The Madrid Book Fair – which closed its doors yesterday – has seen the multiplication, despite the heat, of very long queues of readers in search of their author’s signature. The largest crowds of people have been caused by children’s and young people’s literature (including youtubers) –which accounts for 30% of the sector’s turnover–, which forced the organization to establish a new system that distributed queues in a way that will affect the traffic of other visitors.
The last name to retain is that of the British A.F.Steadman, who at only 28 years old has seen how her first novel, Skandar (Salamandra), was contracted for more than a million pounds, was translated in 46 countries and Sony acquired the rights to shoot a movie in Hollywood. What a debut…
In a meeting with this newspaper during the fair, she explains what her life was like before writing this book in which a boy has to tame a unicorn: “I was a lawyer, I went to court, I wasn’t happy. I come from a humble family and had always dreamed of being a writer. I previously wrote a novel about lawyers and there was no way to publish it. This one about unicorns, on the other hand, has been auctioned off by the most important publishers in the world”.
With some very visual scenes, almost choreographic, the work subverts the stereotype because its unicorns are cruel beasts that must be tamed. “If they share their lives with a human being who educates them, they can be redeemed, giving up the nightmare of immortality.” He has observed that “if they hear about unicorns, teenagers get bored, but when I tell them that mine are bloodthirsty they get excited”.
“The first image of a unicorn – he recalls – dates back to 400 BC, we have been with them for a long time”. She divides them into two types, those who have a rider “and form, together with them, part of the community of La Isla” and “the savages, who live on the margins”.
As in so many works of the genre, the gang of friends is basic. “I think that the kids who read these books think: ‘‘Wow, I would like to be part of that quartet’ because normally you have your gang but it is not that close.”
The series will consist of five books (the second has already finished). Steadman works hand-in-hand with Hollywood screenwriters, who are putting together the second version of the script before signing on the film’s director.
The work even admits a political reading, since an egalitarian message beats in it: everyone deserves to have the right to magic. “Any child wants to have his unicorn but not everyone agrees to be able to tame them on The Island, there is discrimination and injustice.”
Laia Zamarrón, literary director of Alfaguara Infantil y Juvenil and Nube de Tinta, confirms, in the middle of the fair, that “sales have been spectacular. The big queues are the tonic. We live in an adult-centric world, but this is the sector that is growing the fastest”, largely due to the push given by social networks “that we never suspected would become book tutors, like TikTok, which is growing more than 200% ”.
Regarding cross-over titles (those that connect equally with young people and adults), Zamarrón highlights two issues, “the purely literary one, which is that youth books are dealing with important psychological and social issues; and a sociological phenomenon, that those who grew up reading Harry Potter and Twilight are already older but still want to read children’s books, the barrier has blurred so much that the new adult label has even emerged.
Within the market cycles, the editors agree that the upturn in youth has occurred during the pandemic. “We came from five years of few sales – admits Zamarrón – but now they have skyrocketed, especially the middle grade, the range between 6 and 12 years, especially with fantasy. There were other realistic moments in the story, with Greg’s, Nikki’s or Sofia’s diaries, but today the trend is fantastic”.
Alexandre López, organizer of Lit Com Madrid, coordinates several round tables at the fair, including one on youth literature. “This year we have talked about youth books as tools for political and social criticism.” The Valencian author Arantxa Comes, one of the participants, tells us that “there is a false prejudice that children’s and youth literature cannot deal with certain themes or use certain voices, as if the characters should be simple.
But young people are not stupid, and literature always sends a message, even if it is with the scene of a group of friends having a coffee”. In this critical background, he believes, nests part of the current success of fantasy and science fiction: “I have dealt with environmentalism, fascism, terrorism… Young people are very willing to change the world. The worldwide success of The Hunger Games was enormous, and the work remains a full-fledged critique of capitalism. Or we can also talk about
