Thematic Guide to Young Adult Literature

Alice Trupe is Director of the Writing Center and Associate Professor of English at Bridgewater College, in Virginia. Her wide-ranging interests include Shakespeare, 19th-century novels, poetry, and American history.

• PrefaceAbuse, Sexual Violence, and HealingAccepting DifferenceAccidents and AdjustmentsAddressing AddictionAnimals' and the Environment's Importance in Our LivesBeauty's MeaningBreaking Silence, Speaking OutCrime and Suicide and Their AftermathDating's ChallengesDisease and DisabilityEmotional Problems ConfrontedFamilies, Traditional and RedefinedFriends Forever?Guilty or Innocent?Heroes: What Does It Mean To Be a Hero?History Is About Young Adults, TooImagined FuturesImagined PlacesInsiders and OutsidersJobs: Taking Adult ResponsibilityOld Tales Retold: Fairy Tales, Legends, MythsOlder People's Impact on Our LivesParents' Absence, Parents' PresencePregnancy, Parenthood, AbortionPoverty's ChallengesReligion and Spiritual LifeSchool DaysSexual Identity, Sexual DesireSupernatural and Alien Beings: Confronting the OtherSurvivalTeammatesWar's Impact

Trupe offers this book as a point of departure for critical discussion of fiction for young adults, whom she defines as between 12 and 17 years of age. The 32 chapters take up such expected themes as dating, friendship, abuse, school life, sexual orientation, parental relationships, and violence (including sexual violence), but the author extends the notion of theme by including chapters on imagined places, imagined futures, retellings of traditional tales, and so on. Trupe begins each chapter with paragraph or two introducing the theme and follows with a description and analysis of a number of texts….[t]his book's main audience will be teachers, school librarians, beginning education majors, and precocious young adults. Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates, professionals, general readers.