In his newest, The Haymeadow , fourteen year old John Barron is responsible for guarding six thousand sheep for three months with the aid of two horses and four dogs. On the first day alone he battles a rattlesnake, skunk, flash flood, and a ruined camp. Between all the outer struggles, John comes into inner understanding about his heritage, the beauty of nature, his true self, and his father's love for him. Other popular realistic novel writers include Judy Blume, Bruce Brooks, Robert Cormier, Chris Crutcher, Jenny Davis, Zibby O'Neal, Richard Peck, and Cynthia Voigt. Adolescents are no longer bound by the concrete reality and many times can imagine the ideal in people and families apart from their own experience.
Many young adults become historical fiction fans.
Last year I discovered Mildred Taylor's Logan family and gobbled every novel she'd written about them. The Logans are a Black family living in the rural south, much hated by poor whites because they own land. The intensity of racial hatred fuels the novels, but there is a strong balance of love in the intimacy within the family structure. Taylor's newest novel, The Road to Memphis takes place in 1941 and Cassie, the viewpoint female of the series, is finishing high school, dreaming of college and law school amidst a background of fear of war and continuing racial violence. In a tense drama, the background becomes foreground and Cassie is torn from her dreams and thrust into a harsh reality and her adulthood.