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Originally Posted by Lith  I think the majority of avid readers ditch the kids books around thirteen (give or take a year) and simply start reading adult books. |
I guess it depends on what you mean by avid readers. Speaking only for myself, when I was that age I read whatever looked interesting, and I didn't discriminate between children's books and adult's books. That's a habit I haven't changed, and I'm glad of it, since there have been some excellent books for younger readers that I would never have discovered in time. (In some cases, the books weren't
written in time for me to discover them as a child. A huge oversight on the part of the authors, some of whom -- with what I can only deplore as the most wretched timing -- weren't even
born yet.) I read Shakespeare with pleasure at nine, and I can read C. S. Lewis with pleasure now, when I'm pushing sixty.
But I think for publishers of YA books -- much as it is with books for adult readers -- in order to stay in business they have to publish books that appeal to the sometime readers as well as the kids who spend their lunch hours in the library.