Would Ender's Game be considered YA today?

I've wondered about the exact same question. What a great book btw! Allow me to speculate wildly with no evidence I think the first book could have been either, just depending on how the author/agent/editor decided to market. I don't really like my own answer because I want everything to be straightforward for my own decision making purposes, but alas it seems a very seat-of-the-pants sort of thing. I don't think it would be as good geared for YA though personally.

In terms of a recent book with similarities, after I'd finished Red Rising, I was kinda surprised it had been published as adult. It felt more YA to me.

There are reprints of Ender's Game marketed to younger audiences (under Starscape.)

The rest of the series (except the parallel novel Ender's Shadow), though, is squarely Adult, meaning the series as a whole would probably still be marketed as grown-up.

Same with Pierce Brown's Red Rising; the first is marginally YA, but the rest of the series is Adult.

IIRC Orson Scott Card Did not intend for it to be a YA novel, but the market is nothing if not unpredictable. I think with the way things have changed in the market anything that would be similar in nature is YA. YA tends to be more marketed to late teens early twenties anymore.

I don't think I would've appreciated Ender's Game as much when I was a young adult. I would've missed a lot.

Ah, Ender's Game. Some parents want their fourth grader to read it, and take deep offense if you caution against it. Others box you in a corner and yell at you for twenty minutes if you try to sell it to their fifth grader. Can't win with this book.

My 13 year old loved the series. when he read it last year. He plans on re reading it when he's a bit older. He's already figured out that he's missed some things due to age.

Ender's game is not in any way consistent with the typical themes encountered in modern YA, in my humble opinion. That doesn't mean it wouldn't be marketed as such, but a reader expecting the "older teen dealing with the joys and trials of moving toward adulthood" would be disappointed.

Nope. It would not. Adult books can feature young characters. *presses the buzzer to summon Sparverius*

An agent would be the best person to determine where your book would fit, yes.

YA has a certain voice, style, reading level (to a point; there are adults books with a lower reading level than most ya and vice versa), resolves conflicts in slightly different ways, and tackles issues from a different angle. It's a subtle but tangible thing. The emotional nuance feels different, too. Different emphases on certain stuff.

Ender's Game is a comp for my SF manuscript on sub, which is squarely adult, yet features a young protagonist (14, though he was originally 12) who ages up to 20 by the end of the novel. Target market depends on content, complexity, and voice, not protagonist age.

The answer to the opening question is that Ender's Game is considered YA today. The novel won ALA Best Books for Young Adults and ALA Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults. The title (with a different cover) is shelved with YA in addition to the adult SFF sections.

I was twelve or thirteen when I read it, and I encouraged every teenager I knew who felt ostracized for being too smart or talented to read it. Many did. To a certain type of kid, it read like an honest representation of how childhood feels. As an adult, it reads like political fiction. The story transforms for readers as they age, which I think is fascinating.

Based on the reading age and themes, I would say not.

would agree with you on it ticking boxes in multiple award categories, op.

All good books evolve in meaning as readers age (I would argue). I found Jane Eyre to be exceptionally good for that.

It's been awhile, but when I bought a physical copy of Ender's Game a few years back, it was absolutely shelved in the adult sff section. Maybe that varies by country or store, I don't know.

I remember reading that book and being constantly shocked they were still little kids. I kept thinking, "Okay, years have presumably passed by now. They're teenagers, right?" And newp, eventually the author would say something to anchor how old they were, and they were all still prepubescent.

I guess what I'm saying is those kids never read as kids to me. I think Ender's Game is adult fiction, although I'm not sure it would be marketed that way today.

I could easily see it being one of those YA books that all the literary snobs would refuse to acknowledge as YA because *themes* *intellectualism* *not-like-that-vampire-garbage*

It's not literary at all.

Did the YA category exist when Ender's Game was published? I don't think so. YA is a segment that was created by the Anglo-Saxon publishing industry, that likes so much to put books into categories! When I grew up, there was no YA. You read "adult" books soon enough.

I don't think Ender's game fits the standard criteria for YA. First off, the protagonist wasn't a high-school-aged teen for most of the story (or for any of it), even if he was rather precocious. The tale took place over a long time period, and the protagonist aged from a very young child to a pre-teen (or younger teen) during that time. YA tends to focus on shorter time frames with the protagonist being in the 15-18 age range. Secondly, the voice and narrative viewpoint wasn't really right for modern YA. As I recall, Card used a kind of externally focused third viewpoint (can't recall if it was omniscient or limited third with a greater narrative distance). There are exceptions, but YA tends to be closer. Third, and probably most important, the story wasn't written or marketed primarily to teenage readers, but to adult SF readers. Many teens, and even younger kids, will read stuff marketed to adults, but that doesn't make it YA. Some of the purpose of Ender's Game, as I recall, was to show the reader how children can be weaponized by adults, which is especially horrifying to adults.

Mind you, a lot of kids and teens read Ender's and related heavily to the character and his situation for reasons I never quite grasped. Maybe it was the sense of being manipulated or used, because Ender was certainly not a normal kid in a normal situation by any stretch.

There are still plenty of books written for adults that have child or teen protagonists in them, however.

Note, I am not an expert on this demographic, so my take on this is based on what I've read and on my memories of a book I read decades ago.

Jennie said:

Did the YA category exist when Ender's Game was published? I don't think so. YA is a segment that was created by the Anglo-Saxon publishing industry, that likes so much to put books into categories! When I grew up, there was no YA. You read "adult" books soon enough.

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There were certainly books written for and marketed to teens back in the 80s and before (I was a teen in the 80s), though the term "young adult" specifically to refer to this niche may be newer. I do remember they had a young adult section at our local library. There have been changes in the voice and style expected of YA fiction as well.

Roxxsmom said:

There were certainly books written for and marketed to teens back in the 80s and before (I was a teen in the 80s), though the term "young adult" specifically to refer to this niche may be newer. I do remember they had a young adult section at our local library. There have been changes in the voice and style expected of YA fiction as well.

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Hah! Spring chicken!

I began reading in the mid-50s, walking several miles to check out the maximum number of books each Saturday from the library, seven. There were certainly books written for and sold to teens at that time. However, what we'd label YA and Middle Grade were lumped together as "children's" books.

There was no genre separation in libraries and book stores, either. SF and fantasy and contemporary and historical were all on the same shelves: Heinlein juveniles, Judy Blume, Charlotte's Web, Anne of Green Gables, the Narnia books, The Sword in the Stone, Little House on the Prairie, Little Women, Huckleberry Finn, the two Alice books. Catcher in the Rye (or was it The Outsiders?), Diary of Anne Frank, and To Kill a Mockingbird were also kid's books, though put in a glass case which you had to check out with your parents' (in my case forged) permission.

It was sometimes in the 70s when age differentiation began in libraries and book stores. In the 80s more teen books with darker topics began to be published. I don't recall when the term Young Adult began to be applied to kid's books; before then I recall books for teens were labeled Teens. I'd guess the Young ADULT label became the more popular term because it sounded more respectable, and in keeping with the more serious topics teen books were beginning to tackle.

As for Ender's Game, it's clearly sci-fi and belongs in the SF/Fantasy section. But remember that teens addicted to reading shop all over the stores to support their habit, not just in the YA section. If I had been a teen when it came out I would have snapped it up.

Roxxsmom said:

Mind you, a lot of kids and teens read Ender's and related heavily to the character and his situation for reasons I never quite grasped. Maybe it was the sense of being manipulated or used, because Ender was certainly not a normal kid in a normal situation by any stretch.

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Lying, manipulating adults would be one appeal, though there's also the simple pleasure of a kid taking the grown-ups on, beating them at their own game, and saving Earth in one fell swoop. I think many kids enjoy projecting themselves into Ender, there. Greater implications of genocide, propaganda, etc., not to mention some of the sadism in the Wiggins family and Ender's rather calculated willingness to go to any length to secure complete victory, might sail over some young readers' heads... and some adults' heads, too. We all read for what we want to read to some degree, and have a way of not seeing what we don't want to be there or aren't ready to see, which is why rereading with a few more years of experience under one's belt can be such a revelation. (Read an older book clearly aimed at a younger audience a while ago, and while a kid probably would've just seen the cool robots and the dinosaurs and such, as an adult it was impossible to ignore the sexualization of a preteen girl, even by the so-called protagonist.)

Laer Carroll said:

There was no genre separation in libraries and book stores, either. SF and fantasy and contemporary and historical were all on the same shelves: Heinlein juveniles, Judy Blume, Charlotte's Web, Anne of Green Gables, the Narnia books, The Sword in the Stone, Little House on the Prairie, Little Women, Huckleberry Finn, the two Alice books. Catcher in the Rye (or was it The Outsiders?), Diary of Anne Frank, and To Kill a Mockingbird were also kid's books, though put in a glass case which you had to check out with your parents' (in my case forged) permission.

It was sometimes in the 70s when age differentiation began in libraries and book stores. In the 80s more teen books with darker topics began to be published. I don't recall when the term Young Adult began to be applied to kid's books; before then I recall books for teens were labeled Teens. I'd guess the Young ADULT label became the more popular term because it sounded more respectable, and in keeping with the more serious topics teen books were beginning to tackle.

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My experience is the same. I grew up in France, and it's only fairly recently that the term YA came into existence in French publishing companies (twenty years maybe). There was simply no transition between children's books and adult books when I was young and for a long time. No "teens" or "young adults" labels. You just switched from "children's books" to "adults." And everything was accessible. I find it sad that there are so many categories now.