Literature for Today's Young Adults

ch00_FM_4970 3/11/08 1:47 PM Page i Literature for Today’s Young Adults EIGHTH EDITION Alleen Pace Nilsen Arizona State University Kenneth L. Donelson Arizona State University Boston ● New York ● San Francisco Mexico City ● Montreal ● Toronto ● London ● Madrid ● Munich ● Paris Hong Kong ● Singapore ● Tokyo ● Cape Town ● Sydney ch00_FM_4970 3/11/08 1:47 PM Page ii Executive Editor: Aurora Martínez Ramos Series Editorial Assistant: Kara Kikel Executive Marketing Manager: Krista Clark Production Editor: Annette Joseph Editorial Production Service: Publishers’ Design and Production Services, Inc. Composition Buyer: Linda Cox Manufacturing Buyer: Megan Cochran Electronic Composition: Publishers’ Design and Production Services, Inc. Interior Design: Denise Hoffman Cover Administrator: Kristina Mose-Libon For related titles and support materials, visit our online catalog at www.pearsonhighered.com. Copyright © 2009, 2005, 2001 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner. To obtain permission(s) to use material from this work, please submit a written request to Allyn and Bacon, Permissions Department, 501 Boylston Street, Suite 900, Boston, MA 02116 or fax your request to 617-671-2290. Between the time website information is gathered and then published, it is not unusual for some sites to have closed. Also, the transcription of URLs can result in typographical errors. The publisher would appreciate notification where these errors occur so that they may be corrected in subsequent editions. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Nilsen, Alleen Pace. Literature for today’s young adults / Alleen Pace Nilsen, Kenneth L. Donelson. — 8th ed. p. cm. Authors’ names appear in reverse order in 7th ed. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-205-59323-1 (alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-205-59323-2 1. Teenagers—Books and reading—United States. 2. Young adult literature—History and criticism. 3. Young adult fiction—History and criticism. 4. Young adult literature—Bibliography. 5. Young adult fiction—Bibliography. I. Donelson, Kenneth L. II. Title. Z1037.A1D578 2008 028.5'5—dc22 2008002625 Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 RRD_MO 12 11 10 09 08 Photo credits and acknowledgments appear on pages 453–454, which constitute an extension of the copyright page. Allyn & Bacon is an imprint of www.pearsonhighered.com ch00_FM_4970 3/11/08 1:47 PM Page iii To the memory of Our dear friend and teacher, G. Robert Carlson, 1917–2003 And to our grandchildren and great-grandchildren, Who are happily finding many of these books: From Alleen to Taryn, Britton, Kami, Erich, David, Lauren, Michael, Jenna, Avery, Jim, and Luke From Ken to Kayden, Haylee, Emiley, and Dylann ch00_FM_4970 3/11/08 1:47 PM Page iv ch00_FM_4970 3/11/08 1:47 PM Page v About the Authors Ken Donelson and Alleen Nilsen, profes- sors of English at Arizona State University, became friends and colleagues before they met each other. They both earned their Ph.D. degrees at the University of Iowa from G. Robert Carlsen, a pioneer in the field of young adult literature. Ken was Carlsen’s first Ph.D. student, with Alleen coming along a decade later. When Alleen and her husband moved to Arizona State in 1973, one of the first people she visited was Ken because Pro- fessor Carlsen had talked about him in class and had recruited Alleen as a writer for the Arizona English Bulletin, which Ken was editing. Nevertheless, Professor Carlsen was surprised when his two former students, who happened to find themselves in the same part of the country, started working together because he thought they were so dif- ferent. Ken writes like a historian, focusing on what’s old, while Alleen writes like a journalist, focusing on what’s new. And while Ken was a leader in fighting censorship, Alleen was a leader in fighting sexist language, which some people interpret as a form of censorship. She is the one who suggested they take turns with whose name goes first on each edition. In spite of their differences, what they learned from Professor Carlsen brought them together in support of the academic study of young adult literature. In 1973, they helped found ALAN (Assembly on Literature for Adoles- cents of NCTE); both have received ALAN’s Award for “Outstanding Contributions to the Field of Young Adult Literature,” and both served as presidents of ALAN. In 1974, they were the founding editors of The ALAN Newsletter, the forerunner of what is now The ALAN Review. After proving that they respected each other and could work together, they applied to be coeditors of the English Journal, a job they held from 1980 to 1987 when they wrote the first edition of Literature for Today’s Young Adults. Thanks to Ken’s knowledge of history and his interest in censorship, the book was more complete than other textbooks of the time which mostly focused on realistic problem novels—books sometimes identified as bildungsroman or apprenticeship novels—which are still the books most obviously identified as YA. But what Ken and Alleen demonstrated was that every genre, from adven- ch00_FM_4970 3/11/08 1:47 PM Page vi ture and biography to mysteries, fantasy, poetry, and the supernatural, were being written for teenagers and deserved a place in schools and libraries. And because Alleen’s first job at Arizona State University was teaching in the Department of Library Science in the College of Education, it seemed natural for them to bring in the work of librarians and reading teachers as well as of English teachers. What has kept Literature for Today’s Young Adults the leading textbook in the field is the authors’ continuing love and enthusiasm for their chosen field of study. For each edition they have highlighted new and interesting trends and illustrated them with lively discussions of well-written books. It has helped that they are well-rounded scholars and have remained active in education as a whole. Ken has published over five hundred articles, mostly on censorship, YA books, and problems in teaching secondary English reflecting his thirteen years of teaching high school English in Iowa. His articles, as well as others related to college teaching, have appeared in such journals as Clearing House, English Journal, High School Journal, and School Library Journal. Ken collected YA books published from 1850 through 1950 and when he retired from ASU he donated some eight hundred historical YA books and a nearly complete run of The Dime Novel Round-Up to ASU’s Hayden Library. The collection is strong in books by Kirk Munroe, Ralph Henry Barbour, and John Tunis, and in two Stratemeyer Literary Syndicate heroes, Tom Swift and Nancy Drew. Alleen has worked with her husband, linguistics Professor Don L. F. Nilsen, to promote a new approach to the teaching of vocabulary, as explained in Vocabulary Plus: High School and Up: A Source-Based Approach and Vocabulary Plus K–8: A Source-Based Approach (Pearson, 2004). Their Encyclopedia of 20th-Century American Humor (Oryx/Greenwood) was chosen by the American Library Association as one of the twenty best reference books published in 2000. In 2007, they published Names and Naming in Young Adult Literature as part of the Scarecrow Series in Young Adult Litera- ture, edited by Patty Campbell. Alleen is also the author of Joan Bauer, the first book in Greenwood Press’s series Teen Reads: Student Companions to Young Adult Literature (2007), edited by James Blasingame. ch00_FM_4970 3/11/08 1:47 PM Page vii Brief Contents part one Understanding Young Adults and Books 1 chapter 1 Young Adults and Their Reading 1 chapter 2 A Brief History of Young Adult Literature 39 chapter 3 New Technology, New Attitudes, and New Literacies 77 part two Modern Young Adult Reading 111 chapter 4 Contemporary Realistic Fiction: From Tragedies to Romances 111 chapter 5 Poetry, Drama, Humor, and New Media 147 chapter 6 Adventure, Sports, Mysteries, and the Supernatural 183 chapter 7 Fantasy, Science Fiction, Utopias, and Dystopias 215 chapter 8 History and History Makers: Of People and Places 243 chapter 9 Nonfiction: Information, Literary Nonfiction, Biographies, and Self-Help Books 277 part three Adults and the Literature of Young Adults 311 chapter 10 Evaluating, Promoting, and Using Young Adult Books 311 chapter 11 Young Adult Literature in the English Class 355 chapter 12 Censorship: Of Worrying and Wondering 387 vii ch00_FM_4970 3/11/08 1:47 PM Page viii ch00_FM_4970 3/11/08 1:47 PM Page ix Contents Special Features xiv Preface xvii part one Understanding Young Adults and Books 1 chapter 1 Young Adults and Their Reading 1 What Is Young Adult Literature? 1 A Word about Spoilers 9 Stages of Literary Appreciation 10 A University of Exeter Study on the Qualities of Good YA Books 17 The Honor List: The Best of the Best, 1980–2007 21 Notes 38 chapter 2 A Brief History of Young Adult Literature 39 1800–1900: A Century of Purity with a Few Passions 41 1900–1940: From the Safety of Romance to the Beginning of Realism 50 1940–1960: From Certainty to Uncertainty 59 1960–1980: Uncertainty Becomes Turbulence 65 Notes 75 chapter 3 New Technology, New Attitudes, and New Literacies 77 A New Kind of Democracy with an Emphasis on Youth 84 Critical Literacy 92 Visual Literacy for the Eye Generation 95 Religious

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