YA Literature in Bookstores

In search of YA Literature in bookstores, I decided to venture a bit off the beaten path in hopes to uncover the presence of adolescent books. I went to The Starclipper in University City which primarily focuses on comic books and graphic novels. 

When I first walked in, I noticed a large amount of young people between the ages of 8-20. This doesn't surprise me because the graphic novel has become a prominent and growing part of what young people, among others, read these days. Whereas paper comic books used to be popular many decades ago, now full length comic book-style graphic novels have emerged as of late as a large part of youth reading. This does not in fact surprise me. Disregarding subject matter for the moment, the graphic novel is extremely appealing as a segue between children's literature and adult literature. On the surface, it looks like "easy reading" because it is in comic form instead of extended prose. An adolescent might think "I don't like reading, but this isn't really reading so it should be faster and easier". Also, since so many of these novels have been adapted into action films, the books especially attract young males who have spent so much time watching this movies such a "Watchmen", "Sin City", "300" and "The Dark Knight". 

Now, when analyzing the content of these novels, the themes, storylines and characters are extremely complex and thorough that they are on par with significant literary titles. In this way, any young readers might be enticed to the graphic novels because of their "easiness" and action but benefit from the deep and detailed thematic plots. 

Are graphic novels specifically YA literature? No. I read many and I know that several readers many years my senior do as well. But young readers do in fact read them and I believe that they can cater just as much to them as to older readers. It is just difficult to assess the place these novels have in the canon since they hold a relatively new place in the literature world. I am very excited to see where these graphic novels venture from here and, more interestingly, which demographic they gravitate towards. Yes, young men might be interested because of the mass amount of Superhero or Action Team related content, but there is also hundreds of novels which could heavily interest young girls or be unisex. Those titles might not get much publicity as they aren't tapped for movie adaptations so often or publicized, but I think that the graphic novel in general is surely finding a niche and audience in the young adult.