The Bigger the Better?

I came across an interesting blog post recently, well I thought it was interesting anyway. The author, Roger Sutton editor of The Horn Book, was comparing the average number of pages in YA books over the past thirty years, and the size of the books have more than doubled in that time period. Wow! I knew YA books were getting bigger, but I didn't realize the extent.

Average number of pages in books for teens reviewed in:

1979: 151
1989: 157

1999: 233

2009: 337

Mr. Sutton made interesting points about the popularity of fantasy--which tends to produce very large books--think Harry Potter. There were also some interesting reader comments, by names I recognized such as Kristin Cashore and Beth Kephart (popular YA authors). Kristin (I feel I can call her that seeing as we read the same blog, and I loved her book Graceling) commented that word count would be more accurate because publishers have been more creative with font, etc. perferring to have a lengthy book. "For what it's worth, the Graceling published by Harcourt Children's Books in the USA/Canada is 471 pages long. The Graceling published by Gollancz in the UK/Australia/NZ (for the adult market) is 340 pages long. Same word count. Big page number difference!" Why would the US/Canadian publisher want the book to be so much longer? Interesting.