Constructing the Adolescent Reader in Contemporary Young Adult Fiction

1. Auflage 2019
ISBN: 978-1-137-53923-6
Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan UK

Buch, Englisch, 192 Seiten, Format (B × H): 153 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 383 g

Reihe: Critical Approaches to Children's Literature

This book examines the way young adult readers are constructed in a variety of contemporary young adult fictions, arguing that contemporary young adult novels depict readers as agents. Reading, these novels suggest, is neither an unalloyed good nor a dangerous ploy, but rather an essential, occasionally fraught, by turns escapist and instrumental, deeply pleasurable, and highly contentious activity that has value far beyond the classroom skills or the specific content it conveys. After an introductory chapter that examines the state of reading and young adult fiction today, the book examines novels that depict reading in school, gendered and racialized reading, reading magical and religious books, and reading as a means to developing civic agency. These examinations reveal that books for teens depict teen readers as doers, and suggest that their ability to read deeply, critically, and communally is crucial to the development of adolescent agency.

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Gruner, Elisabeth Rose

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft: Prosa, Erzählung, Roman, Prosaautoren
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Kinder- und Jugendliteratur, Märchen, Mythen, Sagen
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturtheorie: Poetik und Literaturästhetik
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literarische Gattungen

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Introduction: Young Adults, Reading, and Young Adult Reading.- 2. Reading in School.- 3. Misreading the Classics: Gender, Genre, and Agency in YA Romance.- 4. “Dreaming Themselves into Existence”: Reading and Race.- 5. Magic, Prophetic, and Sacred Books: Making Communities of Readers.- 6. Reading, Resistance, and Political Agency.- 7. Epilogue: Reading Reading in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Über Autor(innen)

Elisabeth Rose Gruner teaches English at the University of Richmond, USA, where she has served as Director of the First-Year Seminar Program and Academic Advising Resource Center as well as Associate Dean of Arts & Sciences. Her research has been published in various journals and edited collections.