Young Adult Literature Research Articles

Selecting and Teaching Young Adult Literature Through Black Historical Consciousness Principles

Selecting and Teaching Young Adult Literature Through Black Historical Consciousness Principles

How Young Adult Literature Gets Taught: A review of a pedagogical manual for teacher educators, secondary teachers, and librarians

AbstractHow Young Adult Literature Gets Taught: Perspectives, Ideologies, and Pedagogical Approaches for Instruction and Assessment (Bickmore et al., 2022) seeks to provide guidelines for teacher educators and secondary English teachers on how to teach young adult literature (YAL). This 15‐chapter manual includes chapters written by experts in YAL (including higher ed professionals, a high school English teacher, and a librarian), which offer resources for teaching YAL based around various theoretical frameworks and include detailed reading lists, guided discussion questions, and more.

”YOUTUBE-SUCCÉN NU I BOKFORM!”

”THE YOUTUBE SUCCESS NOW IN BOOK FORM!” IJustWantToBeCool, Yumi, Tomu and the Convergence Machine In 2022, the two most sold books for children and young adults in Sweden were written by popular content creators on Youtube and other digital platforms. Skurkarnas skurk: Skurkskolan, written by the comedy group IJustWantToBeCool (Joel Adolphson, Emil Beer and Victor Beer) topped the list. In second place came Yumi & Tomu: I Spelmästarens händer, written by the titular Yumi and Tomu (Jenny Laev Alfvén and Tom Karlsson) in collaboration with the author Maria Frensborg. This article examines how these literary works blur the line between children’s literature and internet culture and, therefore, can be understood as examples of contemporary media convergence. Using an intermedial perspective – which focuses on similarities, differences and interactions between media – it is shown how the texts partake in the transmediation of both the identities and storyworlds that the authors have constructed on Youtube. Further, it is shown how they emulate ways in which creators, content and audiences interact on the platform and do so in different ways in the print and audio versions of the books. But other than convergence, Skurkskolan and I Spelmästarens händer also express an interest in the particularities of the printed book. The article ends with a discussion that relates this to today’s discourse surrounding the reading habits of young people. Young people are reading less, and digital technologies and platforms such as Youtube are often seen as parts of the problem. At the same time, the converging of literature and the digital can provide a solution when, for example, popular content creators on Youtube write books that can attract young audiences. Of course, there are economic aspects to this as well as both Youtube creators and book publishers can expand their brands and reach more people by collaborating.

Challenging the Status Quo in Secondary Literature Classrooms: A review of Challenging Traditional Classroom Spaces with YA Literature: Students in Community as Course Co‐designers

AbstractThis paper reviews the book Challenging Traditional Classroom Spaces with YA Literature: Students in Community as Course Co‐Designers by Ricki Ginsberg (2022). Published amid increasingly contentious censoring of teachers' autonomy and students' rights to read in many districts across the United States, this book is a timely call for educators to rethink traditional curriculum choices and pedagogical approaches in the secondary literature classroom. Ginsberg makes a strong case for privileging engaging and relevant texts utilizing YA literature and centering students and their voices in communities of practice in the classroom. She offers a wide range of approaches to make this book relevant for teachers across the spectrum of autonomy, including impactful additions to existing curriculum for those in more constrained environments and a blueprint for a stand‐alone YA literature course for those with more flexibility. Geared toward an audience of secondary literature teachers with many practical pedagogical considerations and suggestions, the solid theoretical base makes this book a useful read for literacy researchers and administrators interested in promoting student‐centered pedagogical methods, leveraging meaningful communities of practice in classroom settings, and reaping the benefits of YA literature with secondary students.

Mental health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on children and young adults: empirical analysis of the past, present and the way forward.

The SARS-CoV-2 virus and its variants have had and are having serious implications for the mental health of the public. The critical limitations in the published literature for children, adolescents and young adults raise doubts about their clinical utility and overall generalisability. Amidst these gaps in knowledge, a twin study (Rimfeld et al) addresses several of these issues in relation to heritable individual differences and responses to environmental stressors. Besides calculating genetic correlation, the longitudinal study also compares symptoms at four different time points during the pandemic. These findings reflect a counterintuitive understanding of the role of resilience in the mental health of young adults in the UK. Unlike prior studies, this study focuses on methodological designs and underscores the applications of accurate statistical measures in observing these complex phenomena.

‘You are the hero’: teaching great literature in a London Jesuit school

This article argues that Ignatian pedagogy in the Jesuit tradition allows great literature to become transformative. It takes as a case study an extracurricular course – ‘Becoming a Hero: From Homer to Harry Potter’ – taught to a socially diverse group of key stage three ‘gifted and talented’ children in a London Jesuit comprehensive school. While secondary teaching is normally geared towards high-stakes summative assessment, this course aims instead at personal growth. Young people discover themselves as the heroes in a perennial plotline which appears throughout both classic texts and young adult fiction. The teacher (himself a Jesuit) had previously taught the course to undergraduates at Harvard University. Adapting it for younger children, he makes the case for ‘gifted and talented’ provision and narrates his use of assessment for prior learning and creative teaching techniques in order to ensure holistic – spiritual, intellectual, and emotional – learning beyond the curriculum.

A Biblioguidance Approach to Fostering Students’ Self-Efficacy to Advocate for Health

Teaching the components of health advocacy is straightforward, but fostering young people’s self-efficacy to be health advocates for themselves, others, and their community is more complex. This complexity sometimes renders advocating for health, the basis of National Health Education Standard (NHES) #8, challenging to teach. We utilized a pedagogical approach called biblioguidance to teach this skill to 10th-grade students. The premise of biblioguidance, also called bibliotherapy, is that information, guidance, and even solace can be found through reading and vicariously living story events. To implement this approach, we consulted the literature and created a six-step framework to guide the design, development, and evaluation of a health advocacy curriculum, including young adult novels, guided reading prompts, electronic journals, and small group discussions. Our pre/post-assessment, rooted in NHES #8, evaluated the impact on students’ ( N = 168) self-efficacy to health advocate for themselves, others, and the community. Results revealed a significant change ( p < .001), particularly in advocating for community health. Further, the teachers found that the curriculum facilitated the discussion of health-related topics in subsequent units. We will continue using the curriculum but expand it to include opportunities for authentic application and qualitative data evaluation techniques.

“It Was a Real Eye-Opener”: Supporting Adolescent Mental Health Literacy Through Contemporary Young Adult Literature

Increased mental health literacy in adolescents is critical, as it can lead to greater empathy and result in less stigmatising behaviour (Mitchell, 2014; Perry et al., 2014). As a prime site of influence, schools are integral to raising adolescent mental health awareness andpromoting pro-social behaviours (Carlisle et al., 2018; Lawrence et al., 2015). The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) has provided little guidance and resourcing for teachers to select appropriate texts for study. If teachers have been designated as primarily responsible for text selection (Hateley, 2014) they need support from teacher librarians to suggest and source well-written young adult literature dealing with the issues around mental health as texts for the classroom.

“Bet You Can’t Wait to Get Out”: Complicating Narratives of Leaving in Rural Young Adult Literature

Using critical theories of dominant- and counter-narratives, this study analyzed the texts of selected young adult books that focused on an underrepresented population of working-class rural youth in Appalachia. We explored how the dominant deficit narratives of these communities shaped the identity construction and choices of the books’ characters, especially their decisions to stay in, leave, or return to their rural hometowns. We showed how those narratives reflected the lives and decisions of real rural young people. We also looked at the identities and ways of being that are available to rural young adult readers and how those identities are connected to structural power and inequity. With over nine million rural students in the United States, each of them deserves to see themselves reflected in the literature they read.

From Novel to Film: A Study of Memory, Illness, and Symbols in All the Bright Places in Light of Eneste’s Ecranisation Theory

A person's psyche is composed of three distinct yet related components: memory, illness, and symbols. The American teen romance film All the Bright Places (2020b) is based on the Jennifer Niven novel of the same name and is available to stream on Netflix. The term ‘adaptation’ describes how books, stories, and comics are interpreted, reworked, and reimagined for use in movies, music, video games, and webcomics. It has an intertextual and reciprocal structure. The narrative of Theodore Finch’s and Violet Markey’s mental illness and suicidality is the focus of Jenifer Niven's young adult book All the Bright Places (2015a). As it's vital to maintain screentime, dramatic effect, and censorship, sequences are frequently altered and excluded in Adaptation. These changes are often not well received by the audience. It was also widely criticised that Brett Haley's adaptation of the book, All the Bright Places (2020b), failed to do the novel justice. The objective of the investigation is to ascertain the modifications implemented in the film and the rationale behind them. Through the lens of Eneste's Ecranisation theory, this study explores the moments that are included and excluded from the movie All the Bright Places (2020b). The three steps in the Ecranisation theory are reduction, variation, and addition. This paper delves into the memory shared by the characters, the portrayal of their illness and the use of symbolism in both the novel and the film. The researcher identifies that the ecranised contents in the film shift the focus from Finch and Violet’s struggle with suicidality to their love story. This shift portrays the film and the story in a lighter way. It also aids the director in preventing the film from being an example of the Werther effect, the phenomenon of suicide contagion.

Más allá del invierno : A Feminist Crime Novel

Since the publication of La casa de los espíritus in 1982, Isabel Allende has become a prolific writer of novels, a memoir, a collection of short stories, and novels for children and young adults. In her first novels, romance is mixed with the historical genre and elements of magical realism. Más allá del invierno (2017) is one of her most recent novels and one that so far has not been widely studied. For Kerri Muñoz it blends the testimonial genre with romanticism to criticize neoliberalism. For their part, Hoda Shabrang and Golnaz Karimi use Homi Bhabha’s concepts to propose that the three main characters have fluid identities. While I agree with both analyses, in this essay I explore the female characters of the novel, their parallelisms and interactions, and propose that even though Allende resorts to her well-known romanticism and depiction of Latin American historical events, Más allá del invierno also incorporates elements of the female crime thriller as it touches on topics of biopolitics, violence and care work in the United States.

Technology, Oppression, and Resistance in Speculative Young Adult Fiction

Technology, Oppression, and Resistance in Speculative Young Adult Fiction

Navigating the Real World: A Grounded Theory-Based Exploration of Autistic Adolescents’ Identity Formation in Marcelo in the Real World

This study analyses the depiction of autism in Marcelo in the Real World, a young adult fiction novel, to critically explore the identity formation of the character Marcelo who navigates the challenges and complexities of the real world. By using the grounded theory and drawing on ideas from disability studies and social identity theory, the research demonstrates that parental guidance, encouragement and normal treatment of friends, and exposure to conflicts and contradictions are the most significant factors and can help autistic adolescents understand social life, improve social competence, and obtain power and control in social relations, promoting positive identity formation. The use of grounded theory methodology enables a full examination of Marcelo's experiences and the fundamental mechanisms guiding the development of his identity. This research deepens our comprehension of identity construction under the setting of autism, advancing both theoretical understanding and useful interventions for autistic adolescents.

My Friend the Devil: Gothic Comics, the Whimsical Macabre and Rewriting William Blake in Vehlmann and Kerascoët’s Satania

This article develops the concept of the ‘whimsical macabre’, introduced in my book Post-millennial Gothic: Comedy, Romance and the Rise of Happy Gothic (2017) to refer to texts which deliberately fuse the comic and cute with the sinister, monstrous or grotesque. I propose that Fabien Vehlmann and Kerascoët’s graphic novel Satania (2016) extends the whimsical macabre in new directions, by drawing on the work of Romantic poet and artist William Blake, whose illustrated books are often cited as forerunners of modern comics. By rewriting Blake’s visionary account of a journey into the infernal regions in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1793) and alluding to Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1789/1794), Satania reveals the serious ethical dimensions that underlie the whimsical macabre. In doing so, it interrogates and complicates the maturational narrative associated with children’s and young adult literature. The article concludes by suggesting that Satania’s heroine Charlie’s relationship with her demon draws on a Blakeian model of friendship in opposition, pointing towards a ‘reparative’ form of Gothic in which otherness is neither erased nor expelled, but embraced and cherished.

Invited Article: The Honor List of 2022 Prize-Winning Young Adult Books: Family Stories in Ya Literature

In each of the five 2022 recommended honor books, the protagonist seeks to weave themselves into the tapestry of their family histories in order to emerge with an understanding of their future, both as an individual and as a member of a collective.

Przestrzenie obojętności. Literatura i edukacja przeciw pogardzie

The article describes important aspects of life that are overlooked in Polish language education: obsolescence, intellectual disability, poverty, and pro-environmental activism. Each of these aspects becomes a reason for exclusion, a pretext for showing contempt. The literature for children and young adults opposes the signs of marginalization of these phenomena. The author reflects on the potential of literary works and the duties of Polish language education in creating an inclusive society and an inclusive school that supports each student and teaches dialogue and problem-solving.

‘Many a story is but a crooked way to the truth’?

The myth of King Arthur has been used for many purposes. In post-disaster fiction for young adults, the Arthurian myth has been drawn upon by a number of authors to advocate unity and equality as major factors in creating a just and peaceful world. This article focuses on seven texts set after major global disaster caused by human action has devastated, or is threatening to devastate, the world of the implied present-day reader. The texts for discussion are Ron Langenus’ Merlin’s Return; Janice Elliott’s The King Awakes and The Empty Throne; and Pamela Service’s Winter of Magic’s Return, Tomorrow’s Magic, Yesterday’s Magic, and Earth’s Magic. Although King Arthur is portrayed differently by the three authors, he is presented as a figurehead of unity and peace in all of the texts, and the texts all transpose contemporary values held by the implied author and the implied reader onto what the texts present as ‘King Arthur’s time’, in order to suggest that greed, selfishness, and lust for power contributed to the destruction of King Arthur’s society, and are also threatening to destroy the world of the implied reader. Drawing upon Foucault’s concept of the regime of truth, this article demonstrates that the forms of the Arthurian myth used in the texts for discussion are, however, inherently gendered and nationalistic, and thus subvert the ideas of equality and unity that the texts seek to present.

“I’m really just scared of the White parents”: a teacher navigates perceptions of barriers to discussing racial injustice

PurposeThis study aims to explore the perceived barriers that a secondary English teacher faced when attempting to discuss racial injustice through young adult literature in Mississippi.Design/methodology/approachThe authors rely on Critical Whiteness Studies and qualitative methods to explore the following research question: What are the barriers that a White ELA teacher perceives when teaching about racial injustice through The Hate U Give?FindingsThe authors found that there were several perceived barriers to discussing modern racial injustice in the Mississippi ELA classroom. The participating teacher indicated the following barriers: a lack of racial literacy, fears of discomfort and an urge to avoid politics.Originality/valueMuch has been written about the urgent need for antiracist teaching practices in secondary English classes. This article explores the barriers a white ELA teacher perceived when attempting to discuss modern racial injustice through literature instruction in a white context of the “four pandemics” (Ladson-Billings, 2021).

Postmemory of Stalinist Repressions and the Siege of Leningrad in Olga Lavrentieva’s Graphic Novel Survilo (2019)

AbstractOlga Lavrentieva’s graphic novelSurvilo, published in Russia in 2019, and since then translated into a few languages, is one of the recent examples of harnessing the comic form to overcome historical taboo in contemporary children’s and young adult literature. The polemic around accounts of the Stalinist repressions in the 1930s and the period of the Leningrad siege that arose a few years ago in Russia’s cultural space shows that the quest for the truth about the past continues to haunt successive generations of Russian authors. Lavrentieva spins a narrative based on the history of her own family and, specifically, on the life of her grandmother, Valentina Survilo, whose childhood overlapped with the Great Terror with its atrocities and her adolescence with the blockade of Leningrad. The author of this article argues that although she writes about Stalinist atrocities, in her fragmented biographical graphic novel, Lavrentieva does not deconstruct the Soviet myth of the Great Patriotic War but weaves a narrative based on a particular version of postmemory. The author uses the framework of memory studies and focuses predominately on the textual layer of Survilo; however, the black-and-white vignettes composed by Lavrentieva add up to a formally and thematically thought-provoking book.

Feminist Discourse in Irish Literature: Gender and Power in Louise O’Neill’s Young Adult Fiction by Jennifer Mooney

<i>Feminist Discourse in Irish Literature: Gender and Power in Louise O’Neill’s Young Adult Fiction</i> by Jennifer Mooney