Microsoft Word final-current Developments at the Intersection of British Children-online-version doc

1.4.1.2
“Young adults” 
If the term “children” can be roughly framed by birth and puberty, then the latter 
marks the visible begin of a transition from childhood to adulthood. In any case, biological 
development is out of an individual’s sphere of influence, whereas a person’s “growth to 
maturity, to adulthood, is unique and determined by a complex of personal, family, 
environmental and social factors.”
4
Still, in order to be able to come to terms with the new 
appearance of the body and with far-reaching changes in personality, young adults need role 
models and guidance for new orientations. Literature for this specific age group therefore has 
to accept the challenge of doing the splits between a certain
degree of stability for its 
inherently insecure readership and the new, changing reality.
The niche of such a specific literature for “young adults”, not only a more respectful, 
but also a larger term for “teenagers”, was discovered in the 1950s.
5
Whereas “teenagers” are 
defined as persons “between the ages of 13 and 19 inclusive”
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, young adults nowadays are 
sometimes already in their early or even late twenties. What separates them both from the 
group of “children” and those of “adults” is their pronounced consciousness of being 
different. All along, juveniles try to point the way to the future by striving to distinguish 
themselves in as many ways as possible, especially from their elders, for instance by marking 
their group identity by fashion, language and behaviour. Within their peer groups, young 
adults start looking for their new individual identity.
Literature for young adults tries to serve the needs for its audience which finds itself in 
a phase of transition, of simultaneously not belonging any more and not belonging yet. 
Usually, the term “young adults” is narrowed down to the period between 12/14 up to about 
17/18 years of age. Yet, especially the upper approximate threshold value becomes 
increasingly extendable in the direction of “twens”. Strikingly, problems of young adults and 
adolescents differ only slightly from those of children, albeit on a larger scale. Even so, young 
adult literature meets the demand for the discussion of problems in a separate, perhaps more 
private category.
4
Saxby, Books, p. 352.
5
Ibd.
6
Collins Dictionary, p. 1572.

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The more modern western society prolongs the periods of childhood and adolescence 
by intensified education, the longer those concerned are being kept in a state of limbo. Thus, 
this originally quite short transitional phenomenon is extended increasingly, forming a 
category of its own. Characterised by an all-embracing conflict of emotions, literature for 
young adults revolves around central points such as the desire for certainties and knowledge, 
construction of identity, awakening sexuality, friendship, further detachment from the parents, 
finding of individual perspectives, broadening one’s horizon and the future position in 
society. It can be noticed that the perspective adopted in young adult literature “is more 
intense, more urgent”
7
than in literature for children. With puberty in full swing or just 
mastered, far-reaching decisions for the professional life are imminent. Special emphasis is 
given to resulting fears and uncertainties, as well as suggested solutions.
So far, literature for young adults further distinguishes itself from that for children by 
“the embracing of a consciously formulated personal philosophy”.
8
Whereas children’s 
literature is concerned with existential questions on a more universal level, “young adult” 
literature treats these topics on an individual scale, often suffused with philosophical 
elements. For example, the meaning of life is not the primary concern of children, who still 
need to explore and define their environment. Where children are said to still gather facts and 
experiences, actively constructing the fabric of their world; young adults question and 
interpret the very structures, functions and meaning of this world, checking for its flaws.
In addition to family and school, literature for young adults can give young people the 
support required for crisis management by providing test cases combined with guidance 
towards strategies of problem solving. Increasingly, first person narrators are introduced. 
More and more frequently, the young adult himself keeps a diary, or tells their own story like 
Byng’s Molly Moon or Crossley-Holland’s Arthur. A witty combination of traditional third 
person narrator and I-narrator, perfected in Stroud’s Bartimaeus trilogy, is only one 
possibility of current realisations. A new plurality of narrators is joined by the widening and 
removal of taboos from topics, so that the spectrum of young adult literature hardly differs 
any more from that of adults’.
Traditional children’s literature, above all the classics, is frequently set in the 
countryside or in similarly secluded places. Famous representatives of this kind are for 
example The Secret Garden, Alice in Wonderland; The Wind in the Willows, Winnie-the-Pooh 
7
Saxby, Books, p. 352.
8
Compare Saxby, Books, p. 354.

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or Tom’s Midnight Garden. In these manageable, closed miniature worlds the child can 
gradually come to terms with itself and its immediate surroundings such as friends or animals. 
By contrast, young adults are mostly shown in close contact with society. More and more 
frequently, the town replaces rural landscapes, with the scene of action shifting from the 
idyllic arcadia of childhood into the modern, anonymous bustling city life.
9