This article examines the representations of girlhood in contemporary Irish fiction, in which sexual assault is normalised, and victims are silenced in response. It looks specifically at A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing (Eimear McBride, 2013) and Asking for It (Louise O’Neill, 2015). Girlhood in these novels is dominated by the threat of sexual assault and the existence of rape culture, especially in a digital age and #MeToo era. In post-Celtic Tiger Ireland, critics have noted a growth in YA literature, especially female authors addressing “uncomfortable but important matters in their works”, including “violence against teenage girls and women in Ireland” (Seijas-Pérez 66). Both protagonists in these novels, the Girl in A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing, and Emma in Asking for It, experience sexual assault. The reactions of the local community and close friends or family to both girls’ experiences of sexual assault illustrate community and institutional responses to trauma in an Irish context. The article will analyse themes of shame and trauma, using close readings from the novels to break down the aftermaths of each individual experience of sexual violence within a broader cultural context. The works of Cathy Caruth and Susan Cahill, amongst others, will be used in this analysis in order to expose the lived realities of girlhood in contemporary Ireland.

Literary reading as an aesthetic experience is an essential action in human constitution and should integrate undergraduate curriculums. In this article, we take a module from the course Literary Studies, taught in the Library Science program at the University of Caxias do Sul, as material for investigation. The aim of the article is to reflect on reading modes and the construction of the literary repertoire of library science undergraduates. This is a study inspired by the essayistic approach, which brings into dialogue the short story “Uma voz entre os arbustos”, by Marina Colasanti, and posts published in online forums, which provide insights related to children’s and young adult literature and some of the genres that compose it. The mediation provided in the course (Petit, 2009, 2024) was conducted through dialogue between children’s and young adult literature and other artistic propositions such as paintings, photographs, and music in order to encourage students to build literary reading experiences. It is pointed out as a result, on one hand, that the approach enabled future librarians and potential mediators to experience literature as art; and, on the other hand, the need for investment in the creation of repertoire for the students, as well as the importance of courses that include literary reading within the library science program.

This article scrutinizes the enduring nature of Orientalist stereotypes, identity, the assimilation pressures experienced by Asian Americans, and the internalization of racist accounts in Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese. It contends that Yang exemplifies how stereotypes restrain subjectivity and falsify the pursuit of genuine belonging in the interrelated storylines of Jin Wang, the Monkey King, and Chin-Kee. For this purpose, this article employs the standpoints of the scholars Cheryl Harris, Richard Delgado, Jean Stefancic, and Derrick Bell’s Critical Race Theory (CRT) to critique racial power dynamics in the novel. Harris's perspective of ‘whiteness as property,’ Delgado and Stefancic's notion of ‘counter-storytelling,’ and Bell's viewpoint of the persistence of racism epitomize Yang's critique of systemic racism and the cultural irreconcilability existed in the American society. This article concludes that the racial hierarchies prevalent in American society dehumanize Asian American identities and emphasizes the necessity of recuperating cultural identity as a means of resistance and self-affirmation. It expects to encourage scholars to study young adult fiction as a way to address racial inequality, redefine belonging, and challenge the biases that propagate injustice globally.

ABSTRACT Contemporary YAL offers diverse perspectives often absent from the traditional literary canon, making it a vital resource for fostering student engagement, representation, and critical thinking. However, not all YAL texts offer authentic portrayals; some reinforce harmful stereotypes or present incomplete narratives. This article explores the value of using equity‐oriented text sets to counter problematic representations and promote critical literacy. Drawing on Botelho and Rudman's Critical Multicultural Analysis (CMA) framework, I introduce a heuristic designed to help educators evaluate texts and curate meaningful, inclusive classroom collections. The article models the use of this heuristic through an analysis of Kwame Alexander's The Crossover (2014) and outlines strategies for guiding students in critically engaging with literature.

In the contemporary times, the most common crisis that increasingly needs attention is splintering of self. This generally occurs among the young adult who faces problems and challenges, like broken relationships, mental health, family dynamics, social pressures and inner conflicts such as self-doubt, identity crises, alienation and emotional struggles. John Green, an eminent writer of the modern Young Adult Fiction delves deeper into the minds of these young adults and address their inner struggles by his exceptional writings. This paper aims to unravel the splintered self of the main character named Alaska Young in the Green’s novel Looking for Alaska. It intends to analyze the inner conflicts experienced by Alaska, examining her character traits. The novel showcases her dark past or improper childhood and portrays Alaska as an eccentric, quirky, fun- loving, risk-taking, imaginative, attractive and prankster young adult. Although she is portrayed as a strong and independent girl character, her splintered self remains concealed, without expressing her self-destructive or self-damaged traits. Eventually she faces death in order to escape her labyrinth of suffering. Thus, this paper critically explores the sufferings and problems of the young adult girl character named Alaska Young and attempt to give a deeper insight of her mind which leads to her splintered self. It also tries to highlight how her behavioral patterns reflect broader elements of dissociation, detachment and identity through psychoanalytical aspect of the character.

This article defines the young adult (YA) “neuronormativity novel” as a narrative that frames neurodiverse conditions predominantly through a medical model of disability, in contrast to the “neurodiversity novel”, which aligns with conceptions of neurodiversity. Through a textual analysis of two contemporary YA novels – Laura Creedle’s The Love Letters of Abelard and Lily (2017) and Anna Whateley’s Peta Lyre’s Rating Normal (2020) – we trace how ADHD is deployed as narrative prosthesis and argue that both novels are examples of neuronormativity novels, though they diverge in significant ways. The Love Letters of Abelard and Lily directly problematises neurodiversity, culminating in a tragic ending in which the protagonist seeks surgical intervention to “cure” her ADHD, thereby fully rejecting an ideology of neurodiversity. This arc mirrors early tragic gay YA fiction in which queer protagonists are ultimately defeated by heteronormativity, reinforcing the impossibility of difference within normative structures. Peta Lyre’s Rating Normal, by contrast, problematises neurodiversity throughout, yet ultimately shifts towards an embrace of neurodiverse identity by rejecting the medical model in its resolution. While this ending represents progress, the novel’s dominant narrative arc remains rooted in neuronormativity, echoing patterns seen in later gay YA problem novels, where queer identity is affirmed only tentatively at the end. These textual dynamics illustrate how YA fiction can simultaneously reinforce and challenge normative ideologies of disability and identity. We advocate a broadening of YA fiction to embrace a neurodiversity equivalent of queernormative fiction, a mode of YA storytelling attuned to neurodiverse ways of being and perceiving.

Written by the founders of the Hijabi Librarians collective, this article offers a critical reflection on the group’s bibliographic, pedagogical, and public-facing interventions, proposing a conceptual expansion of Middle East librarianship to include coalitional engagement with non-regionally defined librarian-activist networks. The Hijabi Librarians, a collective of Muslim women youth services librarians, operate at the intersection of library science, critical pedagogy, and public scholarship. Their work intervenes in cultural and archival spaces where SWANA, diasporic, and Muslim identities are frequently misrepresented or erased. Amid the intensifying crisis in the region and its impact on communities across the diaspora, the collective’s advocacy for nuanced #OwnVoices representation in children’s and young adult literature takes on renewed urgency. Their interventions address enduring representational gaps while affirming the political, educational, and ethical power of youth literature. The article foregrounds the imaginative and empathetic potential of youth literature to serve as windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors, central metaphors in multicultural literacy, that enable readers to understand, connect with, and stand in solidarity with others. This literature is not only for children; it is for adults as well - creators, librarians, educators - who seek to preserve a sense of wonder, and resist the normalization of dehumanization. In a climate of escalating educational censorship that demands we relinquish imagination for political expedience, the defense of children's literature becomes a radical act: it resists the colonization of imagination and refuses to concede empathy, possibility, or humanity itself. The Hijabi Librarians’ model aligns with and expands MELA’s mission through anti-censorship work, public programming, evaluation toolkits, metadata ethics, and bibliographic equity. The article advances a coalition-oriented model of Middle East librarianship attuned to diasporic complexity, epistemic justice, and the ethical stewardship of children’s literature as a transformative cultural force for both young readers and adult practitioners.

Purpose This paper aims to describe how narratives emerged across coursework from a semester-long young adult literature class for preservice secondary English teachers (PSETs). Eco-narratives storied characters, conflicts and opportunities for agency regarding climate justice. Design/methodology/approach The study uses a case study approach and eco-linguistic discourse analysis to situate the work of three PSETs among class trends in reading responses, discussion posts and final unit plans. Findings The eco-narratives that emerged in PSETs’ coursework centered young adults as climate justice change agents in collaboration with their communities through relevant, timely and persuasive multimedia communication. Research limitations/implications What constituted community (beyond family and friends) remained largely undefined in PSETs’ instructional narratives. PSETs also did not invoke existing local organizations or movements connected to specific members of the more-than-human community. Along with relevant climate literature for young adults (CLYA), ELA teachers and English teacher educators might offer connections to local resources to support involvement in community activism for climate justice. Practical implications ELA teachers and English teacher educators may wish to consider including CLYA in their coursework as a means to inspire advocacy for climate justice. To confront the pitfalls of eco-heroism and climate anxiety, they might offer opportunities for communal activism. Social implications Climate justice narratives themselves often call out inequities and disparities in resources, especially for systemically marginalized communities, making the inclusion of CLYA in ELA curricula an act of resistance in itself. Grounding inquiry in the local community is a way for ELA teachers to safely enact eco-justice goals. Student choice also provides a safe way for educators to have students engage in climate advocacy as educators can encourage students to select and research a topic of their choosing relevant to their local environment. Originality/value This study shows how using CLYA in English teaching methods courses can help PSETs to envision climate justice education for secondary ELA students.

This qualitative and bibliographic research is aimed at briefly presenting the “Guide to Literary Works for Middle School”, an educational product developed as a possible suggestion for teachers facing the challenging task of selecting literary books for Middle School students. Given the growing number of available titles in Children's and Young Adult Literature - market niches in continuous expansion - this task becomes increasingly difficult and inevitably leads to the concept of the Culture Industry. The reflections proposed throughout this text aim to respond whether the Guide, within this context, represents a potential rupture or the inescapable continuation of current trends. Thus, Literature, reader development, literary literacy - serving as theoretical foundations for the product - along with the Culture Industry, Mass Culture, and generative themes, are addressed in different sections of the study, which concludes that we may be facing a possible rupture, depending on the understanding of both the developers and the teachers who will use the product.

ABSTRACT This qualitative case study explores the supports, resources, and barriers that shape educators’ ability to purchase and use diverse young adult (DYA) literature in secondary schools. Drawing on the lens of teacher agency, we examined how ELA teachers, media specialists, and reading interventionists in one southern U.S. state navigated written and unwritten policies in increasingly politicized contexts. Findings reveal that while participants recognized the benefits of incorporating DYA, they encountered formal and informal censorship, limited access, and restrictive protocols that shaped their instructional decisions. Simultaneously, educators identified key supports, including administrative autonomy, collaboration, and funding, that enabled them to persist in this work. The study highlights the complex interplay between policy, school culture, and educator beliefs, underscoring the need for transparent processes, advocacy, and professional learning to ensure all students have access to literature that reflects and expands their lived experiences.

This paper complicates narratives of rurality and environmentalism in young adult fiction. Employing positioning theory and methods of critical content analysis, findings describe how rural youth respond to their social environments and environmental issues and what this might mean for young readers. The paper asserts that a focus on environmentalism in youth fiction can trouble dominant narratives of rural communities as either nostalgic and romanticised country places or hostile sites of economic and social disparities by revealing the complexity of rural life when grounded in hope and collective action around conservation and environmental protection.

<i>Storying Plants in Australian Children’s and Young Adult Literature: Roots and Winged Seeds</i> edited by Melanie Duckworth and Annika Herb

<i>The Reparative Impulse of Queer Young Adult Literature</i> by Angel Daniel Matos

<i>Atravesados: Essays on Queer Latinx Young Adult Literature</i> edited by Trevor Boffone and Cristina Herrera

This study investigates the use of conversational implicature in Stephanie Perkins’s novel Anna and the French Kiss through the framework of Grice’s (1975) theory of conversational maxims. The research aims to identify the types of flouted maxims and interpret the implied meanings embedded in the characters’ utterances. Employing a qualitative descriptive method supported by frequency analysis, the data were drawn from 602 utterances in the novel that violated the Maxims of Quality, Quantity, Relation, and Manner. The findings reveal that the Maxim of Relation is the most frequently flouted, with 233 instances, followed by the Maxim of Manner with 220 instances, the Maxim of Quality with 103 instances, and the Maxim of Quantity with 46 instances. These violations function to express irony, maintain politeness, and manage emotional tension, reflecting the characters’ preference for indirect and context-sensitive communication. The frequent flouting of Relation and Manner indicates adolescents’ reliance on ambiguity and topic shifting to preserve social harmony and emotional balance. The study concludes that Grice’s framework effectively accounts for the implied meanings in literary dialogue and demonstrates how pragmatic strategies construct authenticity, emotional depth, and relational nuance in young adult fiction.

This article analyzes the importance of children's bibliographic collections in school libraries and their contribution to the academic training of primary school students. Based on IFLA/UNESCO frameworks and authors such as Ameijeiras (2009) and Gómez (2002), the school library is conceived as a resource center for reading, information, and learning, integrated into the curriculum and oriented toward equity. A qualitative approach is adopted with interviews and a questionnaire with library science professionals in Heredia, and a documentary review. The findings indicate: (1) a predominance of female staff with university education (mostly bachelor's degrees) and ≥2 years of experience; (2) infrastructure gaps (50% report inadequate spaces); (3) acquisition by purchase/donation and incomplete coverage of collection development policies (63%); (4) collections with reference material and literature, but limited presence of recreational material, key for emergent reading; (5) The adequacy of the resources for the first cycle was rated as "fairly so" by 63%, highlighting the need for updating and greater curricular and age alignment. The selection is guided by MEP lists, curricular relevance, institutional values, and feedback from teachers and students. Reading preferences focus on narrative (short stories, young adult novels, fables), high-appeal subgenres (fantasy, science fiction, horror, romance, suspense, graphic novels), and informative science texts; popular franchises boost motivation. Methodologically, reading clubs and recreational mediations (storytelling, puppets) stand out, although gaps in coordination with Spanish and risks of extrinsic motivation persist. It is concluded that strengthening infrastructure, PDC, recreational materials, and early mediation are crucial to improving comprehension, reading habits, and learning outcomes.

This article examines the role of young adult literature as a medium of value transmission in an intercultural and intergenerational dialogue. The analysis focuses on Ayşe Kulin’s Handan as well as Sibylle Berg’s GRM: Brainfuck, both of which address key values such as feminism, equality and resistance. The study affirms how female voices and feminist narratives emerge in different cultural contexts and gain renewed relevance through digital recontextualization. Through AI simulations, Gen-Z personas are reconstructed, offering insights into how today’s younger generations perceive these values. At the same time, ChatGPT functions as a discursive medium of reflection, providing poetic and analytical interpretations of concepts such as feminism and equality. The result is a multi-perspective model that brings literary texts, AI and Gen-Z into dialogue. For foreign language education (DaF), this approach opens new possibilities. Literature becomes not only a linguistic resource but also a cultural field of meaning in which language, identity and power relations are critically negotiated. Key words: foreign language education, feminism, generation-z, intercultural, intergenerational, youth literature, artificial intelligence.

ABSTRACT This article investigates the literary strategies employed by contemporary African American writers: Ta-Nehisi Coates, Colson Whitehead, and Angie Thomas, in articulating the struggle for equality and justice. Using a qualitative-descriptive method informed by postcolonial and critical race theory, the study analyzes Between the World and Me, The Nickel Boys, and The Hate U Give. The analysis focuses on four dimensions: narrative style and structure, symbolism and imagery, genre and form, and language and tone. The findings demonstrate that Coates utilizes an epistolary narrative to personalize systemic racism through intergenerational reflection, while Whitehead adopts a dual-timeline structure to expose the historical continuity of racial violence. Thomas employs a first-person linear narrative within young adult fiction to foreground lived experience and youth resistance. Symbolic representations, such as the Black body, reform institutions, and everyday objects, serve as powerful critiques of systemic oppression. Genre hybridity and strategic language choices further expand the social reach of these texts. This study argues that contemporary African American literature operates as both an aesthetic form and a mode of social advocacy, transforming narrative innovation into a critical intervention in global discourses on justice, race, and humanity.

Abstract Beauty standards often reflect a society’s expectations for ideal female citizenship, and girlhood is a key stage when girls begin to internalize these norms. Under neoliberalism, the beauty industry encourages girls to become lifelong consumers by promoting a standardized body ideal that is nearly impossible to reach. The gap between this ideal and girls’ real bodies creates anxiety about aging and weight, which leads to self-hatred, severe self-discipline such as dieting, and increased consumption. This self-hatred can also turn outward and create toxic peer competition and a sense that girls must compete against one another to succeed. In the United States, the beauty myth is further shaped by a white-centered ideal that excludes girls of color, deepening their insecurities and pushing them to consume even more. This article examines how young adult literature helps Asian American girls to confront this beauty myth. Drawing on Sean Connors and Roberta Seelinger Trites’ insights on neoliberal young adult fiction and Kristin Neff’s model of self-love, I analyze two Asian American girlhood novels: Paula Yoo’s Good Enough (2008) and Jean Kwok’s Girl in Translation (2011). Both novels show protagonists who initially struggle with confusion and self-hatred under the pressure of the beauty myth but gradually learn to practice self-love as a form of resistance. As they grow, they also become aware of the racial and class inequalities behind the neoliberal beauty myth, which helps them move from self-love toward caring for others and seeking for social change. Together, these novels employ body activism to challenge neoliberal ideas of beauty by separating it from competition and consumerism. They redefine beauty through love, relationships, and community support, offering Asian American girls an empowering and democratic embodiment of beauty.

ABSTRACT Mental health problems affect individuals worldwide, and literature functions as a medium for both reflecting and shaping social understandings of these issues. Young adult (YA) novels that address mental health can raise public awareness, enhance mental health literacy, and support earlier diagnosis and more effective treatment. This study examines the representation of social anxiety disorder in Finding Audrey (2015) by Sophie Kinsella, focusing on the protagonist Audrey Turner. It analyses Audrey’s experience through her symptoms and treatment process, classifying symptoms into behavioural and cognitive-emotional categories. Behavioural symptoms include avoidance, limited eye contact, and physical reactions, while cognitive-emotional symptoms involve negative self-talk, shame, low self-esteem, negative self-perception, and diminished trust in others. These symptoms and the depicted therapeutic approaches are evaluated in relation to current psychological and psychiatric research. Overall, the novel presents social anxiety disorder in a realistic and psychologically coherent manner, aligning with findings in psychology and psychiatry.