The young adult novel is aimed at a carefully defined target market, often focused on a predictable range of issues. Where illness and death are the theme, the process of growing up is more dramatically defined. Young people who suffer or watch a family member suffer a serious illness find their stages of moral development disrupted, their values reorganized, and emerging sexual interests submerged under more insistent demands. The books discussed in this article are not formula novels, but complex tales (...) with interesting subplots and characters. Notable features common to them are as follows: 1) strategies of normalization, 2) abandonment and alienation, 3) unexpected emotions, 4) extra-familial support, 5) other people's problems, and 6) God, meaning, and hope. (shrink)

Cherie Moraga’s play, Heroes and Saints, and Helena Maria Viramontes’ novel, Under the Feet of Jesus, offer readers perspectives on the lives of migrant farm workers in California that challenge the moral imagination and conscience. Both focus on health hazards of pesticides and on the often prohibitive difficulty of getting health care for those who fall ill as a result of exposure. This paper offers a reflection on the direct political and moral appeal these works present to readers who may (...) not see or acknowledge the sacrifices sustained by those whose undercompensated labors are an integral part of our food systems. (shrink)