Writing Youth

Jonathan Alexander is Chancellor’s Professor of English and director of the Center for Excellence in Writing and Communication at University of California, Irvine.

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Writing (about) YouthChapter One—Literacy’s Hunger Games: Branding MultiliteracyChapter Two—The Darker Side of the Sorting Hat: Representations of Educational Testing in Dystopian Young Adult Fiction, by Jonathan Alexander and Rebecca BlackChapter Three—Beyond The Hunger Games: Becoming CollaborativeChapter Four—Kids in the Aftermath: The Politics of Hurricane Katrina in Young Adult FictionChapter Five—Sponsoring Homonormativity: Sexual Literacies in Queer YA Literature, by William P. Banks and Jonathan AlexanderChapter Six—Seizing the Means of Production, Sort Of: YA Self-Sponsored MultimediaVideos DiscussedBibliographyAbout the Author

This book is a much-needed “coming of age” account of young adult literature that explicitly recognizes how books are not bound by their covers, but extend—or spread—across a range of commercial commodities and youth-produced texts and practices. Alexander provides compelling analyses that identify the current profound commodification of reading, while at the same time clearly point to spaces and networks within which youth themselves are engaging in literacy practices that are active, productive, and deeply satisfying. This is must-read book for everyone who works with youth, in education, or in the media industry.