What is Young Adult fiction for?

by Jo Wyton

YA fiction is something often debated - the whats, the whys and the well-surely-that's-a-bit-too-dark-for-teenagers. There was a nice post by Celia Rees on the subject last week, and after reading Code Name Verity, the new novel by Elizabeth Wein, I started thinking about it a lot myself.

So, for those interested, here's what I think on the subject of YA fiction - what is it for, and why is it so important?

Yesterday the Slushpile, today the film, the theme park and the studio tour!

by Addy Farmer 

Indulge me on this Monday morning whilst I take you on a lightning scar whizz round the Harry Potter Leavesden studio tour!

  Just to think it all started with words. Words become a world and the world was Harry Potter.

Together with assorted fellow muggle parents and a good few over-excited children we queued and jumped about as we waited for the magic to begin.

See what can happen when you write a children's story!

Open the door already!

Strangely, The Great Hall looks smaller in real life. The candles were real in the beginning but they reverted to CGI when the wax kept falling on the actors

The gates looked real even close up!

Harry's bed is on the right. By the end of the films the boys' legs hung over the ends of the beds!

The Mirror of Erised - what's that I see? A best selling series of books and films...

The potions cellar grew bigger for the Half Blood Prince when Professor Slughorn taught in there

ah - magical

This door is a fully working mechanical wonder and not CGI as I thought

The Firebolt is very heavy and takes an amount of actorly skill to make it look effortless!

There we are, grinning like lunatics inside the 1959 Ford Anglia. It was Rupert Grint's favourite prop apparently. 

Here be dragons...

...and spiders...

...and mandrake plants

A Butterbeer break in Privet Drive.

The fabulous Diagon Alley

From word to small scale model to...

...large scale model to...

...the real thing? Well, why not? Write it and it could happen!

Your turn!

Congratulations to Patrick Ness and Jim Kay

By Candy Gourlay

My favourite image from this amazing novel.

A Monster Calls combines an extraordinary idea, a powerful story, and truly terrific illustration to create a winner. When I saw it listed for both the Carnegie AND the Greenaway, it obviously deserved both prizes and I wondered how CILIP where going to deal with it. Well they have - it's a double win for the book, and a second Carnegie in a row for Patrick. Patrick greeted the news with genuine disbelief.

Jealous? Well maybe I immediately had thoughts of putting illustration into my own forthcoming novel. But no other book so deserves both prizes. Congratulations, you two. I love A Monster Calls and weirdly feel like it was ME the reader who won! Additional bittersweet celebrations that yet again the wonderful Siobhan Dowd's voice sends echoes to us from the beyond.  And congratulations to Walker's Denise Johnson Burt, the editor who wouldn't let a good story go to waste.

To celebrate, here is some footage of Patrick Ness's recent appearance at the London Book Fair - I've been holding onto it for a future discussion of Young Adult writing. But there's no time like the present! You can also read this brilliant Guardian article on how they made the book.