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Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading
Paperback
Biographies GeneralLiterary Criticism
ISBN13: 9780061756351
Publisher: William Morrow & Company
Published: Jul 21 2009
Pages: 448
Weight: 0.70
Height: 1.20 Width: 5.20 Depth: 7.90
Language: English
A nostalgic, sharp-witted celebration of the paperbacks that guided a generation through the chaos of growing up.
Remember that book you read at that time in your life when everything seemed to be going crazy--the one book that brought the world into focus and helped soothe your raging teenage angst?
Lizzie Skurnick expands her online column into an engaging retrospective of the paperbacks that guided young readers through adolescence. Covering works from the 1960s through the 1980s, her essays examine everything from Judy Blume's frank realism to the eerie thrillers of Lois Duncan.
Guest essays from writers including Meg Cabot and Jennifer Weiner join Skurnick's perceptive commentary to honor the stories that readers never outgrew.
- Coming-of-Age Classics: Revisits beloved classroom staples and Newbery medalists, exploring how Meg Murry in A Wrinkle in Time and Claudia Kincaid in From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler redefined young heroines through stubborn independence.
- Popular Culture: Examines the irresistible allure of contraband paperbacks snuck past parents, from the gothic family melodrama of Flowers in the Attic to the raw survivalism of The Clan of the Cave Bear.
- Literary Criticism: Deconstructs intricate plots and dark themes in teen suspense, charting the puzzle clues of The Westing Game and the chilling psychological trauma of I Am the Cheese.
- Social History: Illuminates the emotional resonance of 1970s realistic fiction, tracing the raw grief of Bridge to Terabithia and the bitter sibling jealousy in Jacob Have I Loved.
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