Changelings and Radical Mutant Teens: Boundary Pushing In Adolescent Literature.

N

13

Acculturation; Adolescent Development; Adolescent Literature; Females; Novels; Reader Response; Reading Materials; Recreational Reading; Secondary Education

This paper focuses on the "transforming spirit of adolescence." The six novels (all have young female protagonists) explored in the paper show the natural bewilderment (and delight) that accompanies new powers and abilities. The paper focuses on radical young adult transformations in Annette Curtis Klause's "Blood and Chocolate," Donna Jo Napoli's "Sirena," Patricia Kindl's "Owl in Love," Melvin Burgess's "Lady: My Life as a Bitch," Linda Hogan's "Power," and Peter Dickinson's "Eva." According to the paper, these books suggest that life is less certain than people might allow, and profoundly mysterious in ways that are often shuttered out. These novels show the complex (and sometimes opposing viewpoints) often co-existing in an adolescent. The paper explores outer transforming novels where young adults routinely take on animal forms. It explains that these books document how the lure of the natural, animal world intermingles (and often conflicts) with the acculturation all adolescents go through. The paper finds that this animal world is more humane, more loving and sensitive than "civilized" culture (at least in these books), and in contrast, these books show the human side as too often fraught with cruelty, intolerance, and horror. Lists 9 works cited. (NKA)

2003

ED475207