0 My Problem With the Young Adult (YA) Category

When I was growing up there was no Young Adult category for books. There were certainly books aimed at what we now call a YA audience, but they were simply categorized under their primary section, such as Fantasy or Mystery and so forth. I have to admit I kind of preferred it that way.

However, the only true issue I have with the new YA category is that everyone seems to insist that the protagonist in the book must be a young adult. I think this is wrong. To me if you want to have a YA category, the only real rule for inclusion should be that the story is intended for a YA audience. I've read plenty of books that were clearly aimed at a younger audience but didn't have teen protagonists.

Shane Tyree's artwork for The Shard

The reason this is hitting me right now is that I intend to publish my epic fantasy novel The Shard later this year, and to me it should fall in the YA category, yet only one of the three main protagonists is a teen (and he is the last one to be introduced, so you might say he isn't the primary protagonist).

I'm wavering over just categorizing it as Fantasy or insisting that it is YA. The YA buying audience these days is much larger than for standard Fantasy. My teenage sons would certainly agree that the book is aimed at them. My youngest keeps re-reading it over and over again, and both of them name all of their characters in both computer and role-playing games after characters from the story, so it clearly resonates with them more so than it does for adults.

What do you think, can a story with adult or even elderly protagonists fall within the YA category?