I read a really great book recently. It’s about a girl whose parents both die and she has to go and live with her cousin who she really doesn’t get on with. His mum is dead too, and he has this chronic illness and has to use a wheelchair, and his dad doesn’t love him because he blames him for his mum’s death. “Oh,” you might say. “That doesn’t sound like my thing. I’m not really into the whole ‘Sick Lit’ fad.”

Thing is, that book is The Secret Garden. Sick lit? No, it’s a Classic. Classics don’t have labels, other than ‘Classic’, do they? It’s interesting to think about what those labels might be if we did apply them though. Pride and Prejudice – Chick Lit? To Kill a Mockingbird and The Catcher in the Rye and even Henry IV Part I –Young Adult? Macbeth – Fantasy? Wuthering Heights – Paranormal Romance? It’s a fun game, but there’s a deeper point. Why don’t we classify classic literature in this way? Perhaps because it is taken seriously. And I think there is often a subtext to labels that get applied to books. The subtext says: This is just another one of THOSE kind of books. Don’t take it too seriously.

I’m not saying we don’t need labels at all. After all, authors, publishers, booksellers and readers all want books to end up in the hands of people who are going to love them. Using a label or genre as a signpost, to give potential readers an idea of the subject matter a book deals with, is fair enough. But I also think we need to be wary of labels. They are, inevitably, reductive. A good book is many different things and might appeal to many different types of reader. A label makes it one thing, and by doing so potentially narrows its readership.

There can also be an element of value judgement about the way labels are applied, a subtle implication that these books are all basically the same – derivative at best, cynically bandwagon-jumping at worst.

But trends in literature don’t just develop because writers and publishers see what’s successful and then try to copy it, although of course this does happen. Trends develop because books are products of the society they are written in. They reflect and are influenced by the preoccupations and concerns of the world their authors and readers live in. So is it surprising that there have been a lot of books about death – cancer in particular – over the last few years? No. It hasn’t happened in isolation. As a society we’ve become much more open about death, and the impact of grief, and much more aware of the importance of talking honestly about these things. The media, bloggers, charities and celebrities all talk openly about cancer and terminal illness in a way that just didn’t happen in the past. So it’s hardly surprising that we’ve seen literature reflect this.

Similarly, in a world where we are constantly bombarded by apocalyptic news stories about impending environmental catastrophe, war, terrorism, epidemics, is it surprising that a lot of dystopian literature is being written and read? No. These books play an important role in exploring the existing fears we have, the issues we face. It certainly doesn’t mean that they are all the same.

And when it comes to labels like “Young Adult Literature” or “Women’s Literature”, there are other implications. Are these telling us what the book is about? Or who should read it? Because if they’re telling us who should read it, that’s a problem. Are all books about teenagers only for teenagers? Are books about women only for women? If so, where’s the “Men’s Literature”? Oh, no, that doesn’t have a label, does it? It’s just “Literature” – proper Literature, no qualifier required. Funny how books about the concerns of middle-aged men are assumed to be of universal appeal, while books about others are supposed only to be of interest to that group.

So, sure, use labels as a guide – a kind of “if you liked that, you might like this” – but don’t be dictated to by them. Within any genre there will be a huge range of books that might be enjoyed by a huge range of people. Read widely, and remember that any label given to a book is only someone else’s opinion of what the defining feature of that book is. As Edmund Wilson said, “No two persons ever read the same book”.

We are all different, and all bring our own individual experience and imagination to whatever we read. And good books – just like the people who read them – are much more than any label you can put on them.

Clare Furniss’s The Year of the Rat is out now in paperback.

What do you think of labelling children’s books? Join the Children’s Books site and send us your thoughts!