Many recent surveys have reported this; I noticed (from customer reviews) that a lot of NOPM readers are mothers with young kids. I put the question “why?” to Susan, a mother with young kids, who reviewed Night of the Purple Moon for her blog, Oh Brain Where Art Thou.
Are you a YA reader in your 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, 60s? Why do you read YA? Weigh in at www.facebook.com/authorscottcramer
“As mothers we cherish the quiet time no matter how brief and with it comes the story/escapism. Books provide that. Unlike TV where you feel you have to watch all the way through in one sitting. One can stop and start and even reread if you missed something or even loved something. (sans TiVo that is) That way if our kids need us we can immediately stop and then just pick up where we left off…We are drawn to YA because in some ways it’s “safe”. It’s easy to read. Not that many big words our post baby brain can’t figure out even with context.
Speaking of words, it usually doesn’t have as many bad words either, so we don’t have to work to edit the way we talk (let’s face it, if one is constantly bombarded with F bombs all day it’s hard not to use them when you get mad at the kids) It doesn’t make us feel under qualified as women like some Adult books do with characters that have relativity exciting lives and achievements that we currently do not (and at times feel we never may) have. YA lets us go back to a time when we didn’t have responsibilities and pretend that this “could” be us…does that make sense?
Also reading YA helps us to stay connected to the younger generation. And not to mention the fact that (at least me personally) most mothers would rather not have their children see them reading books with half naked people on the cover.(“What are they doing on that book mommy?” “He looks cold”) Also we want books that we can share with our children. I know I can’t wait until my kids get older and I can hand them a book and say…”You will LOVE this!” (while secretly knowing that I’ve already read and approved it, I’m sneaky that way)
Another reason it’s read by mothers is that we talk! (and thus the book club was created) Dystopian stories are in right now. And YA stories are usually not nearly as complicated to retell.”