Perhaps you’ve seen them when searching for Anne of Green
Gables by L.M. Montgomery: J MONTGOMERY. Or maybe you’ve noticed those little
white stickers at the bottom of every library book’s spine: M PAT,TERSON W L'AMOUR , F
CUSSLER. These letters—called “call numbers” in library speak—are meant to indicate
where a book should live in a library, plus the first three letters of the
authors last name. They're basically the book’s address in Library City, and
tell you exactly where to find what you’re looking for. And while it’s obvious
that “F” is fiction, “M” is mystery, and “W” is western, other call numbers are
a little more confusing, particularly for children’s books: E, YA, and J.
“E” is the easiest to explain—pun intended—because it stands for
“Easy” or “Early Reader”. These are books for the littlest of tykes who are
either pre-readers or just taking their first steps into reading. Thus, all of the picture books in my library are labeled “E”, followed by the first three letters of the
author’s last name.
Next, we have “J”, which can mean “Juvenile” or “Junior”, which is
a little more complicated to explain. Basically, “J” is for books that are for
kids aged roughly 7 or 8 to 12 or 13, which is quite the range. The colloquial
term for such children is “Tweens”, but most people I’ve talked to don’t know
exactly what that means. The publishing term for this age is “Middle
Grade”; no one I’ve talked to knows at all what
that means! Plus, people associate Middle Grade with middle school, which is
only the upper end of it and… It’s just a mess! Yet, it’s a mess we need. We
can’t just say “kid books” or “children’s books”, because that includes
everything from 0 to 12, and there is a huge difference between a book for a
6th grader and one for a preschooler. Thus, we librarians use “J” for
this very large, diverse group of books.
Then what about YA? It stands for “Young Adult”, which makes no
sense whatsoever, as it’s the label we use for teen books. I personally blame
the publishing industry, who are trying to sell more books by appealing to
teenagers’ want of maturity (there is another age-genre called “New Adult”
meant for college-aged kids, who are older and less new than “young adults”, so
clearly language is basically meaningless at this point). But I digress… YA is
meant for teenagers, i.e. people aged 13 to 18.
And all this seems simple enough, except when it isn’t. The fact
is, there is a lot more wiggle room and subjectivity than these labels allow
for. While some books are obvious—Diary of a Wimpy Kid is J
and Hunger Games is YA—others are trickier. Harry
Potter, for example, starts out as J and literally grows up into YA.
Certain books are right on the edge between Easy Reader and Junior books,
and it’s a gamble as to which way it can go.
To make matters murkier, there are the connotations of each genre.
Theoretically, J and YA refer to age groups, but they also indicate content. J
books focus on family issues, making friends, adventure, and so on. YA, meanwhile,
deals with identity, growing into one's own, and (more often than not) fighting
against dystopian regimes. There tends to be a lot more sex, drugs, and
swearing thrown in as well, in an attempt to be edgy—or, um, I mean... seem relevant.
Yeah, relevant, that's it… Anyway, what all this means is that tone, rather
than age of protagonist, often tips the scales toward one section or the other,
which is how we end up with Percy Jackson in J and The
Giver in YA, despite the fact that Percy is a teenager throughout most
of the series while Jonas is just turning 12. For more evidence, just look at
the bright, rainbow-colored spines of the Junior area and then, just around the
corner, see the darker, grittier YA covers.
Confusing? Yes. But let us librarians worry about what goes where,
and why it goes there. What does all this mean for you, the reader? Well, it
can give you a vague idea of where to look for what you want based on age and
give you some idea of tone and content. None of this, however, should stifle
your choice in books. If you're a 10th grader who wants to read a J
book, do it. If you're a 6th grader who wants to read YA—well, maybe have your parents look it over, first—then do it. And if you're a full-grown adult whose into kids
books, that’s fine. I love kids books! Children’s authors have to hold the
attention of a very particular and picky crowd, so a lot of them tend to write
clever dialogue or beautiful description. Read whatever makes you happy; that's
what books are for.
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