Review: The Necessity of Young Adult Fiction

Abstract

Deborah Lindsay Williams’ The Necessity of Young Adult Fiction is part of Oxford University Press’ The Literary Agenda series, which promotes itself as a series of “short polemical monographs that believes there is a great deal that needs to be said about the state of literary education inside schools and universities and more fundamentally about the importance of literature and of reading in the wider world” (v). Indeed, an aspect that pulls in readers from the very beginning is Williams’ honesty about teaching and researching within YA studies. In the Introduction, Williams describes a difficult moment in her career where a colleague disparages her course for being a class on “‘kids’ books” (1). In many ways, this book is a carefully thought-out refutation of the ridicule Williams received, thoroughly and wholeheartedly undermining the argument that YA fiction is an unworthy subject for teaching and study. In line with the series’ aims, The Necessity of Young Adult Fiction is indeed polemical, but it is also careful to do the groundwork first, which is especially useful for readers new to the discipline of YA literature.

Keywords

• ya
• ya studies
• ya sf
• speculative fiction