This article provides a close reading of Meg Rosoff's award-winning novel "How I Live Now". It argues that an understanding of the text can be extended through an application of ideas found in contemporary spatial discourse concerning place. Reading the novel within this context allows a discussion of ways in which it draws on…

This literary analysis examines constructions of normalcy and disability within contemporary young adult literature, including "Jerk," "California" (Friesen, 2008), "Marcelo in the Real World" (Stork, 2009), and "Five Flavors of Dumb" (John, 2010). As recent winners of the Schneider Family Book Award from the American Library Association, these…

While developing scholarship around children's horror fiction has focused on the works of contemporary writers, this essay provides a close reading of the novels of John Bellairs, a leading and early practitioner of the genre. It argues that the first three novels in his Lewis Barnevelt series may be understood as addressing some of the same…

Since the publication of the first young adult novel to deal with issues of sexual identity, John Donovan's ("1969") "I'll Get There, It Better Be Worth the Trip", over 200 novels have been published centered around gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning (LGBTQ) characters and conflicts (Cart and Jenkins, "2006", "The Heart has…

Multiethnic children's literature addresses multiple audiences, providing different reading experiences and benefits for each. Using critical race theory as an interpretive tool, this article examines how two African American historical fiction novels, Mildred Taylor's "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry" and Christopher Paul Curtis's "The Watsons Go to…

Situated at the intersections of ethnography, childhood studies, literary studies, and education research, this reception study seeks to access real children's responses to a particular text, and to offer empirical description of actual reading experiences. Survey data is generated by taking advantage of an online resource: an archive of…

The paper discusses the children's novel "Gaffer Samson's Luck (1984)," by Jill Paton Walsh, from three different perspectives; those of a cultural geographer, a literary scholar and an English teacher. It is part of a larger research project on children's perception of their place-related identities through reading and writing. The novel is used…

The debates that have arisen regarding Darwin's theories of evolution and Christian views of creation and their place in education in the United States have frequently been extremely heated, resulting in trials, hearings, and laws. This article provides an overview of some of the disagreements and illustrates how David Almond's British novel,…

Jenny Robson's "Savannah 2216 AD", a dark, futuristic novel for young adults, provides a strong critique on much of the world's predilection for saving Africa's animals at the expense of those human communities who are perceived to be in the way of the preservation of the continent's remaining wild spaces. Using Robson's novel as…

In contrast to the educational research and policy literature depicting urban adolescents as reluctant and struggling readers and writers, young people in recent young adult novels claim writing as an efficacious practice for self-discovery and social understanding. Analysis of the images of writers and writing in "Locomotion" and "Call Me Maria"…

This paper attempts to unite "The House on Mango Street" by Sandra Cisneros with the participant and spectator theories of James Britton and D. W. Harding in the hopes that such a union will provide new insights into each. In particular, this article explores how the speech acts of Esperanza, the novel's protagonist, are indicative of a shifting…

This article examines three novels which use stories of elves--especially the ballad "Tam Lin"--as pre-texts, and contemplates how they explore the issue of Otherness. The three novels are "The Sterkarm Handshake" by Susan Price, "Cold Tom" by Sally Prue, and "Fire and Hemlock" by Diana Wynne Jones. Although the novels seem to be about elves as…

JK Rowling's "Harry Potter" novels situate their child protagonists in a fantastical world side by side with present day British society. Through the characters' choices and realizations, young readers are introduced to the complexities and ambiguities of the contemporary world. Harry and his friends embrace these qualities of postmodern…

Few pieces of GLBTQ fiction have received the popular and scholarly acclaim awarded to Alex Sanchez's "Rainbow Boys" series. Although "problem novels" are rarely taken seriously as literature, the books--the first novel in particular--have joined the few pieces of GLBTQ literature incorporated into educational discourse and curriculum. In this…