The Routledge Companion to Young Adult Literature

List of Contributors

Introduction

Jennifer Mooney, Gabriel Duckels, Peter Hunt, Keith O'Sullivan and Cristina Rhodes

PART 1. Young Adult Literature Fundamentals

Part 1. Introduction

Jennifer Mooney, Gabriel Duckels, Peter Hunt, Keith O'Sullivan and Cristina Rhodes

1.1 Definitions

Chapter 1. Young Adult Literature

Roberta Seelinger Trites

Chapter 2. Thinking of Young Adult Literature as World Literature

Melek Ortabasi

1.2 Histories and Canons

Chapter 3. Where We Were and Where We Are: In Search of Young Adult Literature

Peter Hunt

Chapter 4. The Multiplicity of the Young Adult Literary Canon

Amanda K. Allen

1.3 Contexts: Regional Snapshots

Chapter 5. Sex and Class in American and British YA literature 1970 to the present

Kimberley Reynolds

Chapter 6. Young Adult Literature and Australia

Lucy Stone, Sarah Ayoub, Nicole Kennedy and Melanie Saward

Chapter 7. Young Adult Literature and Brazil

Isabel Lopes Coelho

Chapter 8. Young Adult Literature and Germany

Carla Plieth

Chapter 9. Young Adult Literature and India

Ritwika Roy

Chapter 10. An Ever-Changing Image: The Evolution of Young Adult Literature in Iran

Zahra Jalaeifar

Chapter 11. Young Adult Literature and Ireland

Jennifer Mooney and Keith O’Sullivan

Chapter 12. Young Adult Literature and Japan

Irina Ćošković and Catherine Butler

Chapter 13. From Pulpit to Booktok: The History and Developments of Young Adult Literature in the Netherlands

Vera Veldhuizen

Chapter 14. Young Adult Literature and Nigeria

Uchenna Maximus Emilfe and Chisom Mary Adigwe

Chapter 15. Young Adult Literature and Puerto Rico

Edcel Javier Cintron-Gonzalez

Chapter 16. Young Adult Literature and Slovenia

Jerneja Černilogar and Tina Bilban

Chapter 17. Young Adult Literature and South Africa

Bonnie Keen and Molly Brown

Chapter 18. Young Adult Literature and South America and the Chilean Experience

Isabel Ibaceta

PART 2. Theory and Criticism

Part 2. Introduction

Jennifer Mooney, Gabriel Duckels, Peter Hunt, Keith O'Sullivan and Cristina Rhodes

2.1 Theorising Adolescence

Chapter 19. Theorising Adolescence

Gabrielle Owen

Chapter 20. Adolescence: A Social History

Lydia Kokkola

2.2 Prominent Theoretical Paradigms and Turns

Chapter 21. Psychoanalytic Theory and Young Adult Literature

Karen Coats

Chapter 22. Genders and Sexualities in Young Adult Literature

Pádraic Whyte

Chapter 23. Queer Theory, Queer Studies, and Young Adult Literature

Annika Herb

Chapter 24. Feminisms in Young Adult Literature (1)

Roberta Seelinger Trites

Chapter 25. Feminisms in Young Adult Literature (2)

Cristina Santos

Chapter 26. Masculinities and Contemporary Young Adult Literature

Sinéad Moriarty

Chapter 27. Putting Words in their Mouths: Narrative Approaches to Young Adult Literature

Margaret Masterson

Chapter 28. Cultural Studies, New Historicism, and Black British Young Adult Literature and Film

Karen Sands O'Connor and Anthony DiGesare

Chapter 29. Focusing on Race: Using Critical Race Theory to Analyse Young Adult Literature

KaaVonia Hinton

Chapter 30. All the Feels: Adolescent Emotionalism, Young Adult Literature, and Affect Theory

Michelle Ann Abate

Chapter 31. Material Culture Theory in Young Adult Literature

Jane Suzanne Carroll

Chapter 32. A New Materialist Approach to Young Adult Literature: The Material ↔ Discursive ↔ Affective Assemblage of Youth in Lato Adeli [Adela’s Summer] by Agnieszka Wolny-Hamkało

Justyna Deszcz-Tryhubczak

Chapter 33. Disability Studies and Young Adult Literature

Elizabeth Leach-Leung

Chapter 34. Indigeneity and Readings of Young Adult Literature

Jaoquin Muñoz and Helen Thomas

Chapter 35. Ecocriticism and Young Adult Literature

Brianna Anderson

Chapter 36. A Flood of Tension: Posthumanism and Young Adult Literature

Lindsay Burton

PART 3. Genres and Forms

Part 3. Introduction

Jennifer Mooney, Gabriel Duckels, Peter Hunt, Keith O'Sullivan and Cristina Rhodes

3.1. Fiction

Chapter 37. Realism in Young Adult Literature

Cristina Herrera

Chapter 38. Melodrama

Gabriel Duckels

Chapter 39. Magical Realism

Cristina Rhodes

Chapter 40. Young Adult Fantasy

Corrine Matthews

Chapter 41. Better Off Dead: The Discardment and Transcendence of the Female Adolescent Body in Young Adult Romantasy

Sarah Calvert

Chapter 42. The Young Adult FairyTale Novel

Jill Coste

Chapter 43. Young Adult Science Fiction

Emily Midkiff

Chapter 44. Young Adult Gothic

Anna Jackson

Chapter 45. Young Adult Horror Fiction

Dara Downey

Chapter 46. Historical Fiction for Young Adults: Romantic Plots and Popular Culture

Mateusz Świetlicki

3.2 Poetry

Chapter 47. The Young Adult Verse Novel

Krystal Howard

Chapter 48. Anglophone Youth Performance Poetry in Europe
Claudia Sackl and Shefali Banerji

3.3 Visual Texts in Print and Multimedia

Chapter 49. Visual Narratives for Young Adults: Picturebooks, Comics, and Graphic Novels

Valerie Coghlan

            Chapter 50. Adolescent Girlhood and the Coming-Of-Age Conflict in Teen Films

Jade Dillon-Craig

Chapter 51. Adapting Young Adult Literature: Film and Franchising

Madeleine Hunter

Chapter 52. ‘Wild, Wrong-headed, and Potentially Damaging:’ Staging Dramatic Literature for Young Adults

Mary McAvoy

Chapter 53. Video Games and Young Adult Literacy

Shannon Mortimore-Smith

PART 4. The Young Adult Literature Landscape: Currents and Controversies

Part 4. Introduction

Jennifer Mooney, Gabriel Duckels, Peter Hunt, Keith O'Sullivan and Cristina Rhodes

4.1 Censorship, Activism, and Diversity Advocacy Movements

Chapter 54. All of this has happened before, all of this will happen again: censorship and YA fiction in the 21st century

Claire Hennessy

Chapter 55. Own Voices, authenticity, sincerity?: The Evaluation of ‘Diverse Books’ and their Authors

Emily Booth

Chapter 56. Anthologising Activism: Short-Form Content Seeking Long-Term Solutions

Cristina Rhodes

Chapter 57. Reflecting bodies in British Young Adult Literature: girls and trans girls in the mirror from 1996 to the present day

Alison Waller

4.2  Young Adult Voices and YA Literary Journals

Chapter 58. The Young-Adult-Authored Poetry of Leanne O’Sullivan and Solli Raphael

Jennifer Mooney and Keith O’Sullivan

Chapter 59. The International Journal of Young Adult Literature (IJYAL)

Emily Corbett

Chapter 60. Paper Lanterns in Action: Thoughts on Running a Teen and YA Literary Journal

Margaret Masterson

4.3 Globalisation, Translation and Archival Research

Chapter 61. Translation, EDI, and the Circulation of Young Adult Literature: Insights from the G-BOOK Projects and Beyond

Keith O’Sullivan, Raffaella Baccolini, Áine Mc Gillicuddy and Roberta Pederzoli

Chapter 62. Young Adult Forced Migration Narratives

Paula Murphy

Chapter 63. The Devils are in the Archives: Investigating an Arabic Series for Young Adults

Susanne Abou Ghaida

4.4 Young Adult Publishing Industry: Trends, Gaps, the Book as Consumer/Material Product, and New Approaches to Authorship

Chapter 64. Book Buying and Publishing Trends: Blurring the Lines between Young Adult and New Adult Literature

Anke Vogel

Chapter 65. Irish-language Young Adult Publishing in Ireland

Méabh Ní Choileann

Chapter 66. Peritexts of Bestselling YA Fiction and Their Target Consumers

Emily Corbett

Chapter 67. Re-Storying: Participatory Fan Cultures

Patricia Kennon

Index

Biography

Jennifer Mooney is Assistant Professor at Dublin City University, Ireland, where she chairs the MA in Children’s and Young Adult Literature. Mooney has published on Irish and international young adult literature and Irish writing. She is the author of Feminist Discourse in Irish Literature: Gender and Power in Louise O’Neill’s Young Adult Fiction (2022).

Gabriel Duckels is Assistant Professor of Children’s and Young Adult Literature at Texas State University, USA. His research has been published in numerous venues such as the Children’s Literature Association Quarterly and the European Journal of Cultural Studies.

Peter Hunt is Professor Emeritus in English and Children’s Literature, Cardiff University, UK, and an Adjunct Professor at Dublin City University, Ireland. He has written or edited nearly forty books on children’s and YA literature, including Alice’s Oxford: People and Places that Inspired Wonderland (2025).

Keith O'Sullivan is Associate Professor in the School of English, Dublin City University, Ireland, where he also serves as deputy chair of the MA in Children's and Young Adult Literature degree programme.

Cristina Rhodes is Associate Professor of English at Shippensburg University, USA. She is the author of Facing Uncertain Futures: The Transformative Possibilities of Latinx Youth Literatures (2026) and co-author of Latinx Children’s and Young Adult Literature and Culture: An Introduction (with Cristina Herrera; 2026).