Exploring Privilege with Young Adult Literature

<p><b>How can trauma be represented ethically in young adult (YA) literature? This dissertation examines a variety of YA novels that explore the diverse traumas of the Holocaust, postcolonial displacement, and parental abuse, with a focus on the literary techniques used to represent trauma and how these techniques reflect a broader trauma theory. This dissertation also explores the evolution of trauma theory and the resulting shifts in YA literature, showing how literary strategies used to represent trauma in the 1990s are now being subverted or questioned in contemporary trauma theory and metafictional literary representations. Traditional traumatic realism seeks to create empathic unsettlement through a reproduction of the traumatic experience, while emerging traumatic metafiction asks us to remain open to new ways of representing trauma—often that of an ignored or marginalised group—outside of the accepted trauma canon. In the realm of YA literature, where the strict rules of children’s and adult literature do not apply, the resulting narrative styles and literary techniques are particularly fascinating as they attempt to speak to a young adult reader.</b></p> <p>The study of Holocaust literature in relation to trauma theory is already an established field; indeed, many cite Holocaust literature as the paradigm of trauma writing. Although this dissertation does examine traditional 1990s YA Holocaust literature, it also explores the unique ways contemporary YA authors writing about the Holocaust decades after the historical event are beginning to do so in order to reflect new ideas about the representation of trauma. Recent YA Holocaust novels may incite consideration of perpetrator trauma and intergenerational memory, or begin to question prescribed literary techniques and the assumed irrepresentability of Holocaust trauma.</p> <p>A second historical trauma often appearing in YA literature is postcolonial displacement, although many recent theorists believe that trauma theory in its traditional form is not adequate to address the complex issues of postcolonial texts. Created in response to mainly Western traumas such as the Holocaust, traditional trauma theory is event-based and individual, and often ignores the insidious, cultural traumas of non-Western groups. In an effort to break free from the prescribed “trauma aesthetic” and contribute towards a decolonisation of trauma theory, this dissertation reflects a turn from the trauma writing strategies that work to great effect in Holocaust literature to metafictional and alternative methods such as self-reflexive allegory and appropriation that may be used by contemporary postcolonial trauma authors.</p> <p>The third chapter of this dissertation focuses on literature including parental abuse, a common yet seldom studied theme in YA literature. Like postcolonial displacement, this insidious form of trauma calls for a non-event-based theory and method of representation. Here I chart a shift from the traumatic realism strategies often used in the trauma writing of the 1990s to current traumatic metafiction techniques. These new methods do not render the former methods obsolete, but do ask a reader to critically re-evaluate accepted representations of family abuse trauma, such as through a fairy tale framework or the consistent trope of repression, as our understanding of traumatic experience and memory evolves.</p>

Purpose The purpose of this study is to provide description and synthesis of 17 transactional metaphors of inclusive representation for children’s and young adult (YA) literature. These literary transactional metaphors evolved from Sims Bishop’s (1990) foundational metaphor of literature as windows, mirrors and sliding glass doors. The subsequent metaphors were created in the past 11 years, indicating a recent momentum and interest in the usefulness of metaphors to describe inclusive representations in literature. Design/methodology/approach This scholarly literature review examined existing publications on transactional metaphors for children’s and YA literature that evolved from Sims Bishop’s (1990) work. The authors created a synthesis that considers how the metaphors can be used by educators and librarians for guiding critical dialogues with literature. Findings To describe the kinds of transactions that readers might experience, the authors identified three metaphor categories: critical metaphors that explore power dynamics, decolonial metaphors that challenge colonial narratives and work toward sovereignty, and speculative metaphors that imagine possible, liberatory futures. Practical implications For each metaphor category, the authors provide discussion questions to guide readers in critically analyzing inclusive representations in texts. These questions support educators and librarians in enacting critical, decolonial, and speculative readings of children’s and YA literature with youth. Originality/value The authors, like many children’s and YA literature scholars and teacher educators, have used Sims Bishop’s (1990) windows, mirrors and doors metaphors for years, but the authors have not found a compilation of subsequent metaphors in one article. This synthesis collects the existing metaphors and presents original conclusions and applications.

<p>Young adult literature has never shied away from taboo topics, particularly if the topics effect or concern adolescents. Recent studies have indicated that one fifth of the American population, about 50 million people including children and adults, live with some form of mental illness. Mental illness is clearly an issue that impacts young people, yet there are very few examples of authentic representations of characters with profound mental illness in young adult (YA) literature. This article discusses two texts that contribute to stereotypes about mental illness.</p>

Young adult fiction has emerged as a crucial pedagogical tool for Holocaust education. According to scholars and writers, it promotes empathy and also encourages the readers to become a part of the process of remembering. However, this field of storytelling also grapples with the dilemma of traumatic subject matter and its suitability for young readers. The humanist conventions of young adult fiction are often in conflict with the bleak and horrifying core of Holocaust literature. Young adult novelists have tried to deal with these problematic aspects by using multiple narrative strategies to integrate the memories of genocide and human rights abuse with the project of growth and socialisation that lies at the heart of young adult literature. This paper examines the narrative strategies that make young adult fiction an apt bearer and preserver of the traumatic past. Specifically, these strategies involve fantastical modes of storytelling, liminality and witness testimonies told to the second- and third-generation listeners. These strategies modify the humanist resolution of young adult narratives by integrating growth with collective responsibility.

Reviewed by: “Unsuitable” Books: Young Adult Fiction and Censorship by Caren J. Town, and: Literary Conceptualizations of Growth: Metaphors and Cognition in Adolescent Literature by Roberta Seelinger Trites Amanda M. Greenwell (bio) “Unsuitable” Books: Young Adult Fiction and Censorship, by Caren J. Town. Jefferson: McFarland, 2014. Literary Conceptualizations of Growth: Metaphors and Cognition in Adolescent Literature, by Roberta Seelinger Trites. Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2014. Authors and critics of adolescent literature have long argued for its significance to the adolescent experience of its readers. In the two books under review, Caren J. Town and Roberta Seelinger Trites weigh in on the nature of this significance in vastly different ways. In “Unsuitable” Books: Young Adult Fiction and Censorship, Town joins the fight to keep controversial literature for young adults in our libraries and schools by emphasizing its helpfulness to young people navigating the experience of adolescence. In Literary Conceptualizations of Growth: Metaphors and Cognition in Adolescent Literature, the second volume of John Benjamins’s Children’s Literature, Culture, and Cognition (CLCC) series, Trites examines and interrogates the seemingly ubiquitous growth narrative that underpins most adolescent literature. Each book, aimed at a different audience (Town’s at teachers and library media specialists; [End Page 317] Trites’s at fellow scholars), focuses our attention on the messages we send about adolescence via its literature and our treatment thereof. With “Unsuitable” Books: Young Adult Fiction and Censorship, Caren J. Town sets out to “help give teachers and media specialists some of the ammunition they need in the fight against censorship” (1). In order to do so, Town’s main chapters focus on various well-known authors and texts that have appeared on the American Library Association’s Most Frequently Challenged Books list over the past several decades. While information about censorship informs a portion of the book—chapter one briefly surveys several issues pertinent to the problem of censorship in American public schools and the conclusion details “challenges ahead” (167) facing the teachers and librarians to whom the text is addressed—Town’s book is largely devoted to critical analyses that convey her praise for the texts under question. Each chapter develops a critical stance on the ways in which a particular work or works illuminate and wrestle with issues central to the adolescent experience. Town’s discussions are enriched by her engagement with literary critics who both bolster and challenge her own claims, and often she pays homage to the ambiguity of thematic import that tends to rankle censors who would rather a clear, positive, and arguably simplistic message be sent to readers. Running through the entire volume is an emphasis on the way these novels “tell the truth” (3), and on these truths Town has rested the force of her arguments, whether they are about exposing the realities of racism or encouraging the spirit of the individual. For instance, she defends the value of Mildred D. Taylor’s Cassie Logan stories by pointing out the “balance between empathy and outrage” (102) Taylor provokes by her portrayal of the Logan family’s saga in late nineteenth- / early twentieth-century Mississippi, and she details the way Jean Craighead George’s Julie of the Wolves creates a protagonist who “longs for and then rejects various culture and animal options [for identity], moving, eventually toward a hybrid identity all her own” (39). Here, Town posits, is a protagonist who provides readers “analogies to their own growth and development” (46). One of the strengths of Town’s book is that it elevates the typical discussion of censorship in public schools from the personal reactions of its often uninformed or overpressured stakeholders to the arena of literary criticism. This is not to say, of course, that teachers in our public schools do not engage in the discourse of literary analysis regularly (I speak from experience here, as a former English/Language Arts [End Page 318] teacher and a current educator of preservice teachers). Rather, due to the time-sensitive nature of most local censorship attempts (concerned parents, for instance, often want texts removed from shelves immediately or their child removed from a classroom within hours of an e-mail or phone call), teachers and librarians can find themselves forced...

<p>Young Adult (YA) literature has taken the publishing industry by storm since J.K. Rowling published the first novel of her Harry Potter saga (1997-2007). From then on, the genre has exponentially grown expanding to other media, such as the film industry, videogames, theme parks as well as merchandise. The Spanish-speaking markets have mirrored the English-speaking ones thoroughly embracing the genre. Indeed, it is thanks to the continuous sales growth in this sector of the market that the book industry has kept afloat in the last two decades. New Zealand’s recent rise in popularity among young Spaniards and Hispanic Americans alike, in part because of the working holiday visa schemes between New Zealand and several Spanish-speaking countries, and in part on account of the featuring of the country in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings (2001-2003) and The Hobbit (2012-2014) trilogies, has created an opportune moment to introduce New Zealand YA authors to the Hispanic market. Elizabeth Knox’s Southland saga (Dreamhunter (2005), Dreamquake (2007) and Mortal Fire (2013), with a fourth and fifth novels under way), is a fine example of New Zealand YA literature that has the potential to follow the success of other franchises, such as Cassandra Clare’s The Mortal Instruments saga (2007-2014) and Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight saga (2005-2008). Knox’s YA novels have been internationally acclaimed in the English-speaking world and have received several prizes; this makes them an ideal showcase to introduce New Zealand YA writers to the Spanish-speaking audiences. Therefore, this thesis has a twofold objective. On the one hand, it presents a comprehensive list of challenges and difficulties encountered when translating the imaginary world in which Knox’s three YA novels are set, which can also apply to the translation of other New Zealand YA novels. Each of these challenges is accompanied by one or more strategies to provide possible solutions. On the other hand, the thesis aims at producing a commercially viable version of the novels targeting a wide Spanish-speaking readership A theoretical discussion precedes the translation samples in which issues such as foreignisation versus domestication (Venuti 1995) are considered, as well as the suitability of a standardised target language. The translations are carried out under the umbrella of a potential Skopos (Reiss and Vermeer 2014) as if they had been commissioned for a wide Spanish-speaking market. General issues including target language considerations and the translation of cultural words (Newmark 1988, 94) are analysed within the frame of the previous theoretical discussion. In addition, specific linguistic and textual issues particular to Knox’s YA novels are tackled to illustrate the complexities of rendering the imaginary world of the Southland saga into Spanish. The aim of this thesis is to produce a version which, complying with a potential Skopos, is suitable for the Spanish-speaking market as well as compiling a comprehensive list of translation challenges and possible solutions particular to the genre with a focus in New Zealand. The result is a translation that not only preserves but also heightens the New Zealand origin of the source text while maintaining readability and fluidity in the target language.</p>

Reviewed by: Young Adult Literature, Libraries, and Conservative Activism by Loretta M. Gaffney Nadia Clifton (bio) Young Adult Literature, Libraries, and Conservative Activism. By Loretta M. Gaffney. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017. In this book, Loretta M. Gaffney explores young adult literature as a cultural and political phenomenon. By considering critiques and defenses of this literature and detailing the history and importance of librarians in shaping its canon, Gaffney jumps into a lively and strongly opinionated discussion on the relevance, importance, and role of young adult literature in the lives of teenagers. Each chapter includes historical background to bring the reader into the long conversation about adolescent literature, providing context for its ongoing discussion. By exploring the politics and power relationships in the act of reading, Gaffney puts forward a vision of these texts’ extensive impact. As she writes, “YA Literature is not simply a collection of books: it is an idea about the value of youthful perspectives, the importance of forging identities and communities, and the power and possibility of public reading” (54). [End Page 118] In the introductory chapter, Gaffney lays the groundwork for productive ways of reading young adult novels. First, she defines adolescent literature in a way that goes beyond the age of protagonist or reader. She encourages a focus on literature that is more political, literature with young protagonists that explores and critiques society as well as books focused on the teenage perspective of what she calls “the eternal present,” a description of the teenager’s ability to “live in the heat of the moment” (6; orig. emphasis). She continues by outlining the history of the form, its foundational novels, and its slow yet steady rise in academia. Finally, she introduces the three main concepts that she proposes should be used for reading adolescent literature and its criticism: aesthetics, pedagogy, and pleasure. Each of these reading strategies is given its own space for further exploration in chapters 3, 4, and 5. Chapter 2 addresses the intended audience of adolescent literature: teenagers. The reigning narrative is that teens are “reluctant” readers. Concern about youth reading, especially recreational reading, is not new, dating back at least to the dime novels of the nineteenth century. The perpetuation of this narrative, however, leads to an image of teenage readers that Gaffney argues is limiting. Since teens engage in a combination of print and digital literacies, she advocates that a new definition of reading be constructed and applied when observing teen reading practices today. This combination of print and digital literacies creates a situation where rather than simply being passive consumers of information, adolescent readers are also active creators, especially online. Traditional stereotypes and theories influence how we construct these readers, and we often forget to take them at face value. A qualitative analysis is more productive than a quantitative one, especially the realization that they read for pleasure rather than information. We must also remember to take into account the actual reading practices of teenagers, not those that we impose upon them. Chapter 3 discusses aesthetics, the first of Gaffney’s three strategies for reading young adult literature. A historical context reveals that librarians were the first group to insist on books for young people that were not just pedagogically useful, but aesthetically pleasing as well. In this way, librarians play an integral part in creating and growing the adolescent literary canon. This gatekeeper role, however, is criticized by those who argue about the merits of realistic versus fantasy literature within the canon. Today, Gaffney calls for an interrogation of the basis of defense for books: “If we elect to use literary quality or the canon as an answer to critics, the criteria for determining such quality must not go unexamined” (50). She also claims a role for librarians as the defenders of teens’ freedom to read. Although librarians must choose books that embody both literary quality and appeal, they also tend to recognize the importance of reader choice because the reader is the one who makes meaning from the text. Chapter 4 examines Gaffney’s second strategy, pedagogy, by addressing bibliotherapy and the problem novel. [End Page 119] Young adult literature tends to be viewed as books that...

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“Young Adult Literature in Transformation”Through a media attentive analysis of the novel Akavet by Ronnie Andersen (2014) and brief discussions of other popular novels for and about young adults, this article examines the way young adult literature develops in dialogue with digital and media-based impulses and the consequences this development may have for the predication of youth and the aesthetics and possible characteristics of young adult literature. The article is based on a materiality approach especially inspired by N. Katherine Hayles which has not previously been given attention in the reading of young adult literature or in discussions of possible characteristics of young adult literature. It also includes a discussion of and a variation of Hayles’ triad of form, content and medium, and it assigns a special role to the reader’s articulation inasmuch as Akavet entails a denaturalization of the reading process. From this basis it discusses the classic assumption that young adult literature is about young people’s development process from childhood to adulthood, outlining a passage characterized by linearity, maturity and growth. The article concludes that some young adult literature is realized on yet other premises and that Akavet can be seen as an exponent for a movement from young adult literature as stories of coming-of-age to stories of being-in-age.

Reviewed by: The Bloomsbury Introduction to Children's and Young Adult Literature by Karen Coats Lara Saguisag (bio) Karen Coats. The Bloomsbury Introduction to Children's and Young Adult Literature. Bloomsbury Academic, 2018. Students, educators, and scholars who are seeking comprehensive and accessible critical introductions to the study of children's and young adult literature have a few notable titles to choose from. Perry Nodelman and Mavis Reimer's The Pleasures of Children's Literature, originally published in 1991 with a third edition released in 2003, remains an essential introductory handbook on children's literature studies. In the more recent Reading Children's Literature: A Critical Introduction (2013), Carrie Hintz and Eric Tribunella cover a wide variety of forms, genres, and themes and skillfully guide readers in using the lens of age, race, indigeneity, gender, sexuality, and ability to arrive at nuanced readings of texts for young people. It seems fair to expect that a new critical introduction to children's literature studies not only match the scope and accessibility of existing titles but also offer new perspectives and content. The Bloomsbury Introduction to Children's and Young Adult Literature by Karen Coats undoubtedly meets these expectations. This thoughtfully organized, wide-ranging, and innovative book draws from cultural studies, literary studies, and child development studies in its consideration of diverse forms and genres. Chapter 1 deftly illustrates how knowledge of the histories of ideologies of childhood is fundamental to understanding the histories of literature for young people. Chapter 3 works to demystify literary theory, assuring readers that "we are always already theorists" (84); framed by an anecdote in which a teenaged girl and her friends dissect her conversation with her crush, the chapter covers a variety of theoretical paradigms including formalism, deconstructionism, New Historicism, and reader response criticism. Other chapters provide substantial discussions of poetry, picture books, films, folk narratives, nonfiction, realistic fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction. Each chapter is supplemented by case studies, prompts for writing and discussion, and suggestions for further reading, including Internet sources. These supplements will likely be effective in generating vibrant classroom discussions, increasing student engagement, and helping emerging scholars become confident, independent researchers. The volume is primarily addressed to undergraduate and graduate students, but it will also appeal to educators who are looking for creative approaches to structuring and enlivening their courses as well as experienced scholars who are committed to keeping pace with contemporary debates that are animating children's and young adult literature studies. I do wish that chapter 6, which discusses images in children's literature, did more to clarify the differences between various visual-verbal narrative forms. The chapter certainly enables readers to develop a vocabulary to discuss [End Page 147] pictures in texts for young people. It historicizes the functions of illustrations in children's books and shows how attention to visual elements as well as issues of production and audience can yield varied and rich interpretations of visual-verbal narratives. But some discussion of, say, the different ideological frameworks and histories of picture books and comics may be necessary to illustrate the complex ways pictures in visual-verbal narratives for young people are apprehended by readers across time and culture. As the whole, the book instructs readers to be responsible, inquisitive scholars. And it does so in such an openhearted manner. In her introduction to the volume, the author provides a short biography and invites readers to "call her Karen" (5). As such, Karen not only models the practice of acknowledging one's cultural position; she also deliberately establishes a tone of affability, demonstrating that an intimate, personal approach is not necessarily incompatible with meaningful scholarship. In the final chapter, Karen invites new scholars to "[enter] the professional conversation," providing comprehensive lists of journals and professional associations as well as advice on research, writing, and disseminating one's work. Throughout the book, Karen cracks jokes, shares personal anecdotes, acknowledges questions she continues to wrestle with, and urges readers to disagree with and complicate the points that she makes. In short, she displays how pleasure, uncertainty, and exchange of knowledge are part and parcel of the practice of scholarship. Bloomsbury Introduction pays attention to recent trends in children's...

How to Be Yourself: Ideological Interpellation, Weight Control, and YA Novels Dorothy Karlin (bio) Ginny is too fat. Lia is too skinny. You, dear teen reader, may also have issues with your weight, and we have books for you, particularly if you are female. Read them! With their guidance, you will learn to take control of your weight, wresting it from the machinations and manipulations of adult authority figures and the media. Not only will you be happier and healthier, but you will also blossom into a productive member of society. If you have not encountered Ginny and Lia yet, they inhabit recent YA novels that seek to redress prevalent depictions of female teenagers. Virginia “Ginny” Shreves is the protagonist of Carolyn Mackler’s 2003 novel The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things, and Lia is the protagonist of Laurie Halse Anderson’s 2009 novel Wintergirls. Slightly overweight, Ginny obsesses over her body and the reactions it engenders in family, friends, and classmates. Anorexic Lia obsesses over her body as well, monitoring her food intake and exercising compulsively. With their messages of body acceptance, these two novels seem to offer alternatives to much YA fiction, which frequently reinforces prevalent cultural messages valorizing thinness and equating larger bodies with moral transgression. On closer examination, however, both novels further the same ideological process they ostensibly criticize, working only to author an alternative template for its expression. These adult-authored books guide readers through a policing of their bodies, intervening between a girl and her appetites. Young adult literature often showcases ideological interpellation on a general scale, as adolescent characters become aware of social power structures [End Page 72] and learn how to operate within them. As Roberta Seelinger Trites writes, adolescent novels focus on protagonists who “learn to negotiate the levels of power that exist in the myriad social institutions within which they must function, including family; school; the church; social constructions of sexuality, gender, race, class; and cultural mores surrounding death” (3). While this negotiation requires intellectual compliance, ideology does not exist solely in ideas but in actions and practices as well. Ideological interpellation has a strong corporeal element, and with its ideological thrust, YA literature works to regulate how adolescents shape and then inhabit their bodies. Characters in young adult novels demonstrate how to affect—in a literal, bodily way—the “reproduction of submission to the ruling ideology” (Althusser 133). Typically written by adults, YA novels inevitably contain an adult viewpoint and agenda that Perry Nodelman has dubbed “the hidden adult.” The messages transmitted have physical ramifications, given that a focus on the body serves to make teen readers aware of their own physical presence outside of the imagined space of reading. For better or for worse, the novels ask readers to identify with the protagonists and to recognize certain eating practices and behaviours as unhealthy and unproductive. Considered as part of a broader ideological phenomenon, YA novels work alongside magazines and other media in targeting young girls and featuring pervasive, often explicit and decidedly gendered directives for makeup, clothing, exercise, and diet. Instead of including step-by-step instructions or glossy photographs of supposed ideals, YA novels provide models for behaviour by showing characters dealing with rules about self-presentation. In particular, such novels often regulate body size and appropriate eating; they reward characters who lose weight through dieting and, in doing so, work to circumscribe the corporeal experience of adolescence. In her 1998 article “The Portrayal of Obese Adolescents,” Rachel Beineke describes her search for protagonists that reflected her obese, female adolescent self. She discovered novels that target middle-grade audiences primarily but included some YA titles, among them Paula Danziger’s The Cat Ate My Gym Suit, Jan Greenberg’s The Pig-Out Blues, and Robert Lipsyte’s One Fat Summer. The plots of these novels resemble the narratives of recent YA texts such as Mackler’s The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things, Sasha Paley’s Huge, and Donna Cooner’s Skinny: The novels look at the pressure families place on their children to lose weight and even those who neglect their children because they are overweight. The books also look at...

Reviewed by: Technology and Identity in Young Adult Fiction: The Posthuman Subject by Victoria Flanagan Maija-Liisa Harju Flanagan, Victoria. Technology and Identity in Young Adult Fiction: The Posthuman Subject. Critical Approaches to Children’s Literature Series. Palgrave: Macmillan, 2014. With Technology and Identity in Young Adult Fiction: The Posthuman Subject, Victoria Flanagan encourages readers to stop wallowing in the fear-mongering of popular dystopian young adult novels and discover new stories that represent young people’s engagements with technology as a positive step in human evolution. In her book, the author discusses familiar titles such as Ender’s Game, Feed, The Hunger Games, Uglies and Little Brother but also highlights lesser known novels (e.g., The Silver Metal Lover, Eyelash: A Blog Novel, serafina67, and “Anda’s Game”) that are appearing alongside the plethora of “anti-tech” dystopias produced for youth today. Flanagan suggests that, by highlighting the ways technology can “enhance and deepen our understanding of what it means to be human in the modern era” (187), new young adult literature supports posthumanism as a necessary, contemporary discourse. Emerging authors, she states, are exploring the many ways youth construct identity through their use of the internet socially (e.g., through computing, gaming, social networking, and blogging) and the ways they connect technologies and bodies (e.g., through cyborg narratives, use of avatars, and online explorations of sexuality). More importantly, new narratives also represent young people as knowledgeable and complicit agents in their engagement with the internet. Flanagan supports her [End Page 84] arguments with interdisciplinary theories and focuses on themes such as youth and digital citizenship (Chapter 3), technology, female subjectivity and embodiment (Chapter 4), and surveillance societies (Chapter 5). In chapters 2 and 6, she also draws attention to the ways authors reflect posthumanism through changing narrative strategies (e.g., using cyborg narrators) and formats (e.g., producing “technorealist” novels that reflect/mimic the linguistic codes of online media engagement). The first chapter begins with a necessary discussion of competing posthumanist philosophies in order to identify Flanagan’s use of terms. While this opening distinguishes critical ideas and provides context for her application of posthumanist theory to youth literature, it is a challenging read hampered by a highly specialized discourse that may deter readers, especially those whose first language is not English. Greater use of plain-language to explain complex concepts, and editing for repetition, would have made the chapter more coherent and accessible to a wider audience. In this introductory chapter, Flanagan also neglects to explain her use of the term “virtual reality.” This is a significant oversight, as she employs it throughout the book to refer generally to cyberspace (e.g., “Identifying an emerging trend in children’s literature—blogging and chat-room narratives—this chapter explores the positive social effects of virtual reality in these contexts, particularly for young girls, where online communities offer support and encouragement” [9]). Because critical and popular use of the term most often reflects Jaron Lanier’s (1987) specification of “virtual reality” as a technology that creates 3D simulated, immersive environments and not just any online space, Flanagan’s substitution of the term for cyberspace or the internet is consistently confusing. This reader most appreciated Chapters 3, 4, and 5, which are more succinct, offer engaging readings of lesser known novels related to youth and technology, and tackle issues that have not been widely addressed in children’s literature criticism to this point. Chapter 3, for example, explores what it means for a young person to be a ‘digital citizen’ in the context of children and young adult’s real world rights and freedoms. Here, Flanagan compares the bleak oppression of Ender’s Game with new narratives (e.g., Little Brother and Ready Player One) that offer youth of the future possibilities for agency, activism, and community in their engagements with technology. In Chapter 4, Flanagan considers the ways technology can transform and extend female physicality through the examination of cyborg stories (e.g., Silver Metal Lover) and narratives that examine girls’ connections with their bodies both online and in real spaces. The author’s discussion of “Anda’s Game,” for example, seems particularly relevant at a time where...

Irish children’s and young adult literature is a rich and complex field of inquiry. While the history of Irish children’s publishing can be traced to the eighteenth century, the emergence of a robust, independent, and definably Irish publishing market—and the emergence of a distinct critical discussion around these books—is relatively recent. By the late 1990s, there were a growing number of Irish presses specializing in material for young readers producing a wide range of work in Irish and in English. The increase in output is echoed by the rise of professional networks dedicated to the promotion and study of Irish children’s and young adult literature. The Children’s Literature Association of Ireland (established 1986) and the Irish Children’s Book Trust (established 1989) merged to form Children’s Books Ireland in 1997. IBBY Ireland was formed in 1998. With the formation of research societies such as the Irish Society for the Study of Children’s Literature (established 2002) and the creation of specialist undergraduate and postgraduate courses in a number of Irish universities and third-level institutions, there is now a sense that Irish youth literature is a robust and generative field of critical interest. The key areas of critical interest reflect the key themes of children’s and young adult fiction. Just as Irish writers for children have focused on ideas of space and place, on concerns with history and historical fiction, on stories that engage with and develop images from mythology, so too have critical discussions of Irish children’s and young adult literature developed around these same themes. Critical studies of Irish children’s literature have also opened up new and ambitious conversations about gender and on the representation of minorities: this critical interest reflects and responds to changing ideas about gender and sexuality, and to changes in the island’s racial and cultural population. More recently, a renewed interest in archival studies has created fresh insight into the origins and development of Irish children’s literature, asserted the central value of children’s literature in heritage collections and special collections, and generated new critical discussion into the history and the future of children’s and young adult literature across the island.

Research suggests that when students realize a personal connection to their learning environment and feel their identities are supported, successful learning can take place (Nasir, 2012). Specifically, the use of texts that are meaningful to the lives of African American males can provide spaces for them to explore their unique identities (Tatum, 2009). Such texts can include young adult literature, which offers potential for motivating students to engage in reading, especially because of its themes relevant to teen readers. While much research exists about the various YAL books available, less is known about “what actually happens when teens read young adult novels” (Hayn, Kaplan, & Nolen, 2011). In light of this, through this dissertation I investigate what happens when a teacher uses two young adult novels with her students to explore their identities. The purpose of this research was to explore African American adolescent male identities through young adult literature. Using ethnographic methods and two young adult novels, I conducted this research with eleven African American male students in Ms. Clark’s second and third period English II classes at Bayou Central High School during the 2012-2013 school year. Data collection occurred throughout the two novel units and included classroom observations, participant interviews, surveys, questionnaires, and examination of student work. Student work samples included reading response journals, personal essays, group activities, and a culminating mural on identity. Data analysis involved coding to develop categories and themes, which were then triangulated with supporting data. Findings were interpreted through a New Literacy Studies frame, as well as reader response theory. Findings suggest that participants found connections with young adult novels, particularly those containing characters or plots relating to participants’ lives. Other findings indicate that participants projected different identities, dependent upon the social scene in which they operated. In addition, data suggest participants found a lack of appreciation in school contexts for their out-of-school literate lives. Implications include the need for classroom teachers to craft a curriculum more reflective of the unique cultural identities of African American males, as well as inclusion of their out-of-school literacies in everyday learning experiences.

Recent Latinx young adult literature (YA) serves as a window into how authors narrate the promises and failures of cultural nationalism of past generations and how they imagine youth participating in revolutionary practices today, including accessing alternative forms of literature and education beyond established academia. This article places YA in its context as a US tradition in which authors have expressed particular notions about the adolescent as a subject in relation to social, state, and family structures. For example, Latinx YA, as an alternative to standard Anglo stories, which founded the medium in the United States, presents adult–child relationships as a kind of intergenerational activist legacy. Employing Richard Delgado‘s concept of counter-storytelling, and drawing on Ramon Saldivar‘s ideas about historical fantasy, this essay analyzes current Latinx literature for youth, centralizing the work of Sonia Manzano in historical fiction and Daniel Jose Older in urban fantasy.