The Distant Mirror: Reflections on Young Adult Historical Fiction

by Joanne Brown, Nancy St. Clair

Young adult historical fiction brings the past alive through stories of adventure, suspense, and mystery. The genre is both complex and controversial, encompassing novels that range from romance and fantasy to stark historical realism. The book examines the various approaches to young adult historical fiction and explores the issues that it has engendered.

Part One focuses on the broader issues spawned by the genre itself, including its various subgenres - the line between fiction and fact; to what degree must an author adhere to historical accuracy?; time boundaries; the diary format; the protagonist as the outsider; who is entitled to write what?; and literary concerns such as the relationship between accuracy and readability. Part Two explores issues of contemporary interest, such as race, class, gender, the immigrant experience, religion, war, and nationalism. Thought-provoking discussions of how these elements are treated in historical novels, with emphasis on how current cultural values have shaped the fiction, are presented. Finally, the question of whether novels in this genre are bound by anything other than their respective period setting is posed, and it is contended that there are features common to YA historical novels that not only set the genre apart from other YA fiction, but also contribute something unique to the larger genre.

The genesis for much classroom debate, suggestions for class discussions and writing assignments as well as sample written responses of these debates from the authors' classes are included. Teachers, librarians, instructors of young adult literature courses, and teen readers will find this an insightful analysis of YA historical fiction.

Genres: Young Adult

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've read all of the book that will be useful to my research being the first section of the book which examines YA historical fiction as a genre and the chapter on historical fiction concerning itself with war. While the authors offer some useful quotes from historical fiction authors and critics (as well as other sources to examine), the first portion of the book is more of an examination of the history of the historical novel than a presentation of new ideas. While they do seem to reject some old definitions of what constitutes historical fiction, they do not offer new definition of their own. Perhaps this is not a flaw in a book of "Reflections", but I felt it unsatisfactory.

Also, the chapter about war historical fiction (which I read part of) was some cross between criticism and summary. Useful when studying the books examined, but not a particularly useful tool for studying the general scope of historical fiction books that deal with war.

[Hannah]

Authors who are lazy with their details make me worried about their greater arguments and competency as scholars. My blog post on this book: http://mclicious.org/2013/04/28/schol...

[EvaLovesYA · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brugt som brugbar kilde ifb. med mit speciale om Young Adult-litteratur (2017)