The YA question (what’s Young Adult and what’s not) is a good one. There was a recent Locus interview — darned if I can’t remember with whom — where the interviewed author on the cover had some thoughtful comments on the topic. If there’s any interest, I can try to dig it out and post up a few insights to serve as the centerpeice of a discussion.

But what I really wanted to discuss is Nix’s trilogy (which I love). I could have sworn that Sabrael (sic), Lirael and Abhorsen were the first of Nix’s works that were marketed as specifically not YA.

So unless I’m wrong (which I frequently am), they wouldn’t be the best centerpiece for a discussion.

Maybe we should try:

- Hobbit vs. LOTR
- The Pullman series, which you highlighted
- Chronicles of Narnia
- Harry Potter

Others?

When I read the books, I find the writing to be of high quality, the situations engaging and the characters delightful. The last two–I need to dig up the first one–were thoroughly enjoyable reads. But there’s a quality to them that would still classify them as YA in my mind. I struggle to understand why that is. It’s clearly not quality. So what is it?

These blog entries age pretty quickly. Once they’ve scrolled off the front page, they might as well never have existed. Since this is a topic that I’ve been interested in and expect to continue to be interested in, I started a forum on it.

Meet you there for coffee?

Best regards,

Alan