From Fairy Tales to Realist Fiction: Young Adult Literature on the Threshold between Children’s and Adult’s Literature
From Fairy Tales to Realist Fiction: Young Adult Literature on the Threshold between Children’s and Adult’s Literature

Summary/Abstract: Adolescence, the transitional stage in one’s life marked by identity crisis, confusion and conflict is a developmental stage that inspired writers in the construction of fictional characters trapped between childhood and adulthood. One can safely say today that the particular subgenre this article focuses upon, Young Adult Literature (YAL), which exists on the threshold between children’s literature and adult literature (Trites, 2000, 7) was born not long ago, went through young childhood and adolescence, having already reached its maturity. It is time to look back and see the story of this development and its significance to adults and teenagers alike. Both age groups were once children,and all ages are worth examining, remembering, anticipating their experience. Adolescence, being more than a blessed and wonderful condition to be remembered with nostalgia when one is old, is part of a considerably larger picture. This makes both the transitional condition of adolescence and its literary representations amenable to interpretation in the plurality of their contexts which led me towards theoretical materials that would provide the support for the understanding of a series of cultural aspects involved in the reading and writing of books in a by now thriving genre in America.

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