sometimes categorised in one, sometimes in another category. But I am trying to think of children's literature as the one that is aimed at younger readers than the YA/juvenile/teen/what have you.

So, I wonder, what do native speakers and speakers of other languages think about these expressions. Which one is the most suitable, which is definitely unsuitable? Am I forgetting some often-used expression? If we have anybody who is reading academic articles on the topic, which one is the most used there as opposed to marketing/Internet forums?

Please do not use this thread to discuss which books belong in the YA or any other category - lets assume we mostly know which books belong there and understand there are exceptions to every rule.

[lady narcissa]

The terms I use for books aimed for people 18 and under are: Picture Books, Children's Literature, and Young Adult.

(Children's) Picture Books are fairly obvious - books with pictures and maybe words that are aimed for those aged 5 and under.

Children's Literature, I consider to be books mainly with words, maybe a few pictures (or none at all) aimed at those between ages 6 and 12.  I would say the term Juvenile Literature would just be another name for the same thing.

Young Adult, I consider to be books aimed at those aged 13 to 18.  Teen literature would be just another name for the same thing.

I don't use the term Middle Grade as it overlaps with both Children's Literature and Young Adult for me.  It tends to mean books for children in Middle School which is generally grades 5-8...otherwise known as books aimed at those age 10-13.  But I just feel it narrows things down a bit too much and wasn't how I read as a child.

[Darth Richard II]

Barnes and Noble here switched the YA section over to "teen" a while back. Other than that I really don't know what goes udner what with what anymore.

[Jo498]

In German the distinctions are to my knowledge: Picture book (Bilderbuch), children's book (Kinderbuch) and youth's book (Jugendbuch). Legally, youth/Jugend refers to the age between 14-18 (sometimes 21) years, sociologically, it is sometimes extended to 25 (and maybe to 10 or 12 on the other side). Of course, for books the lines are not so clearly drawn. And usually the traditional "Jugendbuch" is not aimed at older teenagers but rather at 12-16 year olds or so. Of course, teenagers are also supposed to read some "adult" literature in school and many books typically read by children and teenagers were not always considered children's books when they appeared (e.g. Treasure Island or Jules Verne's books).

"Reading levels" are not such a big deal in German because the language has an almost logical spelling-pronunciation relation and not such a huge vocab as English does, so from 12 or so intelligent children would be able to read almost everything (except really difficult or old/obsolete stuff) as far as language goes, so it is usually themes that are considered too adult (or too boring).

To name two internationally well known books that received the "Deutscher Jugendbuchpreis" in 1974: The German translation of "When Hitler stole pink rabbit" received the children's award, "Momo" the youth's award. It's been ages, but I probably would not suggest "When Hitler..." for children below 10 because of the subject matter and most 11 yo could read Momo as well.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutscher_Jugendliteraturpreis#1960er_und_1970er_Jahre

[Buckwheat]

13 hours ago, lady narcissa said:

Children's Literature, I consider to be books mainly with words, maybe a few pictures (or none at all) aimed at those between ages 6 and 12.  I would say the term Juvenile Literature would just be another name for the same thing.

Young Adult, I consider to be books aimed at those aged 13 to 18.  Teen literature would be just another name for the same thing.

I don't use the term Middle Grade as it overlaps with both Children's Literature and Young Adult for me.  It tends to mean books for children in Middle School which is generally grades 5-8...otherwise known as books aimed at those age 10-13.  But I just feel it narrows things down a bit too much and wasn't how I read as a child.

Aha, so juvenile would be the same as children's - the way I understood it it was a synonym for YA/teen. Thanks.

I agree about the middle grade, it is just trying to narrow it down too much. Also middle school is no category at all in the school system here, so it is not logical from this perspective for me either.

7 hours ago, Leap said:

My view is pretty simplistic, as far as I see it you've got three broad categories

2-6 years old: Children's literature. Obviously this varies as kids are transferring from mostly-picture books towards text-based books, but generally I'd say this is mostly comparable. 

6-14 years old: Y.A. Again, there's significant variation between text complixity, but I call it Y.A. because it's essentially literature that's exclusively text, but without explicit imagery or themes.

14+ years old: adult: I'd say from the age of 14, most, or a good portion of kids will be or can be reading adult fiction, They might still read lighter fiction, that can also be classified as Y.A., but they are usually capable of adult literature too.

Interesting that you limit YA up to 14 years, most articles I found had the upper age limit at 18.

I for myself have to admit that I was reading teen literature long past I could have started with more complex works in my free time. I did not have a problem with the adult reading we were supposed to read in school, of course.

1 hour ago, Jo498 said:

In German the distinctions are to my knowledge: Picture book (Bilderbuch), children's book (Kinderbuch) and youth's book (Jugendbuch). Legally, youth/Jugend refers to the age between 14-18 (sometimes 21) years, sociologically, it is sometimes extended to 25 (and maybe to 10 or 12 on the other side). Of course, for books the lines are not so clearly drawn. And usually the traditional "Jugendbuch" is not aimed at older teenagers but rather at 12-16 year olds or so. Of course, teenagers are also supposed to read some "adult" literature in school and many books typically read by children and teenagers were not always considered children's books when they appeared (e.g. Treasure Island or Jules Verne's books).

"Reading levels" are not such a big deal in German because the language has an almost logical spelling-pronunciation relation and not such a huge vocab as English does, so from 12 or so intelligent children would be able to read almost everything (except really difficult or old/obsolete stuff) as far as language goes, so it is usually themes that are considered too adult (or too boring).

To name two internationally well known books that received the "Deutscher Jugendbuchpreis" in 1974: The German translation of "When Hitler stole pink rabbit" received the children's award, "Momo" the youth's award. It's been ages, but I probably would not suggest "When Hitler..." for children below 10 because of the subject matter and most 11 yo could read Momo as well.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutscher_Jugendliteraturpreis#1960er_und_1970er_Jahre

Yup, "Jugendliteratur" is much clearer to me because it is the only expression I know for it and is used more consistently than the English ones that I have seen (but I admit I have not read that many academic texts about it in English as I have in German).

I never thought about "reading levels" in English had anything to do with the spelling-pronunciation relationship. I thought it only referred to syntax and vocabulary. So children's books in English generally just use words that have a halfway logical spelling-pronunciation relationship?

I do not know the Hitler book, but after a bit of reading on it, I would agree with you. I agree about Momo that one does not need to be 15 or 16 to understand it.

[Jo498]

I just brought the spelling-pronunciation problem up because I think English is one of the most difficult languages in this respect and, naively (I am not an expert, I never studied any linguistics or language learning on college level) I expect this and the huge vocab the main factors for gaps between everyday spoken language and certain types of literature.

I had never even heard about "reading levels"  (for native speakers) in German, so when I encountered it frequently in English, I figured it must be partially caused by this (and probably partially by a problematic tendency apparently running rampant in American education to quantify things extremely hard to quantify).

E.g. reading material in German high school (at least in the "academic" track with roughly the more academically gifted or inclined 40-50% of students) used to avoid "youth literature" after 7th/8th grade. When I was in 7th grade in the mid-1980s we read one youth book (a pretty good adventure "Kein Winter für Wölfe") as assigned reading in school, but also longish ballads like Goethe's Zauberlehrling (sorcerer's apprentice). In 8th grade we read Schiller's Wilhelm Tell. The treatment is didactically moderated, of course, but the whole play is read and discussed and such material could in principle be covered (and will be, of course at a higher pace and with secondary literature) at college level. So "reading level" seems almost flat after the age of about 14. I am not really sure, but it seems that e.g. Schiller's plays and Goethe's poems are (at least as far as understanding the *language* goes, not the historical, philosophically etc. allusions and background) easier for native German speakers to understand than Shakespeare for the Anglophones. One reason might be that we are almost 200 years closer to Goethe and Schiller than to Shakespeare.

 

[Buckwheat]

It is an interesting though. I suppose we need a native speaker to tell us how those "reading levels" are used (in education or just in publishing).

Are you talking about 7th and 8th grade when the pupils are about 14/15 years old? I am not sure how you count the school grades. I think we started getting "adult" books to read a bit earlier than that, but definitely by that age. It was still allowed to choose "YA" for additional reading (reading badge, I am not sure if that even exists elsewhere) - I remember I read The Curious Case of the Dog in the Night-Time then. In high school (which starts at 14/15), we were only getting "adult" literature to read.

Our equivalent to Goethe, Schiller and Shakespeare is the poet Prešeren (today is coincidentally his holiday), who lived in the 19th century, but is hard to understand today - probably similarly to how Goethe is understood by German speakers? Anyway, I think his poems start getting introduced to children from the age of about 8 onwards.

[sperry]

Young Adult just seems like a marketing ploy.

 

You don't want to label something "teen" literature, because that potentially alienates your 20+ crowd who would be interested but don't want to feel like they're reading something meant for people younger than them.

[Richard Writhen]

I believe YA is specifically teen literature. Ages 13-19. Thus children's literature would be ages 1-12 and adult would be 19-?

 

 

 

As you can see, it's not exactly correlated with the actual age of majority but that makes sense as that varies from state to state and country to country ...