`Pardon me, You're Stepping on my Eyeball - how could anyone resist a book with a title like that? This was a big teen hit in the 1970s, though, sadly, it is not quite so well known today. In fact, 15- to 16-year-olds, if they read at all, tend not to read the books that are supposedly written for their age group. Dark fantasy and science fiction tend to be what most boys around this age go for, while girls will read everything from Wuthering Heights to The Diary of Bridget Jones. The favourites are books from the adult department of the library or bookshop, basically, as opposed to the books in the children's department. The "teenage" books that loll on the shelves alongside Winnie the Pooh and Black Beauty understandably don't get much of a look-in. Nor do books on school recommended reading lists, with some exceptions. Despite featuring on reading lists in most English-speaking countries, J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, though it's more than 40 years old, still captivates and inspires teenagers with the story of young Holden Caulfield's quest for his place in the world.
Who does buy the teen-oriented books in the children's department? Nostalgic parents and those who would dearly love to see their children get some sort of a literary education. Maybe their teenagers eventually do the reading, but perhaps shops might re-think the policy of resigning so many brilliant books to the "what my parents want me to read" shelf.
Books which dealt with the nightmare of drug addiction, such as Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore and Christiana F, don't sell in the truck loads that they did in the early 1980s - perhaps because drugs and drug addiction aren't as unfamiliar to most young people as in the past; maybe today's teenagers don't need second-hand accounts.
Irish books are very popular. And once hooked on Irish authors from an early age, it seems teenagers like to stick with them. Similarly, 12- to 13-year-olds might get into Tom Clancy or Christopher Pike, who write for both this age group and adults. In general, the 11- to 13-year-olds do best out of the teen book market. There are all sorts of great books which may have 16-year-olds as their main characters and take a no-holds-barred approach to juicy, septic spots on the nose - but they seem to appeal more to younger, pre-spot teens.
Believe it or not, in this huge area of publishing there is a dearth of books which deal with the kinds of issues and experiences Irish teenagers aged 15 and up are living with. According to some booksellers, when they stock titles which involve teen pregnancy or the dilemma of a boyfriend being older than a girl's father, the books just don't sell. This may have been because the books were stuck there in the children's department, which is a bit insulting. Or it may be that 15-year-olds and older teens have plenty of other media dealing with "teen issues", such as magazines and television. After all, how many 30-year-olds devour books on the daily dilemmas of your average 30-year-old? Well, a lot really, but they read all sorts of other things as well which have everything from profound truths to zero reality at their core. And 15-year-olds are much the same. A bit of relevance or a flight of fancy - the most important factor is how well the book is written.
Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder, the story of Sophie on her journey through 3,000 years of western philosophy, is one of the few books written for this age group that has been consumed widely by them since it was first published in Norway in 1991. The author used to teach philosophy to teenagers, and it was for them that he wrote the book. It became a best-seller, read by adults and teenagers alike worldwide. It is a good story, well written and addresses issues of universal interest. Maybe there's just something a bit too condescending about your average teen book.
