Young adult fiction: its importance and place, and why we choose YA titles carefully at Sparx Reader.

Young Adult fiction gives adolescent readers the chance to experience danger and darkness 'safely'. At Sparx Reader we believe in the extraordinary power of high-quality YA literature to reflect, guide, challenge and shape young people’s lives (4 minute read).

The adolescent experience

As secondary educators, you are familiar with the intricacies of the adolescent experience. Young adults are in the thick of what is known as the 'storm and stress' developmental phase; it is important that the realities of this period of enormous change are not overlooked or dismissed when it comes to the content of their personal reading.

Overwhelmingly, young people seek to experience the ‘emotional truth’ of the teenage existence. This often involves very intense questions about identity, morality and how their actions affect others. - themes naturally bound up in the complicated themes of mortality and love. Because young adults place a high value on authenticity and honesty, YA authors work hard to craft adolescent voices that ring true.

Many adolescents are grappling with aspects of their identity that can impact on their mental health. In recent years, there has been a worrying spike in the number of children and young people presenting with anxiety, low mood and low self-esteem. When a young person encounters a character facing similar challenges who overcomes adversity, that ‘reading journey’ can become an intensely gratifying and motivational experience. The book might not necessarily provide a perfect solution, but the reader may experience relief in travelling alongside a character who shares their interior thoughts. As Alan Bennett perfectly captured: “the most a writer can hope for in a reader is that [they] should think: here is someone who knows what it is like to be me.”

Sarah Capon, Book Collections Developer at Badger Learning (one of our partner publishers), notes that while young adults generally feel the need to belong, YA fiction reassures them that: “being different is not abnormal and that they can accept themselves as they are.”

'Safe danger' and the development of empathy

It would be patronising for YA writers not to acknowledge the discomforts of emerging into adulthood. By being positioned as an onlooker, a participant or even a confidante to a teenage protagonist, the reader deepens their search for ‘emotional truth’.

Vicariously experiencing the perspective of fictional peers can help to develop empathy. It allows adolescents to identify with those in similar circumstances, or crucially to explore the thoughts and feelings of someone in a very different context. Crossing the threshold into a convincing new world in a book stimulates intellectual curiosity as students witness the complexity and uncertainty of someone else’s lived experience.

While these ‘gateway’ texts occasionally handle uncomfortable material, our dedicated team of content writers carefully calibrate their questions. We focus on developing empathy and understanding, rather than highlighting sensitive or uncomfortable topics. Our goal is to support the reading experience, never drawing unnecessary attention to mature content in the questions posed to the student.

Award-winning texts, chosen by teachers

Many titles in the Sparx Reader catalogue have been shortlisted - and won - at the UK Literacy Awards, where teachers vote for the books they believe will most inspire their students. Our collection also draws heavily from The Book Trust recommendations, and nominees for the Yoto Carnegie Medal (voted for by librarians), the Branford Boase Award, The Young Quills Award, The Waterstones Book Prize and The EmpathyLab catalogue selection.

These books earn accolades because they succeed in creating “[deep] subconscious satisfaction ... of having gone through a real experience that is retained afterwards” (Yoto Carnegie).

An authentic voice is critical to this satisfaction. YA novels are often written in first person, present tense, creating an immediate and engaging voice. This vulnerability allows difficult topics to be handled with genuineness. The adolescent reader does not want to feel as though their relationship with the protagonist (or the credibility of the story) has been marred by adult censorship, the writing must speak directly to them.

Controlling exposure

We can't ignore the reality of being a young person today; it’s extremely hard for adults to control exposure to mature content on phones or TV. The texts on Sparx Reader allow pupils to encounter some of these themes in relative security. The manuscripts have gone through rigorous checks in publishing houses, ensuring they are crafted with tact, compassion and intelligence.

Teachers and schools have a duty to prepare young people for the unavoidable realities of the world. In science, RE, history, PSHCE and English, teachers handle sensitive subject matter, supporting pupils in a controlled environment to explore uncomfortable truths.

However, we recognise that many schools face extreme pressure and don’t have the capacity to incorporate YA fiction into the Key Stages 3 and 4 curricula. This can mean that the texts studied over five years don’t always provide a relatable experience for every student.

For young people to sense that, as Ian Warwick puts it, “the world lived inside our heads is not so unique” is vital in shaping their identities. This is most perfectly captured by Alan Bennett: “The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours”.