A review of the literature supports the notion that adolescent literature offers vast opportunities for application to educational settings. Efforts to legitimize the genre by making it more realistic have succeeded in winning approval from professional organizations, educators, and the general public. With its only recently improved status, popular adolescent novels have just begun to surface as valuable tools for assisting adolescents in their progression toward adulthood. While the creative application of adolescent novels in educational settings depends, to a large degree, upon the professional, the genre's thematic and topical concerns provide irrefutable and invaluable assistance to the adolescent even without educational intervention. Of particular importance are the following contributions of the genre to the area of adolescent psychology and to the adolescent: (1) providing a practical and interesting way of promoting the development of critical thinking skills involving problem-solving and coping strategies; (2) helping the adolescent recognize, understand, and accept himself or herself and others; (3) offering insights that lead to values clarification and encouraging experimentation rather than foreclosure; (4) focusing on rites of passage and initiatory stress factors facing adolescents in Western culture; and (5) helping the adolescent to emancipate himself or herself gradually from unilateral parental control and to accept responsibilities. (HOD)