ABSTRACT
To understand the ways in which young people interpret and respond to texts, this chapter argues that asking readers to look beyond the page, to address their embodied identities is critical. By this, it means the various forces that encompass their sense of self: the geographical places they call home, their personal and family histories, their memories of childhood, and what cultural and social networks they are included in or excluded from. The author's interdisciplinary research draws on a range of theoretical frameworks to understand the ways in which young people interpret texts using their remembered, embodied knowledge of the world. He is particularly interested in the intersections between our bodies and place, and how encounters in and through places inform our identities, and therein the reading experience. Place-based fiction encourages adolescents to have discussions about their cultural, social, and place-based identities within and beyond the text.
