Essentials of Young Adult Literature, 3/e gives readers an engaging and succinct yet comprehensive overview of young adult literature. Using a genre approach and an emphasis on immersion in literature, it prepares tomorrow's teachers to integrate literature into middle and high school curricula. This book focuses on reading young adult books, not just talking about them. It presents short chapters that include extensive recommended booklists organized by genre and topic, and relates young adult literature to current issues such as standards, the literary canon, censorship, close reading, critical literacy, and resistant readers.

Kathy G. Short teaches graduate courses in young adult and children's literature, inquiry, and curriculum at the University of Arizona and taught in public schools in Ohio and Indiana. Her books include Creating Classrooms for Authors and Inquirers, Literature as a Way of Knowing, and Stories Matter: The Complexity of Cultural Authenticity. She is also co-author of Essentials of Children's Literature, eighth edition, published by Pearson in 2014, and director of Worlds of Words (www.wowlit.org), an initiative to encourage the use of literature to explore global cultures. She serves on various book award committees and is President-Elect of the National Council of Teachers of English.

Carl M. Tomlinson taught graduate and undergraduate courses in children's literature and language arts at Northern Illinois University. He was an elementary and middle school teacher in Thomasville, Georgia, public schools, and taught classes in English in Norway. He co-authored Essentials of Children's Literature, eighth edition, published by Pearson in 2014, and is the editor of Children's Books from Other Countries, published by USBBY and Scarecrow Press in 1998.
Carol Lynch-Brown taught graduate and undergraduate courses in children's and young adult literature, reading, and language arts education at Florida State University. She was a teacher in elementary school and middle school in St. Paul and Minneapolis Public Schools, and taught English in French Public Schools. She co-authored Essentials of Children's Literature, eighth edition, published by Pearson in 2014 and is a former editor of The Reading Teacher, a journal of the International Reading Association.

Holly Johnson teaches graduate courses in adolescent literature, adolescent literacy, and literacy as a linguistic and cultural tool at the University of Cincinnati. Her books include Creating Confident Adolescent Readers: Key Elements for Building Proficiency and Developing Critical Awareness at the Middle Level: Using Texts as Tools for Critique and Pleasure. She was a middle school language arts and reading teacher in Kentucky and Arizona, and taught as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Botswana, Africa.