Constructing the adolescent reader in contemporary young adult fiction / Elisabeth Rose Gruner.

• Introduction: young adults, reading, and young adult reading -- Reading in school -- Misreading the classics: gender, genre, and agency in YA romance -- "Dreaming themselves into existence": reading and race -- Magic, prophetic, and sacred books: making communities of readers -- Reading, resistance, and political agency -- Epilogue: reading reading in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

• 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. 

Ämnesord

Young adult fiction  -- History and criticism. (LCSH)

Teenagers  -- Books and reading. (LCSH)

Young adult fiction.  (fast)

17.91 literature from and for special groups.  (nbc)

Läsare i litteraturen  (sbiao)

Läslust i litteraturen  (sbiao)

Ungdomsböcker  (sbiao)

Teenagers  -- Books and reading. (fast)

Genre

Criticism, interpretation, etc.  (fast)

Klassifikation

PN3443 (LCC)

809.30/0835 (DDC)