Writing Youth: Young Adult Fiction as Literacy Sponsorship by Jonathan Alexander

Abstract

Reviewed by: Writing Youth: Young Adult Fiction as Literacy Sponsorship by Jonathan Alexander Jen Harrison (bio) Writing Youth: Young Adult Fiction as Literacy Sponsorship. By Jonathan Alexander. New York: Lexington, 2017. Jonathan Alexander's Writing Youth provides a much-needed analysis of young adult fiction not just as textual productions, but also as complex multimodal and multimedia webs in which young people actively participate. Alexander takes as his starting point the realization that such fiction is not only "a marketing and reading phenomenon" but can also be seen as "a powerful form of literacy sponsorship, one that guides young people's reading interests and promotes engagement with certain notions of what it means to be literate in contemporary capitalist and increasingly neoliberalized cultures" (4). From this starting point, he explores the ways in which literature for adolescents "sponsors" literacy both through portraying multiliteracies and enabling readers to practice them. Alexander's analysis is therefore concerned with both the content of the corporately produced text (that is, the published fiction book) and the associated media content now frequently provided for readers by publishers, as well as the multimodal texts that young people produce in response to these texts through, for example, fan fiction, YouTube videos, and social media posts. This approach acknowledges young adult fiction as no longer confined to the covers of a book or even to the marketing strategy of the publisher, but instead as something fluid, controlled and created as much by readers as by authors, publishers, marketers, educators, and so on. In light of these important contributions to the field of young adult studies, it is disappointing to see Alexander perpetuating the fallacy that adolescent literature is somehow less demanding, less challenging, or less [End Page 485] sophisticated than literature for older readers. He questions, for example, whether such a significant cultural investment in young adult fiction might be "creating an entire 'class' of readers who may never graduate to more challenging texts" (13). Such a comment belies the extensive scholarship that has been produced detailing the richness and complexity of the best young adult fiction, and ignores the slippery question of the divide between adolescent and adult literature. This area would benefit from further exploration; for example, to what extent do "adults" as well as young people stand to benefit from the types of literacy sponsorship that Alexander describes? The volume sets out to explore two specific areas of fiction for adolescents. In the first place, it aims to "inquire into how young adult fiction, as produced by the culture industry, might foster particular ways of thinking about and using literacy and multiliteracy technologies" (24). At the same time, however, it seeks to compare the results of these inquiries to the insights gained from considering such fiction as "part of larger media ecologies," of which a significant portion consists of "the media made by readers and consumers as prosumers" (25)—in other words, the practiced literacy of readers in writing back to the texts that they consume. As such, the volume combines traditional textual analysis of young adult novels with an examination of the texts and readings of the fan media produced in response to them. With these goals in mind, the volume is divided into six chapters, each analyzing both original texts and readers' multimodal responses to them. The introduction provides a comprehensive summary of the ways in which both texts and readers are embedded within wider consumer and media culture, outlining the many approaches that readers take to engaging with texts within this context. Chapter 1 begins with an analysis of the Hunger Games trilogy, in which the establishment of literacy itself as a "brand" or commodity is portrayed. While Alexander's contention that the series emphasizes Katniss's ability to commodify herself is far from original, he does make an important observation: that in experiencing this process, readers can develop their own "branding" strategies, thereby enhancing their media literacy skills. Furthermore, the chapter examines readers' use of those skills in engaging with the multimedia platforms provided by the producers and considers how young people use those skills to create or critique content in ways unintended or unanticipated by the corporate creators. In chapter...