Why We Never Outgrow Young Adult Fiction
Written By Stephanie Hampton
Young Adult Librarian
This past February, I did something I rarely do. In fact, the last time I’d done this, I was an undergrad in college, in the dressing room of the theatre as a production of These Seven Sicknesses continued above me: I preordered a book. Despite an almost 3-year career at Barnes & Noble with a generous employee discount, actually buying books regularly is not something I do. And I say that in no other way but frankness. I am at home in my library. The one I’m blessed to currently work at, as well as the library my taxes support. The same library I learned to read at, volunteered at in high school, and still use to study and enjoy on my days off. But with the help of an incredibly timed gift card, I couldn’t resist logging again to Barnes & Noble and ensuring that on Mar 6, 2025, a copy of Tracy Deonn’s Legendborn would be waiting at my doorstep.
I would not be embarrassed to admit that I was utterly and completely influenced by BookTok to give this book a try. Immediately upon knowing that the book was available at TFPL, I checked it out immediately, and stayed up many nights unable to put the book down. The young adult novel combining Arthinian legend, Black American spirituality, and a black female protagonist was the most exciting reading experience I’d had in years. Diving into the novel, and now the series, has been the highlight of my reading experiences in 2024. It’s no secret that reading and books take up a lot of my time. And happily so. But after years of purposely reading adult fiction and nonfiction (to great pleasure), I had forgotten why young even as an adult, YA fiction and literature can be so freeing and engrossing.
YA fiction is literature. It is not immature, elementary, or in any way subordinate to any other genre. I encourage any adult with a library card to explore the titles in the young adult section, and seriously include it in your browsing time at the library. Contrary to any assumption, YA is exactly what adults should read. When I began Legendborn, I was coming off a year-long effort to read more adult fiction and nonfiction. This was after finding myself still rereading Ally Carter and Sarah Dessen (authors you should read too) while entering college. YA fiction was the only genre I read for almost all of my school-age years, from 6th grade, my sophomore year of college at Rider University. It was my escape from my high school stress and from the classic literature I read during the day. Amazing but depressing classics like Lord of the Flies, A Tale of Two Cities, First They Killed My Father, Angela’s Ashes, The Great Gatsby, The Crucible, The Scarlett Letter, and so many others! I needed something light, but also honest about what I was feeling at the time. I had the reassurance in those books that all my feelings were normal. Universal even. The characters in those books were feeling the same as me. In that, I had a steady anchor in my ever-growing world of college essays, grades, student government, and auditions. I loved my authors. I loved my section. And I wasn’t ready to let it go in college. Quite the contrary.
But I knew as an adult, it was time to put away childish things. And that included YA for a while. And don’t get me wrong, the adjustment was easy. This was the time when I was more interested in nonfiction for a while. I was, for the first time, exploring feminist history and literature, film theory, and Shakespeare. My love of reading didn’t die; it expanded. It’s constantly growing like the galaxy. But now I had the words bell hooks, Malcolm X, Taylor Jenkins Reid, James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston. I loved books, I wouldn’t think I would’ve liked The Book of Goose, Kitchen Confidential, Lessons in Chemistry, Animal Farm, Never Let Me Go, and so many, many more. So, in April of 2024, when the opportunity arose to become the head of the young adult department at TFPL, I knew I had the perfect opportunity, nay a duty, a necessity to my career, to dive back into the genre that saved me.
Every morning, I use my library card to read the New York Times for my news information. Watching the news gives me anxiety. The world today is full of so much fear, uncertainty, and the unprecedented always suddenly becoming precedent. I’ve lived through so many important elections, financial crashes, change, and confusion, and I’m still so young. As an adult, I love YA because it reminds me of the joy I’ve had through all the uncertainty and change. To remind myself of the time when the most stressful thing of the day was when I could order my prom dress and never had a thought about taxes. When I order books for the young adult section, I do so with immense thought and care. And also with the hope that adults, as well as teens, see the value in the representation among our collection and explore the stories among my shelves, as well as those in the reading room. So in February of 2025, when I began the process of preordering Oathbound, the third book in the Legendborn Cycle series of books, I did so without hesitation. And seeing the book on my doorstep in March confirmed it. For just the joy of this book, this genre, and the YA collection. The joy is enough.
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