Spirituality in Young Adult Literature: The Last Taboo by Patty Campbell and Chris Crowe (review)

In their co-authored text Spirituality in Young Adult Literature, YA literary scholars Patty Campbell and Chris Crowe explore the role of spirituality in contemporary, Anglo-American young adult fiction. This volume differs from traditional co-authored texts in that Campbell is the sole author of the first eight chapters, and Crowe, the sole author of the final chapter on Mormon YA literature. This arrangement permits Campbell and Crowe to offer a successful review of a wide range of texts from various spiritual and religious perspectives. Although the use of "spiritual" in the title denotes a broader understanding of belief, Campbell's chapters generally uses the terms "spiritual" and "religious" interchangeably; some chapters, for example, discuss particular religious traditions and their attendant dogmas whilst others focus on texts that broadly feature Christianity. Their study, however, lacks a scholarly grounding that would position it within traditional literary criticism. Throughout Spirituality in YA, the authors summarize YA texts in such a way that places into relief key spiritual themes or topics; even so, they rarely provide critical comments that might situate the YA texts within a larger methodological framework. Instead, the text serves as a mere overview of twenty-first-century YA novels that include religious or spiritual elements.

In an attempt to show the recent religious trends in YA literature, Campbell's study focuses on early twenty-first-century novels that were published for mainstream audiences. Thus, her analysis excludes texts that were published by religious publishing companies, since she maintains that those novels tend to take on a "didactic intent" (xv). The books she instead chooses include "realistic YA fiction" and also "YA literature that deals with the mystical" (xviii). Campbell's other criteria is that the texts must constitute "fine teen literature" and "have been outstanding in integrating spiritual ideas into the plot" (xix). Campbell does not offer the qualities she used to determine what "fine" literature is, nor what makes the integration of spiritual ideas "outstanding." Campbell makes a point to include an appendixed bibliography aptly named the "Godsearch," which offers a more comprehensive list of YA novels published since 1967 that feature spiritual themes. The bibliography's timeline is meant to incorporate the entire history of the YA genre (169). While no reason is given for this particular timeline, it begins the same year that S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders was published, a text which many consider to be the genre's beginning. Hinton's novel is left off the list though, most likely because it does not directly feature spirituality.

In her introduction, Campbell posits that although YA literature welcomes a variety of "taboo" subjects, such as "graphic" love scenes and "bloody violence," it is nevertheless "distinguished by its lack of devotion to issues of—devotion" (xiii). That is, Campbell maintains that YA literature, which is often at the forefront of addressing difficult subjects, frequently fails to discuss religion and spirituality. Observing a lack of cohesiveness between religion's role in American society and the "picture of American religious life that emerges from YA fiction" (xiv), Campbell makes a compelling argument for the inclusion of spirituality in YA and the consequent study of spirituality and religion in YA. Specifically, Spirituality in YA sets out to answer the question: "What authors have had the conviction and the theological literacy to struggle with those spiritual questions that are so intensely private but so intensely troubling and important to thoughtful teens?" (xix).

As an answer to this question, Campbell's chapters each address a theme in religion and spirituality, such as "Death and the Afterlife" and "The Divine Encounter." At the beginning of each of her chapters, Campbell offers a concise theological overview of its topic and then identifies two or more relevant YA texts, giving a short summarization of each YA text and then connecting the chapter's topic to the development of each text's respective protagonist(s). The work focuses for the most...