Beyond Award Winners: Contemporary YA Literature and the Construction of Adolescence

Young adult (YA) literature serves as a cultural medium through which ideas about adolescence, identity, belonging, and social experience are constructed. Although scholarships on YA literature have expanded, research has often focused on award-winning or critically recognized texts, providing a limited view of contemporary YA publishing. This study examines 195 YA titles submitted to the International Literacy Association’s Young Adult Book Award during the 2024–2025 and 2025–2026 cycles to explore the broader landscape of contemporary YA literature. Using qualitative content analysis informed by sociocultural perspectives, this study analyzed genre patterns and thematic representations across the submission corpus. Findings indicate that contemporary realism and fantasy dominated, while nonfiction remained comparatively underrepresented. The analysis also revealed that YA narratives frequently constructed adolescence through relational identity formation, belonging, emotional experiences, and everyday forms of agency. Although diverse identities were increasingly represented, disability and neurodivergence remained less visible within intersectional narratives. These findings suggest that contemporary YA literature reflects both expanding representation and persistent limitations in how youth agency and social change are imagined. For literacy educators, the study highlights the importance of engaging YA literature as both a resource for understanding adolescent experiences and a cultural artifact that invites examination of representation, identity, and social possibilities.