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Why not write a book which is as sophisticated as a book for an adult, but is about the concerns that teenagers actually have?

The distinction has blurred between young adult and adult books. Some of the teen books have become more sophisticated.

Calling a book 'young adult' is only important in that it can help get a book to the right reader. After that, it's a useless abstraction and should be discarded.

Teens are not like the weird, dumb dwarves you have around your house. They are actually you when you were younger. Why not write a book which is as sophisticated as a book for an adult, but is about the concerns that teenagers actually have?

Teen fiction should be about teenagers - no matter how many arguments there are about what YA lit should be, this seems like the one thing we can all agree on.

I don't think kids have a problem reading books meant for adults; the problem is on the other side of the fence, a misconception of what one kind of literature is 'supposed' to be, perceived to be, as opposed to another: if it's for kids, it can't be any good; it's got to have been dumbed down and/or sweetened up.

Kids and adults have a difference of opinion when it comes to what constitutes legitimate reading. Adults often push books that they loved as children, which, ironically, were often books that their parents weren't particularly keen on.

Readers have always read high and low, and to fight that urge is to fight the freedom inherent in the act of reading itself. The only arguments that have any traction, as best as I can see it, are about whether the genre classification of 'young adult' should exist at all.

Older teens tend to write to me and say, 'Thank you for not writing down to teenagers.' And then there are the letters from adults who say, 'This is such a good book; why did you write it for teens?'

Books for teens are amazing and compelling, I think, because they're generally set in a time in people's lives when they are uncertain about who they are and who they love and what the right thing is to do.