YA's Far-Reaching Appeal

Admittedly, I'm not exactly ancient.

In fact, I called myself old to a bunch of freshmen in the math class I'm teaching, and they vehemently denied my claim, despite the fact that I've got over a decade on most of them. But, I still love reading YA. It just fits.

That's not all that surprising though.

Here are two things that did rather surprise me this week:

1) My FATHER, upon hearing that I was reading my daughter Harry Potter, wished aloud for another epic YA series to read. This is a grown man, a business owner, non-fiction lover, who spends his free time on golf and home-improvement projects. And he's angsting because Christopher Paolini hasn't gotten the last Eragon book done yet. Though, he's also the man I caught laughing during iCarly, after complaining loudly every time my daughter wanted to watch it.

2) Another teacher at my school totally caught a student trying to get away with something (something I recognized, but figured she wouldn't, since she'd graduated college way before me). Her response? "Please, I invented this."

So now, I'm just wondering why YA isn't more popular than it is. How many sit-coms seem like an adult version of high school? Yeah...I can name a few.

YA's about screwing up, fixing it, knowing yourself, and changing the world. Sounds pretty universal to me.

Comment time: Who's the oldest person you know that enjoys YA, whether they admit it or not?