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Purpose This study aims to present a complex analysis of the ways family dynamics are represented in six books for youth that depict characters with Tourette Syndrome (TS). In particular, this study highlights how characters with TS navigate layers of shame for being misunderstood in school and society, and how family dynamics either reinforce or support characters from internalizing ableism and the attendant pain and shame associated with being perceived as “abnormal.” Design/methodology/approach The process for selecting YA books began with a wide search of recommended book lists available online and curated by the disability community, such as disabilityinkidlit.org and the Tourette Association of America. The authors sought books with at least one main or secondary character with TS. Using questions informed by critical content analysis (Short, 2016), the authors reads each book and generated notes and data charts on themes and patterns, which included how interactions between characters with TS and their parents and siblings were depicted. After the authors read each book, they met for 90 min to discuss their notes, expanded their data charts and generated themes to address their research question: How do characters with TS navigate pain within family dynamics? Findings Findings support that all six books reveal progressive and problematic portrayals and messages about disability and human differences. Characters with TS in the books the authors studied experience family dynamics that are fraught with pain. Findings also demonstrate that characters with TS act with agency and resilience to resist shame within family dynamics, educating their parents and/or siblings in ways that are healing and restorative within the family dynamic. Originality/value The analysis of the six books provides support for educators to build knowledge about how disability is constructed within children’s and youth literature to pose critical questions about problematic portrayals and to build a future for families that is inclusive of disability and values progressive notions about human differences.

PurposeThe article serves to both introduce the special edition of Qualitative Research Journal (QRJ) and explain the purpose of the Foundation of Learning and Literacy (FFLL) Touchstones as principles that should inform language and literacy policy development, leadership in the field and classroom literacy practices. It particularly focuses on Touchstone 1 and the importance of fairness and equity for all literacy learners. It draws on a range of research that articulates ways that inequality of opportunity can be addressed.Design/methodology/approachThis article both introduces the FFLL for the Special Edition of QRJ and examines the first Touchstone or guiding, overarching principle that led to the establishment of the FFLL and the 11 Touchstones that are discussed in subsequent articles. In essence, this article addresses the importance of fairness and equity for all children and young people as they develop deep literacy. The article begins with a brief contextual background explaining how and why FFLL was formed. It then highlights the first Touchstone.FindingsThe article demonstrates the need to support all learners as they strive to be deeply literate so they can become active and compassionate members of their communities. Based on a range of research evidence, it suggests ways to make sure that all children and young people can become successful literacy learners. These include homes with books that learners can self-select, sharing stories, substantive conversations, the provision of quality literary texts and rich pre-school experiences.Practical implicationsPractical classroom implications arising from the research are discussed.Originality/valueThe article is a brief introduction to the FFLL and a synthesis of some of the research that underpins the first Touchstone.

Bernice Thurman Hunter’s Booky trilogy depicts the economic hardships of a white, working-class girl nicknamed Booky who lived in Toronto, Canada, in the Great Depression. This article analyzes hundreds of letters sent to Hunter from two cohorts of readers: adults who grew up in the 1930s and school-age children coming of age in the 1980s and 1990s. The adult letters brim with details of their own Depression-era childhoods, while young readers express shock at how difficult things were in 1930s and compare Booky’s experiences to their own challenges and privileges. The letters’ revelations demonstrate how readers used a piece of historical fiction to grapple with the past—be it their own childhoods or the history of childhood.

The subject of sister relationships in contemporary young adult fiction has been all but ignored in the critical literature, glossed over in favor of a protagonist's relationship with her parents, closest friend, or boyfriend. Nevertheless, the topic of sisters in the context of family relationships has an ongoing relevance to contemporary young adult readers, particularly in the face of adolescent adversity and sisters who replace mothers who are physically absent. The bond between sister pairs in these coming-of-age narratives is represented as a positive one of deep intimacy, connection, friendship and profound significance which may well enable the sisters to overcome challenges that have arisen during childhood and that re-emerge in late adolescence. The literary sister relationship is examined in the context of absent parents in Joanne Horniman's Secret Scribbled Notebooks (2004) and My Candlelight Novel (2008), Jandy Nelson's The Sky Is Everywhere (2010) and Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl (2013).

A powerful and heart-stopping young adult novel from a master storyteller. This is Steven Herrick at his best. 'There are worse things than school.' Luke sleepwalks through his days wagging school, swimming at the reservoir and eating takeaway pizza. That is until Charlotte shows up. Rumour is she got expelled from her city school and her family moved to the Blue Mountains for a fresh start. But when Luke's invited to her house, he discovers there's a lot more going on than meets the eye.

This article examines the representation of children as a “second lost generation” in John Dos Passos’ novel The Big Money. It explains that the documentary and narrative sections that Dos Passos integrates into the novel explore how children’s position in the 1930s is caught between parents’ care and indifference. Dos Passos clarifies the impact of the American Dream and materialism upon the structuring of this conflicted position. In the novel’s Newsreels, Dos Passos presents a composite of popular songs and news headlines that present children seeking jobs and also departing from their family houses. Alongside the presentation of this phenomenon which resonates with children’s social situation in 1930s, in the narrative sections Dos Passos portrays Juvenile characters as living in families whose main concern is the making of money. To investigate this representation, the article considers the views of historians about the first “lost generation” (the post-World War I generation). It utilizes the “second lost generation” term to describe the juveniles who struggled during the 1930s age of Depression. The article historicizes the position of children in 1930s America. It refers to literary critics’ views about Dos Passos’ modernist and political inclination. The article concludes that Dos Passos’ The Big Money manifests in a modernist form fragmented historical realities about 1930s America’s materialistic thinking, within which children are seen as a second “lost generation”.

Resumo: Diante do alto índice de atos autolesivos em adolescentes no Brasil e no mundo, pretende-se analisar o apelo recorrente a esse recurso na adolescência, discutindo questões relativas ao laço social nele implicadas. Tal discussão será feita a partir do caso clínico de uma adolescente de 14 anos, encaminhado pela escola para o SPIA/IPUB-UFRJ e marcado pela presença da angústia e do desamparo, cujas possibilidades de inscrição psíquica e endereçamento parecem vacilar. O artigo é fruto de pesquisa em andamento sobre autolesões e suicídio na adolescência, que pretende contribuir para a construção de dispositivos, particularmente nos âmbitos da saúde e da educação, para intervir e manejar esse problema clínico-político de nossos tempos.

Adolescents who face life-limiting illness have unique developmental features and strong personal preferences around end of life (EOL) care. Understanding and documenting those preferences can be enhanced by practising narrative medicine. This paper aims to identify a new form of narrative, the Adolescent End of Life Narrative, and recognise four central themes. The Adolescent EOL Narrative can be observed in young adult fiction, The Fault in Our Stars, which elucidates the notion that terminally ill adolescents have authentic preferences about their life and death. Attaining narrative competence and appreciating the distinct perspective of the dying adolescent allows medical providers and parents to support the adolescent in achieving a good death. By thinking with the Adolescent EOL Narrative, adults can use Voicing my CHOiCES, an EOL planning guide designed for adolescents, to effectively capture the adolescent’s preferences, and the adolescent can make use of this type of narrative to make sense of their lived experience.

Award-winning author Kathy Kacer has written numerous fiction and non-fiction books for children about the Holocaust. With a master’s degree in psychology, she worked with troubled teens before turning to writing full time in 1998. Growing up listening to her parents’ stories of their experiences during the Holocaust, her writing is a very personal labour of love. Her work has been translated into many languages and rights have been sold around the world. Kathy spends much of her time speaking at schools, libraries and conferences. In the following interview Kathy tells us about the importance of speaking to this generation about the Holocaust, her favourite Jewish custom, books she has collaborated on and much more.