This article presents an analysis of a recent, award-winning Swedish novel for children and young adults, "The Murderer's Ape" by Jakob Wegelius, and digitally published reviews of the novel. In the first part of the paper, we provide an intersectional analysis of the novel, focusing on gender, profession, species and class. The…

This essay follows the insights of reader response theory to examine how readers of Phyllis Reynolds Naylor's Alice McKinley series negotiate textual meaning and construct particular identities in relation to the series' controversial content. Ranking second on the American Library Association's top one hundred list of banned and challenged books…

This article combines interview data from a group of boys of color at an urban single-sex school and content analysis of "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" and "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" to demonstrate the complexities of readers' responses to literature. Textual relevance, or the ability to construct personal…

Readers, texts, and readings can take unpredictable and seemingly tangential detours that educators might find undesirable and difficult to control. Readers can stray far from the text to seek out desired meanings. In the same way, media outlets can reappropriate favorite literary fictions in ways that can perturb educators and readers alike.…

Gustavson (Gustavson, L., "Journal of Children's Literature," 2000, 26(1), 16) used the award-winning novel "The View From Saturday" (Konigsburg, 1996) to investigate the discourses constructed by adolescent readers in after-school discussion groups. Participants in his study, instead of constructing interpretive discourse as Gustavson expected,…

A study was conducted to explore student response to literature and the influence of classroom experiences on that response. Three novels were selected for study: "The Catcher in the Rye" by J. D. Salinger, "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck, and "A Farewell to Arms" by Ernest Hemingway. Each of 54 freshman English students read one of the…

This advisory resource provides a method of understanding the criteria that a reader uses to judge a novel, and recommends titles that fit those criteria. Each book was assigned a primary appeal characteristic of Setting, Story, Characters, and Language. Some were also assigned a secondary appeal characteristic. The book is divided into four…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 24 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the follwing: (1) the effects of junior great books programs on students' thinking and reading skills, (2) adolescent novels and the ideology of femininity, (3) the effect of…