‘Crossover fiction’ – the grey zone between Children’s
literature, Young Adult fiction and adult literature –
arguably lends itself perfectly to the contemporary craze
about the First World War in all areas of British fiction.
A recent example of this phenomenon would be Louisa
Young’s novel My Dear, I wanted to tell you (2011), a
fictional treatment of the First World War from the
perspective of two young adult couples, which has gained
much critical acclaim and commercial success of late.
Within Young’s oeuvre, including both adult and children’s
fiction, the novel poses as a historical ‘crossover’ text.
Beside the ‘adult’ thematic of war and some explicit
descriptions of warfare and sexuality, Louisa Young also
employs many features of YA fiction: the trenches seen
from a teenage perspective; themes of transgression,
romance, coming-of-age, sexual awakening and overall the
quest for adolescent independence from the ‘ancien
régime’. How do these reoccurring tropes of, for instance,
‘the body’ and ‘loss of innocence’, often found within the
mythical catalogue of twentieth century First World War
fiction, correlate with more generic tropes of Young Adult
literature? And where can we place the novel within the
context of ‘crossover’ culture to be consumed by adults
through the eyes of adolescents? By contrast, the novel’s
German translation has been defined and marketed as ‘adult
fiction’ in Germany. Such a discrepancy between an
intended British or German readership, further emphasized
in form of the respective cover art designs, also leads us
to the question if and how Young’s fiction could function
as a ‘crossover’ text on a transnational level.