The Necessity of Young Adult Fiction

February 1, 2023

A rich exploration of YA literature as a category of books that "offers interventions in the pressing crises that emerge from climate catastrophe and from the rise of xenophobia and nationalism," nestled within the practice of cosmopolitanism that emphasizes community beyond borders and relationships rooted in dialogue. Williams invites readers to consider how YA literature may present opportunities to participate in "cosmopolitan reading practices"-her term throughout this book for the engagement, conversation across difference, and potential to be impacted by the text in a way that encourages readers to make changes in the world beyond the book. This accessible book presents discussions about contemporary issues, such as the climate crisis and activism, and contemporary novels, such as Nnedi Okorafor's "Akata Witch" series set in present-day Nigeria. VERDICT Recommended children's and YA lit courses.-Jen McConnel

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April 1, 2023
A clinical professor of liberal studies at NYU offers close readings of several books plus a discussion of the impact of the Harry Potter series on young readers worldwide. A more accurate title for this book, part of the publisher's Literary Agenda series, would have been The Necessity of Speculative Fiction, as Williams confines her exploration to such works, a substantial portion of which are not what many professionals in the field would call YA literature. Drawing heavily on Kwame Anthony Appiah's Cosmopolitanism, she proffers exegeses of Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents; G. Willow Wilson's Alif the Unseen; Rebecca Roanhorse's Trail of Lightning and Storm of Locusts; Nancy Farmer's The House of the Scorpion and The Lord of Opium; Nalo Hopkinson's Brown Girl in the Ring; and Nnedi Okorafor's Akata Witch, Akata Warrior, and Akata Woman. Of these titles, only Farmer's and Okorafor's were published for a YA audience, though all feature young protagonists. As an argument for the importance of an audience-defined literature, the book is feeble. Nevertheless, Williams' readings, though at times plodding, are generally not uninteresting. She finds in these texts endorsements of Appiah's "challenge" to embrace difference as well as repeated themes of the importance of reading broadly and well and of the danger of climate change. The book comes alive in the fourth chapter, entitled "Reading Harry Potter in Abu Dhabi." It is in conversations with students at NYU's Abu Dhabi campus, with representation from all over the world, that Williams sees Appiah's cosmopolitanism in action. These students, many having read the Harry Potter books in translation and often in secret, explore an experience that is "simultaneously local and global" and tussle movingly with J.K. Rowling's tarnished legacy due to anti-trans comments. Williams doesn't prove her thesis, but this chapter is where she gets closest to it. A book that fails in its ambition but still offers some provocative nuggets.

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June 21, 2023
In this volume of Oxford's The Literary Agenda series, Williams, a clinical associate professor at New York University Abu Dhabi, offers an intellectually stimulating examination of young adult literature. Her thesis--young adult literature gives us ways to think about some of the most pressing problems of the twenty-first century--is one that she realizes beautifully in an erudite introduction on the topic of "Why Kids' Books?", a question she answers by stressing their potential before going on to offer close readings of a clutch of works of YA speculative fiction by authors like Nancy Farmer and J. K. Rowling as well as others whose names may not be so familiar. Whether familiar or not, the books are mostly viewed through the lens of cosmopolitan theory and its capacity for fostering community and a nonhierarchical relationship to the planet. Though inarguably an academic work, the book includes a final chapter on the Harry Potter series that will be most accessible to nonprofessional readers. Be that as it may, Williams handily proves the truth of her book's title: young adult literature is, indeed, necessary.

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