On Display: Young Adult Literature

This month’s display is a collection of bildungsromans. That's the original term for the young adult novel. Classically, young adult literature features a coming-of-age tale such as Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables or Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Nowadays, the term young adult has morphed to become known as reading-age group. Folks often use “young adult” to mean fiction for teens. Sometimes, when adults read a young adult book, such as Harry Potter, they may face ridicule from their friends, colleagues, family, and even strangers! If that happens to you, now you can explain that young adult is not a dirty word. If you are reading Louisa May Alcott or John Green, remember that they have the same DNA. Young Jo March and Hazel Grace Lancaster are cut from the same cloth.  Jane Austen, Cameron Crowe (Fast Times at Ridgemont High), and Bret Easton Ellis (Less Than Zero) all capture the sense of what was like for teens during specific time periods and in different regions.

I hope that this display creates a discussion about the evolution of the young adult novel. Let us know what you think about the bildungsroman on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. A selection of young adult books and audiobooks will be on display in the library through April 13, 2015. You may also browse our young adult eBook collection through Overdrive. Below are instructions on how to locate them in Overdrive. 

1. Click on All Fiction

2. Click to expand Subject

3. Click on Young Adult Fiction