YA Mystery

Transcript

Speaker: Welcome to the Clued in Mystery podcast. I'm Sarah. And I'm Brooke, and we both love mystery. Brooke, we are talking about something that I've been asking you to talk about before. It feels like since we started, started recording these episodes, I've been asking to talk about YA mystery. Yeah. And I'm so glad that you made the suggestion. This is going to be a lot of fun to talk about today.

Speaker: Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it. So let's get to it. So broadly, YA is defined as books that are written for younger audiences and books that are enjoyed by younger readers. Some of the earliest examples are the latter, books enjoyed by younger audiences, although not necessarily written for them. Think of Anne of Green Gables or Little Women.

Speaker: In terms of mystery, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, and Enid Blighten books are amongst the first that were really targeted at younger audiences. We won't get into them too much today during our conversation. I think we could do a whole other episode on those, but this overview would be incomplete if I didn't mention them. I will say that compared to what is published today under the YA umbrella, those books, the Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Enid Blighten, would be considered quite tame.

Speaker: So to get a sense of how this subgenre evolved, I looked at the Mystery Writers of America. Since 1961, it has recognized through its Edgar Awards the best juvenile mystery fiction. And in 1989, the first award for best YA mystery was presented, which suggests to me that YA as a category is relatively new.

Speaker: In Canada, it's very similar, so our equivalent, the crime writers of Canada, added a combined juvenile YA category to its annual awards in 1994. So what is it that makes a book YA? As we've discovered with so much of what we've explored, there are some common elements with a few items that appear consistently and others that are subject to interpretation. For example, the characters in YA are typically younger, say between 15 and 19,

Speaker: And the intended audience is also younger. I found ranges of 12 to 18, 12 to 20. And on either side of the YA category, there is middle grade for the younger readers and then new adults for those who are in their early 20s.

Speaker: themes with YA may be lighter. And that's, I think, more typical in the earlier examples of YA. But certainly with YA mystery that's been released in the last couple of years, I wouldn't say that that's the case. So in YA, characters are wrestling with the same thing as the intended audience. Identity, coming of age, friendships, first love, and these themes are present even in the mysteries.

Speaker: And, you know, obviously in a YA mystery, there is some puzzle or some crime that's to be solved. And YA mystery doesn't shy away from murder.

Speaker: Violence and sex is typically off the page, though I have read a couple that have referred to sexual assault, and so that's where I mean that, you know, the more recent YA examples are a little heavier. Romance, especially navigating first romance and first love, is a common theme in these books, even in the mysteries.

Speaker: YA as a subgenre is popular not just with younger readers, but there are a lot of adults, including me, who enjoy YA mysteries. One statistic that I found suggested that as much as 70 % of YA is purchased by adults who, you know, some of them may be buying for their kids, but there are definitely some people who fall outside of the intended audience who are buying it for themselves.

Speaker: So I will mention Harry Potter, which is, I've seen it classified as YA, although his friends are younger when the book starts. I think they're about eight years old and they move through high school and the books certainly get darker as the readers progress through the series and they grow with their characters. And I couldn't find an example of mystery that was like that where the characters kind of

Speaker: aged as the readers did, although I think there are some more recent younger Nancy Drew, younger Hardy boys providing that evolution. But again, we can talk about that I think in another episode.

Speaker: So Brooke, I thought we could start talking about what do we think is the appeal of YA? Why is it something that, even though it's intended for a younger audience, it's something that older readers enjoy as well?

Speaker: Yeah, I think that's a really good jumping off point. And by the way, that was a great summary because it is a sub -genre that is a little mysterious because it maybe hasn't always, quote unquote, always existed. So yeah, I think you're right. I took a children's literature course from here locally where I live by

Speaker: a really successful children's author, Judy Cox. She writes picture books in middle grade and early chapter books. And she was explaining that when you're writing for kids, you have to think about the fact that they want to read up. So when you're in kindergarten, you want to read about second graders. And when you're 10, you want to read about 12 year olds.

Speaker: But then I feel like there's a switch that flips because when you're in your 30s, you don't want to read about people that are retiring. It sort of flips and you go back to wanting to read about some of those coming of age topics. I don't know, maybe it is something that you're going through as you age that you kind of want to reminisce and look back, but they're definitely

Speaker: you know, they still hold their own with audiences in their midlife. Yeah, I think it's, I mean, for me, I like the characters are, you know, often very independent. There's not a lot of adult presence in a lot of the stories, right? Like, you know, it could be set in a school, but there's not a lot of interaction with the teachers or their parents. It's really the kids who are making the decisions and the kids who are leading these investigations.

Speaker: And that is very different than the experience that I had growing up. I think I would have loved to have investigated mysteries, and I think that was certainly the appeal when I was reading Nancy Drew, for example.

Speaker: uh, was, you know, the idea that, yeah, I could be out, you know, um, investigating things, but I, I, where I grew up, just things were not that interesting and there weren't that, that many mysteries to be, uh, to be solving. Um, and so maybe it's just the idea of, yeah, kind of reimagining that, um, that experience of growing up. And, and I, I think the other thing is that, um, the characters are always,

Speaker: you know, they're intelligent and, you know, they have these great conversations with people that, you know, in real life it would take me days to kind of have that kind of a conversation and think of the retorts that they think of or, you know, that appear on the page. And it's that, I don't know, what if I'd been a feistier teenager kind of thing, I think is part of it for me.

Speaker: Yeah, they know exactly what to say and they put the clues together in such a witty and smart way. And you're right, it's what we've said about other main characters in some of the adult fiction, but when you put yourself back there as a kid, something about it is really satisfying. And one thing that you see a lot in these is that

Speaker: You talked about the coming of age and part of that is that a lot of times these kids are taken out of their normal real life. They've been sent off to boarding school or summer camp or some sort of instance where they're no longer around their adult support system and they have to do it on their own. I think it's a really exciting prospect. We've all done that where we've gone to camp and we're like, wow.

Speaker: I'm all on my own. So we remember those feelings and then, you know, you put a mystery in there to solve and it just, it gets really fun.

Speaker: I think one of the other things that I like about reading YA mystery is what I said in the introduction that it is typically a little bit lighter. It doesn't get into the detailed crime scene. There's typically not medical examination or the

Speaker: a very scientific analysis of the clues. It's really about having conversations with people and kind of putting the puzzle pieces together. And when I think about what are the stories that I enjoy most, I think it's that kind. I think that's why I turn to the YA mysteries as frequently as I do. Yeah, it's that murder light, if you will.

Speaker: Yeah, I agree. I agree. And it's the same things that we've both both expressed that we enjoy about the cozy mysteries or an amateur sleuth mystery, you might say, because there's not going to be all the technical information because they are an amateur or in this case, they are a young kid. So they have to rely on conversations and

Speaker: you know, bits of evidence and relationships, and those are really satisfying to me as well. Yeah, and you know, when I look back at kind of what I've read over the last six months or so, some of my favourites have been YA, and I was really trying to figure out why that is, and I think it's, you know, for all the things that we just said.

Speaker: the characters tends to be strong female characters, which I really like and they're very brave and I admire that because they're far braver than I would have been at their age.

Speaker: Definitely. I was really fortunate during this time that we were researching for the episode that my family, we went to see a off -Broadway show called Dear Evan Hansen, which is a, it's not a YA mystery, but it's a YA musical.

Speaker: And, you know, we'd been talking about this episode, Sarah, and I'd been reading a lot of YA stuff and I was like, this is so timely and so great. And one of the things that the mother tells, uh, the main character who is Evan Hansen is everything feels, he's in a terrible problem. I won't give away any spoilers, but she says, you know, something that feels so big right now in a few years is going to feel so small.

Speaker: And I thought about that's kind of at the crux of YA because they're in these situations where they feel a lot of teenage angst and a lot of heavy problems in solving this case or going through the relationships, like you said, like some first love kind of things. But you know that by the time that this character goes from their teens into their twenties,

Speaker: that this case or this problem is just going to feel like a memory. And you remember what that feels like, like it's going to be okay. You know, you're going to live through this. And what seems like a really big deal when you're a teenager just sort of fades away into the background as you age. And I thought that that was a, it just really gave a neat basis to the idea of YA entertainment.

Speaker: You know we I told about a pet peeve of mine in the domestic thrillers which is that a lot of times a simple conversation could resolve the problem and so sometimes that gets old for me in in that sub genre but we have a lot of that happening in these as well where.

Speaker: the main character is really struggling with this complicated problem, but they just won't maybe talk to someone about it. But in this age group, I find it completely more believable and forgivable because it makes sense.

Speaker: they don't have as many skills. Maybe the person that they need to go talk to is someone older than them in a position of power, and they're unprepared to do that, and it's scary for them. That issue of not moving the story forward because they can't make those connections or conversations, it works for me in YA mysteries. I just found that to be an interesting comparison.

Speaker: Yeah, that's really interesting and I think it's a really good point, right? Like it's easy for us as adult readers to say, well, why don't you just talk to someone when, you know, if you're a teenager, that is so much harder than it should be when you're an adult. Because as you say, you know, they haven't kind of gone through that development yet.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah, it is. It is about, it's part of the coming of age. They, they sort of grow up through the story. Eventually they come to the point where they can have those talks or confrontations and then they, you know, they grow and rise to that next level. So it works for me in YA where sometimes it doesn't in some of the stories that have that similar issue going on for adults.

Speaker: Well, that's really interesting. One of the things that I was thinking about for YA is how a lot of, certainly a lot of the books that I've read have been more YA mystery. So, you know, there's a death or a couple of deaths and they're investigating.

Speaker: But I've read a couple that didn't, murder wasn't central to the plot, and recently there was no murder at all, but it was more of a YA domestic thriller in that it was certainly around exposing secrets and trying to figure out who was kind of behind

Speaker: behind all of that, but not necessarily mystery. But this particular book, so it was Ace of Spades, I would say was YA domestic thriller, where the domestic setting was the school grounds, right? Right, right. Where all these secrets were being exposed.

Speaker: And so I, you know, I thought that was interesting, but a lot of the ones that I've read involved murder. But again, kind of going back to Nancy Drew and Hardy Boyz and Enid Blyton, for those, it wasn't murder that they were that they were solving, you know, a theft or, you know, some other kind of mystery.

Speaker: Yeah, I also read a great YA, I would say, like you, sort of like a thriller, definitely mystery elements in the story. But it's by Lisa Alfano, who I connected with over Instagram. And the book is called PMS Girls, which it catches your eye because, right, YA and PMS. But it stands for Perpetual Mercy School for Girls. So it's their school acronym.

Speaker: And again, it has those mysterious elements and it's very twisty, but it's great. So if you like kind of that YA thriller, I would really recommend PMS Girls. I think you'd like it. And we've talked about this already where she's put into a boarding school. She's away from her family.

Speaker: all these mysterious things start happening to her, and she has to unravel what's really going on. So it's a great one. That sounds great, Brooke. I think I'll definitely look for that. One of the things that I really like about certainly the more recent YA is how broader societal issues are handled. So homophobia, racism,

Speaker: sexism, like it's really I think it's nice to see. To see that reflected in in those books, because those are, you know, part of part of life.

Speaker: Yeah, I agree. I think that it's good for our young people to be thinking about broader social issues. And in looking back at YA history, I was seeing that in 1967, that's when The Outsiders was published. And it's suggested that it may have been the first book specifically marketed to teens.

Speaker: It was, I guess, a little controversial because it was talking about deeper issues in society versus just kid lit that had existed up until then. I think that we are seeing a resurgence of that and talking about some of these tougher things. You suggested the Truly Devious series to me, and that is something that I've been reading.

Speaker: There's not a lot of that, but there's definitely some politics. The main character doesn't agree with the politics of a certain adult character who she just really buzz heads with. I think it's great. It lets kids think about some of those things that they're probably going through. Maybe they don't agree with their parents' politics, which is incredibly common when you're a teenager.

Speaker: So it gives you sort of an outlet of a character who's going through some of the same things. Yeah, no, I think that's and I think that's a really important element to it, right, to have that to have that as part of it.

Speaker: Yeah, so I was thinking about some of the books that I've enjoyed and whether I would categorize them as YA or not. So I mentioned Harry Potter in the introduction. Anthony Horowitz has a series called Alex Rider. And the protagonist is a 14 -year -old spy. So he's recruited by British Intelligence Services to work.

Speaker: And so he, I think, falls kind of at the lower end of the age spectrum. Most of the other books that I've read have been, the characters have been 16 to 18 years old. But it certainly seems to be categorized if you look at Amazon or Goodreads or wherever, it's in that YA category. Another series that I really enjoyed is called the Agency Series, and this would be a historical

Speaker: mystery, where the protagonist is a young teenage girl. And again, it would be, I think, probably more YA spy fiction, but certainly there's some mystery in that as well.

Speaker: and the other series that I really enjoyed, but I don't think I would categorize this as YA because I don't think it was written for a younger audience. I think it was written for an adult audience, but the protagonist is young. So yeah, the protagonist is an 11 -year -old girl and it's Flavia Deleuze. And the series starts with Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley.

Speaker: If someone says to me, I'm interested in reading a mystery, that's one of the ones that I might recommend to them because I absolutely adored that book. It's one of the books that I reread often because I think it's written really well as well. He captures the essence of an 11 -year -old, which is quite remarkable because he was in his 60s, I think, when he wrote the books. That's amazing.

Speaker: Yeah, and I think that's a really good point that there aren't any hard lines here. Just because the main character is a teenager doesn't necessarily mean that it's meant for that audience. And I think that that can be sometimes confusing. Or the same thing you said about the Horowitz series. Because of the activities he's doing, it probably is YA even though

Speaker: main character's age is a little younger. So there's some gray areas, but I think some of my favorites include Enola Holmes series by Nancy Springer. I love both the books and the Netflix productions of those. I really got hooked on the Veronica Mars TV series, which I think is

Speaker: right in there with YA mystery it was so well done and a side note I want to tell you guys about if you liked Veronica Mars so Sarah Cannon she actually writes more like urban fantasy but her series she said to herself what if

Speaker: Veronica Mars, it was Veronica Mars with witches. So her YA series is a series of mysteries. They solve mysteries along the way, but the characters discover that they have supernatural powers. So that series is called the Shadow Demon Saga. And I know that her audience is largely adults. So even though it's definitely a YA series.

Speaker: Check that out if you'd like Veronica Mars. Um, and then I think that we all have to agree that Scooby -Doo might have been our first introduction to mystery, although they, here we go again, they are teenagers, but definitely intended for even a younger audience than that. So, yeah, I know that's a, that's a great example. And I think maybe we'll do an episode in the future about kind of middle grade mysteries and, and, um, that very thing, right? Introduction to mystery. Cause I've been watching as my son.

Speaker: has, you know, developed, started to develop preferences for what he watches and kind of seeing what's kind of available to his age. And yeah, I'm with you. I loved Veronica Mars. And so I will, I've made a note of Sarah Cannon because that Shadow Demon Saga sounds like something I would very much enjoy.

Speaker: You said that most of the readers are adults. I got the sense that a lot of the people who watched Veronica Mars were also adult, even though it was a teenage cast.

Speaker: I bet you're right. But yeah, I love Veronica Mars. Me too. But there's not, you know, I don't know if there are a lot of other examples of YA television. There's obviously film adaptations. So you mentioned in Alohomes on Netflix.

Speaker: But I'm not sure if I can think of many other YA television or film programs. I mean, I know there's a Nancy Drew TV adaptation that they've done a couple of series of.

Speaker: found the same thing because I poked around a little bit to look for maybe some YA TV mysteries. It's really an untapped market, I think. I think that there would be a big interest in there and there haven't been a lot. One show that I'm interested in looking at that I haven't watched yet is Riverdale, which takes the comic characters from the Archie comics.

Speaker: I will say, and listeners, you guys can clear it up for us. If, if they're adult characters looking back to when they were high school, I'm not exactly sure how the show is set up, but they do solve mysteries and it's based on those, uh, comic characters. And so there again, I feel like, uh, if in fact it is a YA mystery series, it's still going to be targeted towards older people who are going to remember Archie comics.

Speaker: Mm -hmm. No, yeah, that's a great example. And there is a television adaptation of Alex Ryder. Oh, nice. Horowitz's series. And I've seen the first season of that. And I thought it was quite good. The books were written about 20 years ago. So the adaptation is set more recently. He's got a cell phone and more different technology than he had in the books.

Speaker: Yeah. I agree. I think there's probably an untapped market. Cool. Well, Brooke, I think this was really fun to kind of deconstruct a little bit of what is probably one of my favorite of the mystery subgenres. So thank you very much for the conversation today. Yeah. And thank you for listing some of your favorite books because now I have them on my TBR list.

Speaker: Thank you for listening. We'd love to hear your feedback. You can reach us at CluedInMystery .com or on Instagram at CluedInMystery. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating or review or telling a friend to help spread the word. Thank you for joining us today on Clued In Mystery. I'm Brooke. And I'm Sarah. And we both love mystery.

Speaker: Clued in Mystery is produced by Brooke Peterson and Sarah M. Stephen. Music is by Shane Ivers at Silvermansound .com. Visit us online at cluedinmystery .com or social media at Clued in Mystery. If you liked what you heard, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or telling your friends.