I have to admit an addiction to young adult books and aversion to many adult novels. This is a prejudice that's worsened over time so that I have what a friend labels "an allergic reaction" when people treat my favorite genre like an illegitimate stepchild of the publishing industry.

I'm not saying all adult books are bad. But often adult books seem strained, pretentious, and self-important; like the authors are striving for best book list prominence rather than just writing a story important to them. I usually prefer them on tape and every now and again find one book that grabs me and holds me until its conclusion. Of late, I'm eternally grateful to Memoirs of a Geisha (Knopf-) by Arthur Golden. Eleven tapes brought me deep into the world of a developing geisha where I learned much, cared more, and painlessly plodded through the rudiments of holiday house cleaning hardly realizing my own efforts. After two days I was left with a shinning house and even brighter images of life within a secret world I'd never known about. This is rarely true in young adult novels. Part of the reason is there really isn't much hope of writing a children's book block buster. More likely this is due to the demands of an unforgiving audience. Adults are polite, indulgent readers who give authors a lot of leeway. Young adults are unyielding and authors know that it doesn't take much for an adolescent to close the covers of a book and put it aside forever. Readers demands produce a literature that must have a gripping plot, a character you care about almost immediately, imagery that sparkles, some kind of underlying emotion or psychology that moves you through the book, and endings that are satisfying.

So on one had here's this fabulous literature being developed and the coverage is pitiful. The New York Times , for example, has two sections devoted to Children's Books every year, other than that the print space is short and spotty. When adult books are reviewed you'll see an entire column devoted to that book. This seldom occurs in children's book reviewing. When children's book reviewers write, they combine a number of books with similar themes because the coverage is so limited and there are over 5,000 children's books released yearly.

Because of this and because most high school curriculae completely leave out this genre, many of these books never make it into the hands of the audience they're written for. I was surprised to learn several years ago that I'm not alone in my young adult addiction, for these books find an audience in commuters who can begin a novel on a morning's transit and finish it on the trip home.

Young Adult novels are gaining more recognition. One benchmark is the reinstatement of a National Book Award for YA books. This year's winner was Louis Sachar's Holes (FSG, $16.00; ages 10 and up)), a masterpiece which fits all the strenuous requirements of adolescents and makes for a fabulous read. Louis Sachar's Holes has an unusual hero, Stanley Yelnats. The character's palindrome name is only one clue about the witticism of this novel and the extraordinary talents of the author who takes a seemingly serious plot line and expresses it with humor. Stanley's family has a history of bad luck, so he's not really surprised when accused of a crime he didn't commit and sent to Camp Green Lake, a barren Texas juvenile detention center where he is forced to dig a daily hole five feet tall and five feet wide. There, amid the threats of cruel jailers, scorpions, seemingly pointless punishment, and unending heat and thirst, Stanley finds friendship, answers, and redemption for his entire family.

On November 25th, soon after the award was announced my husband called me in to watch an interview with Sachar on Jim Lehrer's NewsHour. Of course it was introduced as " the last of our conversations with winners of the 1998 National Book Award". The interviewer, Elizabeth Farnsworth missed the spirit, subtleties, and humor of the novel and her interview was patronizing. She asked all the usual questions dreaded by YA authors: "What led you in the direction of children's, rather than adult literature?" "Do you think there's a big difference between your approach when you write for children, or young adults?" "What is a young adult, by the way?" "How do you decide what's too scary for a kid, what you can and can't do?" and of course the question that most infuriates children's book writers "Do you think you'll ever want to write books for adults?"

To be fair, she did ask some questions about the book, but those were few. She was most curious about how any could be interested in writing this strange breed of book. Her questions led me to hear the condescending question, she never voiced, but the one that tinged each comment. "Why would anyone consider a young adult novel worthy of a National Book award?"

A month later I heard a radio talk show featuring Judy Blume where several adults called and thanked her for changing their lives. If you asked adults to review their reading life, I wonder what most adults would answer if you asked what book mattered most . I suspect a great many would give you the name of a children's book.