Reading Research Quarterly • 45(1) • pp. 116–127 • dx.doi.org/10.1598/RRQ.45.1.6 • © 2010 International Reading Association 116 Essay Book Review Handbook of Adolescent Literacy Research. Leila Christenbury, Randy Bomer, and Peter Smagorinsky (Eds.). 2008. New York: Guilford. 442 pp. Hardcover. ISBN 978-1-59385-829-2. US$65.00. Meeting the Challenge of Adolescent Literacy: Research We Have, Research We Need. Mark W. Conley, Joseph R. Freidhoff, Michael B. Sherry, and Steven Forbes Tuckey (Eds.). 2008. New York: Guilford. 162 pp. Hardcover ISBN 978-1-59385-703-5; US$48.00. Softcover. ISBN 978-1-59385-702-8. US$25.00. From Chasm to Conversation: Bridging Divides in Research on Adolescent Literacies Caroline T. Clark, Mollie V. Blackburn, George E. Newell The Ohio State University, Columbus, USA T hroughout this essay, we invite you to reflect on yourself and your understandings of adolescent literacy as we review the Handbook of Adolescent Literacy Research and Meeting the Challenge of Adolescent Literacy: Research We Have, Research We Need. Initially, we imagined that our argument in this review would involve bringing some coherence to the field. And, ad- mittedly, after reading both volumes, we were worried about the seeming incoherence in the field of adolescent literacy suggested by these texts. We realized, however, that the absence of coherence was not the problem, nor was its presence a reasonable possibility. To attempt to bring coherence to the field would be artificial, unten- able, and unsustainable. Likewise, to acquiesce to the notion that our field is divided would be to give up on ourselves and one another and what we might under- stand, together, about adolescents and their literacies. As Wohlwend (2009) suggests in her work on assess- ment and discourses of learning to write, we need “to see surface dilemmas as clashes between overlapping discourses, and to free ourselves to work with and against institutions that create the dilemmas and their immobilizing effects” (p. 341). Therefore, we frame this essay as an argument for dialogism and understanding across differences, not coherence as a field. We focus on the contents of the two volumes by considering three key issues that we see recurring across the chapters: sponsorship, identity, and agency. We conclude by offering possibilities for understanding the field of adolescent literacy as a conversational do- main (Applebee, 1996)—some gleaned from within these two volumes, and some that are not here, but that we believe should be considered by literacy scholars. Undoubtedly, we will overlook important issues that others might foreground. For this reason, it is impera- tive that you, too, join the conversation. What we offer is a set of related issues that we have found compelling and that have clarified and shifted our thinking in rela- tion to adolescent literacy and our own scholarship. To set the stage for our more focused analysis, we offer a preliminary overview of these two texts, our initial im- pressions of each, and the challenge we originally faced in bringing them into dialogue. The Chasm Both of these books aim to offer a perspective on the field of adolescent literacy research in the United States, providing reviews of research that has been conducted as well as suggestions for further research on adoles- cents’ literacy practices. Despite these shared aims, however, there is significant variation both within, but especially between, these two volumes. The 452-page Handbook of Adolescent Literacy Research is divided into four sections: Part I is enti- tled “Overview”; Part II, “Literacy in School”; Part III, “Literacy Out of School”; and Part IV, “Literacy and