About the Website
For quite some time, I have been fascinated by the Young Adult genre, and in more recent years, its ability to captivate the attention of not only the teenage readers its targeted for, but also adult readers as well. When I really began to think about the topic, however, I realized that I was essentially clueless on the history behind the genre and its connection to book history as a whole. In this line of thought, I took advantage of this project as a way to really delve deeper and learn something about the genre that I have loved to watch evolve and change over the years.
The research question or problem that I am solving is what is the connection of the elements of book history (as artifact, as knowledge, as cultural icon, as reader) to the growth and evolution of the YA genre and all of the fascinating changes that have been occurring in the genre since its establishment in the mid 20th century.
There is absolutely a need for my work, for one key reason: my topic is so new, that there is not much yet that has been written on it. If anyone is interest in the young adult genre's connection to book history, they will have to study both book history and the genre as two separate entity's, because before I have made this brief tackle at the topic, there was no connecting literature. My work provides a contribution, because I have made attempts to examine key elements of book history and connected those to common elements of the young adult genre. I have also provided viewers of my project with a single source that explores a variety of topics.
The biggest challenge that I experienced, while compiling the information for this site, is the recent nature of the topic that I was exploring. Young Adult Literature's roots only go so far, and finding scholarly articles and other academics that are commenting on not just the recent trends of YA literature but also past trends was difficult. I found myself in a position where I had to explore the broad trends in book history and find ways in which they connected with the history of young adult literature specifically, and how the history of the book as a whole led to the creation of a genre specifically for teenagers ages 13-18. In addition, I almost always had to re-word my search terms in order to find the most relevant information. Although difficult, I found the experience extremely rewarding and interesting.
The most obvious weakness of my approach to this project is the limited scope and time to complete the research. With a topic as expansive as the young adult genre and book history as a whole, there is no way that a final project for a graduate class could even begin to cover every aspect of this topic. Scholars spend lifetimes investigating these topics. However, the strength to my approach is the flip of the weakness, I have created a project that scrapes the surface, but also serves as a strong introduction to the topic of young adult literature and its connection to book history. I have the ability to continue the research in the manner that I have set up this project and the ability to continue to track the changes and evolution of the young adult genre.
My methodology with this project was both primary and secondary source analysis concerning both the young adult genre and book history as a whole. I set out with the questions of how has young adult literature evolved over eight decades since its creation in concern to cover art, common themes, appropriate audiences, and controversial material exploration. I wanted to discover when adults began heavily reading young adult fiction, and really when the controversies over the serious topics explored in YA literature began. I connected my categories explored in YA literature to the book as, an artifact, a cultural icon, a source of knowledge, and as a reader experience. Often, I had to draw my own conclusions and make my own interpretations on how the young adult genre falls within book history and how trends of the YA genre mimic trends of book history as a whole because of the lack of scholarly research. I hope this project has briefly shown how YA literature became relevant and how it will continue to be relevant today and in the future.
The research question or problem that I am solving is what is the connection of the elements of book history (as artifact, as knowledge, as cultural icon, as reader) to the growth and evolution of the YA genre and all of the fascinating changes that have been occurring in the genre since its establishment in the mid 20th century.
There is absolutely a need for my work, for one key reason: my topic is so new, that there is not much yet that has been written on it. If anyone is interest in the young adult genre's connection to book history, they will have to study both book history and the genre as two separate entity's, because before I have made this brief tackle at the topic, there was no connecting literature. My work provides a contribution, because I have made attempts to examine key elements of book history and connected those to common elements of the young adult genre. I have also provided viewers of my project with a single source that explores a variety of topics.
The biggest challenge that I experienced, while compiling the information for this site, is the recent nature of the topic that I was exploring. Young Adult Literature's roots only go so far, and finding scholarly articles and other academics that are commenting on not just the recent trends of YA literature but also past trends was difficult. I found myself in a position where I had to explore the broad trends in book history and find ways in which they connected with the history of young adult literature specifically, and how the history of the book as a whole led to the creation of a genre specifically for teenagers ages 13-18. In addition, I almost always had to re-word my search terms in order to find the most relevant information. Although difficult, I found the experience extremely rewarding and interesting.
The most obvious weakness of my approach to this project is the limited scope and time to complete the research. With a topic as expansive as the young adult genre and book history as a whole, there is no way that a final project for a graduate class could even begin to cover every aspect of this topic. Scholars spend lifetimes investigating these topics. However, the strength to my approach is the flip of the weakness, I have created a project that scrapes the surface, but also serves as a strong introduction to the topic of young adult literature and its connection to book history. I have the ability to continue the research in the manner that I have set up this project and the ability to continue to track the changes and evolution of the young adult genre.
My methodology with this project was both primary and secondary source analysis concerning both the young adult genre and book history as a whole. I set out with the questions of how has young adult literature evolved over eight decades since its creation in concern to cover art, common themes, appropriate audiences, and controversial material exploration. I wanted to discover when adults began heavily reading young adult fiction, and really when the controversies over the serious topics explored in YA literature began. I connected my categories explored in YA literature to the book as, an artifact, a cultural icon, a source of knowledge, and as a reader experience. Often, I had to draw my own conclusions and make my own interpretations on how the young adult genre falls within book history and how trends of the YA genre mimic trends of book history as a whole because of the lack of scholarly research. I hope this project has briefly shown how YA literature became relevant and how it will continue to be relevant today and in the future.