Routledge Companion to Young Adult Literature

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).

• Introduction - Jennifer Mooney, Gabriel Duckels, Peter Hunt, Keith O'Sullivan and Cristina Rhodes; PART 1. Young Adult Literature Fundamentals; Part 1. Introduction; 1.1 Definitions; 1. Young Adult Literature - Roberta Seelinger Trites; 2. Thinking of Young Adult Literature as World Literature - Melek Ortabasi; 1.2 Histories and Canons; 3. Where We Were and Where We Are: In Search of Young -Adult Literature - Peter Hunt; 4. The Multiplicity of the Young Adult Literary Canon - Amanda K. Allen; 1.3 Contexts: Regional Snapshots; 5. Sex and Class in American and British YA literature 1970 to the present - Kimberley Reynolds; 6. Young Adult Literature and Australia - Lucy Stone, Sarah Ayoub, Nicole Kennedy and Melanie Saward; 7. Young Adult Literature and Brazil - Isabel Lopes Coelho; 8. Young Adult Literature and Germany - Carla Plieth; 9. Young Adult Literature and India - Ritwika Roy; 10. An Ever-Changing Image: The Evolution of Young Adult Literature in Iran - Zahra Jalaeifar; 11. Young Adult Literature and Ireland - Jennifer Mooney and Keith O’Sullivan; 12. Young Adult Literature and Japan - Irina Ćošković and Catherine Butler; 13. From Pulpit to Booktok: The History and Developments of Young Adult Literature in the Netherlands - Vera Veldhuizen; 14. Young Adult Literature and Nigeria - Uchenna Maximus Emilfe and Chisom Mary Adigwe; 15. Young Adult Literature and Puerto Rico - Edcel Javier Cintron-Gonzalez; 16. Young Adult Literature and Slovenia - Jerneja Černilogar and Tina Bilban; 17. Young Adult Literature and South Africa - Bonnie Keen and Molly Brown; 18. Young Adult Literature and South America and the Chilean Experience - Isabel Ibaceta; PART 2. Theory and Criticism; Part 2. Introduction; 2.1 Theorising Adolescence; 19. Theorising Adolescence - Gabrielle Owen; 20. Adolescence: A Social History - Lydia Kokkola; 2.2 Prominent Theoretical Paradigms and Turns; 21. Psychoanalytic Theory and Young Adult Literature - Karen Coats; 22. Genders and Sexualities in Young Adult Literature - Pádraic Whyte; 23. Queer Theory, Queer Studies, and Young Adult Literature - Annika Herb; 24. Feminisms in Young Adult Literature (1) - Roberta Seelinger Trites; 25. Feminisms in Young Adult Literature (2) - Cristina Santos; 26. Masculinities and Contemporary Young Adult Literature - Sinéad Moriarty; 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; 29. Focusing on Race: Using Critical Race Theory to Analyse Young Adult Literature - KaaVonia Hinton; 30. All the Feels: Adolescent Emotionalism, Young Adult Literature, and Affect Theory - Michelle Ann Abate; 31. Material Culture Theory in Young Adult Literature - Jane Suzanne Carroll; 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; 33. Disability Studies and Young Adult Literature - Elizabeth Leach-Leung; 34. Indigeneity and Readings of Young Adult Literature - Jaoquin Muñoz and Helen Thomas; 35. Ecocriticism and Young Adult Literature - Brianna Anderson; 36. A Flood of Tension: Posthumanism and Young Adult Literature - Lindsay Burton; PART 3. Genres and Forms; Part 3. Introduction; 3.1. Fiction; 37. Realism in Young Adult Literature - Cristina Herrera; 38. Melodrama - Gabriel Duckels; 39. Magical Realism - Cristina Rhodes; 40. Young Adult Fantasy - Corrine Matthews; 41. Better Off Dead: The Discardment and Transcendence of the Female Adolescent Body in Young Adult Romantasy - Sarah Calvert; 42. The Young Adult FairyTale Novel - Jill Coste; 43. Young Adult Science Fiction - Emily Midkiff; 44. Young Adult Gothic - Anna Jackson; 45. Young Adult Horror Fiction - Dara Downey; 46. Historical Fiction for Young Adults: Romantic Plots and Popular Culture - Mateusz Świetlicki; 3.2 Poetry; 47. The Young Adult Verse Novel - Krystal Howard; 48. Anglophone Youth Performance Poetry in Europe - Claudia Sackl and Shefali Banerji; 3.3 Visual Texts in Print and Multimedia; 49. Visual Narratives for Young Adults: Picturebooks, Comics, and Graphic Novels - Valerie Coghlan; 50. Adolescent Girlhood and the Coming-Of-Age Conflict in Teen Films - Jade Dillon-Craig; 51. Adapting Young Adult Literature: Film and Franchising - Madeleine Hunter; 52. ‘Wild, Wrong-headed, and Potentially Damaging:’ Staging Dramatic Literature for Young Adults - Mary McAvoy; 53. Video Games and Young Adult Literacy - Shannon Mortimore-Smith; PART 4. The Young Adult Literature Landscape: Currents and Controversies; Part 4. Introduction; 4.1 Censorship, Activism, and Diversity Advocacy Movements; 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; 56. Anthologising Activism: Short-Form Content Seeking Long-Term Solutions - Cristina Rhodes; 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; 58. The Young-Adult-Authored Poetry of Leanne O’Sullivan and Solli Raphael - Jennifer Mooney and Keith O’Sullivan; 59. The International Journal of Young Adult Literature (IJYAL) - Emily Corbett; 60. Paper Lanterns in Action: Thoughts on Running a Teen and YA Literary Journal - Margaret Masterson; 4.3 Globalisation, Translation and Archival Research; 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; 62. Young Adult Forced Migration Narratives - Paula Murphy; 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; 64. Book Buying and Publishing Trends: Blurring the Lines between Young Adult and New Adult Literature - Anke Vogel; 65. Irish-language Young Adult Publishing in Ireland - Méabh Ní Choileann; 66. Peritexts of Bestselling YA Fiction and Their Target Consumers - Emily Corbett; 67. Re-Storying: Participatory Fan Cultures - Patricia Kennon; Index