This article uses Kohlberg's cognitive-developmental model of adolescent stages of moral growth (developmental) to examine Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why and how character development might affect adolescent and adult readers' understandings of adolescence (social construction). It argues that young adult books like Asher's reduce the adolescent experience to a series of decisions made by overly exuberant and hormone-ridden brains, and that, therefore, they are ineffective, and even irresponsible, in portraying adolescent life. YA novels make incredible contributions to the cultural construction of adolescent, and examining those contributions is a crucial part of understanding why adolescents hold their current position in society and how that position is constructed.
Journal
The Looking Glass : New Perspectives on Children's LiteratureISSN
1551-5680Volume
18Issue
1Publisher
La Trobe UniversitySection Title
The Tortoise's TaleAuthor Biography
Chea Parton taught high school English for three years and is currently a doctoral student at Purdue University. Her research interests include adolescence as a social construct as well as how YAL contributes to and challenges its construction.Date Created
2015-09-23Rights Statement
Essays and articles published in The Looking Glass may be reproduced for non-profit use by any educational or public institution; letters to the editor and on-site comments made by our readers may not be used without the expressed permission of that individual. Any commercial use of this journal, in whole or in part, by any means, is prohibited. Authors of accepted articles assign to The Looking Glass the right to publish and distribute their text electronically and to archive and make it permanently available electronically. They retain the copyright and, 90 days after initial publication, may republish it in any form they wish as long as The Looking Glass is acknowledged as the original source.Data source
OJS data migration 2025: https://ojs.latrobe.edu.au/ojs/index.php/tlg/article/view/600
