I was assigned this book for an MLIS class earlier this year. We were assigned three chapters to read and I ended up reading the rest of the book on my own because I enjoyed it that much.
I use Cart's excellent historical survey of YA literature as the textbook for the English course I teach in young adult literature. It is more useful, accessible, and readable than any of the standard textbooks (including Nislen and Donelson).
A good overview of ya lit, an easy reading text. Be warned - you will finish with a list of 'to read' that may be overwhelming!.
Really interesting history of young adult literature. I like his writing style and learned a lot about how things began, how they changed, and where they are going.
I'm actually kind of glad that I didn't realize until after buying it that there was a new edition of this book. But it was interesting to get a mid-nineties reflection on YA, and maybe at some point I'll take a look at the new edition and see what he's added.
I used this as the text for my YA literature class until this fall, when the new edition came out.
This was a fascinating history of young adult literature that was really useful in giving me background for the class I teach. The book was published in 1996, so it's dated, but I learned a lot of helpful things about trends from the 60s-80s.
Cart is delightfully opinionated and funny, and certainly has the YA chops to be able to make some pronouncements/observations. I didn't always agree with him or even think he was right, but he scores points for writing a book about YA that didn't bore me.
Lots of good stuff in here, but would have rather read all the books cart describes than his descriptions... also, looking for an updated version of something similar.
