Pursuant to our discussion of who YA is for, I asked Horn Book intern Jill to take a look at the most recent issue of the Horn Book Guide and see what she saw. The spring 2014 issue of the Guide contains reviews of virtually every trade hardcover book published for young people during the last half of 2013. By reading the reviews of all 346 novels for grades seven and up, Jill found that:
201 had a female protagonist
85 had a male protagonist
25 had both and/or alternating narrators
35 had an ensemble cast or no protagonist
These numbers don’t tell us who is reading what, of course, but it’s useful to know just how much the girls outnumber the boys–more than two to one.