"Trites argues that the development of the genre over the past thirty years is an out-growth of postmodernism, since YA novels are, by definition, texts that interrogate the social construction of individuals. Drawing on such nineteenth-century precursors as Little Women and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Disturbing the Universe demonstrates how important it is to employ poststructuralist methodologies in analyzing adolescent literature, both in critical studies and in the classroom.

Among the twentieth-century authors discussed are Blume, Hamilton, Hinton, Le Guin, L'Engle, and Zindel." "Trite's work has applications for a broad range of readers, including scholars of children's literature and theorists of postmodernity as well as librarians and secondary-school teachers."--BOOK JACKET.