Millions of people are reading young adult fantasy novels like Twilight or A Court of Thorns and Roses. But the way sexual consent is depicted in these can be confusing or even harmful.
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Articles on Young adult fiction
Displaying 1 - 20 of 29 articles
Trixie Belden wasn’t as pretty as her best friend, or a cool as Nancy Drew. But she had a ‘mental computer’ for solving mysteries and a non-judgmental moral core.
Sci-fi, fantasy and rom-coms: books with LGBTQIA+ characters are as diverse as their readers.
First published in 1986, and selling 180 million books, how does The Baby-Sitters Club look for a new generation?
Young adult post-disaster fiction is more concerned with how we survive than understanding the causes of disaster. We can read it to explore our fears, responses and our capacity to adapt.
Books where loving someone from the other side of the tracks is about better understanding ourselves and the world we live in.
A children’s literature professor recommends some of her favourite books for high school kids.
Here’s a bumper crop of thought-provoking and engaging novels for enquiring minds.
An English professor says educators should use “Speak” – an often banned novel about sexual assault – to engage young people about the topic.
Gothic fiction has become the ideal genre for exploring the grotesque, frightening aspects of coming of age. And disruptive girls with supernatural powers have replaced the passive heroines of old.
Female protagonists in young adult fiction are unlikely heroines who embrace their flaws. But when it comes to diversity, they are still largely white and middle class.
Five novels for young adults that boldly tackle tough issues - from racism, to Indigenous identity and the Holocaust - to cultivate critical thinking in the classroom and at home.
Death used to happen off the page in kids’ books, but not anymore. They kill each other in The Hunger Games, and 13 Reasons Why graphically describes the impact of teen suicide.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the first in the phenomenally successful series, turns 20 this month. Despite criticism of their status as ‘literature’, the books remain a magical experience for children.
The Melling sisters — like Alcott’s March sisters and Austen’s Bennetts — are four girls who become women during the course of Robin Klein’s trilogy of novels. The Sky in Silver Lace is the most bittersweet of the three.
The young adult novel “Eleanor & Park” is a frequent target for book challengers. But swears and sex aside, there’s something deeply subversive – and important – about this controversial book.
A book about drug addiction and prostitution aimed at ‘young adults’ was a very daring thing 20 years ago.
Young adult fiction has been having a much needed conversation around diversity. In 2015 we saw this discussion bear fruit, as a new crop of diverse, absorbing and powerful stories sprang up.
Sex is part of young people’s lives. So how do we teach young authors to navigate tricky narrative waters when they write about it?
‘I knew and counted Terry among my friends, and I watched Alzheimer’s slowly and insidiously strip him of attributes and faculty.’ So what can we make of his final Discworld novel, published posthumously?
Top contributors
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Online Course Facilitator, UniSA Online, Digital Media and Communication, University of South Australia
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Senior Lecturer in Literary Studies, Monash University
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PhD Candidate and Academic Sessional, Victoria University
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Associate Professor of English; Program Coordinator, 6-9 and 9-12 licensure programs in English, Meredith College
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Academic Sessional, Victoria University
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Senior Lecturer of Creative Writing and Children's Lit, University of Winchester
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Associate Professor, University of Sydney
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Senior Lecturer in Children's and Adolescent Literature, Queensland University of Technology
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Associate Professor of American Studies, University of Maine at Augusta
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Senior Lecturer in the School of Communication & Creative Arts, Deakin University
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Assistant Professor (Law School), The University of Western Australia
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Vice-Chancellor and President, University of South Australia
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Senior Lecturer in English and Creative Writing, University of Salford
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Associate Professor of English & Women's and Gender Studies, Drake University
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Author (non-fiction, fiction, young adult), The University of Melbourne
