With the first edition of Reading Their World, editors Virginia Monseau and Gary Salvner dispelled the myth that young adult literature was an unsophisticated genre, unworthy of study in the secondary English classroom. They helped prove that young adult novels feature the same skilled craftsmanship as all good literature and focus on universal themes that are important to all readers, regardless of age.

In Monseau and Salvner's second edition, readers will find revised essays alluding to exciting new works, as well as wholly new chapters that expand the discussion of the young adult novel in the classroom. Of particular interest will be essays on literary response and interpretation, censorship, gender, multicultural concerns, and the uses of young adult novels to address matters of visual literacy. Sue Ellen Bridgers, Will Hobbs, and M.E. Kerr, well-known authors of books for young adults, detail their own processes of writing and speculate on the needs and interests of their audience. The book also offers a wealth of teaching recommendations such as how to make the literature class into a "community of readers" and how to integrate young adult novels into the traditional literature curriculum.