Why Do Female Authors Dominate Young-Adult Fiction?

An article from The Atlantic Magazine we thought are readers would find interesting. We hope you enjoy.

Why Do Female Authors Dominate Young-Adult Fiction?

Summer is a time for taking stock, for relaxing and recharging, and for intense Internet debate about whether Harry Potter, Katniss Everdeen, or Holden Caulfield reign supreme in the universe of teen fiction. NPR Books just released the results of its reader poll of the 100 Best-Ever Teen novels, with new classics Harry Potter and The Hunger Games topping the list. After painstakingly considering my own nominees, I was struck by the dominance of female authors on my short list, including: Harper Lee, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Suzanne Collins, J.K. Rowling, S.E. Hinton, Betty Smith, and Madeleine L’Engle.

I’m not alone in my regard for the great female storytellers of teen fiction. Nearly all of these authors appear on the NPR list. More than 75,000 votes were cast to cull the list of 235 finalists to the top 100. Also notable: Of those 235 titles, 147 (or 63 percent) were written by women—a parity that would seem like a minor miracle in some other genres. Female authors took the top three slots, and an approximately equal share of the top 100. As a comparison, you’d have to scroll all the way to number 20 on last summer’s Top 100 Science-Fiction and Fantasy list to find a woman’s name (Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley).

Although NPR Books called on an expert panel to weigh in on tricky questions of young-adult eligibility, the demographic breakdown of the finalist list was almost entirely driven by reader votes, according to Joe Matazzoni, NPR’s senior supervising producer for Arts & Life.

Read the rest of the article at The Atlantic Magazine.