Children's Literature in Education

, Volume 43, Issue 2, pp 145–157 | Cite as

‘You are a Flaw in the Pattern’: Difference, Autonomy and Bullying in YA Fiction

Original Paper
First Online:

Abstract

Though portrayals of bullying in children’s books stretch back to Victorian public school stories, this article sees a new subgenre about bullying in young adult novels emerging in the post-Columbine years. Selected works by Jerry Spinelli, Walter Dean Myers, Jaime Adoff, Carol Plum-Ucci and Rita Williams-Garcia are examined, although the article begins by looking at a precursor of this subgenre, Robert Cormier’s classic The Chocolate War. In this subgenre, it is argued that bullying is not presented as dysfunctional adolescent behavior, but as a tool for addressing issues of difference and discrimination on the grounds of race, class, sexual orientation or personality; issues that filter into adolescent culture. High schools are thus portrayed as totalitarian microcosms where bullying functions as a means of social control, curbing deviance from masculine, heterosexual, middle-class and white norms. The narrative techniques and themes of these books—around homophobia, jock culture, rampage shootings and girl-on–girl violence—will be examined.

Keywords

Bullying Difference Homophobia Racism Girl-on-girl violence Young adult 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

This research was conducted at the National Center for the Study of Children’s Literature, Department of English and Comparative Literature, San Diego State University, thanks to a José Castillejo grant from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science. I would like to express my gratitude to both institutions, and, in particular, to Prof. Jerry Griswold, the former Director of the Center, for his help and support. I would also like to thank Prof. Alida Allison and Michael Cart, who provided valuable suggestions during the early stages of this paper.

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Campus San Vicente del Raspeig, Facultad de Filosofía y LetrasUniversity of AlicanteAlicanteSpain

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