What makes them so appealing to adult readers? by "appealing" I mean, its ability to hook adult readers in ways young readers don't have the maturity to understand? Books like To Kill A Mocking Bird, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings(non-fiction), and Absolutely True Diaries of a Part-Time Indian have/are about very young protagonists. I cant remember how old Scout is, but she couldn't be more than 10. I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings begins when the author is about 7 or 8, and Part-Time Indian, begins when he's a HS freshman. Rereading Paperboy, the protagonist is 11. and yet, the books feel like they were written for an adult. They feel very complex and, even though the books have young protagonists, they all feel very relatable even as an adult. Granted, the only one of the 4 mentioned that I read as a child was To Kill A Mockingbird, and I read it at aged 11 or 12 and I thought it was boring. The others, I read/am reading as an adult. I feel like these books wouldn't have been enjoyable to me if I had read them at the ages of the characters' depictions (excluding Caged Bird because, what 7/8 year old is going to want to read that). is it the subject matter that makes these books MG and YA? Is it the characters age? (Room and Only Child are from the POVs of very young characters, but they are considered "adult" books ) idk. Just something I've been thinking about in part because I have a WIP where the story is told from the POV of an 11 year old, and I've been thinking about it as an "adult novel" rather than MG/YA
Yeah, I think it's who they're written for. Just because the main characters are children doesn't mean they're children's books, it depends more on the themes and the maturity level of the ideas.
I think a lot of that comes down to subject matter. For most of the book, It is about the characters when they were children, and it (if you'll pardon the pun) is definitely not a book for kids. Come to think of it, King has used children as main characters or deuteragonists more than once - Carrie (although she's a bit older at 16), Mark Petrie (12, Salem's Lot) and others.
^ And that works because every adult remembers being a child, and that's when we were formed as the adults we would become.
I'd say "The Body," also by King, isn't aimed at young teens or kids, though that's what the protags are. It's like what my Season of the Witch and Beastseekers both are—a nostalgic look back at his own youth, but it deals with more adult themes. Things that maybe didn't make any sense to us as kids but do now from a more adult perspective. And likely the stories are written by the adult writers about their younger days, to help deal with those issues they had no idea how to handle then.
Are any of the Classics mentioned considered YA? I really have no idea. As others have mentioned, the age of the characters doesn't slot them there automatically. Angelou definitely ain't for young minds unless you want to give them a tutorial on incest (or am I thinking of the Bluest Eye? It's been awhile)
Not really (at least not anymore). But they were required reading. To Kill A Mocking Bird in elementary school and Caged Bird in high school (not for me, though. My class didnt have to read it). Part Time Indian, i had to read for a unit on Banned Books in a college Childrens Literature class, and in that class its categorized as youth literature. But in my library all 3 titles are in the adult sections
Sixth grade for me, I think? Funny that @Xoic mentioned It, because I read that around the same time. A bunch of 12 year olds screwing in the sewer, so go figure? My mother was paranoid about me watching lewd movies with sexual situations, and she buys me It, which could have been named Banging Beverly Marsh... that's an English teacher mother for you!
