Then and Now: A Survey of Mormon Young Adult Writers

Keywords

Mormon adolescents, young adult literature, literary scarcity

Abstract

Even a cursory glance by a would-be researcher at literature available to Mormon teenagers up to 1900 inevitably leads to an inescapable, if disappointing, conclusion: almost none existed. On the one hand, such a dearth is initially startling, for a sizeable stream of books targeting an audience comprised of readers older than children but presumably not yet prepared to grapple with the demands exacted by adult fare had been steadily flowing since the publication within a year of each other of first novels by America’s first writers for adolescents, Horatio Alger and Louisa May Alcott, whose Ragged Dick and Little Women, respectively, appeared in 1867 and 1868. If America’s teens generally provided a ready and apparently eager audience for stories featuring characters from their own age group, an audience upon the tastes of which such enterprising literary entrepreneurs as Gilbert Patten and Edward Stratemeyer capitalized until well into the twentieth century, one wonders why similar material for LDS adolescents specifically did not pour forth.

Original Publication Citation

“Then and Now: A Survey of Mormon Young Adult Writers,” AML Annual 2002: 73-79. (with Jesse Crisler)

Document Type

Peer-Reviewed Article

Publication Date

2002

Publisher

AML Annual 2002

Language

English

College

Humanities

Department

English

University Standing at Time of Publication

Full Professor

Link to Full Text

Share

COinS