Constructing the Adolescent Reader in Contemporary Young Adult Fiction - Hardcover

by Elisabeth Rose Gruner (Author)

Young Adult fiction has been an economic juggernaut since the 1990s. This timely new book provides a historically-informed analysis of how recent popular and literary fiction (including The Tales of Beedle the Bard, the Twilight series and The Fault in Our Stars) for teens responds to the perceived 'literacy crisis' in teen culture. This project explores commonalities between the texts, asking: what defines YA fiction today? Why does it matter? And is there really a crisis in teen reading? The project delves deeply into the literature that teens are reading as well as the literature about their reading government reports, educational theory, and cognitive science in order to examine the 'literacy crisis' as it applies to teen readers today.

Back Jacket

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.

Author Biography

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.