Adolescent Girls' Reactions to a Body-Image-Centered Young Adult Novel

Abstract

How our young readers react to the books they read can say a lot about the way that young adult literature is written for and about them. Amid societal expectations to be the ideal body type, young female readers find this message reflected in the books written for their age group. These texts either perpetuate this message or humanize the experience of being perceived as overweight as an adolescent. Qualitative research taking place in book clubs has been conducted to explore perceptions of body image; however, my research addresses specifically middle school female readers and their engagement within book discussions in response to a body-image-centered young adult novel. I conducted qualitative research in a book club with 8th grade girls to discuss and record their reactions to the text Dumplin’ by Julie Murphy. These reader reactions served as crucial data as I observed a pattern in their responses during my analysis. I found that during adolescent book discussions, participants position themselves in relation to the texts they read and may purposefully distance themselves by remaining either disconnectedly objective or passive and engaging sparsely, if at all, with the text, during group discussion. This contrasts with participants that engage with the text and its message, contributing and driving discussion. With my analysis, educators may foster their understanding of students with limited engagement and implement practices that are more effective for these students and the structure of book discussions in the classroom.