Just Us Girls: The Contemporary African American Young Adult Novel (review)

2009 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-79
Author(s):  
Michelle H. Martin
2021 ◽  
Vol 118 ◽  
pp. 106884
Author(s):  
Delaney S. Dunn ◽  
Amanda L. Johnson ◽  
Kymberle L. Sterling ◽  
Amy M. Cohn

Author(s):  
Chiara Xausa

Through a reading of Cherie Dimaline’s 2017 young adult novel The Marrow Thieves, a survival story set in a futuristic Canada destroyed by global warming, this article explores the conceptualization and reimagination of the Anthropocene in contemporary postcolonial and Indigenous theory and fiction. Firstly, I will argue that literary representations of climate change can be complicit in producing hegemonic strands of Anthropocene discourse that consider human destructiveness and vulnerability at undifferentiated species level. Secondly, I will suggest that the novel’s apocalypse reveals the processes of colonial violence and dispossession that have culminated in the eruptive event of environmental catastrophe, rather than portraying a story of universal and disembodied human threat that conceals oppression against Indigenous people.


2018 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 24-38
Author(s):  
Tynan Drake

In post-apocalyptic fiction, the concept of empathy often is depicted as a weakness that the characters cannot afford if they hope to survive. This depiction leads to harmful perceptions on the value of empathy and its ability to avert apocalyptic catastrophes. By examining David Clement-Davies young adult novel The Sight through theories of narrative empathy and through James Berger’s theories of post-apocalyptic representation, this essay argues that by representing empathic understanding, fiction writers have the power to influence positive changes in real world situations. By representing the need to teach empathy for all people, regardless of their differences, and the harm a lack of empathy can cause on both a personal level and on a large societal scale, this novel encourages future generations to seek peaceful and empathic solutions instead of repeating the cataclysmic mistakes of their forebearers.


2008 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 318-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Debra Kalmuss ◽  
Bruce Armstrong ◽  
Molly Franks ◽  
Gabrielle Hecker ◽  
Jessica Gonzalez

Author(s):  
Amanda Ellis

This chapter reads closely Isabel Quintero’s 2014 young adult novel Gabi, A Girl in Pieces. Quintero’s novel, which takes the form of a year’s worth of diary entries, and includes an illustrated copy of the titular character’s zine on female body diversity, narrates the story of a young Chicana outsider’s senior year of high school. In lieu of “fitting in” Gabi the teenage poet pens her way out of loss, homophobia, lurking sexual violence, grief, and depression. Gabi, A Girl in Pieces reveals that the creation of political art, the practice of writing, and the role of Chicana poetics can serve as vital creative outlets for Chicana outsiders, be they nerds, goths, geeks, or freaks.


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