Too Much YA Lit?

The first thing I heard about when I turned on the morning news AND when I walked into work was the one-two combo of people who were out late to see the midnight showings of Breaking Dawn and the official debut of the Hunger Games trailer (embedded at the end of this post for the 5 people who haven't seen it yet).

I have mentioned here on RA for All many times how important the YA crossover phenomenon is.  Even though I work at what is technically the adult fiction desk, I spend at least a little but of my time every day helping patrons (of all ages) find YA titles.  And I am not the only one experiencing an increase in YA related questions.  As a result, we are in the planning stages of completely revamping how we provide YA service here at the BPL.  As YA and Adult titles begin to cross over more and more, YA and high-middle Youth titles are also beginning to intersect less.  New strategies need to be considered.

As I said, this is only in the planning stages, but hopefully early in 2012 I will have more to say on this topic.

This leads me to another YA/Adult crossover topic though.  Yesterday, I was at the Circulation Desk talking to Jose who loves reading YA titles and we overheard 2 Youth Services employees discussing books that could be summarized as "steampunk with zombies."  Jose and I stopped our conversation about another book and quickly jumped in excitedly into theirs, offering, "the only thing better than steampunk is steampunk with zombies!"

We talked about the appeal of these books and why we and our patrons love them.  It was a very engaging and useful professional discussion; oh and it was fun too.  I went on with the rest of my day, happy that staff in 3 different departments were sharing books and their appeal.

And then today, I saw this post on Book Riot of the "Top Five Signs You're Reading too Much Young Adult Literature," and now I am worried we all fit the bill.  Don't get me wrong, I am worried in a good way.  But if you have found yourself spending more and more time talking about YA lit these days, it is time to check the signs that you are addicted.  The first step is admitting you have a problem. But with all the great YA literature out there these days, it is a very good problem to have.

Have a nice weekend whether your plans include YA lit or not.