Nicole Amato

Reflecting on a discussion with middle and high school students, the authors consider the benefits of engaging students in critical peritextual analysis of non-fiction books about feminism. The authors believe these books can provide pathways for students to explore how publishers and authors conceptualize feminism within texts marketed to youth audiences. The authors provide a brief overview of the texts, inquiry questions, and activities that guided their discussion with students. Additionally, the authors provide readers with a suggested text set, discussion questions, and follow-up activities for teachers and students.

This critical content analysis examines the representation of fat female bodies within and across four contemporary young adult novels, two prose novels and two graphic novels, to explore the tension between prose and graphic novels with regards to constructions of fat female bodies. As a result of this analysis, the following themes emerged across the texts: fatness defined in relation to other bodies, the conflation of weight and desire, young women's body surveillance by adult women, and precarious relationships with food. While the female protagonists in the texts under analysis demonstrate agency and complexity in the face of fat shaming, findings from this study reveal the visual nature of graphic novels make possible the ability to better disrupt narratives of fatness rooted in shame.