I’d be remiss if I didn’t open this piece with a grito, the Mexican battle cry by Father Miguel Hidaldo, a call to arms against Spanish rule. Here, though, we’re celebrating Brown books, and so my grito: ¡Qué viva la lectura! ¡Qué vivan los libros! ¡Qu´ vivan los lectores! ¡Qué vivan las lectoras! ¡Ajúa¡ 

Tasked with selecting a couple of titles to highlight during Hispanic Heritage Month is both easy and difficult. Easy because there is so much beautiful work in print to date. Difficult for the same reason: there is so much of it now (though there needs to be more of it! Of the 3,200 books submitted to CCBC by U.S. publishers in 2023, only 291 titles were “about” Brown subject matter. A dismal number considering that the number hasn’t really improved by much since 2018 when that number was 244). But boy! The quality of what’s out there already and continues to be published.

A list of fiction our escuincles should get their hands on, though not a comprehensive one:
 
Pocho by José Antonio Villarreal (1970)
…y no se lo tragó la tierra by Tomás Rivera (1971)
Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya (1972)
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros (1984)
Rainbow’s End by Genaro Gonzalez (1988)

As for verse:

“I Am Joaquin/Yo soy Joaquín” by Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales (1967)
A Fire in my Hands by Gary Soto (1991)
My Own True Name by Pat Mora (2003)
Sonnets and Salsa by Carmen Tafolla (2004)

A seemingly brief list. There are more: Xavier Garza, Ruben Degollado, Diana López, Matt de la Peña, Viola Canales, Claudia Guadalupe Martinez, many more. Forgive my oversight. These are just my go-to Brown writers.

Note, too, that I’ve selected writers and poets who identify as Mexican American, Chicano/a, or a variation, but with a jumpstart in Mexico. It’s intentional, my choice. Each in their own way (some more obvious than others) are seminal writers in the Brown movement. There are more who I’m overlooking, apologies, again. If I were asked, though, what 10 titles would I take with me if I could only grab that many off my shelf the night La Llorona were to come after me, I’d bolt with those on my list. And believe you me, if I were accompanied by a fellow reader who could carry his or her own titles and they included books by those in my other list (Garza, Degollado, etc.), I’d trip him so that La Llorona would abscond with him, leaving behind his mochila azúl heavy with his books, and I’d snatch it and run. I’d be set. Sneaky, sneaky.

Here's the thing, though: it’s one thing to celebrate Brown books, but these books, any and all books for that matter, are nothing without readers. Wenndy Pray, a librarian who is also a student of mine working on her PhD in Language, Diversity & Literacy Studies at Texas Tech University, posted a photo on Instagram recently. In it there are a good ten smiling and happy Brown faces of lectores. Check it out: they’re readers, active and engaged. Proving that stereotype way wrong. What we’ve been shooting for these last couple decades. They aren’t reading from off the lists above, though. Instead they’re reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Trouble According to Humphrey, Full Court Dreams, Cinder, and Dork Diaries.

Am I worried that they aren’t choosing titles from the lists above? Several years ago I would be. To this day I know it in my heart of hearts that when a kid doesn’t opt for a book when given the choice there’s good reason. Often, it’s because they’ve read a very one-sided narrative from the beginning of their reading lives. I know also that if they read something culturally relevant to them that the chances of them picking up the reading act increase tremendously. But these kids are already readers. They’ll grab hold of Anaya then Cisneros in graduate school like happened with me. But with me it was more an introduction to books as if for the very first time. Wait! Esperanza Cordero’s story is my own. Where’s she been all my life? With these kids, they’ll pick up any one of the writers I mentioned, but pick them up as Literature, no different from the Classics.

I see the smiles on the faces of these lectores, and I can’t help but give a grito of my own. ¡Ajúa! That’s how it’s done.

​“It’s a cautionary tale of fear and lust and pride
Based on actual events where people died!
(No one died.)”
–Janis and Damian from Mean Girls (Richmond & Nell, 2018)

​Literally within 20 minutes of finishing Cormier’s The Chocolate War, I was listening to the sound track from Mean Girls. This line hit me just about as hard as Jerry gets tackled in Cormier’s opening line, “They murdered him.” I paused the music and drove in reflective silence for a moment. “Is there something here?” I mused to myself. “Can more comparisons be made between Cormier’s The Chocolate War and Tina Fey’s hit comedy Mean Girls?” Then I really got excited as I wondered, “What can an intersection between a Young Adult hit from 20 years ago with another Young Adult hit from 50 years ago mean today?” 

​Both Mean Girls and The Chocolate War have survived far longer than audiences may have initially expected. In fact, if measured by Ted Hipple’s standard in “Young Adult Literature and the Test of Time”, these two texts are pushing four and ten generations, respectively. Hipple explains since Young Adult authors must aim at an ever-moving target of experience of about five years in order to connect with their audience, they have a much shorter generational span of approximately 5 years. (Hipple, 1992) If a piece written for Young Adults can last longer than this five years, it’s considered a classic within the genre.
 
We will be celebrating Mean Girls Day tomorrow, marking 20 years since the original movie was released. Who knew when Rosalind Wiseman wrote her first edition of the girls’ clique self-help book Queen Bees and Wannabees back in 2002, it would get picked up by comedy mastermind, Tina Fey and turned into a movie (Mean Girls) in 2004, then into a musical by the same name in 2017, then into a YA novel (Mean Girls, A Novel) in 2017, then into a Shakespearean parody (Much Ado About Mean Girls) in 2019, then into a graphic novel (Mean Girls, Senior Year) in 2020, then back into a new interpretation of the movie and the musical in 2024?

​Cormier’s The Chocolate War was first published in 1974, 50 years ago and about 30 years before Mean Girls. Within two years it was the most widely read and recommended book for Young Adults across multiple library, school, and magazine lists. It quickly became one of the most censored texts too, much to the outrage of many young adults and teachers. Today, students and academics alike are still riveted by Cormier’s realism that mirrors their own emotions and experiences of Young Adulthood. A quick search on google scholar brings up peer-reviewed articles of The Chocolate War published as recently as this year. Cormier’s The Chocolate War changed the landscape of how authors talked with and respected the experiences of Young Adults. Cormier couldn’t have anticipated this attention, but he solemnly used it to bring light and deep respect to the experience and validity of young adulthood.

As I continued to drive along with the Mean Girls soundtrack, more words filled the silence,
 
“But how far would you go
To be popular and hot?
Would you resist temptation?
No you would not!

Just admit it, sometimes
Mean is what you are
Mean is easier than nice
And though mean can take you far

Maybe this will make you think twice” (Richmond & Nell, 2018)

Before The Chocolate War and Mean Girls, few books and media took seriously the cognitive dissonance Young Adults experience when they know they should do one thing but just can’t bring themselves to do it. Books and media catering to young people were full of trite consequences and didactic lessons that alleviated young adults’ need to challenge their thoughts and change their behavior. Both Cormier and Fey thought adolescents deserved a little more credit. They could see that what young adults were dealing with were internal, polarizing issues that could not be repaired within 2 hours or a 200 page novel. They brought to light the complexity of the adolescent experience we all can relate to.
​
The writers of Mean Girls are reflecting the harsh reality of life. “Mean is what you are/Mean is easier than nice.” In thinking about Cormier’s The Chocolate War, we have a protagonist, Jerry, who consistently almost stands up for himself, supporting characters who almost take a stand against bullies, antagonists who almost feel remorse for their choices, and adults who almost reach out and make positive connections with the youth they have stewardship over. Do any of these characters actually do these things? No. Why? It’s easier not to. “Dare I disturb the universe?” Cormier’s protagonist Jerry asks himself, just before he does nothing. No. “Mean is easier than nice.”

Cady from Mean Girls and Jerry from The Chocolate War are similar in their habit of falling just short of sainthood. Their names mean Pure and Mighty respectively yet they are anything but. Cady observes the social hierarchy of her high school just long enough to know how to manipulate it for her own gain. Jerry begins to take a stand against the Vigil gang running his school and coercing the faculty, but he never really follows through with enough “might” to disturb the universe. The similarity between the characters in relation to their habits of falling short of their namesakes is worth noting. How many times have young adults felt this pull to be great and then felt the crippling disappointment of falling short?
 
Regina from Mean Girls and Archie from The Chocolate War are antagonists cut from the same cloth. Regina’s power lies in others’ willingness to follow her. She would be nothing without Gretchen and the Plastics to do her bidding. Archie knows the moment Obie turns on him, he will lose power within the Vigils gang, the school and the faculty. Archie works intentionally to keep Obie below him so his empire doesn’t crumble.
 
We can see Gretchen and Obie both hate their respective antagonists. Gretchen gives a full speech in the 2004 version of the movie and concludes, “Why should Caesar get to stomp around like a giant while the rest of us try not to get smushed under his big feet? What’s so great about Caesar, hm? Brutus is just as cute as Caesar. Brutus is just as smart as Caesar, people totally like Brutus as much as they like Caesar. WE SHOULD TOTALLY JUST STAB CAESAR!” and Obie, in The Chocolate War, clearly manipulates Archie, calling on him to meet in the gym because Obie knows exactly how much Archie hates sweat. In this uncomfortable place, Obie challenges Archie with Jerry’s stand against him and the Vigils to continue not to sell chocolates despite the gang’s mandate to do so. Obie is sick of Archie’s bullying just as Gretchen is sick of Regina’s manipulation but the force still keeping both of them in place is fear of the antagonist. They don’t progress further than resentment because their fear keeps them both in check.

​It is in this place of being paralyzed with fear that both texts converge to open a powerful invitation for dialogue. Cady and Jerry feel trapped by circumstance. Regina and Archie are trapped by the power they exert over others; one casual misstep and the empires they’ve built to their self-importance topple. Gretchen and Obie feel trapped by their own resentment toward powers they want to break down but don’t know how. It is in this delicate balance of empowerment and entrapment that the wobble of venturing out into a new territory of thought is most felt by the audience. It is at this point in both texts we see an opening for us to enter as a participant in the dialogue extended by Cormier and Fey.

​Interestingly, this moment for dialogue happens in the gymnasium.
A place of action.
A place where one must win or one must lose. 

​Inviting the audience to self-reflect in the face of reality and the frustrations that come with it is one of the most powerful elements these two texts share. No answers are given. Fey actually makes a joke out of the possibility of having the answers as she has Regina get hit by a bus. (No one dies!) Cormier leads his audience to believe Jerry has failed without first fulfilling his call to disturb the universe.
 
For today’s young adult readers of The Chocolate War, it can be intimidating to jump into a text that is 50 years old and expect to find relevance. Is it worth the try? Yes. How can educators make it accessible and relevant to their students? Build on the momentum of the more recently published Mean Girls phenomenon. The intersection points of longevity, realism, characters, and dialogue can be catalysts for a fresh look at the common adolescent experience of knowing what one must do but not quite knowing how to traverse from old habits to actually do it. Both texts offer a powerful tool to cross this difficult bridge: reflection through dialogue. 

​As the girls are gathered in the gym and asked by Ms. Norbury, “Raise your hand if you have ever been personally victimized by Regina George,” the viewer is immediately drawn in as girls stare straight into the camera and make their confessions. Even teachers participate. Likewise, in Cormier’s primal scene of the fight in the gym, the reader is gathered as a spectator that cannot turn his back on the violence that is unfolding in the organized fight. Cormier made sure the reader could not turn his back because we zoom out to see Father Leon, a “trusted” authority figure, literally turn his back on the boys and the reader together. In these pivotal moments of each text, the audience is forced to consider and reflect on their position and make a choice of what they would do.

​To what degree “[d]are I disturb the universe?” Jerry asks himself.
Cady might very well respond with, “The limit does not exist.”
 
No direct answer is given, the audience is free to work out what their own response would be.
 
If that isn’t fetch, I don’t know what is.

My first copy of Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret sits lovingly in my office. I have piles of Judy Blume books throughout my house and my office—old covers, new covers, revised versions. Blume’s works have been a staple in my reading and teaching lives as long as I can remember. 

Blume’s work is often challenged because of her representations of sex and sexual pleasure. Not only does Blume tackle menstruation and masturbation in her books but she also challenges the way that American culture thinks about sex as a moral choice. Blume boldly focuses characters’ sexual choices on pleasure and health, allowing young readers to see sexual experiences through a more balanced lens than texts that take a moral approach to sexual experimentation. Although there are several of her YA books I could talk about, I want to focus on three that I think deserve a second read if you haven’t done so lately. I chose to focus on Deenie, and Forever… due to their discussions of sexual experimentation and Tiger Eyes because of how it examines the grief and complication with a sudden, violent loss.  

Still one of the only young adult novels about scoliosis, Deenie (1973) is the story of Wilmadeene “Deenie” Farmer whose mother is determined she become a model—even if Deenie doesn’t want to be one. Yet, when Deenie is diagnosed with scoliosis which during the time of the novel meant that she had to wear a Milwaukee brace, her mother’s dreams of Deenie modeling career are upended. Although Deenie has themes of ableism and complicated family dynamics, the book is mostly known for the explicit scene of masturbation, where Deenie finds pleasure and release during a difficult time in her life.

Deenie’s relationship with other people with disabilities is somewhat fraught. As a 13-year-old she struggles to see beyond her own experiences and only when she deals with her scoliosis does Deenie feel empathy for her peers who have physical illnesses. Deenie’s beauty is in how it deals with parental and societal expectations and her struggle to live up to those expectations. The complicated feelings of a young girl who navigates multiple doctor visits and isolation in school and in her social circles is relieved through physical pleasure which is normalized in the book. 

Forever… (1975) tells the story of high school senior Katherine Danziger and her progressing relationship with Michael, a boy she met at a New Year’s party. Throughout the book, Katherine and Michael become sexually involved, starting with mutual masturbation and moving to penetrative intercourse. Katherine learns about her body and desires. She obtains birth control and has sexual relations for pleasure—often orgasming during her experiences with Michael. After graduation, when Katherine’s goes to work at a summer camp in another state, she starts to have feelings for the older tennis coach, Theo. After meeting Theo, Katherine realizes that as much as she learned with Michael, she is not ready for forever. Katherine and Michael go their separate ways, and she pursues the relationship with the older Theo.

​What captivated me about Forever… when I first read it as a teen in the 1980s (Judy Blume is the voice of Gen Xers everywhere) was that Katherine’s story was one of female pleasure and empowerment. Even today, the way that female pleasure is written about (or not written about) is a topic that is often fraught with controversy. Some critique Michael’s constant request for sex as wearing Katherine down and not giving her true consent for their physical relationship. Yet, by exploring how the book represents heterosexual social norms and beliefs in the 1970s, how consent was—or was not—addressed and the ways young women approached sexual awareness and identity, young readers can discuss how consent and choice around sexual partners and relationships has transformed since the #MeToo movement and other modern representations of teen sexuality. 

My favorite Judy Blume novel, Tiger Eyes (1981), tells the story of 15-year-old Davey Wexler as she deals with the sudden death of her father. After her father is brutally murdered in a convenience store robbery, Davey, her mother, and younger brother Jason move from Atlantic City, New Jersey to Los Alamos, New Mexico to live with Davey’s aunt and uncle. In New Mexico Davey meets Wolf and Jane, who both play a role in her coming to terms with the death of her father. As a candy striper, Davey meets Wolf’s father a terminal cancer patient. The loss of their fathers brings Davey and Wolf closer together. Davey also deals with Jane’s struggles with alcoholism, seeking to find a way to help her friend while at the same time deal with her own grief. Davey’s mother finally convinces Davey to go to therapy with her, where she is finally able to mourn her father and let go of the paper bag she carries which contains the blood soaked clothing she was wearing as she watched her father die.

​When Davey, her mother, and brother finally return to New Jersey, she realizes how much she has changed for herself and how that might not be seen by people around her. Judy Blume has often talked about how Tiger Eyes was a cathartic book for her to write as she dealt with the sudden death of her father. That loss is apparent in the rawness of the novel. Losing a parent at a young age is difficult to come back from. Davey and Wolf find out that sometimes you meet the right person and the right time to help you through a difficult experience. In addition, Tiger Eyes’ premise of gun violence and sudden loss seems an ominous reminder that our country is still struggling with gun control 40 years later. 

Until next time.

​As the school year begins, veteran and beginning teachers alike consider the novels they might select for whole class instruction. This blog post shares some of the questions that I have lately about choosing books for classroom curriculum. Hopefully, it will start conversations around this important topic. 

What makes a text the right fit for your curriculum? How do we choose books to teach to our students? With the number of new publications each year–1700+ according to Jensen (2023), it’s impossible to keep up with everything in the field of Young Adult literature. Therefore, there is no possibility of choosing the “perfect” text. It’s more than likely that another text will come out that’s even better–but you might not have access to it or even know about it.

Teachers and teacher educators make critical choices about which books to teach to our students, and by including particular texts, we send a clear message. From among all the books out there, we choose one book to highlight as a potential text they might learn from. Our knowledge of authors or awards might have influenced our decisions, or even more likely, access to class sets of books might influence your decision. 

When I taught eighth grade English in Arizona, I started planning my curriculum based on the books that were available to be taught (i.e., books in the department office). The selection was outdated, not relatable to my student population, and even contained culturally objectionable content! Robert Newton Peck’s A Day No Pigs Would Die (1972) was among the choices–and this was for my urban school in Arizona, where there were no farms and no pigs. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (2016/1845), Frederick Douglass’ autobiography was also on the shelves for teachers to use. This book, though full of many social issues that could be discussed, also used antiquated language and vocabulary. Perhaps the Narrative would be a perfect part of my curriculum, provided that I used excerpts, and it was accompanied by some current YA texts. 

Similar issues abounded with several other titles that were available: Johnny Tremaine (Forbes, 2011/1943), Across Five Aprils (Hunt, 2002/1964), and Around the World in 80 Days (Verne, 2024/1872). I’m sure many of us can relate to the dusty stacks of books many teachers find tucked in far-away cupboards. Perhaps when these titles were purchased by the prior department chair or district curriculum folks, these books were “highly recommended” titles, but by the time that I was teaching at the school, they were simply taking up shelf space. 

​In my role as eighth grade English teacher, I was lucky enough to go through a curriculum adoption process. We were able to choose sets of books to accompany the textbook that was being adopted. However, the teachers at our school weren’t familiar with some of the newest titles available on the list, so they relied on their knowledge of more traditional works as they were making decisions or on their experience in their teacher education program and children’s or YA literature professors. The process was not standardized across schools in the district, and so each school ended up with different sets of books by the end of the process. Some of these books were great finds and proved to motivate students while others were not as great.

What questions do you ask yourself as you are choosing a novel for whole class reading? There are several lists of questions for teachers on various blogs and websites (e.g., weareteachers.com, corwin-connect.com, therobbreviewblog.com). Each list contains questions that are a little different from the next. I encourage you to take a look at some of these lists and think about the kinds of questions that you ask yourself when making curricular decisions. 

Universal appeal is often mentioned in these lists. We must consider things such as: “Is this a book that will appeal to both genders?” or “Will this book foster a love of reading?” With a push toward diverse texts and representations in literature, we also must take a critical stance when considering who the main characters are, who the author(s) are, and the kinds of identities that are present in the text. Questions like: “Does this book perpetuate stereotypes?” or “Whose voice is missing in this text?” become important for teachers to consider. These questions are difficult because if you are like the majority of teachers: a white woman (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2021)  Since teachers are still 76% female and 79% white, we must ensure that our students are represented in the curriculum we teach. I bring this up because implicit bias based on identities and experiences is inherent in our lives; however, we can combat this by being aware of these biases and working toward overcoming them. 

When choosing texts during my first few years teaching, I often gravitated toward texts that had female main characters. My administrator at the time was extremely data-driven, so my colleague and I studied our students’ test scores. Our investigation discovered that our male students scored lower on the standardized assessment than our female students. I researched scholars that had focused on male reading motivation and achievement (e.g., Fletcher, Martino, Smith & Wilhelm). We discovered that male readers consistently lagged behind female readers; however, we wanted to combat this statistic.

​Considering how our choices of which texts we taught might have influenced our male students’ learning, we purposefully began choosing texts with male main characters in both short stories and novels–for example, Stotan by Chris Crutcher (2003/1986), The River by Gary Paulsen (2006/1991), and The Watsons Go to Birmingham, 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis (2020/1995). Indeed, our male students seemed to be more motivated and interested in the stories we read. However, these texts still didn’t represent the diverse population of my school, which was 45% Latiné. So, though we addressed one identity (gender), another was not addressed at all (ethnicity). 

​Today, I am critical of authorship and representation in books that I used in my children’s and Young Adult literature courses at my university. It often feels limiting, and I have had conversations with colleagues about how to approach this. “Who can tell this story?” has become one of my primary questions. But, often there may be limited stories written by folks that have the same ethnicity or characteristics as the characters in the story. Do we dismiss stories that are well researched but written by outsiders? What determines a quality book? Are we eliminating important stories because of these limiters? All of these questions are important to consider as well. Some of the books on the shelves of your department might not be written by an author of color, but still might tell a story that’s worth telling. How do you determine this? I wish I could tell you an answer, but the conversations I’ve had with colleagues have not come to strong conclusions about what to do in these cases. 

Of course, in today’s teaching context focused on standards and assessment, we must also consider what we are going to teach with the novel. After all, we have limited time with our students each year: 180-ish school days, 45-60 minutes per day = 10,800 minutes, or 180 hours to teach “everything” that is expected. When put into these simple terms, teachers must consider very carefully what to do with that limited time. We definitely don’t want to waste time teaching a book that our students (or we) don’t love, and we don’t want to spend time teaching a book that doesn’t dip into several of the standards and outcomes we are required to meet by the end of the 180th day. 

SEL. Several of my recent M.Ed. students focused their final cumulative research projects on teaching SEL (Social Emotional Learning) through literature, which actually addresses Washington State teaching expectations. The standards include self-awareness, self-management, self-efficacy, social awareness, social management, and social engagement, with several benchmarks listed for each standard (Social Emotional Learning Standards, Benchmarks and Indicators, n.d.).  Which books best address these standards? In my opinion, almost every book could potentially work, but the teacher would have to be intentional about the discussion topics and activities that would guide students to explore these topics. 

When my daughter began teaching sixth grade ELA, she had a limited number of books that were available to teach to her whole class. Among these were Hatchet (Paulsen, 1986) and The Lightning Thief (Riordan, 2005). A book like The Lightning Thief (Riordan, 2005) could be used to teach SEL standards as well. When Percy Jackson discovers that he’s a half-blood, he becomes more self-aware and his ability to see himself within a community of other half-bloods shows social engagement. He demonstrates problem solving skills, which improves his self-efficacy. You probably get the point by now.

ELA skills. When considering ELA skills, such as reading comprehension or plot development, the same holds true. Of course, certain books might contain specific elements such as foreshadowing, flashbacks, or internal thoughts, while other books might not have as clear examples as another text. The standards adopted by your state or by NCTE/ILA can help to guide your decision making in this regard. You can also decide to adopt a text selection process;  NCTE provides some helpful guidance here.

As I considered the standards for each whole class novel, I considered the following questions: What would students write? What reading skills would they work on? Can those reading skills be connected to their writing? What critical thinking skills can be developed as they read this novel? Does this novel connect with content in any of their other classes (e.g., social studies, science, math)? 

A novel like The Lightning Thief (Riordan, 2005) provided my daughter with many options for curriculum. Her students could write a research paper about Greek mythology; they could create their own creative stories about a mythological being; they could compare and contrast two of the characters in the book. Considering her yearlong curriculum and the number of writing assessments for each text type (e.g., informative, argument/persuasive, narrative), she needed to consider where this novel would fit in her sequence. This helped her to decide the style of writing students would practice. She also had to consider the reading skills students needed to work on during the unit (e.g., summarizing, characterization, foreshadowing) and link those skills with the writing assignment and reading strategies. Students in her sixth grade class could even engage with speaking and listening standards by discussing the book in small groups or literature circles. 

With the school year upon us, many teachers are considering young adult novels to teach this year. You might be thinking about the resources that can guide your decision-making process. I hope that this column sparks some of your thinking and pushes you to consider some of the various questions you might ask yourself as you make these tough decisions. 

​Crutcher, C. (2003). Stotan. Greenwillow. (Original work published 1986).

Curtis, C. P. (2020). The Watsons go to Birmingham, 1963. Yearling (25th anniversary edition). (Original work published in 1995).

Douglass, F. (2016). The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Dover Publications (1st ed.). (Original work published 1845).

Forbes, E. (2011). Johnny Tremaine. Clarion Books (reprint edition). (Original work published 1943).

Hunt, I. (2002). Across five Aprils. Berkeley (reprint edition). (Original work published 1964).

Jaigirdar, A. (2020). The henna wars. Page Street Publishing Co.

Paulsen, G. (2006). Hatchet. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers (reissue edition). (Original work published 1986).

Paulsen, G. (2012). The river. Ember (reprint edition). (Original work published 1991).

Peck. R. N. (1972). A day no pigs would die. Alfred A. Knopf.

Riordan, Rick. (2005). The lightning thief. Disney Hyperion.
​
Verne, J. (2024). Around the world in 80 days (G. M. Towle, Trans.) (C. Miles, Illus.). Sky Publishing. (Original work published 1872). 

Gallagher, K. (2009). Readicide. Heinemann.

Jensen, K. (2023, January 24). By the numbers, a look at YA being published in 2023 (so far). School Library Journal: Teen Librarian Toolbox. https://teenlibrariantoolbox.com/2023/01/24/by-the-numbers-a-look-t-ya-being-published-so-far-in-2023/#:~:text=When%20looking%20at%20the%20total,and%20190%20are%20trade%20paperbacks.

National Center for Educational Statistics. (2021). Characteristics of public school teachers. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/pdf/2021/clr_508c.pdf

National Council for Teachers of Engliish. (2012). NCTE/IRA standards for English Language arts. https://ncte.org/resources/standards/ncte-ira-standards-for-the-english-language-arts/
​
Washington Professional Educators Standards Board. (n.d.). Social emotional learning standards, benchmarks and indicators. Washington State Superintendent of Public Instruction. https://www.pesb.wa.gov/wp-content/uploads/SELStandardsBenchmarksIndicatorsLongForm.pdf

Over the years, Lesley Roessing has been a great friend to Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday. One of her many talents is creating book list on certain topic. She does this for teachers over and over again. Today, our Wednesday post falls of September 11, 2024. It is a perfect time to collect the three different posts that Lesley has written for us all in one place.
She really know has to curate a list!

We hope you will browse the links below. Let us know if there are other books we should add to the list.

Thanks for checking out these older posts. If you get a minute, share them around.

Every once and awhile I am required to write for my own blog. 

I am going to take the opportunity to talk about an area of YA Literature that I absolutely love. I love YA novels that are immersed in music.  It doesn't seem to matter if it is kids in a band, kids using music to connect, or a way of making social commentary. Even within this subgenre there are categories  that seems to be unique -- books about DJs, boys in the band, kids learning to play, classical music, popular music, books that become movies, books that are autobiographical, books that use music as a sound track, and who knows how many variations there might be.  I like them all. Yet there are five that come to mind every time I have this conversation with someone about this fabulous subgenre. 

I have admired these books for a long time. With four of these books I have meet and chatted with the authors about their book and the impact they have had on my reading life. They provide pure enjoyment. They hold up when I read them a second time. 

A couple of weeks ago I finally caught up with the author of the fifth book, This Song Will Save Your Life, Leila Sales. 

Below, I will briefly discuss the five books and, for the grand finale, I will discuss the fifth book and link to a conversation with Liela Sales who is featured in Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesay in Conversation on Aug. 29, 2024.

​Enjoy.

Bonus! Here is a slide show with these five books and several more.

I am sure some of you could add several other books to the list, Send me a note and let me know.

Until next week.

I find myself thinking a great deal about the power of the verse novel as the beginning of the school year comes around.  Marilyn Nelson is one of those verse novel authors who provide powerful texts for students and teachers as they think about what poetry can do.  I can appreciate the form of the sonnet but I can’t imagine trying to tell a story with it. When I teach it, my students sometimes struggle with it.  Using one of Marilyn Nelson’s verse novels provides sonnets that use more familiar language but they still pack a powerful narrative and poetic punch.  The poetic form and its rigid structure is very powerful as a tool for writers.  Marilyn Nelson uses the sonnet to provide insight and critique into particular moments in history.

​The rigid poetic forms in these novels provide a framework for the storytelling—a tool to highlight both the structure of the poem itself and the content of the poem.  Many of these poetic forms are the ones studied in school with tightly measured rhyme schemes and syllable counts. These forms may feel distant and unknowable to the adolescent reader who is learning both the form and unfamiliar language at the same time. Sonnets, for example, are more traditionally associated with Shakespeare than with young adult literature.  Marilyn Nelson, author of several YA novels in verse, uses the form of the sonnet to tell the story of Emmett Till. These authors disrupt the traditional expectations of the poetic forms in order to provide social commentary and emotional connection. 

A sonnet is a fourteen-line poem written in iambic pentameter.  Nelson uses a Petrarchan rhyme scheme in the sonnets in this novel; this rhyme scheme is typically ABBA ABBA for the octet and CDCDCD or CDECDE for the sestet.  The rigid number of lines as well as the relatively rigid rhyme scheme creates a challenge for both the writer and the reader.  Increasing the challenge for this particular novel in verse is the additional structure of the heroic crown.  The heroic crown of sonnets is a sequence of fifteen sonnets.  The last line of one sonnet becomes the first line of the next sonnet. The final sonnet is comprised of the first lines of the previous fourteen sonnets.  

The sonnets are formal in their structure, but the language is less so.  In Sonnet III, the speaker of the poem is the tree who shares how it has lived for hundreds of years and witnessed both life and death as part of the natural cycle of the world.  The tree understood “two hundred years of deaths” but not the unnatural and brutal death of Emmett Till.  The tree, personified here, says his name “still catches in the throat.”  The language is rich in description but not so formal that adolescent readers get lost in the words.  The idea of a “shortened childhood” connects to adolescents and reminds them that Emmett was their age.  The “jackal laughter” highlights the animal-like behavior of the men chasing the young boy. The contrast between “running boy” and “five men” illustrates the violence of Emmett’s death. The formal structure of the sonnet emphasizes the lawlessness of the men’s behavior.  The tree serves as witness to the natural cycle of life and feels it is has been scarred by the unnatural death of the young boy.

III
Pierced by the screams of a shortened childhood,
my heartwood has been scarred for fifty years
by what I heard, with hundreds of green ears.
That jackal laughter. Two hundred years I stood
listening to small struggles to find food,
to the songs of creature life, which disappears
and comes again, to the music of the spheres.
Two hundred years of deaths I understood.
Then slaughter axed one quiet summer night,
shivering the deep silence of the stars.
A running boy, five men in close pursuit.
One dark, five pale faces in the moonlight.
Noise, silence, back-slaps. One match, five cigars.
Emmett Till’s name still catches in the throat (n.p.).
 
IV
Emmett Till’s name still catches in my throat,
like syllables waylaid in a stutterer’s mouth.
A fourteen-year-old stutterer, in the South
to visit relatives and to be taught
the family’s ways. His mother had finally bought
that White Sox cap; she’d made him swear an oath
to be careful around white folks. She’s told him the truth
of many a Mississippi anecdote:
Some white folks have blind souls. In his suitcase
she’d packed dungarees, T-shirts, underwear,
and comic books. She’d given him a note
for the conductor, waved to his chubby face,
wondered if he’d remember to brush his hair.
Her only child. A body left to bloat (n.p.).
 
V
Your only child, a body thrown to bloat,
mother of sorrows, of justice denied.
Surely you must have thought of suicide,
seeing his gray flesh, chains around his throat.
Surely you didn’t know you would devote
the rest of your changed life to dignified
public remembrance of how Emmett died,
innocence slaughtered by the hands of hate.
If sudden loving light proclaimed you blest
would you bow your head in humility,
your healed heart overflow with gratitude?
Would you say yes, like the mother of Christ?
Or would you say no to your destiny,
mother of a boy martyr, if you could (n.p.)?

​The last and first lines serve as both a final thought and an opening of the idea that there is not an end.  The line “Her only child. A body left to bloat” ends Sonnet IV and opens Sonnet V. In Sonnet IV, the mother’s son becomes just a body to those who killed Emmett leaving him as a “body left to bloat.” For the people who killed him, his death is the end of the story. This is not so for his mother, and this develops in Sonnet V. Sonnet V repeats the last line of Sonnet IV and shifts to commiserating with Emmett’s mother as she continues to deal with her grief and loss. She is called the “mother of sorrows, of justice denied.” Emmett’s mother’s pain is compared to that of Mary, the mother of Christ.  The tree sees that both sons were martyred and that this pain is a shared pain. The sonnets here provide both the cycle of life and change and the cycle of grief and sacrifice.

The final sonnet in this heroic crown does more than just repeat the lines from the previous sonnets. It is also an acrostic that spells out “RIP EMMETT TILL” with the first letters of each line. Nelson uses the structure of the sonnets to provide a framework for the critique of what happened to Emmett Till.  The structure, though powerful, fades to the background as the content of the poems surges forward.  She opens and closes the crown cycle with the lines “Rosemary for remembrance” as both a nod to Shakespeare and also as a notice to society—the murder of Emmett Till needs to be remembered, not as a shrine to a racist past but as a current call to action. 

Nelson explains that for her, “the highpoint of the requiem is “Not My Bones.” Which [she] imagined Fortune singing in his own voice” (Nelson, 2003, p. 9).  Just as many YA novels in verse focus on providing a voice for those who are often overlooked, this novel interrupts the traditional funeral mass to provide Fortune an opportunity to speak.  He says, “I was not this body,/I was not these bones” (p. 25) meaning that his body was just a “temporary home” for him.  He speaks out against slavery saying, “You can own a man’s body,/ but you can’t own his mind.”  This interruption of the more formal structure becomes a moment of freedom for Fortune; he is not owned and he can speak out.  His voice, and the power of the interruption, becomes a way of saying there is more to life that the physical body and its existence.  Fortune says his soul is free and his bones, though left to tell his story, are not his home.  The structures of the poems in this text provide both a moment of connection and the recognition of freedom by disrupting a traditional structure. 

Both of these novels in verse challenge readers to see beyond the form to the message of the text. The messages, built in traditional poetic forms, highlight the power of history (structures) and the ways in which that history should be disrupted.  Whether it is using the very formal crown cycle to tell the story of a young man brutally murdered or the formal requiem to tell the story of a man who was a slave during his life, these forms and the way that they are used to connect the past and the present provide adolescent readers insight into historically traumatic moments. 

​This past school year, my students and I began a journey to rectify the underrepresentation of Deaf culture in our school library. We read over 20 novels and narrowed them down to nine with honorable mentions. Before I start, I am compelled to mention that each of these stories is just one person’s reflections on d/Deaf culture as there is not ONE way to represent a multitude of people. The National Association of the Deaf reminds us that deaf communities are:  

For the purpose of clarity, I will use the names as described by the authors. 

These novels offer duel purposes: for Deaf and hard of hearing individuals, they provide much needed mirrors and gateways into our classrooms and provide windows into the culture for the rest of us as well as providing space to reflect on our own perceptions and misconceptions of Deaf culture. Hopefully, they will inspire a dialogue on how to become better allies or advocates. 

Another novel based upon real events, is Show Me A Sign by Ann Claire LeZotte and its follow-up novels Set Me Free and Sail Me Away Home. Set at the turn of the 19th Century, heroine Mary Lambert is a direct descendant from the first Deaf family who arrived on the Mayflower. They settled in Martha’s Vineyard and created Martha’s Vineyard Sign Language, a language used by both Deaf and hearing individuals all over the island. All three books incorporate intriguing historical facts on Deaf culture and their different languages. They conclude with historical information on various topics such as the first deaf schools, Laurent Clerc, The Wampanoag Tribe,and The Indian Child Welfare Act. Throughout the novels, Mary struggles with the confines of female gender roles as well as what happens when one is “othered” for the very essence of themselves. Throughout the three novels, Mary addresses these prejudices and triumphs as she defies the judgements and imposed limitations projected upon her.

​Give Me A Sign and On The Bright Side, written by Anna Sortino, feature characters learning how to navigate their final years at home. They broach the absurdity of insisting a d/Deaf individual use only one languge instead of being bilingual, leave space to select the language which enhances communication best. Give Me A Sign is an homage to the summer camp experience, first romances, and fighting for causes. This novel delicately addresses the how perceptions of well-intentioned individuals can “other”. In On The Bright Side, Ellie’s Deaf school closes and she returns to the isolation of her hometown. Throughout the book, she journeys outside of her comfort zone to construct a new community that leads to her falling in love, enrolling in college, and moving into her first apartment. 

Honorable Mentions:

• 2023 Alex Award winner True Biz (my favorite)
• Five Flavors of Dumb
• A Quiet Kind of Thunder
• “The Isolation of Being Deaf In Prison” in Disability Visilibity (Adapted for Young Adults): 17 First-Person Stories For Today

There are multitudes of reasons to read these novels in your classes and, at a time where so many educators are thinking about resiliency, each of these protagonists teaches a master class in resiliency, determination, and empathy. We also can see ourselves in the characters, whether in the teacher who is learning the best practices to accommodate students, in the feelings of being an outcast, or in the delight we experience when we are truly accepted for who we are and who we might become. These books shed light on one of the many cultures in our classrooms and represent voices that need to be heard.
 
National Association of the Deaf. (2024). Community and Culture- Frequently Asked Questions. National Association of the Deaf. https://www.nad.org/resources/american-sign-language/community-and-culture-frequently-asked-questions/

YA verse novelists are uniquely skilled at using various poetic forms to tell stories in ways that grab readers’ attention.  The emotionality that poetry allows is used to great effect in these novels.  The new school year is here and I find myself focusing on what texts I will use in which classes to encourage students to write.  I also find myself working with teachers as they are trying to get students in their classes to see poetry differently.  One student commented, “I know that books are being banned for being about people like me.  That’s dangerous.”  That comment is echoing in my head as I look at October Mourning—a powerful YA verse novel about the death of Matthew Shepard. This is a book that is banned in many areas but its message is so important. Messages of hate lead to dangerous actions.  

The only good fag is a fag that’s dead
He asked for it, you got that right
The fires of Hell burn hot and red
 
A boy who takes a boy to bed?
Where I come from that’s not polite
The only good fag is a fag that’s dead
 
A man and a woman, the Good Lord said
As sure as Eve took the first bite
The fires of Hell burn hot and red
 
I hear upon his knees he pled
Fairies don’t know how to fight
The only good fag is a fag that’s dead
 
Beneath the Hunter’s Moon he bled
That must have been a pretty sight
The fires of Hell burn hot and red
 
C’mon, kids, it’s time for bed
Say your prayers, kiss Dad goodnight
The only good fag is a fag that’s dead
The fires of Hell burn hot and red (p. 66)

The repetition of these lines creates a rhythm that seems almost hypnotic.  The lines increase in power and horror as they are repeated.  The contrasts between the seemingly simple good night ritual of a father putting his children to bed and the devastating effect of what has become the bedtime story for those children provides insight to how these men could justify their murder of a young, gay man.  The men, raised on steady diets of hatred and hell, would not see how killing someone who is gay could be wrong.  

The companion villanelle, “An Angel,” provides an alternative perspective explaining angels need not fear evil.  The poem states that we should “love thy neighbor, as it’s said/ short of that, give them their space/ Lift your wings above your head.” The commandment stresses love and nonjudgment.  The contrasting villanelles provide alternative ways to be in the world—filled with hate and murder or filled with love and grace.  The repetition in both poems ensures that the messages illustrate what will happen when people follow those commandments. 

In addition to villanelles, Newman also uses poetic structures such as pantoums and haiku.  Pantoums, like villanelles, use the repetition of lines to help create meaning.  The pantoum consists of  four-line stanzas.  The second and fourth line of one stanza become the first and third line of the next stanza. 

Haiku are three-line verses that have a rigid syllable count—the first and third lines have 5 syllables and the second line contains seven syllables.  “The Fence (that night)” uses the repetition of the lines to show how an inanimate object had more humanity than the men who killed Matthew.  The second line of the first stanza, “He was as heavy as a broken heart” becomes the first line of the second stanza. The repeating of the lines becomes like a heartbeat in the poem.  The layering of words—heart/beating, dead/breathing, cradle/cradled—emphasizes Matthew’s humanity and his life and highlights how little humanity the men who attacked him showed. 

​To them, Matthew was not worthy of life; to the fence, Matthew deserved to be held, cradled by someone who loved him.   

​I held him all night long
He was heavy as a broken heart
Tears fell from his unblinking eyes
He was dead weight yet he kept breathing
 
He was heavy as a broken heart
His own heart wouldn’t stop beating
He was dead weight yet he kept breathing
His face streaked with moonlight and blood
 
His own heart wouldn’t stop beating
The cold wind wouldn’t stop blowing
His face streaked with moonlight and blood
I tightened my grip and held on
 
The cold wind wouldn’t stop blowing
We were out on the prairie alone
I tightened my grip and held on
I saw what was done to this child
 
We were out on the prairie alone
Their truck was the last thing he saw
I saw what was done to this child
I cradled him just like a mother
 
Their truck was the last thing he saw
Tears fell from his unblinking eyes
I cradled him just like a mother
I held him all night long (p. 16)

The horror of Matthew’s murder and the callous disposal of his body is developed in the layering and repetition of the lines in this poem.  Matthew’s slow death from his beating is contrasted with the openness of the prairie and the truck driving away.  Nature and the fence witness the horror of Matthew’s death while his murderers drive away.