Should we be worried?
Should we be worried?
Young adult authors writing for grown-ups, why we shouldn't shy away from scary stories for our kids, and the glorious new rom-com that pulled my out of my reading slump.
“It’s hard to sell at the moment.”
An Australian publishing trend that I’ve noticed recently is adult new releases from authors who were previously known for writing for teenagers. This includes Mark Smith with the upcoming Three Boys Gone (December 2024), Nina Kenwood with her recent novel The Wedding Forecast (September 2024), Holden Sheppard’s forthcoming Two Kings (June 2025) and Kay Kerr’s debut adult fiction (2026), currently untitled, which was just announced this week. There may even be more!
I’m hoping to be able to have a chat to some of these authors about their move to adult fiction—what influenced them to do so, and what they think about it as a wider shift in the industry. It’s always interesting to see how things change and evolve, and this is a particularly fascinating trend, whether it is just a coincidence or not.
I am not critical of it by any means. Authors that have typically written young adult novels do not owe us anything. I’m genuinely excited about them trying something new, especially this cohort of exceptional writers. Just this week, The Wedding Forecast single-handedly pulled me out of my terrible reading slump (more about that below), and I am also such a huge fan of Kay Kerr and am really not sure if I can wait until 2026 to read her new novel. I really am thrilled to see them all diversifying their creative outputs and branching out into writing for different audiences.
But, and it is very possible this is totally unrelated, I am a little worried about what is going on in Australian YA in a broader sense.
This year while attending publisher pitch meetings for both The Kids’ Bookshop and Melbourne Writers Festival, I have noticed a distinct decrease in YA offerings in general. Australian publishers just don’t seem to be publishing as much YA as they have in the past few years. They offered me plenty of options for picture books and middle grade fiction, and only a handful of new books for teenagers.
When I asked about this, the general response was that YA, and specifically Australian YA, is currently quite hard to sell. Our teenagers are still reading (phew!), for the most part, but they are either reading up (reaching for adult novels) or are guided by BookTok and other social media trends which inevitably push them towards more American or UK titles.
I’m very glad they’re still reading, and I’ve always been big on “read whatever you like as long as you read!” but regardless, I hope that our kids don’t stop embracing local literature, as well as stories aimed expressly at them. It’s important to read widely and diversely, yes. And then it is also important to read stories with characters that you can relate to because you share a political or social context, or writing that can put into words the experience of growing up, or settings that are literally just around the corner from you. Stories where Christmas happens in the summertime.
It’s not completely dire out there. Recently we’ve had some great new additions to the Australian YA landscape, and more are coming early next year, too. I can’t wait to write about them here, and continue to support our homegrown children’s literature industry. It’s small, but it’s strong.
The best thing we can do as educators and parents is to continue to advocate for our local stories in every way possible—most crucially by putting them into the hands of our teenagers as much as we can. Of course kids can and should read whatever they like, but a little encouragement towards supporting our Australian authors can go a long way.
(Yes, I’m the person who regularly changes all the display books at my nearby Big W to ones by local authors. I’m not sorry about it.)
What is your favourite Australian YA book so far this year? Comment below!
The case for a good fright (from the brilliant Allison Rushby)
This week I read this fantastic post by Allison Rushby of Your Kid’s Next Read. I agree wholeheartedly with her sentiment that kids should read scary books, and most especially, that we should push back on any attempts of gatekeeping these stories.
I often have a parent or guardian tell me their small reader is too sensitive to read a story with any scary content, but I remain unconvinced. I simply don’t think we give children enough credit for working out their limits themselves – for reading and thinking their own way through.
After all, life is full of bumps, just as our characters’ stories are full of bumps.
Stories are the ultimate safe space in which children can test their limits. Scary stories in particular can help to equip children with the tools they need to deal with events in the real world. After all, it’s inevitable that we will all find ourselves having to deal with scary situations as we make our way through life.
I would never suggest that your 8 year-old should read It, but there are so many great horror stories out there for young readers that meet them where they are, and maybe even push them a little in a healthy and exciting way, too.
Since it’s spooky season, I’ll share a few of my favourites for different age groups:
Youngers readers:
There’s a Ghost in This House by Oliver Jeffers
The Skull: A Tyrolean Folktale by Jon Klassen
There’s No Such Thing by Heidi McKinnon
Every Night at Midnight by Peter Cheong
Middle grade:
This Camp is Doomed by Anna Zobel
Read at Your Own Risk by Remy Lai
A Girl Called Corpse and The Lonely Lighthouse of Elston-Fright by Reece Carter
A Walk in the Dark by Jane Godwin
Young adult:
Ghost Bird by Lisa Fuller
She Is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran
What We All Saw and One By One They Disappear by Mike Lucas
As Allison writes:
As adults, we know the value in a great twisty, turny, breathtaking thriller. Why deny our charges the same experience on a more moderate level? We do more harm than good by turning away from scary reads.
Hear, hear! And happy Halloween, everyone! Tuck with with a ghost story on a stormy night, and scare yourself silly.
As mentioned earlier, I managed to move on from my reading rut thanks to Nina Kenwood and her recent shift to adult fiction in The Wedding Forecast. It is just a completely 10/10 novel. Engaging, and funny, and both light and dark, in all the right ways. This is something people say and don’t always mean: but I honestly read it in two sittings, totally unable to put it down.
Anna was never going to have an easy time at her best friend’s wedding. She’s the bridesmaid; her ex, Joel, is a groomsman. But she’s determined to get through the festivities with a smile on her face. Despite the fact that Joel is bringing his new partner, Bianca. Despite the fact she’s stuck sharing a house with the newly in-love couple. And despite the fact Anna has just turned thirty and her life is not exactly where she thought it would be by now. Anna has all her feelings completely under control—right up until the moment Joel drops a bombshell that rocks her to her core.
She needs a distraction, and Patrick, the wedding photographer, just might be the solution. Everyone has decided he is perfect for her. He is perfect for her. But the arrival of Mac, a not-quite-famous actor who has flown in from New York, complicates everything.
I highly recommend The Wedding Forecast for a summer read, or if you need a novel to hook you in quickly, or a gift for someone going through a breakup, or a friend who loves book shopping (there is a lovely throughline of the power of bookshops) or just anyone, really. Including yourself. It’s an adult book, but it is well-suited to older teenagers, too. I would put it into the hands of a young reader who was getting into Colleen Hoover and say: please read this instead! And then I would absolutely point them towards Nina Kenwood’s two previous YA titles as well: It Sounded Better in My Head and Unnecessary Drama.
Only a few chapters into The Wedding Forecast, I started texting friends and family, urging them to buy it immediately. Within 24 hours, people started replying to say they’d tracked it down and started reading it, and were already halfway through. That is to say, it’s not just me. This is a sure-fire hit!
The Wedding Forecast was so much fun, terrifically readable, and sexy without being too much. I’m not a huge romance reader in general, but to me, the romance in this was spot on. Nina Kenwood is an excellent writer of the messiness of love and life. She has created a rom-com that has unexpected twists, overseas travel, emotional torment, and palpable chemistry between its characters, both romantic and platonic. In fact, the friendship element in it was among my favourite bits.
The whole thing is completely life-affirming, no matter what stage of life you’re at. This is your cue to cancel your library reserve, and rush out and buy yourself a copy tomorrow!
Coming in future newsletters:
The books I wish I had growing up
Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about having an author visit at your school
More reluctant reader recommendations
And… what else? You tell me! Get in touch and let me know what you want to see here!
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I've noticed the same with YA. I was a judge for the Prime Minister's Lit Awards this year in the children's category, and in comparison the YA category only had around a quarter of the number of submissions in the children's. Makes sense in some ways because children's encompasses picture books and middle grade and everything in between, but I was still very surprised at the small number of YA. In saying that, some of my fave reads this year have been YA: IMMORTAL DARK by Tigest Girma, RETURN TO SENDER by Lauren Draper and WHAT'S MURDER BETWEEN FRIENDS by Meg Gatland-Veness.
This was a great read and I admit I’ve been worried about YA for a while, particularly in the local contemporary space. I’ve had my own little YA book sitting on my computer waiting for a redraft for such a long time, but I admit I’ve turned my focus to picture books because it always seems like teens aren’t reading simple contemporary stories anymore and I just don’t know where mine will fit.