YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE: AN ALTERNATIVE GENRE IN THE CLASSROOM READING LIST

Abstract

In an attempt to examine the possibility of incorporating of young adult literature into the classroom reading list, a study on Malaysian young adult students’ response to two young adult storybooks, Audrey’s Promise and The Dragon Lives Again, written by K.S. Maniam (2003) was conducted. Drawing on Stover and Tway’s (1992) common concerns of young adults, Havighurst’s (1972) lifetime development tasks and Paul Zindel’s (Zindel cited in Beckman, 1991) suggestions for writing a successful young adult novel, a questionnaire was developed and administered to young adult students to examine if they enjoyed reading the two young adult storybooks and if they could identify young adult issues in the two stories. The results of the study indicated that more than 90% of the young adult readers in the study enjoyed reading Audrey’s Prom- ise while 81% of the readers enjoyed The Dragon Lives Again. The young adult readers could also identify young adult issues in the two stories.