Reading Young Adult Literature: A Critical Introduction

Reading Young Adult Literature is the most current, comprehensive, and accessible guide to this burgeoning genre, tracing its history and reception with nuance and respect. Unlike any other book on the market, it synthesizes current thinking on key issues in the field and presents new research and original analyses of the history of adolescence, the genealogy of YA literature, key genres and modes of writing for young adults, and ways to put YA in dialogue with canonical texts from the high school classroom. Reading Young Adult Literature speaks to the core concerns of contemporary English studies with its attention to literary history, literary form, and theoretical approaches to YA. Ideal for education courses on Young Adult Literature, it offers prolonged attention to YA literature in the secondary classroom and cutting-edge approaches to critical visual and multimodal literacy. The book is also highly appealing for library science courses, offering an illuminating history of YA Librarianship and a practical overview of the YA field. Comments “Reading Young Adult Literature: A Critical Introduction, authored by renowned children’s and young adult literature scholars Carrie Hintz and Eric L. Tribunella, is a welcome and necessary addition to the teaching and scholarly literature around young adult literature. Rigorously academic but without off-putting jargon, Reading Young Adult Literature will deepen current discourse and open up new discussions of this vibrant body of literature.” — Crag Hill, University of Oklahoma, founder and co-editor of Study & Scrutiny: Research on Young Adult Literature “A worthy companion to Hintz and Tribunella’s innovative book on children’s literature, Reading Young Adult Literature is an engaging introduction for scholars, instructors, students, and, indeed, anyone interested in the topic. The book provides insights into the precursors of YA literature; it also deftly explores the new frontiers of the field, including visual narratives, multimodal writing, verse novels, and fan fiction. A provocative final chapter puts YA texts in dialogue with ‘classic’ texts frequently assigned in secondary school classrooms.” — Don Latham, Florida State University “This text’s scope and thoroughness make it a ‘one-stop shop’ of information on young adult literature. Hintz and Tribunella masterfully bring together the many contexts that a well-informed analysis of YA literature must consider. While most textbooks on YA literature maintain a narrow disciplinary focus, Reading Young Adult Literature recognizes and responds to the different disciplinary needs and methodologies that form the field, and students within English, library studies, and education (among other fields) will find the contents relevant, helpful, and thought-provoking. I know of few texts as insightful or comprehensive in presenting an introduction to studies in YA. This is the book that those of us who teach YA literature have been waiting for!” — Amanda K. Allen, Eastern Michigan University “Though not the first book to historicise or theorise YA literature, what sets this publication apart is its accessibility for new and established researchers, teachers, and readers alike.” — Ritwika Roy, International Journal of Young Adult Literature