Editorial

In lieu of an abstract: When Crag Hill wrote his Introduction to The Critical Merits of Young Adult Literature: Coming of Age (2014), he urged that “now is the time for YA scholars to earnestly begin to build a body of criticism that poses questions about producing and reading YA literature” (16). In the years since The International Journal of Young Adult Literature launched in 2020, the journal has contributed to the realisation of that vision, supporting an increasingly rich and multifaceted body of YA scholarship across global contexts. Volume 6 is no exception. Bringing together our largest collection of articles and book reviews to date, this issue demonstrates the extent to which YA studies continues to expand in the scope of questions it pursues and the multiplicity of perspectives it encompasses. The field is increasingly attentive to the material lives of books: how they are produced, marketed, and circulated across different readerships. It is likewise attuned to the social and environmental urgencies that animate YA fiction, and to the ways young characters negotiate agency, embodiment, vulnerability, and resistance in the contemporary world. The contributions in this issue reflect these priorities, offering insight into the manifold forces – industrial, ecological, political, and ideological – that structure both YA literature and the lives of the young people it seeks to represent.