DCLOYCE SMITH: How about a LOA Young Adult novel volume -- or 2?

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DCLOYCE SMITH: How about a LOA Young Adult novel volume -- or 2?

1Truett
Jun 28, 2020, 5:56 am

Hi, DCLOYCESMITH:

I was reading through some old favorites, and saw that LOA has never done a volume, or two, of great American YA novels. And, after all, other specia, omnibus, collections -- crime novels (American noir of the 1930s, 40s & 50s); Women crime writers: 1940s & 50s (2 vols); American Fantastic Tales: From Poe to Pulps, 1940s to "now"; American Science Fiction (2 volumes on th 1950s, 2 on the '60s); American Musicals: 1927-1969 (2 volumes); The Western: Four classic novels of the '40s and '50s; etc. -- have been done before.

There are some REALLY great books that would make for some top-selling volumes, too! (It wouldn't be just the usual LOA readers interested in such volumes: they'd appeal to schools, too, since a lot of the titles are often taught in classes). Here some suggestions and examples:

CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger
A SEPARATE PEACE by John Knowles
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee
THE OUTSIDERS by S.E. Hinton
ARE YOU THERE, GOD? IT'S ME, MARGARET or BLUBBER or DEENIE or FOREVER by Judy Blume
THE CHOCOLATE WAR or FADE by Robert Cormier
VISION QUEST by Terry Davis
NUMBER THE STARS or THE GIVER by Lois Lowry (my daughter raved about the first in middle school).
THE MIDWIFE'S APPRENTICE -- Karen Cushman
HOLES -- Louis Sachar
THE HOUSE OF THE SCORPION by Nancy Farmer
THE BOTTOMS by Joe R. Lansdale
WONDER by R.J. Palacio
LOOKING FOR ALASKA or THE FAULT IN OUR STARS by John Green
THE HATE U GIVE by Angie Thomas

Also: I'm pretty sure that the boundaries between "children's" literature and "YA" novels blurred a long time ago, and I would've included these three in the list above, but...decided to attach them as an addendum.

CHARLOTTE'S WEB -- E.B. White
MRS. FRISBY AND THE RATS OF NIMH -- Robert C. O'Brien
THE BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA - Katherine Peterson
--------------

Yeah, Salinger has a fine, if small, body of work that most LOA readers are hoping will be included soon, but...no harm in trying. After all, his first book is practically the definition of YA novel. As for Lee's novel: it's not like she's got a large body of work to publish (shorter works, and one kinda-sorta-re-write of "To Kill..." Besides, it's one of those books that appeals to "youths" AND adults. Ditto for VISION QUEST, which I discovered a year or two after it came out. Found it on the remainder table: EXCELLENT novel, YA or otherwise. If you have only seen the film (a very good adaptation), you should read the book. A classic.
The Farmer book fell into my lap, so to speak, but it addresses issue of immigration -- and, it won the National Book Award (nothing to sneeze at). The Lansdale book not only offers great regionalism in the "voice" -- a Texas accent so thick, it's like chewing beef jerky -- but it's a coming of age story that addresses racism. And it won the Edgar Award (some might suggest DEATHWATCH by Robert White would be better, but I say Lansdale, all the way).

P.S.
Obviously, Alcott and LeEngle and even Le Guin (who wrote plenty of YA books) would be left out, since large portions, if not all, of their works have been collected (I'd say and Burnett, but I believe her 3, recently published, LOA books are thought of as "children's lit"). Not to mention London, whose CALL OF THE WILD is a classic YA novel.

2beatlemoon
Jul 1, 2020, 4:06 pm

Actually, I'd love to see Judy Blume get her own main series volumes. Her adult writing is every bit as wonderful as her YA novels and she is truly a national treasure. Her complete works would be well worth a few LOA volumes. However, considering that her works are all still in copyright, and she is perennially popular/bestselling, I'd wager that securing the rights would be very difficult for LOA to pull off.

Although, I do wonder: DCLOYCE SMITH, does the LOA have an easier time securing rights to PRH authors, as they are also the LOA's distributor? Or is it equally difficult, the distro relationship having no noticeable impact?

3DCloyceSmith
Editado: Jul 11, 2020, 11:23 pm

It’s an interesting idea. Such an anthology would differ from other fiction collections in the series by not focusing on a movement (Harlem Renaissance), or genre (crime noir) but instead on the age of its targeted readers. What would connect a collection gathering (say) The Yearling, The Outsiders, M. C. Higgins the Great, Have Space Suit—Will Travel, and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian? In other words, what do these books have in common other than their readers' age? There is also the question of whether the estates of some of the books (Salinger, Harper Lee) would allow them to be published as YA novels, considering they were originally published for adults.

But I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t have much to offer in the way of knowledge since, other than the Harry Potter series, I haven’t read YA fiction since the early 70s; Susan Hinton is as late as it gets for me. I’d be more interested to listen to what others have to say.

--David

4DCloyceSmith
Editado: Jul 11, 2020, 11:12 pm

>2 beatlemoon: The short answer is: No, because PRH's client distribution services is an entirely different division from the editorial and rights departments.

The broader answer to your question, re: securing rights from other publishers, is complicated. In fact, none of the Big Five really have a central rights division for all their titles; instead such decisions and negotiations are usually left to the individual imprints and/or divisions. Within the same corporation, the ease of getting clearances can range from accommodating to impossible. In addition, we have to be careful about going to the same well too often; it can make a company nervous if we seem to be raiding their backlist catalog by plucking several of their top authors within a short period of time.

--David

5elenchus
Editado: Jul 12, 2020, 4:03 pm

A YA or Children's series could be interesting, too, in serving as a "primer" or introduction to Main Series novels. If a volume contained a science fiction novel (Have Spacesuit, Will Travel), it's easy enough to highlight the LOA Science Fiction series in an "If You Enjoyed This" teaser.

As a reader in school, I'm also reminded of how many novels I read because they were in the "class library" and readily available, which elsewise I would have been extremely unlikely to have picked on my own. Many of those were favourite reads: Black Beauty, the sports stories of Matt Christopher, and so forth. Such omnibus editions as we're contemplating here could also serve in such a capacity, attract readers who wouldn't likely be there.

6Truett
Jul 13, 2020, 10:15 am

DCLOYCESMITH: David, glad you find the idea intriguing. Hope others, besides elenchus, feel likewise. Yeah, the books wouldn't have a "thematic link" or demographic link or genre link, but, as elechus noted, such a collection WOULD serve as a sort of "gateway" primer for younger readers into the vast collection of LOA books.

As for the connection: I, for one, think that the YA -- young _adult_ (which, I believe, covers a wide audience, from, say 11 or 12 right up to 18, 19, perhaps even 20) connection is perfect. After all, during those formative years, young adults are not only figuring out who they are, they are figuring out what they like, including what they like when it comes to fiction. Also, such a collection would _surely_ appeal to both high schools and colleges, and fit well into their literary curriculums.

And, as you noted: more than a few of the books weren't originally marketed as YA novels. When I discovered VISION QUEST, it was because of a NYtimes review by John Irving, and because it was one of a group of first novels being considered for the National Book Award, among other honors. I gave copies to a few people I knew -- one was a lady about four years older than me; another was a young lady three or four years younger. BOTH women loved it! And the older woman was a Borders bookstore manager!

As for whether or not the estates of say, Harper Lee and/or Salinger would find such packaging -- an LOA collection of YA novels -- off-putting, I have to say I would be surprised if they did. After all, the one thing ANY author hopes for is interest in his or her work from younger readers, thereby insuring people will still be reading the work decades after they have moved on. And while about half or more of the titles were marketed as "adult fiction" when published, the majority of them found their audiences among younger adults, the readers that first embraced them, and for whom those books are often the most relevant. Also: I don't think the term "YA" is as "ghetto-ized" as it once was; same goes for science fiction, crime fiction, etc.

In any case: I'm curious to learn what others in this group think, as well.
Here's hoping more folks chime in!

7Podras.
Jul 13, 2020, 12:36 pm

Random thoughts.

I don't think of books like To Kill a Mockingbird and Catcher in the Rye as YA books so much as adult books that YAs can appreciate at some level, too. Think Huckleberry Finn. Since LOA is dedicated to keeping the best of American literature permanently in print, one would think that it would find some way to enshrine these books, too. (Great Standalone Novels of the Second Trimester of the 20th Century?) Granted, their very wide current availability doesn't make that need urgent.

About Salinger, maybe I'm assuming too much, but Salinger has other works, too, which when added to Rye may make a main series LOA volume dedicated to him slim but feasible. I've read and enjoyed some of it. Rye gets such an overwhelming amount of attention that I've not seen any critical reviews of the rest of Salinger's works, and I don't consider myself to be an adequate enough judge of literature to make a solid recommendation. Is a dedicated main series Salinger volume out of the question?

There are other authors whose signature work so outshines the rest of their writing that one would be excused for thinking that they hadn't written anything else. Heller's Catch 22 and Ellison's Invisible Man come to mind. What will LOA do about those works/authors?

Then there is Gone With the Wind. On the one hand, it is a first rate romance. On the other, it is an unrealistic (and possibly harmful) fantasy. BLM, or NNT (Now is Not the Time) if ever.

Since Heinlein (Have Spacesuit, Will Travel) was brought up, how about a volume of the best of Heinlein's YA novels? The very first science fiction book I ever read, picked at random off a school library shelf in my very early teens, was Red Planet. I was so immensely enthralled that I immediately reread it twice more before moving to something else. (I reread it again a few years ago and wondered what I could have been thinking.) I reread as an adult most of Heinlein's YA novels, and though I consider their quality to be uneven, I think that some are first rate and hold up well. Tunnel in the Sky, Farmer in the Sky, and Citizen of the Galaxy come to mind. How about a volume of Heinlein YA?

8jroger1
Editado: Jul 13, 2020, 2:40 pm

People should read what they enjoy. I would never have thought about To Kill a Mockingbird or Catcher in the Rye as being novels for young adults. Their themes are much too sophisticated to be cubby-holed in that way, and many people consider Huck Finn to be America’s greatest novel. Simply having children as main characters does not make a story simple enough for children. If it did, The Exorcist would qualify. On the other hand, many educated adults have enjoyed hobbits and wizards immensely. So I’m not sure the categories of “adult” and “young adult” have much relevance in literature.

9MichaelLOA
Jul 13, 2020, 6:47 pm

I'm going to be the contrarian a bit here, but let me say first that Truett, I think it's awesome that you give away so many copies of books that you like - sounds like you do it often - including to bookstore managers. Generous, and no better way to get a book stocked in stores. I pick up a copy of Haunting of Hill House at each biannual UW-Madison library book sale (there's always at least one), and have made many converts to Shirley Jackson.

I do think that, going from my bookstore past, there's not much of a market for $40 anthologies of YA novels - even to schools, and even with a deep discount. There's no need for fine editions if they're going to be passed among many high school & junior high readers, and even if LOA gives a deep discount, I suspect that publisher mass markets or quality paperbacks of the individual books are going to be much cheaper. And I can tell you from daily experience (16-year old twins), kids won't carry a big hardcover if they can carry a small paperback, or better yet if they can carry nothing. An LOA YA anthology might sell to the infrequent adult who wants 4-5 LOA novels in a nice binding, but I think the better market there is individual author collections, like the Laura Ingalls Wilder volumes. I DO think there are a handful of other YA authors who could get that treatment - S. E. Hinton has my vote - but just a handful, not tens or hundreds, unless the LOA really becomes something else.

Also, using the occasional Catcher in the Rye or To Kill a Mockingbird as a lure for the volume sounds good in theory, but there's very little incentive for those estates to give rights for such a purpose. To take those specific examples - the Lee & Salinger estates are known as two of the most difficult in the entire literary world (David may not be able to be so blunt....) Perhaps at some point they would authorize individual volumes of those authors for astronomical fees, but I'd bet that we'll see plenty of other volumes first. (Although Matthew Salinger has said in recent years that he's going to loosen up on the Salinger estate and put out some of the unpublished writings, so we'll see).

(Sidenote: One of my kids was in a class that read Catcher in the Rye last year - he said the kids all really disliked the book and HATED Holden. I'm sure he didn't talk to "all," but I think that book is more a nostalgia trip for us boomers than a living YA novel these days).

Truett, I think we are both hoping for Harlan Ellison? Let's keep bringing him up...wild guess, but I suspect the Ellison estate would respond well. Also, and striking while the iron is hot, all 5 Charles Portis novels are short and would fit in one longish volume....

10Truett
Editado: Jul 14, 2020, 5:57 am

Podras, Roger & Michael: Although others may still weigh in, looks like -- thus far -- the overwhelming response is: no thanks. Ah, well.

Podras & Roger: I hope you two don't think readers of YA novels would find the themes and material in both "Mockingbird" and "Catcher" too sophisticated, too complex. I started my daughter out with books by various writers -- Pilkey, Williams (Pish, Posh, Said Heironymous Bosch), and so on -- and even (to my wife's dismay) turned her on to comic books. And Harry Potter, of course. ON HER OWN, she would buy AND READ everything from said comic books to a new "Star Wars" novelization to (waitforit) DANTE'S INFERNO. She was 14 when she first read it. She also got into Shakespeare around that age (maybe a year or two later). While my daughter may be one of the exceptions, I DO believe that far too many "adults" don't give kids enough credit for taking on and understanding powerful "themes" and emotions and messages in literature. Also: I MAY be wrong but I think the issues of racism, sexism, love and sexuality, war, death, terminal sickness, and so forth -- all of which are dealt with in most of the titles above -- are fairly deep and meaningful topics, fairly complicated. I bet you might even find that some "adult" novels deal with those issues.

Roger: "People should read what they enjoy." Agreed. Not sure what that has to do with the price of tea in China or the books that "Young adults" may or may not read. You'll note my above comment about what my daughter was enjoying at the ripe old age of 14. She had at least one friend whose reading habits were nearly as eclectic while growing up in the Midwest. That you assume YA books are marketed toward "children" (what age are you actually thinking of?) speaks volumes, since -- as I understand it -- the YA marker range runs from about 13 or 14, maybe 15, straight through to 20ish. Granted, the humans species -- especially males -- isn't truly mature until the late 20s (often early 30s, for most men), but I wouldn't call anyone over the age of 19 or 20 a child. And while its fair to assume most of the masses -- because of poor parenting, poor schooling, etc. -- may not be equipped to embrace, or maybe even understand, works of literature with deep meaning, I'm not sure you can win the argument that those who are ill-equipped are mostly children. At least not in MY experience, living and working and communicating with people on various continents, in various countries, in multiple cities. By the way: not sure that my suggestion was entirely based around the idea that the books feature young protagonists, so they will therefore appeal to young readers. MY idea -- and belief -- gives readers far more credit.

Michael: See all of the above! :). Also: can't speak to the market with any more authority than you, but I DO know that a lot of the authors -- and titles -- mentioned above are taught, or have been taught, in schools.
Not sure if LOA has paperback versions of their stand alone titles, but if so, my market to school idea might still be viable; otherwise, ebooks would be an option, especially with the younger folks. Speaking of which: MY kid -- born in the 90s -- digs kindle and ebooks. But she also loves -- I mean _loves_ -- ACTUAL books. Loves the tactile feel, the smell, etc. As did -- and still do -- one or two of her friends with similarly eccentric reading tastes. Let's face it: readers -- for many centuries -- have always been a minority. And BOOK LOVERS -- like my daughter; like myself; like people on this forum -- are even more rare. But they still exist, and are still being "made" -- just in editions more limited than than average Janes and Joes which fill our world. :). Given that knowledge, I was kind of hoping that the difficult estates and such (which you mentioned; which I know of) might be changing their ways and minds, since markets are narrowing.

P.S. Yup, I agree about bringing up Harlan Ellison, again. I'll give David a breather before doing so.





11jroger1
Jul 13, 2020, 11:39 pm

>10 Truett:
I didn’t mean to imply that Mockingbird and Catcher are too complex for young adults - I read both in high school - but only that they are not exclusively for that age group. Most books marketed to YA can be enjoyed by adults, and most adult books - even Shakespeare - can be enjoyed by teens who are willing to work at them. My point was simply that the the distinction between the categories isn’t really very distinct.

12Truett
Jul 14, 2020, 6:04 am

jroger1: No worries -- it was MY fault for typing a sentence that wasn't quite what I was thinking. I edited that first entry to reflect it (gotta STOP trying to type online, talk to someone, and also do something -- multitasking ain't my bag).

I DID want to address what you said about categories: I completely agree with you. Adult and young adult don't -- and shouldn't -- have much relevance in literature (everyone should read what they like), but...the reality is, publishers, book stores and sellers, AND a vast majority of those who purchase books (which doesn't necessarily mean they are reading them) sadly demand labels and pigeon holes. Hell, even editors at magazines and newspapers -- from my past experience -- do the same damn thing (can't say ya write everything-- you have to be specific). In my opinion, genre labels shouldn't be as "important" to some as they are: Shakespeare wrote it all, as did Dickens and Melville. And a great many modern day writers have finally begun to ignore genre labels (sometimes because they are worried about being marginalized, like Margaret Atwood was for years).

In any case: I think the idea of a YA collection might be moot, given the mostly adverse reaction to it.
No sweat.