InterActions: UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies

This paper seeks to reframe what is considered to be legitimate sexual content for teens and, by extension, to redefine the boundaries of what is considered to be Young Adult Literature. Using And Every Day Was Overcast, a semi-autobiographical illustrated novel written by Paul Kwiatkowski, as an example of a book that captures the lived-experience of teens, yet has been deemed unsuitable for a teen readership, the author argues that conventional definitions of Young Adult Literature are too restrictive, reinforce problematic cultural ideals, and limit the reading experiences of teens. This paper acknowledges that librarians have a place in the line of production and distribution of books and contribute to the legitimization of content and knowledge, both accepted and controversial. Scholars such as Jeanie Austin (2016) have pushed for a centering of library practice on the lived-experience of teens, which recognizes teens as experts on their own lives and aids in abating problematic approaches to adolescence that guide teens towards what adults think they ought to become. The author suggests that when classifying fiction there are only two essential characteristics of Young Adult Literature: that the text is “Written About Teens” and “Written in a Teen Voice”. Redefining the boundaries of Young Adult Literature in this way and using it in daily practice is one of the ways in which librarians can begin to transform YA Literature into a genre that better reflects the lived-experience of teens and legitimize the inclusion of important works of literature in the Young Adult canon which may have otherwise been excluded.