Graeme Whiting, headmaster of the Acorn School (motto: “Have courage for the truth”) of Nailsworth, Great Britain, recently published a blog post condemning “sensational” fantasy novels such as the Harry…
Beverly Cleary guided generations of girls and boys alike through the rocky, messy, color- and dream-filled days of childhood with her long-running Ramona series, which manages to stay at the forefront…
At Aeon, Nakul Krishna revisits Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers, a series of boarding school novels, for a glimpse at the ethics that join Blyton’s novels together.
Manuel Gonzales talks about his new novel, The Regional Office is Under Attack!, transitioning from nonprofit work to teaching, and how to zig when a trope wants you to zag.
A discussion with your kid about the birds and the bees might be one of the more intimidating moments of parenthood, but YA novelists can lend a hand. When YA writers confront modern…
The Library of Congress is, for the first time, naming a graphic novelist as the Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. The honor goes to Gene Luen Yang, author of the…
Is The Hunger Games feminist? Does it matter? Flavorwire’s Sarah Seltzer wonders whether we’re asking the wrong questions: It seduces us with a good-vs.-evil premise, but then muddies the entire…
We should all implant these terrific girls in our brains. Reading excellent kid’s books as an adult reveals the world to us in new ways, reminds us of childhood and…
YA authors now find themselves walking the fine line between fiction and reality. They have a duty to portray illness accurately, as they must avoid harmfully romanticising dying…they must also…
With so many contemporary young adult novels taking place in dystopian settings, we’re beginning to wonder whether it’s even possible to come of age in a world that isn’t on…
For the New York Times Magazine, A.O. Scott argues about the “slow unwinding” of patriarchy in American culture, drawing on modern television, history, and literature. In part responding to Ruth…
Do you know what year the word “zombie” first stalked the English lexicon? Do you think you can provide your kids with a “psychologically safe context for contemplating a collapsed…