Falconer, Rachel. The Crossover Novel: Contemporary Children's Fiction and Its Adult Readership

Falconer, Rachel. The Crossover Novel: Contemporary Children's Fiction and Its Adult Readership. New York and London: Routledge, 2009. xv + 263 pp. Hardcover. ISBN 0415978882. $110. Though writing intended for young readers has long since achieved respectability as a subject for analysis and theory, in some parts of the literary world, there is no greater expression of opprobrium than to call a novel or its author "childish." At the same time, old categories are dissolving as novels published as YA become adult bestsellers and tween readers devour adult romances. Rachel Falconer, Reader in English Literature at Britain's University of Sheffield, examines the millennial phenomenon of the crossover novel, analyzes at some length several examples of contemporary children's fiction, and explains their appeal to an adult readership. She accomplishes these goals, displaying erudition and wide reading across the genres and the eras; however, the resulting argument sometimes lacks coherence.