Sunday Feature: A World Beyond Narnia

Louise Doughty explores the phenomenal growth of the young adult fiction market, asking if it is at last coming of age. She explores the origins and appeal of the genre and considers what it says about the lives of teenagers today. Until recently, when girls and boys outgrew the children's sections of bookshops and libraries, they moved on to adult novels. This is no longer the case. The young adult fiction market made over 50 million pounds in the UK in 2009, a growth of 89 per cent on the previous year, and while half of this was spent on Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series, the genre does now seem to have reached a critical mass. Louise recalls her own memories of reading CS Lewis's Narnia books, speaking to Richelle Mead, author of the cult Vampire Academy series, as well as Patrick Ness, Meg Rossoff and William Nicholson, all of them award-winning authors for children and young people. She also visits Croxley Heath School in Halifax to hear from young adults themselves about what reading means to them and about their likes and dislikes