Young Adult Readers Research Articles

Critical Religious Literacies and Opportunities for Alterity across YA Literature

This critical content analysis draws on a dataset of contemporary young adult texts receiving awards between 2012 and 2023 to examine opportunities for religiously informed alterity for readers, which we argue can be a productive experience for building critical religious literacy in young adult readers. We argue that young adult literature can serve as models of critical religious literacies when authors, characters, and historical figures engage in conflicted meaning-making as they experience slippages between their lived experiences and their religious and secular beliefs. The study aims to develop a framework for developing religious literacy that draws specifically on identity-laden and critical theories of literacy common within the English language arts. Furthermore, this study provides literacy scholars and practitioners with a robust set of textual resources that can be employed to support critical religious literacies.

Writerly Sisters and Maternal Absence in Contemporary Young Adult Fiction

Abstract: The subject of sister relationships in contemporary young adult fiction has been all but ignored in the critical literature, glossed over in favor of a protagonist's relationship with her parents, closest friend, or boyfriend. Nevertheless, the topic of sisters in the context of family relationships has an ongoing relevance to contemporary young adult readers, particularly in the face of adolescent adversity and sisters who replace mothers who are physically absent. The bond between sister pairs in these coming-of-age narratives is represented as a positive one of deep intimacy, connection, friendship and profound significance which may well enable the sisters to overcome challenges that have arisen during childhood and that re-emerge in late adolescence. The literary sister relationship is examined in the context of absent parents in Joanne Horniman's Secret Scribbled Notebooks (2004) and My Candlelight Novel (2008), Jandy Nelson's The Sky Is Everywhere (2010) and Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl (2013).

Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Narrative Fallibility, and the Young Adult Reader

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon presents a remarkably complex narrator, 15-year-old Christopher Boone. Due to his implied autism spectrum condition, Christopher is possibly the ultimate in “reliable” narrators: he struggles to articulate emotions and is incapable of telling or understanding lies. His point of view (POV) is an extreme form of first-person limited, with Christopher at times seeming (or even yearning) to be more computer than human. The limitations of Christopher’s experience are reflected in his narrative self-presentation, and while, ordinarily, these would damage any sort of achieved authority, they instead underscore the book’s powerful thematic messages. Christopher’s narrative fallibility echoes the developmental stage of its crossover young adult (YA) audience: Curious Incident works with fallibility to establish a strong narrative voice that inspires an empathetic connection between Christopher and his implied reader. This article therefore considers how narrative fallibility is linked to constructions of adolescence in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and further explores the relationship between the narrator and the implied reader(s). Positioned within narratology-based theories and secondary research on Haddon and representations of neurodiversity in YA literature, it provides guidance for teachers and scholars who might question the value of authenticity in this or similar novels.

What is the Difference between Good and Poor Young Adult Readers?

This study investigated demographic profiles, reading characteristics and processes of good and poor young adult readers. Data were collected from 149 undergraduate students studying at a state university in Türkiye through a questionnaire set and eye-tracking experiments. Groups of this study – good and poor readers – were defined according to their performance in a combination of three reading comprehension tests and an oral reading skills test. As a result, significant differences were found between good and poor young adult readers in terms of their ages, genders, the number of books they have in their libraries, and eye movements such as saccade and fixation counts, saccade length, dwell time, and regressions but no differences in their reading habits, strategies, and attitudes, parents’ educational and economic levels, educational backgrounds, and saccade and fixation duration. Concentrating on several components of reading, this study thus provides a comprehensive perspective on the differences between good and poor readers.

“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.

Fictional girls who play to play: pushing on narratives of competition in young adult sports literature

ABSTRACT Traditional narratives of sport posit winning as the defining goal in ways that can feel and be exclusionary to young people and result in a lack of enjoyment and subsequent decision to avoid or discontinue involvement in sport. This is particularly true for girls and young women who participate in sport at lower rates and quit at higher rates than boys and young men. Shifting the focus of sport away from winning can open space for a wider range of girls and young women to see themselves as athletes. Scholars have highlighted how story in the form of counter-narratives can play a role in changing readers’ perspectives. However, no attention has been paid to fictional representations of athletes engaging in non-competitive sport and how these depictions might invite girls and young women to imagine themselves differently in sporting spaces. This paper employs thematic inductive analysis to examine three, girl-centric young adult sports novels that work as counter-narratives to examine what happens when winning is not the central goal of participation in sport. Specifically, it explores what fictional young women athletes gain through their participation in non-competitive sport and what young adult readers might gain in their engagement with these titles. Findings reveal how participation in non-competitive sport gives the fictional athletes a sense of full personhood, confidence and pride in what their bodies can do, and connection with something larger than themselves. These titles can show readers that their engagement in sport is desirable, that non-competitive sport is beneficial to them, and that their engagement in sport is possible, that non-competitive sport is for them. The paper suggests that stories of non-competitive sport have the potential to open equitable access by inviting more young people, particularly those who have not seen themselves in stories of sport, to engage as athletes.

Where the Past Meets the Future. The Perspective on Time in War Girls by Tochi Onyebuchi

In War Girls (2019) by Tochi Onyebuchi, the Nigerian civil war becomes an instrument in the creation of a future shaped by conflicts, technological growth, and environmental crisis. With space colonies and cybernetics, the world of tomorrow offers a great potential wasted by the re‑enactment of the scenario from the past. The adolescent protagonists Onyii and Ify are separated by war and used by the leaders of opposite sides, while they could represent the new generations working for a different future. The article analyzes the perspective adopted by Onyebuchi, who combines African futurism, climate fiction, SF and young adult literature tropes to write a Biafran War novel, where the harmful behaviors from the past are repeated in the cycles of time to the detriment of the future. In the center of the analysis is located the question of the impact the novel should have on the young adult reader, supposedly encouraged by the author to bring change into the patterns of thought underlying humanity’s recurring errors.

Trends in Young Adult Literature. A Glance at American and British Fantasy with an Eye on the Transylvanian Variant

Abstract The present paper looks at the main contemporary trends in writing literature for young adult readers The theoretical part focuses on possible definitions and characteristics of young adult literature by distinguishing it from children’s literature and adult fiction, as well as by establishing the different age groups these novels are written for The practical part of the paper gives examples of different types of novels written for this particular audience, such as J K Rowling’s prominent Harry Potter series, but also Lois Lowry’s The Giver or Meg Cabot’s Abandon trilogy At the end, the study also presents a Transylvanian author who has recently started writing fantasy for young adults, namely Balázs Zágoni, and his Black Light series

“The secret is that the secret changes”: Sex and Taboo in India and Indian Young Adult Fiction

Mainstream film and media in India constantly expose children and young adults to sexually explicit, misogynistic, homophobic and transphobic content, while opposing the need for sex education in schools – a dichotomy which exposes a deep-rooted taboo regarding sex and sexuality education that perpetuates situations like the spate of gruesome rapes and child sexual abuse across the country in the last decade. To examine this paradox and its effects, this paper does a close reading of a few select contemporary young adult novels as a form of rebellion against prevalent taboos regarding sex and sexuality in India and a subversive mode of sexuality education among its young adult readers. Issues of slut-shaming, revenge porn and blackmail, online abuse and consent are predominant in these books and this paper explores the detrimental effects of this persistent taboo about sex among youth in India through these books – <em>Mayil Will Not be Quiet!</em> (2008), <em>Mostly Madly Mayil</em> (2013), <em>This is Me, Mayil</em> (2018), <em>Facebook Phantom</em> (2013), <em>Talking of Muskaan</em> (2014) and <em>The Lies We Tell</em> (2019) – and address the critical silence regarding Sex and Young Adults in India. It attempts to do so by studying the texts against the definitions and development of the taboos and prejudices about sex and sexuality across Indian history and culture which continue to be used in the argument against the need for sex education for young adults, which this paper reads as an act of exerting power to control the private lives and personal choices of minors.

Graphic Memoirs of the Middle East for Young Adult Readers

The religious, political, and social complexities of the Middle East and its individual countries may be difficult for younger readers to navigate via traditional text. Graphic novels provide an accessible way for readers to learn about life in the region. Specifically, graphic memoirs, many of which feature coming-of-age accounts, may help readers learn about religion in the Middle East while also relating to the authors and the stories they tell. This article presents a brief history of graphic novels and a discussion of the prevalence of religious narratives and themes in some of the most well-known graphic memoirs. This is followed by a select bibliography of autobiographical graphic memoirs in which the authors address living in or visiting countries in the Middle East. The graphic memoirs discussed in this bibliography are appropriate for readers ranging in age from tweens to young adults.

Information-seeking behaviors of young adult readers of fiction and fan fiction

Understanding the differences in how young adult readers search for fiction and fan fiction to read and their preferred search methods may allow libraries to better serve this population by providing the kinds of information that these readers desire to know prior to reading a creative work.

Who Wins? The Politics of Prize Culture in Canada’s CODE Burt Awards

This article discusses a book prize administered by the Canadian Organization for Development through Education (CODE) - the CODE Burt Award for First Nations, Inuit and Métis Literature, created to prize books aimed at young adult readers. It examines CODE's statements about the prize, which solicited funding by associating the cultivation of leisure reading with socio-economic development for Indigenous communities in Canada. It also considers how the prize reinforced links between Indigenous writing and social responsibility.

Literature for self-discovery. Looking into adolescence through graphic novels

Graphic novels are one of the most appreciated and popular genres of contemporary children and young adults’ literature. This art form attracts young readers not only because of an attentive juxtaposition of words and images, but also because of the complex topics it addresses. Teenagers and young adults see themselves portrayed in the pages of their favourite graphic works as they depict real, personal experiences linked to their coming of age. Graphic novels offer depictions of young boys and girls who struggle to find their own, personal path, to understand their feeling, to build their identity beyond stereotypes. This literature is particularly complex and captivating in relation to subjects such as gender, sexuality, friendship, family bonds, social relationships, and various contemporary cultural issues. The present paper aims to offer an overview of some of the most compelling and appreciated graphic novels for young adult readers and to explore how they deal with subjects related to identity, self-discovery, equality. Through a brief analysis of some selected works, the study wants to compare and investigate these books in order to understand the literary strategies selected by authors to portray young adults’ lives and struggles. The graphic novel stands as a medium that encourages reflection, self-discovery, awareness and empowerment in a liminal and complex phase of life as adolescence and early adulthood.

Przekłady polskich książek dla dzieci o tematyce proekologicznej i środowiskowej w Korei Południowej

This article discusses the introduction of Polish books to children and young adult readers in South Korea. Its particular focus is on picture books which address environmental issues. Wioletta Hajduk-Gawron and Younghwa Kim examine the conditions favourable to the presence of translations of Polish books on the Korean publishing market, the phenomenon of the picture book and the values of eco-education through literature. Using several books as examples, the authors conduct a sample analysis of the chosen strategies used by publishers in the selection of books to be translated. They also examine strategies used in adapting a Polish book for the different cultural context; these strategies involve explication and textual or graphic modifications.

Of Men and Masculinity: The Portrayal of Masculinity in a Selection of Award-Winning Australian Young Adult Literature

This research investigates the portrayal of masculinity in Australian young adult novels published in 2019. The novels were taken from the 2020 Children’s Books Council of Australia (CBCA) Book of the Year for Older Readers Notables List. Established in 1946, these annual awards are considered the most prominent and prestigious in Australian children’s and young adult literature and are likely to be accessible and promoted to young readers in schools and libraries. The three texts studied were Four Dead Queens by Astrid Scholte, The Boy who Steals Houses by C.G. Drews, and This is How We Change the Ending by Vikki Wakefield. Using a Critical Content Analysis methodology (Beach et al., 2009), researchers completed a review of the literature and theories around masculinity and chose to analyse three exemplary texts using the attributes of the Hegemonic Masculinity Schema (HMS) and Sensitive New Man Schema (SNMS) as described by Romøren and Stephens (2002). Attributes from the HMS include traits and behaviours like being violent, physical or verbal bullying, and hostile to difference while attributes from the SNMS include being supportive, affectionate, and considerate and respectful of the space and feelings of others (especially females). In this method, researchers identify examples of the attributes within the main characters and minor characters from each of the three books, recording quotes and noting critical incidents depicting aspects of masculinity. Notable findings of the research include the acknowledgment and portrayal of a particular conception of hegemonic masculinity in the selected novels often informed or shaped by the presence of dominant father figures and the absence of the concept of “the mother.” The characters who aligned to the schema used within this research are often overshadowed by a dominant father figure who conformed to an extreme version of hegemonic masculinity and who shaped their child’s actions even if the fathers were absent from the novel. The research reveals commonly held conceptions of masculinity aligned to those used in the schema and demonstrated that young adult literature, like popular media, can be used as a vehicle for the dissemination of such concepts and reveal contemporary understandings of it. Outputs from this research include the development of a modified and more contemporary schema which could be applied to future research. Significantly, this interdisciplinary research bridges the library, education and literature fields to examine the different ways maleness and masculinity are depicted to young adult readers in prize-nominated Australian young adult novels.

Influenza-1918.

Editor's note: From its first issue in 1900 through to the present day, AJN has unparalleled archives detailing nurses' work and lives over more than a century. These articles not only chronicle nursing's growth as a profession within the context of the events of the day, but they also reveal prevailing societal attitudes about women, health care, and human rights. Today's nursing school curricula rarely include nursing's history, but it's a history worth knowing. To this end, From the AJN Archives highlights articles selected to fit today's topics and times. This month's article is by public health expert Dorothy Deming, whose many roles over her long career included director of the Visiting Nurse Association in Holyoke, Massachusetts; editor of Public Health Nursing; and author of the Penny Marsh: Public Health Nurse series for young adult readers. In her October 1957 AJN article, Deming recalls her experiences as a nursing student in New York City during the 1918 influenza pandemic. She and a classmate managed a 32-bed women's influenza unit through 12-hour night shifts, a "baptism of fire for a young nurse," she writes. Deming describes shifts that sound eerily familiar given today's COVID-19 pandemic: overcrowded units, staff shortages, patients whose condition could change "in split seconds," and the emotional impact of working under these conditions. For more on COVID-19 in this issue, see "Standardizing the Accommodations Process for Health Care Workers During COVID-19."-Betsy Todd, MPH, RN.

Greed and Rapacity in Twilight and Vampire Academy: Kleinian Models of Maturation for Young Adult Readers

This paper considers the Twilight novels alongside the Vampire Academy books, as young adult readers regularly invoke these series as touchstones of the contemporary adolescent Gothic genre. The abiding appeal of these vampire novels is related to the ways they reflect the experiences of young adults with the rapacity and greed displayed in our time, especially in our recent financial crises. This paper examines the limitations of Stephenie Meyer's resolution to the conflicts attending growing up among vampires through a comparative analysis of her novels and those of Richelle Mead. The theories of psychologist Melanie Klein about infant development are used to show that these two series represent different responses to the greed of our times. Klein's insights distinguish Meyer's Bella Swan and Mead's Rose Hathaway with respect to their psychic integration and in the way each models a process for readers of dealing with a society structured by vampiric rapacity. Bella learns to control herself in the stage Klein calls persecutory anxiety, but without the larger-scale integration that betokens maturity. She displays an acceptance of the fundamental nature of her world, with no attempt to revise or improve it beyond gaining peace for her own household. Rose achieves a better balance on the personal level, and she works to effect change in the fabric of her society. Her actions convey a message of hope to readers with respect to the struggles they must undergo in their own world. The contrasting way of dealing with societal greed that is exemplified by these books is especially important to young adults who are in the process of developing their personal identity, providing them with assistance with the anxiety attending their changing attitudes to financial responsibilities.

Bibliophilia, Bibliomania or Bibliokleptomania ? Liesel's Passionate Love Affair with Books in Markus Zusak's The Book Thief

Abstract Liborum necesse est se faciat amatorem. Perhaps, as this Latin proverb suggests, it is necessary to fall in love with books, to turn them into lovers. But what happens when this passionate love affair spins out of control? In The Book Thief (2005), Markus Zusak's novel aimed equally at young adult and adult readers, the eponymous protagonist rarely engages with books because they afford stories of enchanting and enchaining interest. Rather, Liesel Meminger seems to hunt and enjoy books for quite different reasons than the delights of storytelling and pure entertainment. I first explore the laws of attraction which make books so beguiling to Liesel, before examining if this impulsive obsession of acquiring books has not become a blatant symptom of bibliomania, and more specifically of bibliokleptomania. After discussing the psychodynamical perception of what is often referred as book madness, I shall demonstrate these printed works in Markus Zusak's novel are much more than mere storytelling as they fulfil specific functions, all of which challenge the normative way of seeing texts, literary and otherwise.

Gendered Assumptions in the Framing of Fitness in Sports Nonfiction for Young Adult Readers

This Critical Comparative Content Analysis employs theories of poststructuralist feminism to examine two versions of a nonfiction fitness text for young adult readers, one written for females and one for males. The analysis reveals the persistent naming of gendered assumptions about the appropriateness of particular sports to particular athletes, purposes of fitness, understandings of the ideal athlete, and emotional capacity of young adult readers. These assumptions result in regular and repeated performances of gender that have the potential to suggest to readers that there are certain expectations around fitness that depend upon whether an athlete is a girl or a boy. Taken together, they reflect a particular positioning of athletes and expectations around performance, suggesting to readers that how bodies are shaped and how bodies perform are normative and distinctly gendered, a finding that holds particular resonance when we consider the authoritative nature of informational texts.

Books Received

Books Received Mark I. West Animals and Ourselves: Essays on Connections and Blurred Boundaries. Edited by Kathy Merlock Jackson, Kathy Shepherd Stolley, and Lisa Lyon Payne. McFarland, 2020. All of the essays in this collection are tied to the burgeoning field of animal studies. Several of the essays, however, also relate to children's literature and culture, including Stacy Hoult-Saros's "Beautiful Cockroaches and Featherless Birds: Anthropomorphism in Books for Latinx Children," Martin Woodside's "Cultivating Conservation: Childhood and Animalhood in the Fiction of Ernest Thompson Seton," and Mark I. West's "Animal/Human Relations in Two Prairie Tales by L. Frank Baum." Charles Godfrey Leland and His Magical Tales. Edited by Jack Zipes. Wayne State University Press, 2020. Charles Godfrey Leland made a name for himself as an American folklorist during the second half of the nineteenth century, but his reputation in the field of folklore studies has diminished because he often embellished the folk tales that he collected and published. In this new edited collection of Leland's tales, Jack Zipes argues that Leland's magical stories cannot be considered authentic folk tales, but they still have considerable literary merit. In addition to reprinting a selection of Leland's stories, Zipes provides a scholarly introduction in which he covers Leland's life and writing career. Creation and Beauty in Tolkien's Catholic Vision. By Michael John Halsall. Lutterworth Press, 2020. Michael John Halsall draws on his background as a Catholic priest and instructor of philosophy at Allen Hall Seminary in this study of J. R. R. Tolkien's writings. Halsall examines the theological and philosophical themes that run through Tolkien's works. Although Halsall does not focus on Tolkien's stories for children, he does include several passages about The Hobbit. Young Adult Literature: From Romance to Realism. 4th edition. By Michael Cart. ALA Neal-Schuman, 2021. In this latest edition of Young Adult Literature, Michael Cart completely updates his classic survey of YA literature. This new edition includes a greatly expanded discussion of multicultural and LGBTQIA+ literature intended for young adult readers. [End Page 94] Copyright © 2021 Children's Literature Association