Judith Blume is an American writer of children's, young adult, and adult fiction. Blume began writing in 1959 and has published more than 25 novels. Among her best-known works are Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. (1970), Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing (1972), Deenie (1973), and Blubber (1974). Blume's books have significantly contributed to children's and young adult literature. She was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2023.
Genre fiction, also known as popular fiction, is a term used in the book-trade for fictional works written with the intent of fitting into a specific literary genre, in order to appeal to readers and fans already familiar with that genre.
A romance novel or romantic novel generally refers to a type of genre fiction novel which places its primary focus on the relationship and romantic love between two people, and usually has an "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending." Precursors include authors of literary fiction, such as Samuel Richardson, Jane Austen, and Charlotte Brontë.
Young adult fiction (YA) is fiction written for readers from 12 to 18 years of age. The term YA was first used regularly in the 1960s in America. The YA category includes most of the genres found in adult fiction, with themes that include friendship, sexuality, drugs and alcohol, and sexual and gender identity. Stories that focus on the challenges of youth may be categorized as problem novels or coming-of-age novels.
Laurie Halse Anderson is an American writer, known for children's and young adult novels. She received the Margaret A. Edwards Award from the American Library Association in 2010 for her contribution to young adult literature and 2023 she received the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award.
Julie Garwood is an American writer of over twenty-seven romance novels in both the historical and suspense subgenres. Over thirty-five million copies of her books are in print, and she has had at least 24 New York Times Bestsellers. She has also written a novel for young adults called A Girl Named Summer.
Ana Maria Machado is a Brazilian writer of children's books, one of the most significant alongside Lygia Bojunga Nunes and Ruth Rocha. She received the international Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 2000 for her "lasting contribution to children's literature".
Carmelina Marchetta is an Australian writer and teacher. Marchetta is best known as the author of teen novels, Looking for Alibrandi, Saving Francesca and On the Jellicoe Road. She has twice been awarded the CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Older Readers, in 1993 and 2004. For Jellicoe Road she won the 2009 Michael L. Printz Award from the American Library Association, recognizing the year's best book for young adults.
Marijane Agnes Meaker was an American writer who, along with Tereska Torres, was credited with launching the lesbian pulp fiction genre, the only accessible novels on that theme in the 1950s.
The Princess Diaries is a series of epistolary young adult novels written by Meg Cabot, and is also the title of the first volume, published in 2000. The series spent 48 weeks on the New York Times Children's Series Best Sellers List. The series revolves around Amelia 'Mia' Thermopolis, a teenager in New York who discovers that she is the princess of a small European principality called Genovia. The series follows Mia's life throughout high school in the 2000s and juggling regular teenage life with being a royal princess. The books are noted for containing many popular culture references from the 2000s that influence some of the plot.
Romance comics is a comics genre depicting strong and close romantic love and its attendant complications such as jealousy, marriage, divorce, betrayal, and heartache. The term is generally associated with an American comic books genre published through the first three decades of the Cold War (1947–1977). Romance comics of the period typically featured dramatic scripts about the love lives of older high school teens and young adults, with accompanying artwork depicting an urban or rural America contemporaneous with publication.
Brenda Hiatt is an American, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of romantic adventure novels, including traditional Regency romance, time travel romance, historical novels, contemporary humorous mystery, and most recently young adult science fiction romance. She has authored and published over 20 such novels in a writing career that started in 1988.
The Mediator is a series which contains six novels written by Meg Cabot. The first four novels were originally published under Cabot's pseudonym Jenny Carroll by Simon & Schuster. The last two books were published by HarperCollins and under Meg Cabot's name. This book is romance–fiction for teenagers and young adults.
Louise Plummer is an author of young adult fiction and a retired associate professor of English for Brigham Young University. She lives in New York, New York with her writer/professor husband Tom. Together they have four sons.
The Fault in Our Stars is a novel by John Green. It is his fourth solo novel, and sixth novel overall. It was published on January 10, 2012. The title is inspired by Act 1, Scene 2 of Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar, in which the nobleman Cassius says to Brutus: "Men at some time were masters of their fates, / The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings." The story is narrated by Hazel Grace Lancaster, a 16-year-old girl with thyroid cancer that has affected her lungs. Hazel is forced by her parents to attend a support group where she subsequently meets and falls in love with 17-year-old Augustus Waters, an ex-basketball player, amputee, and survivor of osteosarcoma.
Kissing Shakespeare is a debut novel of a former American teacher and librarian-turned-writer Pamela Mingle. It was published as a young adult literature book on August 14, 2012, by Delacorte Books. There are no records of William Shakespeare's life between his birth in 1564 to his arrival in London in 1590, although he was speculated to be a schoolteacher before becoming a playwright. Mingle's novel sets during what historians referred as Shakespeare's "lost years," using clues from the 1580s, to create a romantic fantasy centering on a love triangle composed of a contemporary teenage girl from the 21st century, a time traveler from the past, and William Shakespeare. Mingle remains true to the history and events of the era, revealing the challenges of living in a time of religious persecution and suppression of women.
Jenny Han is an American author of young adult fiction and children's fiction. She is best known for writing the To All the Boys series and The Summer I Turned Pretty trilogy, which were adapted into a film series and TV series, respectively.
Ragnheiður Gestsdóttir is an Icelandic author, noted for her children's books.
Tomi Adeyemi is a Nigerian American writer and creative writing coach. She is best known for her novel Children of Blood and Bone, the first in the Legacy of Orïsha trilogy published by Henry Holt Books for Young Readers, which won the 2018 Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy, the 2019 Waterstones Book Prize, and the 2019 Hugo Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book. In 2019, she was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list. In 2020, she was named to the TIME 100 Most Influential People of 2020 in the "Pioneers" category.
Blackout is a young adult novel written by Dhonielle Clayton, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nic Stone, Angie Thomas, Ashley Woodfolk, and Nicola Yoon. The book contains six interlinked stories about Black teen love during a power outage in New York City. The book was released on June 22, 2021.
