Young Adult Texts Research Articles

Gender in Cross-Cultural Encounters: Orientalism and Self-Orientalisation in Chinese-Language Young Adult Fiction

AbstractIn this article, we read and analyse selected young adult novels by Chinese-German author Wei Cheng that address the dilemmas faced by young female Chinese immigrants in Western countries. The aim is to explore the ways in which the construction of femininity and gender are inextricably bound up with categories of race and ethnicity in China-West encounters, and to probe the dynamics of such encounters embedded in the larger socio-political power structures. Through a critical analysis of the representation of Chinese femininity vis-à-vis Western masculinity, the essay interrogates the workings of the “Orientalist gaze” in relation to patriarchy and gender politics. The portrayals of the cross-racial encounter in Shaonv de Hong Chenyi (The Girl’s Red T-Shirt), which reiterate received ideas about the Orient, may be read as a product of self-Orientalisation, where the intriguing position of the adolescent Chinese girl prompts a rethinking of postcolonial gendered subjectivities. While self-Orientalisation may work to legitimate the discourse of Orientalism, the reading of Shaonv de Hong Faqia (The Girl’s Red Hairpin) reveals the ways in which self-Orientalisation could function as strategic essentialism that allows the female “Oriental” Other to gaze back and stand Orientalism on its head. The marriage between gendered and postcolonial approaches to children’s and young adult texts promises to act as a crucial intervention in the global struggle against hegemony.

Exploring young adult texts within the Historically Responsive Literacy Framework with preservice teachers

AbstractWhile culturally responsive texts have become more common in teacher education, too often, preservice teachers (PTs) are not asked to examine how to use these books pedagogically. To address this issue, in a young adult (YA) literature course, the Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy (HRL) (Muhammad, 2000) Cultivating genius: An equity framework for culturally and historically responsive literacy, 2020; Scholastic) was used in conjunction with representative and inclusive YA trade books. Data analysis was conducted on PT's course work, including HRL unit plans, to determine whether PTs were able to implement Muhammad's (2020) framework using YA texts. The findings of this study show that PTs' understanding of the HRL tenets was at varying levels. While there were unit plans with learning goals that matched Muhammad's purpose and definition for each tenet and YA connections for every tenet, PTs showed a better understanding of the tenets of identity and intellect than skills and Criticality. Implications of these findings including exposing PTs to learning frameworks “written by people of color and designed for children of color” (Muhammad, 2020, p. 11) to create instruction that meets their future students' needs and does not just skim the surface of culturally responsive pedagogies.

Intertextuality in Young Adult Literature: A Study of Girl Online by Zoe Sugg

This article explores how intertextuality works in Young Adult literature, a key cultural trend of the 21st century. It focuses on Zoe Sugg’s novel Girl Online, a popular and representative example of this genre among young readers. The authors of the research aim to examine the features of intertextuality in this novel: they identify and describe the references to other texts and interpret the novel in relation to the cultural heritage of the past and the present. Using intertextual and contextual methods of analysis, they conclude that the novel’s potential reader is expected to “recognize” certain texts that are symbolic, “cult” or appealing to young people, and that are used as effective tools for creating a story that follows the parameters of mass culture. This also leads to a hypothesis that some types of texts, related to specific traditions and sources, are more dominant than others in the novel’s intertextuality. The study reveals that the novel Girl Online draws on, firstly, the literature of the past (well-known works of English classics that have a “cult” status); secondly, fairy tales; thirdly, products of contemporary, mostly youth, culture (other Young Adult texts, movies, cartoons, etc.); and finally, established narrative techniques that belong to various genres and are not bound by a specific time or place and that are updated by the author. These intertextual links make the novel successful.

Critical friendship and collegial conversations

In this reflective article, a case study, we draw upon scholarship on a critical friendship (Schuck & Russell, 2005; Silva, 2003) that grew in 2020 as we worked to assist one another in creating NWP writing programs for teachers and youth. At the heart of our professional collaboration was our desire to maintain and cultivate community engagement (Deans, Roswell, & Wurr, 2010; Preece, 2017), while advancing racial literacies in digital spaces (Price-Dennis & Sealey-Ruiz, 2021) and as we worked with a framework for instructional equity (Muhammad, 2020). Weekly meetings led us to using Padlet for 189 hours of professional development, 9 programs with 511 youth, and 7 courses with 320 students. Padlet became a location for curation, especially as we worked to promote diverse, inclusive children’s and young adult texts as models for classroom teacher and student writers.

THINKING QUEERLY: MEDIEVALISM, WIZARDRY, AND NEURODIVERSITY IN YOUNG ADULT TEXTS. By JesBattis. Edited by AliciaSpencer‐Hall. Premodern Transgressive Literatures, 1. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2021. . Pp. x + 241. Paper, N.p.

Religious Studies ReviewVolume 49, Issue 1 p. 59-59 Short Reviews of Recent Publications: Gender and Sexuality Studies THINKING QUEERLY: MEDIEVALISM, WIZARDRY, AND NEURODIVERSITY IN YOUNG ADULT TEXTS. By Jes Battis. Edited by Alicia Spencer-Hall. Premodern Transgressive Literatures, 1. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2021. . Pp. x + 241. Paper, N.p. First published: 24 April 2023 https://doi.org/10.1111/rsr.16296Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL No abstract is available for this article. Volume49, Issue1Special Issue: Unique Approaches to Christianity in Africa and BeyondMarch 2023Pages 59-59 RelatedInformation

The Theme of Outsiderness in Chicanx and Latinx Young Adult Literature: Self-Fashioning Identities, Canons, and Fields of Study

This review article focuses on the critical anthology Nerds, Goths, Geeks and Freaks: Outsiders in Chicanx and Latinx Young Adult Literature, edited by Trevor Boffone and Cristina Herrera (2020). The goal of this collection of essays is to fill the gap that exists in both Latinx cultural studies and children’s and young adult (YA) literature scholarship: the focus on US Latinx children’s and YA literature. Its second goal is to concentrate on Latina and Latino outsiders, who are also ignored in the above-mentioned fields of study, even when it comes to nerds, goths, geeks, and freaks. The anthology offers a necessary exploration of the double marginalisation of Latinx and queer, nerdy, geeky, or otherwise non-conformist teenagers and young adults. The authors analyse Latinx YA texts to capture the strategies and practices the protagonists use to reject or question the dominant Latinx/Chicanx identity scripts, self-fashion a new identity, or, simply, to survive. The article outlines the key problems and themes of the anthology and describes two additional goals of the editors: to create and reaffirm an emerging Latinx YA literary canon as well as to establish an academic field of Latinx YA literature studies. Moreover, key concepts from Latinx cultural theory are sketched out, and special emphasis is placed on the difference between theme and theory, which serves as the starting point for evaluating the collection’s achievements and shortcomings.

Expanding Preservice Teachers’ Conceptions about Disability Through Young Adult Literature

This article provides information and resources to help special education teacher educators improve preservice teachers’ competence for working with disabled1 students and addressing ableism in their classrooms, by incorporating young adult (YA) literature into special education teacher preparation experiences. Embedding YA literature with representations of disability can address ableism in education by helping preservice special education teachers to conceptualize disabled adolescents differently. Current approaches to teacher education may reinforce dysconscious ableism (Broderick & Lalvani, 2017) and undergird educational segregation on the basis of disability. After reviewing current literature on addressing ableism during teacher preparation and using YA literature in teacher education, this article models how special education teacher educators can critically examine YA texts by providing criteria for evaluating representations of disability and a unit plan with three lessons for use in an introductory special education course. A bibliography of young adult books featuring characters with disabilities is also provided.

“I’m Going to Be Straight, Just Like How My Father Would’ve Wanted”

While the increasing visibility of LGBTQ+ identities in recent young adult fiction has received much critical attention, such novels that contain the added complex distinction of adolescent male mental illness and recovery represent an underexamined area. This article produces readings of two recent young adult texts that feature gay male protagonists who experience mental illness: Adam Silvera’s More Happy Than Not (2015) and John Corey Whaley’s Highly Illogical Behaviour (2016). It investigates how the texts’ embedded heteronormative scripts, relationships between the symptoms and the self, and frameworks of health-related shame are fraught with anxieties, producing a complex double movement that simultaneously establishes and undermines gay males’ control over their mental illnesses and recovery trajectories to move the characters between spaces of empowerment and marginalization.

Queering the Book Club: Empathy Development Through Young Adult Literature in Australian Discussion Groups

Young Adult (YA) literature that focuses on the experiences of marginalized individuals and communities empowers young readers, challenges social stigma and discrimination, and supports identity formation. This article explores the impact of queer YA literature on young queer and questioning readers, with a specific focus on how it can develop empathy within its audience. We analyzed reader responses to queer representation through monthly focus groups with twenty-three queer-identifying participants. Over eight months the participants discussed pre-selected queer YA texts. We found that queer YA literature has the capacity to not only empower its readers, but to develop their capacity for empathy, challenge perceived social norms, and demonstrate the potential of literature as a tool for activism and advocacy. Showing younger readers diverse experiences within queer YA literature can support readers to see themselves reflected on the page, and challenge reductive and restrictive views about queer identities.

Indigenous Young Adult Novels: An Introduction

Indigenous Young Adult Novels:An Introduction Eric Gary Anderson (bio), Angela Calcaterra (bio), and Christopher Pexa (bio) This special issue participates in a watershed moment in the history of Indigenous Young Adult (YA) literature. In 2021, the American Library Association (ALA) for the first time awarded the Caldecott Medal for "the most distinguished American picture book for children" to an Indigenous artist, Michaela Goade (Tlingit), who illustrated We Are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom (Turtle Mountain). The following year, the ALA for the first time presented a Newbery Medal Honor Award for "distinguished contribution to American literature for children" to an Indigenous writer, Darcie Little Badger (Lipan Apache), for her novel A Snake Falls to Earth. The ALA also included several Indigenous works in its "2022 Notable Children's Books" list: Ancestor Approved: Intertribal Stories for Kids, edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith (Muscogee Creek), whose novel Hearts Unbroken (2018) is the subject of one of the essays in this issue; Borders by Thomas King (Cherokee); Healer of the Water Monster by Brian Young (Navajo Nation); Sharice's Big Voice: A Native Kid Becomes a Congresswoman by Sharice Davids (Ho-Chunk) and Nancy K. Mays; and We Are Still Here! Native American Truths Everyone Should Know by Traci Sorell (Cherokee). Such mainstream recognition and approbation is, of course, but part of the story. Indigenous people have been telling stories for young audiences for a very long time and writing children's and young adult books for well over one hundred years. From oral literatures that enthralled Indigenous youths gathered around the fire, to early written work by Charles Alexander Eastman (Dakota), Zitkála-Šá/Gertrude Bonnin (Yankton Dakota), Francis La Flesche (Omaha), Susette La Flesche (Omaha), and Luther Standing Bear (Lakota), to more recent YA texts including The Birchbark House (1999) by Louise Erdrich (Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa), The Night Wanderer (2007) by Drew Hayden Taylor (Curve Lake First Nations), Wabanaki Blues (2015) [End Page 265] by Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel (Mohegan), The Marrow Thieves (2017) by Cherie Dimaline (Georgian Bay Métis), Apple in the Middle (2018) by Dawn Quigley (Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe), and Firekeeper's Daughter (2021) by Angeline Boulley (Anishinaabe), Indigenous authors have captivated young and adult audiences alike with stories that feature young protagonists, coming-of-age plots, and crucial insights about being and becoming in an often hostile world. Publications including Mandy Suhr-Sytsma's Self-Determined Stories (2019) and Debbie Reese (Nambé Owingeh) and Jean Mendoza's co-edited "American Indians in Children's Literature"—a blog devoted since 2006 to the critical analysis of Indigenous people in children's and YA literature and to the promotion of Indigenous-authored YA texts—have highlighted the long-standing significance of Native YA literatures for Indigenous communities. And the American Indian Library Association (AILA), founded in 1979 and an affiliate of the ALA, "addresses the library-related needs of American Indians and Alaska Natives. Members are individuals and institutions interested in the development of programs to improve Indian library, cultural, and informational services in school, public, and research libraries on reservations" ("About AILA"). Beginning in 2006, AILA has biennially presented the American Indian Youth Literature Awards, which are juried by a majority-Indigenous committee. Despite this important work, however, scholarship largely has not kept up with the proliferation and increasing visibility of Indigenous YA literature. For this special issue, we wanted to instigate a timely intervention by gathering essays that examine Indigenous YA novels both in their own right and in conversation with the conventions of settler YA fiction more broadly. But, as these essays clearly demonstrate, what is most needed right now is detailed consideration of the texts themselves and the ways they negotiate the continuing systemic presence of a settler colonialism that reaches much farther and deeper than just settler YA writing. This is to say that the most pressing questions and concerns these authors raise about Indigenous YA fiction are the same pressing concerns and questions that drive much intellectual work in Native American and Indigenous Studies. The essays in this issue consider, for example, how Indigenous YA fiction addresses Indigenous sovereignty, community, resistance, resurgence, trauma, fear, dreams, desires, and futurities. Like Indigenous...

Displacement in Young Adult Literature: A Thematic Analysis.

Providing spaces for adolescents to make sense of the world around them is often the work of educators, specifically those in Language Arts classrooms. In the current historical moment, adolescents often must make sense of the ways socio-political conflict impacts their world. Displacement, often an effect of socio-political conflict, is increasingly a theme in adolescents’ lives, and therefore a prevalent theme in the ways they see the world. Providing spaces for adolescents to discuss their relationships to displacement through Young Adult (YA) texts can provide educators a possible way to support to adolescents at this critical time in their lives. Using affect theory to analyze the ways emotion moves through YA texts and reading bodies, this article examines four YA texts: When Stars Are Scattered (Jamieson et al., 2020), Between Shades of Gray (Sepetys, 2011), Kira Kira (Kadohata, 2006), and They Called Us Enemy (Takei et al., 2019). In examining these YA texts, this article seeks to understand how displacement moves through each text and impacts adolescent characters.

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Mathematical Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors: Young Adult Texts as Sites for Identifying With Mathematics

AbstractThis forum focuses on the intersections of texts and identities with the aim of selecting and mediating texts that readers and writers find valuable within and outside of formal educational settings.

"Not Usually a Gawker": Fame, Notoriety, and Austenian Youth Culture

"Not Usually a Gawker":Fame, Notoriety, and Austenian Youth Culture Amy L. Montz (bio) At a nineteenth-century academic conference a few years ago, another female scholar and I spoke with a male scholar about our work. When I mentioned I worked on Jane Austen, the male scholar said, quite disbelievingly, "What does Austen write about other than romance?" The female scholar and I looked at each other in shock and, completely unplanned, both said at the same time, "Well, money." When the male scholar expressed more disbelief, we launched into quite the impassioned tale of the Bennet sisters, close to homelessness, and the Bennet mother, desperate for her daughters. What Austen writes as comedy, we said, was actually a bitter truth for so many women in the nineteenth century. Too middle class to go to work—remember, this is before the Hungry Forties and the great onslaught of Jane Eyres searching for governess positions—the heroines of Austen's novels, excepting Emma, of course, are desperate about money. Anne Elliot, whose blackguard father spends all his family's money on elaborate clothes and lodgings, the Dashwood sisters, reliant on the meager generosity of their step-brother, and Fanny Price, poor cousin, are perhaps less famous than the Bennet sisters, but all experience the same concerns of the nineteenth century: the strictures placed upon women due to class, socioeconomic status, and concerns over modesty. Part of Austen's appeal in contemporary culture is that very romance the male scholar scoffed at: these Bennet sisters, for good or ill, exist in a world of seemingly make-believe: balls and dresses, handsome gentlemen in possession of good fortunes who, it must be imagined, are in want of equally handsome wives. The Bennet sisters, particularly Jane and Lizzie, seem to represent what it means to be a Regency woman. Except, of course, they do not, because what is often glossed over in contemporary retellings of Austen is the desperateness of the Bennet mother, with the inheritance of Mr. Collins looming over her. She and her five daughters will be practically [End Page 78] homeless if Mr. Bennet dies and the estate and little amount of wealth turn over to Mr. Collins, the next male to inherit. The sparks that fly between Lizzie and Darcy are not those of attraction—well, not entirely—but those of class; it is a truth not-so-universally acknowledged in twenty-first-century retellings of Austen that a handsome gentleman of good fortune is certainly not in want of a wife of Lizzie's class. Lower middle-class, living a provincial life that does no one any good, over-educated for their station and age but without the accomplishments of the Bingley sisters, Lizzie and Jane technically have very little chance of good marriages. The fairy tale of Austen is that good triumphs over class in the end, but we all know, especially in light of the reality of the Regency era, that it is just a fairy tale. What is also often left forgotten are the concerns Pride and Prejudice raises over the titular pride, and prejudice, as well as gossip and social ranking. These aspects of social culture, however, transfer so easily to the twenty-first century, and through these aspects, I argue, we can understand contemporary teenagers as part of an Austenian youth culture. Claire LaZebnik's Young Adult (YA) novel Epic Fail presents an Austenian youth culture caught up in misunderstandings of fame. Like its nineteenth-century inspiration, Epic Fail responds to social anxieties regarding over-exposure of youth, and the dangers in the novel are the dark side of fame. The confusion over Darcy's character, the publicizing of Lydia's antics with Wickham, and the scandal of Georgiana are written as twenty-first-century concerns about youth culture's notoriety and their right to privacy in the contemporary age. Complicating these themes of teenagers' fame and notoriety is the metatextual fame of Austen's own novels, which have been lovingly incorporated into—and rewritten as—YA texts by many writers. Given the recent popularity of rewriting Austen, Epic Fail's concerns about over-exposure and the influence of fame are representative of...

The Sidekick Comes of Age: How Young Adult Literature is Shifting the Sidekick Paradigm by Stephen M. Zimmerly

Reviewed by: The Sidekick Comes of Age: How Young Adult Literature is Shifting the Sidekick Paradigm by Stephen M. Zimmerly Elisabeth Rose Gruner (bio) The Sidekick Comes of Age: How Young Adult Literature is Shifting the Sidekick Paradigm, by Stephen M. Zimmerly. Lexington, 2019. (Series: Children and Youth in Popular Culture) No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;Am an attendant lord, one that will doTo swell a progress, start a scene or two,Advise the prince; no doubt … (Eliot 7) While the concept of the sidekick brings Prufrock's rueful words irresistibly to mind for me, Stephen M. Zimmerly gives the character far more credit than either I or T. S. Eliot would. For Zimmerly, the sidekick—perhaps Horatio, but certainly not an unnamed lord—is a named character in a text, a character with substance and, most importantly, some significant relationship to the protagonist. That relationship is what occupies the majority of this somewhat slight but interesting book. Zimmerly's argument is that YA texts (a field he defines broadly—more about that in a moment) are expanding the role of the sidekick to the point of refiguring the hero/sidekick relationship altogether, calling into question the role itself. Zimmerly defines YA literature broadly: "if a text struggles with [the] central question of how adult identity should be shaped, it will be considered part of YA" (11). I'm not confident that even this broad definition encompasses such texts as The Hobbit (taken up in chapter one) or, for that matter, the Batman series, but the focus on the sidekick also requires attention primarily to quest, mystery, and adventure texts (see page 16). The intersection, then, of the two elements of Zimmerly's study yields up a few anomalies, such as treating The Hobbit, To Kill A [End Page 267] Mockingbird, The Incredibles, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (to name just a few) as Young Adult texts. Carping about definitions aside, I find that the book does a nice job of taking the issue of character in the novel seriously. An introductory chapter takes readers on a brief tour of the study of character in the novel—and it is brief, as he notes, citing Seymour Chatman: "It is remarkable how little has been said about the theory of character in literary history and criticism" (1). Given the tendency of child and adolescent readers—and, indeed, their teachers—to focus on "identification" as a primary reading strategy, one might think that character would come in for rather more attention. However, aside from Maria Nikolajeva's The Rhetoric of Character in Children's Literature and more recent work in cognitive studies, literary critics have, I think, rather preferred to ignore or reject the naivete of such readings and therefore missed the opportunity to theorize character more carefully. I appreciate Zimmerly's efforts, therefore, to recognize "the particular power the secondary character can have for adolescent readers in experiencing growth and finding one's place in the world" (3). Without insisting—indeed, resisting—a naively identificatory reading strategy, one may still examine the function of particular character types in fiction and explore their meaning. After that brief introduction, the book unfolds in five chapters and a short conclusion. Zimmerly's approach is, broadly speaking, structuralist, so he is most concerned with establishing a typology and only secondarily with in-depth analysis of texts. The first two chapters discuss fairly well-established typologies, quickly reviewing a variety of "classic sidekick roles" in chapter one ("narrative gateway," devil's advocate, comic relief, and foil) and exploring several ways sidekicks can operate as family surrogates in chapter two. Some of these readings are, it must be said, somewhat idiosyncratic. For example, in order to define his term "narrative gateway," Zimmerly offers up Scout, from To Kill A Mockingbird, as sidekick rather than protagonist, noting that she provides insight into the more enigmatic Jem, as Watson does to Holmes in the Sherlock Holmes mysteries. (All of chapter one provides pairings of novels for adults with novels for adolescents to establish the sidekick types.) While an argument that interprets Scout as sidekick might be interesting, Zimmerly does not make...

Moments of Pause: Understanding Students’ Shifting Perceptions During a Muslim Young Adult Literature Learning Experience

AbstractAlthough scholarship has examined the representation of Muslim characters and/or followers of Islam in literature for children and young adults and provided reference materials for classroom instruction, the incorporation of Muslim literature in classroom contexts has been largely unexplored. Drawing from Braun and Clarke's conception of thematic analysis as a methodological approach, the authors describe the shifting perceptions of a high school English class as student participants read and discussed young adult texts centered on Muslim protagonists and the religion of Islam. Findings offer a graphic display for understanding the participants’ shifting perceptions and how the learning experience ultimately resulted in students’ ability and willingness to challenge their initial beliefs about Muslim cultures and Islam.

Digital Curation, AustLit, and Australian Children's Literature

This paper examines the effects of curatorial processes used to develop children's literature digital research projects in the bibliographic database AustLit. Through AustLit's emphasis on contextualising individual works within cultural, biographical, and critical spaces, Australia's literary history is comprehensively represented in a unique digital humanities space. Within AustLit is BlackWords, a project dedicated to recording Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander storytelling, publishing, and literary cultural history, including children's and young adult texts. Children's literature has received significant attention in AustLit (and BlackWords) over the last decade through three projects that are documented in this paper. The curation of this data highlights the challenges in presenting ‘national’ literatures in countries where minority voices were (and perhaps continue to be) repressed and unseen. This paper employs a ‘resourceful reading’ approach – both close and distant reading methods – to trace the complex and ever-evolving definition of ‘Australian children's literature’.

Rewriting the school story through racebending in the Harry Potter and Raven Cycle fandoms

Racebending fan work has the potential to be a productive site of postcolonial critique. In a close analysis of two racebending young adult literature texts—the titular hero of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series (1997–2007) and major character Ronan Lynch from Maggie Stiefvater's Raven Cycle (2012–16)—fans' racebending of the primary characters permits postcolonial revision by challenging the predominantly white worlds they depict as well as recuperating the erasure of diaspora by other fans who insist Britishness and Irishness equate to whiteness. Racebending Harry and Ronan fan works center around queer romances: Harry with school rival Draco Malfoy and Ronan with his in-series boyfriend, Adam Parrish. Racebent Harry fan work, particularly work incorporating a queer romance with Draco, creates a space for fans to imagine alternative possibilities for the series beyond the heteronormative, hegemonic conclusion represented in Rowling's epilogue. Similarly, racebending Ronan offers a depiction of soft black masculinity and loving queer romance that subverts the common association of blackness with anger and aggression. By depicting two characters of color at the center of these queer schoolboy romances, fans disrupt the white homoeroticism and imperialism of the school story genre upon which both series draw.

Contemporary British Children’s Fiction and Cosmopolitanism by Fiona McCulloch

Reviewed by: Contemporary British Children’s Fiction and Cosmopolitanism by Fiona McCulloch Rebecca Rowe (bio) Contemporary British Children’s Fiction and Cosmopolitanism. By Fiona McCulloch. New York: Routledge, 2017. Fiona McCulloch convincingly draws a connection between the contemporary British political climate and how young adult texts approach difference. McCulloch moves beyond multiculturalism by turning to the concept of cosmopolitanism, which she defines as “allow[ing] for a space in which differences can be celebrated and communitarian empathy offered” (2). She argues that this concept of cosmopolitanism, while potentially fraught with the same problems as multiculturalism, can be more useful because it focuses on celebrating difference and making connections through mutual empathy rather than erasing difference in order to create ordered sameness. She finds that this concept has been applied predominantly to adults, both in politics and in literature, whereas in Great Britain cosmopolitanism is a largely youth-led movement. Thus Contemporary British Children’s Fiction and Cosmopolitanism makes a case for how cosmopolitan young adult literature can positively affect the current conception of cosmopolitanism and tomorrow’s British citizens. McCulloch contends that the best exemplars of British cosmopolitanism are Scottish young adult novels written by women since devolution, the decentralization of power in Great Britain. She argues that devolution has had the biggest impact in Scotland, where the 2014 election for independence came close to passing, revealing a rise in youth political activism. According to McCulloch, this new wave of citizens is pressing for cosmopolitanism, for a revised sense of nationalism that recognizes difference on personal, communal, and national levels while also encouraging empathetic connection. Women writers in particular bring this movement together with feminism to form what McCulloch calls cosmofeminism, a cosmopolitanism that is nonhierarchical and engages many different ways of thinking and perspectives, as much feminist theory today urges. This way of thinking recognizes difference but does not rank it; it negotiates boundaries between people and identities, remaining flexible as concepts change and grow. Ultimately, she argues that texts for adolescents written by Scottish women are best able to encapsulate this nonhierarchical, mobile sense of national interconnectivity, teaching these traits to the rising generation of citizens. McCulloch breaks the book into three sections, with each chapter analyzing one text to demonstrate different ways that female authors can and do engage British cosmopolitanism. In part 1, “Ethical Endeavours,” she explores “the cosmopolitical routes charted” in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series and Jackie Kay’s Strawgirl “in their endeavours to encourage ethical post-devolution nationhood” (29). She argues that both of these authors are positively affecting young people by demonstrating how people can learn empathy through difference. Part 2, “Conflict and Conciliation,” focuses on Theresa Breslin’s Divided City, Gillian Cross’s Where I Belong, [End Page 120] and Kerry Drewery’s A Brighter Fear, all of which “interrogate contemporary conflicts, including domestic sectarianism and global warfare” (31). While McCulloch holds that Divided City successfully “considers the detrimental impact of static territorial national domesticity and encourages . . . readers to recognise others within a mobilised global home of cosmopolitan hospitality” (84), she demonstrates that due to their foreign settings, Where I Belong and A Brighter Fear, which have similar messages, ultimately “speak over rather than up for the globally dispossessed” (98; orig. emphasis). Finally, part 3, “Future Freedoms,” “analyses YA futuristic dystopian worlds and how they are engaging with contemporary real-world politics through their narrative space,” focusing on Saci Lloyd’s Momentum and Julie Bertagna’s Exodus trilogy (31). McCulloch argues that these books offer young adults agency through the ability to see past authoritative regimes. As this summary highlights, one of the more impressive elements of this book is how its author explores topics, such as love and community, that are traditionally considered “sappy” or overly sentimental. Modern scholarship has often denigrated these themes as part of “lowly” women’s writing, and, as McCulloch points out, women have been the predominant writers of children’s fiction. She effectively demonstrates, however, how these themes can be used to empower children and young adults to make positive political changes along the lines of cosmopolitanism. While resisting easy gender binaries, she suggests that women writers tend to write paths away from...

WRITING FOR CHANGE: THE CASE FOR NARRATIVE PERSUASION TECHNIQUES

Narrative persuasion refers to the process by which people alter their attitudes and beliefs to match that of information provided in a narrative. Studies on the narrative tools contributing to attitude and belief change in the reader have produced results that provide direction for writers seeking to influence and inform the public. In this paper, I explore the narrative persuasion techniques used in two examples of Australian contemporary young adult texts designed to foster empathy for a marginalised group. These fictional works include Boy Overboard (Gleitzman 2002) and The Bone Sparrow (Fraillon 2016), both of which criticise Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers. The results of this research have informed the creative work for my PhD thesis, Boundless Plains, which focuses on the issue of Australia’s treatment of refugees and asylum seekers, with an emphasis on boat arrivals.