There’s something about a mild case of the flu that has me reverting instantly to my childhood.
Usually when illness strikes, I will go round to my parents’ house, get out my teddy bear-shaped heat pack and lie on the couch dramatically, periodically requesting packeted macaroni and cheese or cups of tea.
While there, my favourite indulgence is having a bath while regressing to my childhood bookshelf. It’s packed with my oldest and most beloved classics – Winnie the Pooh, Anne of Green Gables, The Secret Garden and the Famous Five.
After reaching my mid-20s, my favourite young adult novels from teenage-hood have brought me similar pleasure. Seminal 2000 romance The Princess Diaries is a favourite, as is Sarah Dessen, both articulating the specific, all-consuming feeling of a 15-year-old crush that is never again reached.
When I fell sick this winter, though, it was the first time I’d been unwell and solo in a foreign city. I couldn’t get home to my old books, and I felt vulnerable in a new way. I gazed at my bookshelf blankly. I love The Bell Jar, but do I want to read it when I am feverish and sweaty? No one makes me feel like Toni Morrison, but with a head full of snot?
Instead, I did what any reasonable adult would do: I donned a mask, a comically large jacket, and drove myself to a bookstore.
So began my obsession with young adult fiction, a category traditionally marketed at teens and tweens from 12 to 18 years of age. In two days, I finished the entire Heartstopper series – a graphic novel and queer romance recently popularised by an extremely cute Netflix program.
I had dipped my toes in, and now I was ready to take the plunge.
Days later, I returned to the bookshop, a little embarrassed, and bought every work of fiction Heartstopper’s author, Alice Oseman, has written. Solitaire – published when she was just 19 – was great, but I particularly adored Radio Silence, a book I wish I’d read as a teenager that deftly navigates mental illness, academic pressure and friendships.
Jeanmarie Morosin, head of children’s publishing at Hachette – who brought Heartstopper to Australia – says it didn’t surprise her that Oseman’s works appealed to older readers.
“For me, why young adult is such an emotional punch is it takes you to a time before you’ve made all the big decisions in your life, when it’s all ahead of you and it’s all dramatic,” she says.
“As an adult, you’ve had the loves that have or haven’t worked out, you’ve chosen your career – but it takes you back to this exciting time being on the cusp … you’ll never get that again.”
The books have changed since I grew up too. In the ones I read when I was in the targeted demographic, romances were between a boy and a girl and characters of colour were relegated to the background; they certainly weren’t vocal about issues of gender discrimination and race, like Starr in my next purchase, The Hate U Give.
“YA has been ahead of its time. It’s almost an issue if it’s not diverse,” Morosin says.
“It’s a testament to and reflects the realities of the teenagers reading these books, and their expectations, and how vocal they’ll be about them. Publishers were catching up to this demand.
“People have grown up and not seen themselves reflected in books and art. By producing books for everyone you’re creating a safe space.”
The most beloved authors of my childhood were Jacqueline Wilson and Cathy Cassidy – funny, warm British writers who told stories of young girls in working class families with heart, unafraid to write about adoption and divorce.
Wilson won the Guardian prize in 2000 for The Illustrated Mum, a beautiful novel about two sisters grappling with their mother’s mental illness, and the messy way families love and care for one another.
She’s still writing books two decades later, aged 76 – and Cathy Cassidy is, too.
Cassidy described her own love of books for younger readers in Guardian list of her top 10 feel good novels, which included Jerry Spinelli’s modern day fairytale Stargirl, Kensuke’s Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo and my go-to, The Secret Garden.
“We all love a book that makes us feel all warm inside, glad to be alive, even though they are often touching, bittersweet stories,” she said.
Publisher Morosin agrees: there’s a “cosiness” to a familiar, well-loved tale.
“You reread them because you know what’s there,” she says.
“It does sound cheesy, but … if I can give one kid that comfort and nostalgia to take through the rest of their lives, what a privilege.”
