Since the turn of the millennium, stories about young people with mystical abilities have enjoyed tremendous popularity. This volume is the first collection of essays to posit that such stories form a distinct teen- and young-adult-oriented genre, characterized by tales in which young people use ancient magic—not modern science—to solve problems and save the world.

Scholars explore the cultural implications of this phenomenon, considering how media's discourses about youthful gods, witches, fairies, and other magical beings address social change, youth, and modern identities. By examining stories whose protagonists stand at a crossroads between identities and states of being—human and not-quite-human, child and adult, mundane world and mythic world, old millennium and new—the volume invites readers to contemplate the cultural significance of the persistent mediated fantasy of magical youth.