"Every twenty- or thirty-something woman knows these books. The pink covers, the flimsy paper, the zillion volumes in the series that kept you reading for your entire adolescence. Spurred by the commercial success of Sweet Valley High and The Babysitters Club, these were not the serious-issue YA novels of the 1970s, nor were they the blockbuster books of the Harry Potter and Twilight ilk. They were cheap, short, and utterly beloved. Paperback crush...

An analysis of the literary genre that focused on adolescent girls and evolved between the 1960s and 1980s considers the achievements of such authors as Beverly Cleary, Lois Duncan, and Judy Blume, in a collection of essays in which contributing writers remember the ways in which favorite books changed their lives.

What books are worth reading? Martin has collected an annotated list of some of the most influential English-language books, sorted by age group. The titles are chosen from award winners, library and school reading lists, best-book lists, and other sources.