Literary brilliance in YA fiction

Content warning: mentions of police brutality and residential schools.

As an English major at the University of Toronto, I have read Charles Dickens, T.S. Eliot, William Shakespeare, and numerous other authors whose work is associated with “the literary canon.” I have read written works that are claimed to be some of the greatest bodies of literature ever produced, continuously appearing on course syllabi, reading lists, and BookTok, with flashy headlines about “how to become Rory Gilmore” or “what your bookshelf says about you.” While these works are indeed important and beautiful, I also find them confining. I scramble when someone asks me what my favourite novel is, feeling pressure to produce a title that sounds impressive and intellectual, a title that confirms I belong in this program. I have come to realize that we use the “classics” as an outdated standard to measure the greatness and worth of both bodies of literature and those who read them.

It was not until the third year of my undergraduate degree that a work of young adult dystopian fiction appeared on my syllabus: Cherie Dimaline’s The Marrow Thieves. Dimaline takes readers into a dystopian world set in the very near future, which makes use of Canada’s past and present systems of oppression and integrates them into a setting where everyone but Indigenous peoples have lost the ability to dream. The story discusses the Canadian residential school system and the commodification of Indigenous bodies, but is also filled with resilience, community, preservation of culture, and hope. Dimaline won multiple awards for her novel and it was defended on Canada Reads 2018. This book sparked some of the most informative and profound conversations I have had in the classroom. Reflecting upon these discussions, it does not sit right with me that many peers, educators, and consumers of novels, though they often enjoy reading young adult fiction, disregard it as being too immature, too cringey, or too simplistic to be defined as “real” literature. After having conversations about Dimaline’s novel and the various topics it includes, I felt troubled by not only the lack of young adult fiction I have encountered within classrooms on various levels, but by my own unfamiliarity with young adult fiction as an undergraduate student of literature.

What I believe is often overlooked in young adult fiction is that it is an overarching genre all about connection and conversation. Sure, many of these books may include a sappy romantic side plot or lines that evoke second-hand embarrassment on the reader’s end, but I think many consumers of literature often forget that, for young readers approaching these texts for the first time, the feelings depicted are real. Readers are encountering important topics—such as police brutality in Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give or the residential school system in Dimaline’s The Marrow Thieves—within novels for the first time, at an age when properly understanding these issues is essential. These books are deeper than a simple “coming-of-age narrative,” as they ignite conversation and action through the power of language, leading to empathy, understanding, and empowerment on behalf of the reader. This genre of literature produces brilliance that deserves both recognition and discussion in all spaces.

The gatekeeping of what is defined as “high” literature and intellectual writing is limited to a Western, heteronormative point of view, ultimately confining what literature has the potential to be. The dismissal of young adult fiction as “easy” or “blasé” disregards the immense amount of work that is poured into these texts, as well as the effects they have on young and old readers alike. That being said, now is an exciting and promising time to study literature because changes are being made. I have encountered authors such as Toni Morrison, Lee Maracle, and Madeleine Thien in my education. However, I feel that more young adult fiction is needed in university classrooms, and all other places where literature is discussed. My one hope for literary scholarship is that we can escape the confinements of the canon and incorporate a wider range of literature in all spaces where written work is discussed. While it may be enticing to pick up a classic novel or so-called renowned read, I encourage you to think about what and who defines “great” literature.