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Redefining the young adult novel.

Article Excerpt
The annual press conference at which the American Library Association announces its youth media award winners can be fraught with drama and suspense. Take, for instance, the scenario that presented itself just over three years ago when, after all of the Printz Honor books had been announced, three of the most highly praised young adult novels of the year had still not been mentioned. Only one of them, presumably, would win. The other two would be left out of Printz recognition completely. As fate would have it, Aidan Chambers's Postcards from No Man's Land rather than M. T. Anderson's Feed or E. R. Frank's America was held up over the podium and announced as the winner. Of course, Feed had been shortlisted for the National Book Award and would go on to win the L.A. Times Book Prize and a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor citation, accumulating a cult following along the way; and while America never enjoyed similar award success, the reviews were laudatory and it acquired a sizable following with, arguably, the broadest teen audience of the three.

As a Printz winner, Postcards from No Man's Land was greeted with some hostility among rank-and-file YA librarians, especially coming on the heels of the two previous winners, David Almond's Kit's Wilderness and An Na's A Step from Heaven, two books that also were perceived as having a limited audience. Many longed for a return to a more accessible book for teens, such as the inaugural winner, Walter Dean Myers's Monster. To be sure, the literary novel was gaining a foothold in YA literature, and it was deeply unsettling to many advocates of teen reading and literature, especially as much of the award attention for these books seemed directly disproportionate to the size, if not the enthusiasm, of their teen audiences. Postcards from No Man's Land was by no means the first crossover novel (those books that appeal to both teenagers and adults, which could have been published for either market), but its high visibility showcased many of the elements--mature themes, older characters, sophisticated language, and leisurely pacing--that many thought made it more appropriate for an adult audience.

Not surprisingly, the crossover novel has continued to command...

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