Most New Zealand writing for young adults is designed to appeal to adolescents everywhere. Is there anything, then, that is characteristically 'New Zealand' about it? To what extent does it derive from local experience, or address a local audience? Focusing on a series of overlapping topics (race, sport, money, history, Englishness, future fictions, utopias and dystopias, religion and the 'Maori Gothic'), the contributors to this volume suggest that 'New Zealandness' is a subtle, at times almost invisible, but nevertheless pervasive concern in New Zealand young adult fiction. Authors discussed include Bernard Beckett, Kate De Goldi, Tessa Duder, Maurice Gee, Patricia Grace, Karen Healey, Witi Ihimaera, Elizabeth Knox, Jack Lasenby, and Margaret Mahy. This book, the first of its kind, is certain to stimulate discussion of an important, ever-expanding, but little studied aspect of New Zealand literary culture.