SUBSCRIBE
SUBSCRIBE
SLJ Blog Network +
  • 100 Scope Notes
  • A Fuse #8 Production
  • Good Comics for Kids
  • Heavy Medal: A Mock Newbery Blog
  • Teen Librarian Toolbox
  • The Classroom Bookshelf
  • The Yarn
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • About TLT
  • Reviews
    • Book Reviews
    • A to Z Book Lists
    • Book Review Policy
  • Teen Issues
  • Middle Grade Mondays
  • Programs
    • TPiB
    • Tech Talk
  • Professional
    • Teen Services 101
    • Things We Didn’t Learn in Library School
  • MakerSpace
  • Projects
    • #SVYALit
    • #FSYALit
    • #MHYALit
    • #Poverty in YA Lit

October 25, 2012 by Karen Jensen, MLS

Why YA? Twilight (Stephenie Meyer) and Impossible (Nancy Werlin) as discussed by author Lea Nolan

October 25, 2012 by Karen Jensen, MLS   Leave a Comment

Why YA? Because it’s important. And because I know what it’s like to live without it. 

Today, Lea Nolan, author of the new ya book Conjure from Entangled Publishing, shares her Why YA? story with us.  Conjure is book 1 in the The Hoodoo Apprentice.  In this awesome adventure there are messages in a bottle from the past, secret pirate bounties and demon dogs.  The fact that Nolan is writing ya is remarkable when you read what she shares in her story.
 
I couldn’t read until the third grade. This deficiency was likely due to my attendance at a low-performing elementary school where my teachers didn’t realize I wasn’t learning, and the fact that I likely suffered from attention deficit disorder as a child. After moving to a new school and receiving intensive remedial help, plus a lot of hard work, it finally clicked. And I promptly fell in love with books. The stories I clutched in my hands transported me to fantastical worlds where anything was possible and my imagination soared. More importantly, books provided a refuge from my chaotic childhood, which was dominated by my mother’s battle with a devastating chronic disease, and a sibling’s budding serious mental illness. Quite simply, I read to escape.  

By the time I hit junior high, I had read just about every well-known stand-alone book and series for kids. My favorite authors were of course Judy Blume, Roald Dahl, Madeline L’Engle, EL Konigsburg, CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, and EB White, but I devoured any and all books that crossed my path, then licked my fingers clean reliving the plot and character’s choices in my head.  

SCROLL TO KEEP READING THIS POST

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

But then I grew up a little, and grew out of these books. Since it was the early 1980s, there wasn’t much left that was geared to teens. So I jumped to the next tier of stories that kids like me were reading, books written by VC Andrews, Jean M. Auel, Stephen King, Anne Rice, and a whole lot of Harlequin romances. Don’t get me wrong, these provided great entertainment, but they weren’t written for a twelve year old. Like all adult conversations a kid might eavesdrop on, I comprehended their words, but I couldn’t completely understand their meaning. How could I? I wasn’t the intended audience, and I certainly didn’t have enough life experience to truly empathize with the adult characters and their problems.  

So I embarked on my teenage years without true literary companions. There were no coming of age stories to help me grapple with the mounting pressure of my mother’s sickness and increasing disability, the havoc created by an equally ill and abusive sibling, or the typical trials of an American teenager struggling to find acceptance, dabbling with alcohol and testing the boundaries of intimacy with boys.  

Eventually I worked it all out, persevered and came out the other side relatively unscathed, going on to college and graduate school and establishing a successful career as a health policy researcher and writer. But looking back I realize I traversed that journey on my own.   
 

Flash forward to my late thirties when a friend handed me Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. A teen book? I was sure I’d hate it or at the very least would suffer through it. But she persisted, extolling its virtues and raving about the power of its romance. Oh-kay, sure, fine. I agreed if only to gain a deeper understanding of how my friend who had a PhD and taught at the collegiate level could be so drawn in by a book about teenagers.  

Well, I did read it. And I fell under its spell too. Meyer’s ability to tap into the deep longing and heart-gripping intensity of first love knocked me on my bottom and rekindled powerful emotions I’d long forgotten amid my daily life as a wife, mom and career woman.  
 
 
So I started reading more YA books. Partly because, like so many others who’d read Twilight, I was thinking of writing my own book, but mostly because I was really excited by this new genre than didn’t exist when I was young. And that’s when Impossible by Nancy Werlin changed my life. This book, based on the song “Scarborough Fair” blends the very best of paranormal elements—a horrific curse which has doomed generations of women in one family, an evil Elfin Knight, and cryptic tasks that must be accomplished to end the enchantment—with realistic contemporary issues faced by teens everyday.  

Lucy, the heroine, is a foster child who survives a brutal sexual assault that results in a teenage pregnancy, while contending with her mother’s madness, and her own mounting fear that she herself will go insane. Though it’s set in a fantastical world where demonic faeries lash out against unsuspecting women, it is rooted in the here and now and filled with issues that teenagers face everyday. In the truest sense, Impossible is a coming of age story in which Lucy struggles with the most inconceivable challenges, both paranormal and terrestrial, to save herself and her child.  

Impossible blew me away. This wasn’t just a teen romance that got my heart pumping. It reached across the decades and spoke to the teen me that never had the chance to read it. How would my teenage self have responded to a book like Impossible? I think I would have relished it. Lucy had serious mommy issues, and as much as I loved my own, so did I. And though I didn’t understand the extent of my sibling’s fledgling and yet-to-be diagnosed mental illness, I was certainly aware of the daily turmoil, violence and dysfunction that swirled around her and thus my entire household. Impossible would have made me feel less alone.

Suddenly, I was sure I’d write my own book, and that I’d write YA. It was like finding something I didn’t realize was lost, but knew I desperately needed. 

And that’s why YA is important. Regardless of genre, YA books address issues that are relevant to young readers who are striving to discover themselves during a challenging and sometimes turbulent time. When adults read YA, it gives them a glimpse of teens’ lives and helps them remember how giddy, dramatic, exciting and frustrating those years can be. And best of all, most YA books accomplish this without being heavy-handed, preachy or sounding like an after-school special. YA books let readers know they’re not alone, that they can survive and even thrive through troubling circumstances. They’re the perfect companions on the journey to adulthood.
 
 

Lea Nolan writes the kinds of stories she sought as a teen—smart paranormals with bright heroines, crazy-hot heroes, diabolical plot twists, plus a dose of magic, a draft of romance, and a sprinkle of history. She’s holds degrees in history and women’s studies concentrating in public policy and spent fifteen years as a health policy analyst and researcher. She lives in Maryland with her heroically supportive husband and three clever children. Her debut YA novel, CONJURE, book one in The Hoodoo Apprentice Series releases on October 23, 2012 from Entangled Publishing under the Entangled Teen imprint. You can learn more about Lea on her website, on Facebook, Twitter and on Goodreads.  CONJUREis available at both Barnes and Noble and Amazon. 

Filed under: Conjure, Lea Nolan, Why YA?

SHARE:

Read or Leave Comments

About Karen Jensen, MLS

Karen Jensen has been a Teen Services Librarian for almost 30 years. She created TLT in 2011 and is the co-editor of The Whole Library Handbook: Teen Services with Heather Booth (ALA Editions, 2014).

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Posts

October 2012

Book Review: Conjure by Lea Nolan

by Karen Jensen, MLS

October 2015

If Adults Are the People Buying YA Literature, Should We Still Call It YA? I Say Yes!

by Karen Jensen, MLS

June 2014

In defense of teens by Heather Booth

by Karen Jensen, MLS

March 2013

Why YA? David James talks The Year of Ice

by Karen Jensen, MLS

January 2013

Why YA? (again): Fear and loathing in YA literature

by Karen Jensen, MLS

ADVERTISEMENT

SLJ Blog Network

100 Scope Notes

BLUE FLOATS AWAY Turns Two!

by Travis Jonker

A Fuse #8 Production

Faced with a Parenting Dilemma? Write a Book About It! Jacob Grant Comes By to Talk About NO FAIR

by Betsy Bird

Good Comics for Kids

Pardalita | Preview

by Brigid Alverson

Heavy Medal

March suggestions: early Mock Newbery possibilities

by Emily Mroczek-Bayci

Teen Librarian Toolbox

Write What You Know, a guest post by MADE OF STARS author Jenna Voris

by Karen Jensen, MLS

The Classroom Bookshelf

The Classroom Bookshelf is Moving

by Erika Thulin Dawes

The Yarn

Jarrett and Jerome Pumphrey Try Something New

by Travis Jonker

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Articles on SLJ

"Reverie" Author Started Writing His YA Debut in High School

Race, K-pop, and Magic: September's YA Debut Authors Tackle a Range of Topics

Global Read Aloud Books Announced

16 YA Authors Who Built Their Careers in Libraries

On Parental Love & Addiction: Lauren Myracle

Commenting for all posts is disabled after 30 days.

ADVERTISEMENT

Archives

Follow This Blog

Enter your email address below to receive notifications of new blog posts by email.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

Primary Sidebar

  • News & Features
  • Reviews+
  • Technology
  • School Libraries
  • Public Libraries
  • Age Level
  • Ideas
  • Blogs
  • Classroom
  • Diversity
  • People
  • Job Zone

Reviews+

  • Book Lists
  • Best Books
  • Media
  • Reference
  • Series Made Simple
  • Tech
  • Review for SLJ
  • Review Submissions

SLJ Blog Network

  • 100 Scope Notes
  • A Fuse #8 Production
  • Good Comics for Kids
  • Heavy Medal
  • Neverending Search
  • Teen Librarian Toolbox
  • The Classroom Bookshelf
  • The Yarn

Resources

  • 2022 Youth Media Awards
  • The Newbery at 100: SLJ Celebrates the 100th Anniversary of the Award
  • Special Report | School Libraries 2021
  • Summer Reading 2021
  • Series Made Simple Spring 2021
  • SLJ Diverse Books Survey
  • Summer Programming Survey
  • Research
  • White Papers / Case Studies
  • School Librarian of the Year
  • Mathical Book Prize Collection Development Awards
  • Librarian/Teacher Collaboration Award

Events & PD

  • In-Person Events
  • Online Courses
  • Virtual Events
  • Webcasts
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe
  • Media Inquiries
  • Newsletter Sign Up
  • Content Submissions
  • Data Privacy
  • Terms of Use
  • Terms of Sale
  • FAQs
  • Diversity Policy
  • Careers at MSI


COPYRIGHT © 2023


COPYRIGHT © 2023