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Sep. 15th, 2007 04:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsSo, o learned flist, once again I have a query for y'all.
While doing research for my thesis, I came across an article, written in 2000, discussing the reading habits of adolescents. It was talking about encouraging kids to read more fantasy lit, and claimed that research had shown that while adolescent boys read a lot of fantasy and sci-fi, adolescent girls read more romance or historical romance, "which are also referred to as bodice-rippers."
My knee-jerk reaction to this claim (aside from irritation at the condescension in that paragraph) is an immediate feeling of "that can't be accurate." Now, I was around adolescent-aged in the year 2000. Most of my reading at that age was, in fact, YA fantasy books, and while I definitely don't claim to have been the poster child for an Average Adolescent Girl, I don't remember many of the girls I knew toting around nothing but 'bodice-rippers' either - I'm not ragging on the romance genre, but if my friends were reading, they were going for fantasy books, historical fiction, or realistic coming-of-age type stories, or any mixture of the above. As for today, seven years later, my general impression is that most YA fantasy authors are women, and most of them are writing as much or more for adolescent girls as for boys. Am I looking at a biased sample here? If you were an adolescent or acquainted with adolescents in the year 2000, I would love to hear your opinions on this.
(I have to admit, I am also somewhat prejudiced against the article on the grounds that their recommendations for great fantasy books for young readers included Piers Anthony and Terry Goodkind, but that's another story.
ETA: And in the interests of fairness, I probably should add that when I was an adolescent, my reading did include Piers Anthony and Terry Goodkind. It's just later I wished that it hadn't . . .)
While doing research for my thesis, I came across an article, written in 2000, discussing the reading habits of adolescents. It was talking about encouraging kids to read more fantasy lit, and claimed that research had shown that while adolescent boys read a lot of fantasy and sci-fi, adolescent girls read more romance or historical romance, "which are also referred to as bodice-rippers."
My knee-jerk reaction to this claim (aside from irritation at the condescension in that paragraph) is an immediate feeling of "that can't be accurate." Now, I was around adolescent-aged in the year 2000. Most of my reading at that age was, in fact, YA fantasy books, and while I definitely don't claim to have been the poster child for an Average Adolescent Girl, I don't remember many of the girls I knew toting around nothing but 'bodice-rippers' either - I'm not ragging on the romance genre, but if my friends were reading, they were going for fantasy books, historical fiction, or realistic coming-of-age type stories, or any mixture of the above. As for today, seven years later, my general impression is that most YA fantasy authors are women, and most of them are writing as much or more for adolescent girls as for boys. Am I looking at a biased sample here? If you were an adolescent or acquainted with adolescents in the year 2000, I would love to hear your opinions on this.
(I have to admit, I am also somewhat prejudiced against the article on the grounds that their recommendations for great fantasy books for young readers included Piers Anthony and Terry Goodkind, but that's another story.
ETA: And in the interests of fairness, I probably should add that when I was an adolescent, my reading did include Piers Anthony and Terry Goodkind. It's just later I wished that it hadn't . . .)
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Date: 2007-09-17 04:24 pm (UTC)<.<
*may have read Lurlene McDaniel books when in middle school*