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Should adults be ashamed to read young adult literature?聽

Absolutely, says Slate.com鈥檚 Ruth Graham.

In an article entitled: "Against YA: Yes, adults should be embarrassed to read young adult books,鈥澛燝raham says adults should feel embarrassed when what they鈥檙e reading is written for children, especially when YA books are replacing literary fiction.聽

Graham says YA books aren鈥檛 sophisticated, consume limited reading time better left to more enriching adult fare, are too 鈥減leasing,鈥� and wrap up neatly, unlike real life.

She notes that reading YA lit has become popular and prevalent among adults: an industry survey that finds that 55 percent of YA books are bought by people older than 18.

鈥淭hat has kept me bashful about expressing my own fuddy-duddy opinion: Adults聽should聽feel embarrassed about reading literature written for children,鈥� Graham writes, adding later, 鈥淔ellow grown-ups, at the risk of sounding snobbish and joyless and old, we are better than this.鈥�

Not surprisingly, her admonishing article has stirred a firestorm in the blogosphere, with scores of bloggers pronouncing some variation of Jezebel鈥檚 鈥淗ey Everyone! Read whatever the **** you want!鈥�

鈥溾�橪ife is so short, and the list of truly great books for adults is so long,鈥� [Graham] laments, as if聽every time we crack open聽Harry Potter聽we're missing out on the chance to聽read another long-winded Jonathan Franzen novel about sad, middle-class white people,鈥� writes PolicyMic.聽鈥淎 better dictum is that life is so short, so people should read whatever they **** well please."聽

Or, as other bloggers put it, some variation of 鈥淚鈥檓 an adult, and can therefore read whatever I please.鈥�

Moreover, some writers have pointed out that all adult reading is hardly the Alice Munro and John Updike-type fare Graham points out as adult-worthy: 鈥淲hile young adult literature (a category that includes sub-genres such as dystopian fiction, historical fiction and romance) is certainly a big seller, 鈥渞omance鈥� and 鈥渆spionage/thriller鈥� novels both also outsell 鈥済eneral fiction,鈥� and 鈥渕ystery/detective鈥� stories are a similar portion of the market, according to Random House,鈥� reports the Washington Post. 鈥淕raham might have had a more defensible case鈥�if her piece made a comprehensive case against readers who seek out a certain kind of easy enjoyment and moral satisfaction no matter where they find it.鈥�

And let鈥檚 not forget that the YA genre is simply a marketing distinction, writes Toronto Globe and Mail鈥檚 Erin Andersson. 鈥淸A]re we to confine ourselves to certain 鈥渃ategories鈥� of books because some marketing committee slapped a label on the spine?鈥�

And what about the benefits of reading YA lit? It鈥檚 a powerful way to bond with one鈥檚 kids or young friends and relatives, an opportunity to discus important and sometimes uncomfortable issues with teens. And writes YA novel writer Rachel Carter for the New Republic, for nostalgia.

鈥淭丑别谤别听is聽a thrill to growing up. But there's also a thrill to looking back, to remembering聽how聽you grew up.鈥澛�

The HuffPo even goes so far as to make a scientific case for nostalgia, citing a study that found that 鈥渘ostalgia has been shown to counteract loneliness, boredom and anxiety. It makes people more generous to strangers and more tolerant of outsiders.鈥�

For us, the bottom line is simple. YA lit isn鈥檛 the blight Slate鈥檚 Graham makes it out to be, nor is it the shining light others proclaim it as. Books aren鈥檛 single-trick ponies, reduced to serving just one purpose. They fill our lives with meaning on many levels, no one greater than the other. They inform, entertain, challenge, move, provoke, please, discomfit, and force us to see the world in different ways. No one book can provide that breadth of experience, just as no one genre can, or should. We need YA lit just as we need literary fiction and biography and mystery and history and graphic novels and historical fiction and romance and sci-fi and fantasy. Our libraries, and our experience, would be poorer without any one of these. After all, judging a class of books by its artificially created genre is as juvenile as judging a book by its cover.

Husna Haq is a Monitor correspondent.