The Author: Angela Thomas is Lecturer in English Education at the University of Sydney. She specializes in teaching new media literacies and is the author of numerous articles and book chapters on fan fiction, online role-playing, blogging, digital fiction, cyberculture, identity, and learning in virtual worlds, and is co-author of Children’s Literature and Computer-Based Teaching.

«This book deals with crucially urgent concerns for all involved in the education of school-age young people who live their lives at the interface of contemporary material and cyberworlds. It explores how young people construct their identities in online social, fantasy, role-playing and educational contexts and for various social purposes including leadership, learning, power, rebellion and romance. Angela Thomas masterfully focuses her transdisciplinary research, integrating studies of identity, multimodal semiotics, socially constructed new literacies, and education, to reveal the achievements and challenges reflected in the online lives of net-age adolescents. The work presented is both scholarly and accessible. It is both essential and enjoyable reading for all who work with young people.» (Len Unsworth, Professor in English and Literacies Education, The University of New England)