Looking at my reading from the past couple years, I have read less than 10% Young Adult books. This isn’t so surprising, since I am not a teenager, in fact I’m married and in my mid-twenties. Young Adult books continue to be popular for a lot of adult readers; I continue to be recommended books in this genre, and I continue to occasionally read YA in an attempt to find ones I might enjoy.
I have a lot of nostalgia for Young Adult books I loved when I was in middle and high school (anything by Meg Cabot, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Tamora Pierce), but these just aren’t the types of stories I want to be reading these days. Somehow I still find myself yearning to read books that remind me of my childhood, and I’ve come to realize what I’m missing are books that may have been written for children, but are enjoyed by all ages.
A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest.
-CS Lewis
Only two books from before I moved abroad remain on my bookshelf and they are both middle grade: From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and Awake and Dreaming. None of my YA books made the cut.
Reading diversely is very important to me, both in author and in genre. Only reading from genres I feel comfortable in does not challenge my reading life. I know I like contemporary fiction, I know I like memoirs and mysteries. It’s much more difficult to find YA and middle grade I truly enjoy, but it is important to try and expand my horizons. I know there are books out there that I would like, I just haven't taken the time yet to find them.
I’d like to make my way into both classic and modern classic children’s literature, starting with at least one book per month through 2017. The books can be both middle grade or YA, but I’m going to avoid picture books since I read a lot of those daily at work.
For my first book, I’m going to read one I’ve always heard about, never read, and is being adapted into a movie this year: A Wrinkle in Time.
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