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To understand trends in what seems to be an explosion of books written about young adult literature (YAL), the authors conducted a content analysis of scholarly books published between 2000 and 2020. The question What trends in YAL research and pedagogy do the books published in this span of time reflect? guided this inquiry to support English teacher educators in their engagement with YAL scholarship within and beyond teacher preparation. After examining 191 books, with the majority of them focusing on research and theory in YAL, findings emerged in five areas: critical events in society, shifts in public education, literacy movements, publishing trends, and scholarly community influence.
The designation of young adult literature (YAL) is just over 50 years old, marked by such notable texts as The Outsiders (Hinton, 1967), The Contender (Lipsyte, 1967), and Mr. and Mrs. Bo Jo Jones (Head, 1967). Arguably, YAL began even earlier with The Catcher in the Rye (Salinger, 1951/1991). Salingers novel introduced readers to a youth narratorial voice that influenced a shift in adolescent literary interests and continues its influence on contemporary novels (Bickmore & Youngblood, 2014).
As the publication of YAL novels grew, YAL became the object of study for teachers as well as literary and educational researchers, beginning with the first issue of The ALAN Review in 1974. Articles in the journal examined YALs pedagogical uses, analyzed its depictions of themes and characters, and considered its implications for readers and society. Beyond The ALAN Review, publishing of curriculum materials encouraging and facilitating the use of YAL in classrooms continued as well (Hooper, 2008; Lankshear & Knobel, 2006). Journal articles and books followed (Irvin et al., 2007; Salvner, 2001), promoting YAL in the classroom because of its relevance to adolescent readers and because of the literary merit found in the texts themselves. These publications, geared toward teachers, often provided ready-made lesson plans and other pedagogical materials to use in the classroom. Little research on youth reading experiences existed in the first decades of the field, however. Many noted the dearth of classroom-based research (Christenbury, 2007; Wilhelm, 2008; Zirinsky & Rau, 2000), with studies focused on content analysis of YA novels rather than on inquiry of their use within a classroom setting (Moje & Hinchman, 2004; Probst,...