Author: Patty Campbell
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442252391
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 208
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Book Description
In a time when almost any gritty topic can be featured in a young adult novel, there is one subject that is avoided by writers and publishers. Faith and belief in God seldom appear in traditional form in novels for teens. The lack of such ideas in mainstream adolescent literature can be interpreted by teens to mean that these matters are not important. Yet a significant part of growing up is struggling with issues of spirituality. The underlying problem, of course, is that there are so few writers who are willing to talk to teenagers about God, even indirectly, or who themselves have the religious literacy for the task. Spirituality in Young Adult Literature: The Last Taboo tackles a subject rarely portrayed in fiction aimed at teens. In this volume, Patty Campbell examines not only realistic fiction, but young adult literature that deals with mysticism, apocalyptical end times, and even YA novels that depict the Divine Encounter. Campbell maintains that fantasy works are inherently spiritual, because the plots nearly always progress toward a showdown between good and evil. As such, the author surmises that the popularity of fantasy among teens may represent their interest in the mystical dimensions of faith and the otherworldly. In this study, Campbell examines works of fiction that express perspectives from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sikhism. Distinguished YA novelist Chris Crowe provides a chapter on Mormon values and Mormon YA authors and how their novels integrate those values into their books. By looking at how spirituality is represented in novels aimed at teens, this book asks what progress, if any, has been made in slaying the taboo. Although most of the books discussed in this study are recent, an appendix lists YA books from 1967 to the present that have dealt with issues of faith. A timely look at an important subject, Spirituality in Young Adult Literature will be of interest to young adult librarians, junior and senior high school teachers, and students and instructors of college courses in adolescent literature, as well as to parents of teens.
Author: David P. Setran
Publisher: Baker Academic
ISBN: 1441242880
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 413
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Book Description
The shift from adolescence to adulthood, a recently identified stage of life called "emerging adulthood," covers an increasing span of years in today's culture (roughly ages 18-30) due to later marriages and extended education. During this prolonged stage of exploration and self-definition, many young adults drift away from the church. Here two authors--both veteran teachers who are experienced in young adult and campus ministry--address this new and urgent field of study, offering a Christian perspective on what it means to be spiritually formed into adulthood. They provide a "practical theology" for emerging adult ministry and offer insight into the key developmental issues of this stage of life, including identity, intimacy and sexuality, morality, church involvement, spiritual formation, vocation, and mentoring. The book bridges the gap between academic and popular literature on emerging adulthood and offers concrete ways to facilitate spiritual formation among emerging adults.
Author: William Boerman-Cornell
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1475862113
Category : Young Adult Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 181
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Book Description
This book offers revolutionary approaches to in-class discussions about young adult literature. It shows teachers how to think more widely than the themes of a book to consider how they might operate as prayers of lament, yearning, anger, confession, thankfulness, reconciliation, joy, obedience, pilgrimage, contemplation, and equanimity. It also offers a variety of ways for classroom discussion to consider a representative sentence or two from a young adult novel, and from that allow students to connect to linked passages in the rest of the novel. These approaches for classroom discussion are drawn from a variety of contemplative traditions, including Jewish and Christian faith traditions and include florilegium, lectio divina, PaRDeS, Ignatian Imagination, havruta, and marginalia. Drawing from a range of in-class experiences, the authors explain each approach in the context of twelve popular and critically interesting young adult novels including The Hate U Give, Long Way Down, Speak, The Poet X, The Fault in our Stars, Brown Girl Dreaming, and others. This book will transform discussions that are disconnected from the book, lacking in relevance, or missing the energy that drives good conversation into meaningful and energetic class discussions that students and teachers alike will value.
Author: Christian Smith
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0195371798
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 364
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Book Description
Based on candid interviews with thousands of young people tracked over a five-year period, this book reveals how the religious practices of the teenagers portrayed in Soul Searching have been strengthened, challenged, and often changed as they have moved into adulthood.
Author: Christine Seifert
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442246588
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 175
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Book Description
Around 2005 something surprising happened in young adult literature: YA books became obsessed with presenting characters who wanted to have sex but couldn’t—at least not without losing something vital to their identity. Since the publication of Twilight, the YA market has been flooded with books that feature naive virgins finding true love. While some YA novels do present nuanced depictions of sex and of healthy sexual relationships, the fiction most popular with young adult readers presents adolescent girls as virginal sex objects waiting to be fulfilled by their love interests. In Virginity in Young Adult Literature after Twilight, Christine Seifert looks at an alarming trend in YA novels. Labeling this phenomenon “abstinence porn,” Seifert argues that these novels that fetishize virginity are harmful to readers. Like pornography, such works reduce female characters to objects whose sexual acts are the sole expression of their identities. Chapters in this book examine paranormal, dystopian, and contemporary romance, paying particular attention to recurring virginity themes or tropes. The book also provides an antidote by showing how some sex-positive teen novels provide more empowering messages to readers. Organized by genre, the books were selected for this study based on their popularity with teens. Exploring how messages about virginity are sustained and repeated from text to text, this book also calls out key reader reactions to demonstrate how they are responding to these messages. Featuring a list of discussion questions, Virginity in Young Adult Literature after Twilight will be a valuable resource for teachers, librarians, parents, and mature young adult readers.
Author: Lois Thomas Stover
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 0810892782
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 294
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Book Description
Young adults often struggle with confusion or guilt because they perceive themselves as different from others, especially their peers. For some of these individuals, the arts can help them cope with adolescent turmoil, allowing them to express their emotions in poems, stories, painting, songs, and other creative outlets. Sensitive teachers and parents know how important it is for young people to realize that they are not alone in their quest for self-knowledge and finding their way in the world. It can make a difference when readers find something in a book that helps them understand more about who they are and helps them understand others. In Portrait of the Artist as a Young Adult: The Arts in Young Adult Literature, Lois Thomas Stover and Connie S. Zitlow examine books in which the coming-of-age for young adults is influenced by the arts. Stover and Zitlow consider the connection between the arts and a young person’s developing sense of self, the use of art to cope with loss and grief, and how young adults can use art to foster catharsis and healing. The young people in these books either identify as artists or use the arts in intentional ways to explore their identities. They often have artistic gifts that make them stand outside the norms of teenage life, yet those gifts also help them find a sense of community. Artists considered in this book include painters, photographers, sculptors, actors, directors, choreographers, dancers, composers, musicians, graffiti artists, and others. The books discussed also explore the ways adults can nurture the artist’s development and understand the way young people sometimes use the arts to form their unique identity. Included is an annotated bibliography organized by art discipline, as well as an appendix about using the arts pedagogically, making Portrait of the Artist as a Young Adult a valuable resource for educators, parents, librarians, and young adults.
Author: Pamela F. Service
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 182
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Book Description
While his brother prepares to mount the throne of Egypt as the next member of the Twelfth Dynasty, the teenage prince Ameni is sealed in a secret tomb in a state of suspended animation, to be revived four thousand years later by the fourteen-year-old daughter of an archeologist.
Author: Richard R. Dunn
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 0830869751
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 265
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Book Description
In this book Veteran disciplemakers Rick Dunn and Jana Sundene offer concrete guidance for those who shepherd and care for emerging adults, emphasizing relational rhythms of discernment, intentionality and reflection to meet emerging adults where they are at and then to walk with them further into the Christlife.
Author: Bryan Gillis
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 144224688X
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 195
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Book Description
Though discussing sexual material in novels aimed at the young adult market may make some individuals blush, the authors of such fiction often seek to represent a very real component in the lives of many teens. Unfortunately, authentic and teen-relatable information on healthy adolescent sexuality is not readily available, and sex education classes have had a minimal effect on positive sexual identity development. Consequently, young adult literature that contains sexual elements can play a critical role in addressing the questions and concerns of teens. In Sexual Content in Young Adult Fiction: Reading between the Sheets, Bryan Gillis and Joanna Simpson examine sexual material in canonical, historical, dystopian, romantic, and realistic contemporary fiction for teens. The authors begin with an exploration of sexual identity development and discuss the constructive influence that realistic representations of teen sexual behavior can have on that development. The authors provide a myriad of texts and examples that will help parents, teachers, and librarians better understand the positive role that sexual content in YA fiction can play in the socio-emotional and academic development of adolescents. The book concludes with an overview and analysis of censorship in the world of young adult fiction. In addition to providing a survey of sexual content in young adult literature, this book can help inspire adults to facilitate effective and responsible discussions about young adult fiction that contains sexual material. Featuring a "novels cited" and "works cited" bibliography, Sexual Content in Young Adult Fiction is an important resource that parents and educators will find particularly valuable.
Author: Patty Campbell
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 0810872943
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 263
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Book Description
At the request of her many fans, Patty Campbell, editor of the Scarecrow Studies in Young Adult Literature series, has selected some of her best essays, articles, columns, and speeches in Campbell's Scoop. These pieces define the boundaries between children's and adult literature and review the trends, censorship, problems, and glories of the genre. Other essays reflect on some concerns and interests of young adult literature as it has matured: the verse novel, ambivalent endings, violence, the sometimes dubious value of awards and honor lists, the graphic novel, and the difficulties of the genre's recent overwhelming success. A section titled "Inside ALA" looks at the author's many years of service to that organization with, among other pieces, a firsthand look at the Best Books committee at work and a report of her attempt to unite booksellers and librarians in common cause. Many of these selections show the idiosyncratic wit and passion that have made Campbell's column a favorite with Horn Book readers: an exploration of the meaning of the glut of YA novels with death as a theme or character; an indignant denunciation of the fictional abuse of animals; a snarky analysis of "chick lit;" and a technical review from the belly-dancing critic of a YA novel featuring that ancient art. On a more serious note, Campbell pleads for what she calls "Godsearch" in books for teens and pays tribute to her late friend Robert Cormier. Without question, the essays in Campbell's Scoop provide readers with the unique insights of an advocate who is passionate about young adult literature and its future.
