| Meet Our Contributor: Dr. Amy Piotrowski is an associate professor of English education at Utah State University. She teaches undergraduate courses in English education and secondary education as well as graduate courses in literacy. Her scholarly interests focus on digital literacies, young adult literature, and teacher education. Before going into teacher education, she taught middle school Language Arts, high school English, and college composition in Texas. Her chapter “Flipping the Teaching of Young Adult Literature with Preservice Teachers” was published in the book Towards a More Visual Literacy: Shifting the Paradigm with Digital Tools and Young Adult Literature. She is also the recipient of Richard A. Meade Award for Research in English Education, 2022. |  |
Growing Up in the Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin's YA Novels
by Amy Piotrowski
Ursula K. Le Guin is known for her philosophically complex works of literature that defy simple categories of genre (Cadden, 2005). She argues in her essay “The Child and the Shadow” that fiction, especially fantasy fiction, can provide the young reader a “guide of the journey to self-knowledge, to adulthood, to the light” (Le Guin, 2024, p. 879). Reading allows adolescents to confront who they are and might become, making Le Guin’s YA novels open-ended stories of self-discovery and growth (Cadden, 2006). The overarching themes across the texts I discuss here include how in adolescence we must learn to use our abilities for good, build trust with others, and accept the dynamic nature of life.
Earthsea Series
The first three books of this series each feature its own adolescent protagonist. A Wizard of Earthsea introduces readers to Ged, a boy whose magical talents lead him to attend a renowned school for wizards on the island of Roke. As Ged learns to use his abilities, he must undertake a journey that mirrors his psychological development. The Tombs of Atuan is about a teenager named Tenar, who was taken from her home when she was a young child to serve as priestess to deities known as the Nameless Ones. When the wizard Ged shows up searching for something hidden in the underground Tombs that Tenar oversees, Tenar has to decide whether or not to break free of the isolated and bleak life she has known. The Farthest Shore is the coming of age journey of an adolescent prince named Arren as he accompanies Ged, who is now middle-aged and the powerful archmage, on a journey to discover why magic is failing across Earthsea. Something has upset the balance of the world, and Arren and Ged set out to restore it.
The first three books of this series each feature its own adolescent protagonist. A Wizard of Earthsea introduces readers to Ged, a boy whose magical talents lead him to attend a renowned school for wizards on the island of Roke. As Ged learns to use his abilities, he must undertake a journey that mirrors his psychological development. The Tombs of Atuan is about a teenager named Tenar, who was taken from her home when she was a young child to serve as priestess to deities known as the Nameless Ones. When the wizard Ged shows up searching for something hidden in the underground Tombs that Tenar oversees, Tenar has to decide whether or not to break free of the isolated and bleak life she has known. The Farthest Shore is the coming of age journey of an adolescent prince named Arren as he accompanies Ged, who is now middle-aged and the powerful archmage, on a journey to discover why magic is failing across Earthsea. Something has upset the balance of the world, and Arren and Ged set out to restore it.
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| The Beginning Place This novel that today could be considered new adult literature - the protagonists are both 20 years old - takes readers between the world of reality and a magic forest land of perpetual twilight. Hugh stumbles into a strange forest world one evening as he runs to escape the stress of life with his emotionally struggling mother. Irene has been coming to this forest world for years to escape her terrible home life. The world of the forest with its peaceful stream, rolling mountains, and friendly inhabitants in a village dubbed Mountain Town seems idyllic, but all is not as it appears to be. There is a vague and strange threat looming over Mountain Town, so the town’s leaders send Hugh and Irene on a dangerous quest to end this threat. The novel depicts the transition to adulthood as a literal journey where one cannot turn back, one can only go forward. Attebery (1982) suggests that the novel shows how the escapist world of fantasy isn’t a place we can live forever. I’d add that the novel shows that the twilit liminal time of life of adolescence also isn’t a place we can spend our whole lives. |  |
 | Very Far Away From Anywhere Else Very Far Away From Anywhere Else is a work of realistic fiction, unlike the other novels in this post which are all works of fantasy. The focus of the novel is the friendship between two high school seniors, Owen, who is a budding scientist with dreams of attending a prestigious university, and Natalie, who is a talented musician and composer. Owen and Natalie grapple with the pressure to conform to the expectations of society and their parents. The novel does a good job of capturing the trepidation about the future that teens can feel as they approach the end of high school. I really liked Le Guin’s irreverent tone through Owen’s narration as the story shows the importance of imagination and what it can feel like to not fit in. |
Annals of the Western Shore trilogy
Set in a world of city-states, villages, and rural lands along the western shore of a fictional continent, each novel in the series is its own story, following a different adolescent who must come to terms with growing up in a world that can be brutal and oppressive. Each of the series’s protagonists must figure out how to build a life, even under difficult circumstances. Taken together, this trilogy examines how stories can bridge divides and connect people.
Gifts takes place in the sparse Uplands where teenaged Orrec’s family eeks out a living raising cattle. Orrec awaits the day he will show the power passed down in his father’s family called the unmaking, the ability to destroy someone or something with just a look. Gry, Orrec’s best friend, has inherited her mother’s gift of calling animals, an ability highly prized for hunting. When Orrec fears that his power to unmake might be out of his control, he blindfolds himself, while Gry refuses to use her gift to call animals to waiting hunters. Orrec and Gry must decide how they want to use their abilities.
Voices is set in the coastal town of Ansul, which has been under occupation by the army of a neighboring land for the past seventeen years. The novel’s protagonist, Memer, lives in the house that the people of Ansul have smuggled their books to for safekeeping, as the occupiers have banned all books under penalty of death. Memer’s experience living under occupation and the arrival in Ansul of a famous storyteller leaves the reader pondering the meaning of freedom beyond just the absence of constraints as well as different ways to resist oppression.
Powers is the story of a young slave in the city-state of Etra. Gavir is content as a slave for a wealthy family until a devastating tragedy leads Gavir to wander away from Etra, question the life he has known, and come to grips with the dehumanizing, corrosive effects of cruel social systems.
Set in a world of city-states, villages, and rural lands along the western shore of a fictional continent, each novel in the series is its own story, following a different adolescent who must come to terms with growing up in a world that can be brutal and oppressive. Each of the series’s protagonists must figure out how to build a life, even under difficult circumstances. Taken together, this trilogy examines how stories can bridge divides and connect people.
Gifts takes place in the sparse Uplands where teenaged Orrec’s family eeks out a living raising cattle. Orrec awaits the day he will show the power passed down in his father’s family called the unmaking, the ability to destroy someone or something with just a look. Gry, Orrec’s best friend, has inherited her mother’s gift of calling animals, an ability highly prized for hunting. When Orrec fears that his power to unmake might be out of his control, he blindfolds himself, while Gry refuses to use her gift to call animals to waiting hunters. Orrec and Gry must decide how they want to use their abilities.
Voices is set in the coastal town of Ansul, which has been under occupation by the army of a neighboring land for the past seventeen years. The novel’s protagonist, Memer, lives in the house that the people of Ansul have smuggled their books to for safekeeping, as the occupiers have banned all books under penalty of death. Memer’s experience living under occupation and the arrival in Ansul of a famous storyteller leaves the reader pondering the meaning of freedom beyond just the absence of constraints as well as different ways to resist oppression.
Powers is the story of a young slave in the city-state of Etra. Gavir is content as a slave for a wealthy family until a devastating tragedy leads Gavir to wander away from Etra, question the life he has known, and come to grips with the dehumanizing, corrosive effects of cruel social systems.
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References
Attebery, B. (1982) The Beginning Place: Le Guin’s metafantasy. Children’s Literature, 10, 113-123. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/chl.0.0196.
Cadden, M. (2005). Ursula K. Le Guin Beyond Genre: Fiction for Children and Adults. Routledge.
Cadden, M. (2006). Taking different roads to the city: The development of Ursula K. Le Guin’s young adult novels. Extrapolation, 47(3), 427-444. https://doi.org/10.3828/extr.2006.47.3.7
Le Guin, U. K. (2024). The child and the shadow. In B. Attebery (Ed.) Le Guin: Five novels. (pp. 873-884). The Library of America.
Attebery, B. (1982) The Beginning Place: Le Guin’s metafantasy. Children’s Literature, 10, 113-123. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/chl.0.0196.
Cadden, M. (2005). Ursula K. Le Guin Beyond Genre: Fiction for Children and Adults. Routledge.
Cadden, M. (2006). Taking different roads to the city: The development of Ursula K. Le Guin’s young adult novels. Extrapolation, 47(3), 427-444. https://doi.org/10.3828/extr.2006.47.3.7
Le Guin, U. K. (2024). The child and the shadow. In B. Attebery (Ed.) Le Guin: Five novels. (pp. 873-884). The Library of America.
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