Abstract
The “young adult” novel is aimed at a carefully defined target market, often focused on a predictable range of issues. Where illness and death are the theme, the process of growing up is more dramatically defined. Young people who suffer or watch a family member suffer a serious illness find their “stages of moral development” disrupted, their values reorganized, and emerging sexual interests submerged under more insistent demands. The books discussed in this article are not formula novels, but complex tales with interesting subplots and characters. Notable features common to them are as follows: 1) strategies of normalization, 2) abandonment and alienation, 3) unexpected emotions, 4) extra-familial support, 5) other people's problems, and 6) God, meaning, and hope.
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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF YOUNG ADULT NOVELS FOCUSED ON ILLNESS (includes references in text)
Bach, Alice. Waiting for Johnny Miracle. NY: Harper and Row, 1980, 240 pp.
Bacon, Katherine Jay. Shadow and Light. NY: Margaret McElderry Books, 1987, 197 pp.
Carter, Alden R. Sheila's Dying. NY: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1987, 207 pp.
Corcoran, Barbara. Annie's Monster. NY: Macmillan, 1990.
Ferris, Jean. Invincible Summer. NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1987, 167 pp.
Getz, David. Thin Air. NY: Henry Holt & Co., 1990.
Girion, Barbara. A Handful of Stars. Scribner's, 1981, 179 pp.
Graber, Richard. Doc. NY: Harper and Row, 1986, 151 pp.
Hermes, Patricia. You Shouldn't Have to Say Good-bye. NY: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1982.
Josephs, Rebecca. Early Disorder. NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1980, 186 pp.
Lowry, Lois. A Summer to Die. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin Co., 1977, 154 pp.
Marsden, John. So Much to Tell You.... Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1987, 117 pp.
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McEntyre, M.C. Out of Season: Illness in Adolescent Fiction. Journal of Medical Humanities 20, 33–48 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022986516531
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022986516531