Reading Mentors explores how readers make sense of the relationships between adolescents and adults in speculative young adult (YA) fiction. In this study, speculative fiction includes stories set in future, dystopian, magical, or otherwise imagined worlds. We're interested in the mentors, teachers, guides, rebels, and complicated authority figures who shape the journeys of characters in worlds of what-if and how real readers interpret these relationships.
The study consists of a broad survey and more in-depth individual interviews. In both, we ask questions about the mentoring relationships in four core series:
- The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins including its two prequel novels,
- the Shadow and Bone trilogy with its prequel graphic novel Demon in the Wood by Leigh Bardugo,
- The Testing trilogy by Joelle Charbonneau, and
- The Great Library series by Rachel Caine
Participants are also welcome to suggest their own series or books and discuss that.
What insights are we looking for?
There are no right or wrong answers in Reading Mentors. By listening to readers' perspectives, interpretations, and experiences, we seek to better understand:
- how YA fiction represents adolescence and adulthood,
- how intergenerational relationships resonate with young(er) audiences,
- how fictional mentors can empower or constrain young protagonists and readers alike, and
- how young readers respond to these dynamics in imaginative, personal, and critical ways
With Reading Mentors, I aim to highlight young people's voices and show how their insights can deepen our understanding of literature, education, and intergenerational relationships.
Who is behind Reading Mentors?
This reader-response study is part of a PhD research study at Ghent University.
That would be mine, hi! I'm Janieke Koning.
For my PhD, I analyze and interpret representations of adolescent-adult mentoring relationships in speculative YA fiction. I explore how YA literature reshapes or reinforces conventional ideas of adolescence and youth mentoring, and how literary mentoring relationships engage with and influence real-world interactions between young people and adults. The books and series offered as options in the survey and interview are part of my research corpus.
Prof. Dr. Elly McCausland is my doctoral academic supervisor and oversees the research process, including here for Reading Mentors.
Janieke Koning
PhD Researcher
Prof. Dr. Elly McCausland
Supervisor
This study has been reviewed and was approved by the Ethics Committee of the faculty of Arts and Philosophy. Under no circumstances should you consider the approval by this committee as an inducement to participate in this study.