Adults Reading Young Adult Literature

Kelly at Big A little a linked to this article by Katie Haegele in today's Philadelphia Inquirer. The article is about the growing readership of young adult and children's novels by adults. Of course that's part of what my blog is about ("the continued reading of children's books by adults"), so I simply had to bring the article to your attention. Several adult readers are quoted regarding the reasons that they read young adult books, or why they think that other adults do.

• They're "more imaginative"
• They have "more upbeat endings"
• A good young adult book "makes you think"
• They offer "more of a resolution than in literary fiction for adults" / "more satisfying"
• And, for parents, they offer a way to "stay informed of what their children are reading"

I particularly enjoyed the discussion about mother-daughter reading groups. I think that there are tons of benefits to parents who read the same books that their kids read: increased closeness, demonstrating that reading is important, ability to talk about things in the books, etc. I wrote more about that in an earlier post.

But check out the full article for more details about adult reading of young adult books. Thanks again to Kelly for the link!

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