Rob and I know each other causally because we have overlapping interests and friends. We often get the chance to exchange a few words at the ALAN Workshop if we don't run into each other at NCTE (Oh, those were the days, my friends.) I have always enjoyed his thoughtful comments on the state of YA literature. He is also clear minded about when the field is being inclusive enough and when it isn't. Last year (April of 2020) I invited Rob to take the month and select the Weekend Picks. He did a wonderful job and introduced me and others to several books that we might not have otherwise picked up.  This week Rob has a full post and once again he has done a topnotch job and provides some suggests that we should all be looking into--that is if you haven't already.

You can find Rob's previous Weekend Picks at this link. Just scroll down to April and you will find them.

​I really enjoy science fiction stories, particularly those set in space. Give me Star Trek, Star Wars, Alien—what I love is the possibility of looking beyond our earth-bound limitations and exploring whole new worlds. I’ve been watching these stories set in space since I was a little kid. But when I came out as gay and started thinking about LGBTQ+ representation in the media I consumed, I began to notice the absence of gay characters more and more. I couldn’t believe that in entire solar systems—entire galaxies!—there were no people like me to be found. So many people on starships and space quests and other planets, and no gay people anywhere. I felt alone and othered and as though someone like me wouldn’t exist in the future. People were trying to populate other planets or colonize space, and I guess gay people were unnecessary. It was incredibly disheartening. It was as if the vacuum of space somehow degayified people! (though that would have been very unfortunate for Sally Ride and her partner if that were true.)
 
But I digress. I’m here to talk about books, and ones that, like newer franchises such as Star Trek: Discovery, Killjoys, and The Expanse, acknowledge gender and sexual diversity elsewhere in the galaxy (and not just through a 0.5 second on-screen kiss between secondary characters. *cough* Star Wars *cough*).

Looking back at the history of LGBTQ+ young adult literature, it is clear that there has been a strong focus for many decades on realism. More recently, LGBTQ+ history has become the focus of a number of YA authors (just look at Like a Love Story by Abdi Nezemian, among other recent works.) And while LGBTQ+ YA has diversified into fantasy, mystery, horror, and many other genres over the years, one area where queer and trans characters don’t have a long history is in the realm of sci-fi, or more specifically, in space. So, I would like to highlight some books that feature LGBTQ+ characters in space or in relation to space travel. While the majority do feature male gay or bi characters, I have done my best to find and include representation beyond gay male individuals.
 
I also believe these texts offer teaching possibilities, and in particular, they offer the possibility to give young readers hope for a queer future—a future where LGBTQ+ people can thrive not only on earth and in reality, but in dreams and utopias. Jose Esteban Muñoz, in Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity, looks at the future through the concept of a “concrete utopia,” or a future that is “relational to historically situated struggles” (p. 3). He notes that “Utopia is not prescriptive; it renders potential blueprints of a world not quite here, a horizon of possibility, not a fixed schema” (p. 97). So while these YA texts are not necessarily setting up realistic futures, they do allow educators and youth readers to see potential in what the future can hold for LGBTQ+ people, including themselves, whether on earth, or out among the stars.
 
Without further ado, here we go!

Space Battle Lunchtime (Natalie Riess, 2016)
​
Peony is a baker on earth, who is called upon to be part of the Universe’s hottest reality TV show, Space Battle Lunchtime. She agrees to be a part of the show, but later learns that the show is filmed on location, in a spaceship. As she gets further into the competition, she realizes that her competitors are not beyond bending a few rules to get their way. Throughout the narrative, Peony has to ask herself if she is up to the challenges and the backstabbing. There is also a beautiful queer love story at the center this delicious graphic novel series that will make get readers’ hearts all aflutter. 

On the Edge of Gone (Corinne Duyvis, 2016)
 
A comet is on its way to earth and Denise and her family are assigned a temporary shelter, but they might not reach the shelter in time. A last-minute change in their journey leads them to a generation ship scheduled to leave earth, but will Denise, who is autistic, be able to prove her worth to the crew? Trans and queer secondary characters show the possibilities of a queer future in space, even if the majority of the narrative is grounded on planet earth.

The Disasters (M.K. England, 2018)
 
Nasir “Nax” Hall wants to be a space ship pilot. A really good one. But he’d somehow managed to fail his entrance exam, making his dream a lot less plausible than he’d hoped. But then the academy gets attacked and Nax and a group of “intergalactic wash-ups” because the only hope to save the universe from disaster. England’s novel is a delightful mix of science fiction, mystery, and adventure that features a cast of characters representing a number of genders and sexualities, all of which also intersect with race, class, and ability, among other components of identity. A story that goes beyond coming out tropes or struggles for acceptance.

​Hullmetal Girls (Emily Skrutskie, 2018)
 
Representing ace, trans, and pansexual experiences, this novel follows Aisha Un-Haad as she tries to protect her family and the Fleet (the name given to the collective of starships they all live on.) Meanwhile Key Tanaka, who is from the privileged section of the Fleet, wakes up as a cyborg soldier with little recollection of how she got there. Together, they must unite to stop a potential uprising. 

​On a Sunbeam (Tillie Walden, 2018)

A hard-to-describe, but absolutely phenomenal graphic novel about a group of teens who make up a reconstruction crew that travels through space to restore crumbling buildings. It may sound strange, but it works so well, and the sexual and gender diversity throughout the cast of characters is a beautiful sight to behold. Mia’s journey is central to the narrative, from falling in love with Grace, another girl at her all-girls boarding school, to losing her, and the ways that this loss affects her relationships with others in the present. This is a sensational and complex graphic novel that fans of sci-fi and fantasy will very much appreciate.

​The Weight of the Stars (K. Ancrum, 2019)
 
Ryann wants to travel through space but coming from a trailer park means she is unlikely to realize her dream. When she meets Alexandria and the two become more than friends, they spend their days trying to catch radio signals from Alexandria’s mother, who has embarked on a one-way trip to the edge of the solar system. Though not set in space, this narrative touches on intersections of race, class, and sexuality and the power of connection when it comes to a loved one flying off into space to seek possibilities for the future of humanity.

​The Gravity of Us (Phil Stamper, 2020)
 
This first one is cheating a bit because it doesn’t actually include space travel, but it does take place at NASA. So rather than “gays in space,” Stamper’s novel is more “gays talking about space.” Cal is a social media influencer with a lot of followers, who ends up heading to NASA with his parents, when his father is selected as a pilot for a mission to Mars. But when Cal meets Leon, another “Astrokid,” the two hit it off even as they discover some unfortunate truths about the Mars mission and have to sort out who to tell. A debut well worth exploring!

A Complicated Love Story Set in Spaceamzn.to/37dhRNs (Shaun David Hutchinson, 2021)
 
Noa wakes up in space, floating outside a ship called the Qriosity—which, of course, is about the explode—and he has no idea how he got there. Another boy named DJ is also aboard the ship, and he also can’t seem to remember how he arrived. The two boys find a girl named Jenny and together they work to figure out how they got into space, where they are, and how to get back home. Nothing is simple, and as they get closer to one another, Noa and DJ develop a connection deeper than friendship, but can it last? With his signature flair for the bizarre and the outlandish, Hutchinson’s novel is one that will both surprise and delight readers of all ages.

The Darkness Outside Us (Eliot Schrefer, 2021) [Coming in June]
​
Ambrose and Kodiak find themselves on a ship called the Coordinated Endeavor, on their way to rescue Ambrose’s sister from Titan. But things aren’t adding up. There seems to have been strangers on board at some point, and Kodiak is hiding away in a remote corner of the ship. Not only that, but Ambrose can’t remember getting onto the ship in the first place, and for some reason the ship’s computer is voiced by his mother. The boys need to survive the mission to Titan, but in order to do so, they need to work together, and in doing so they just might end up falling for each other.

Until next week.

Dr. Paul E. Binford was one of the best parts of my time at LSU. He was a valued colleague, a great golfing partner, and a productive collaborating research partner. We work on several projects together. (It is probably time to do another.) It is true, from time to time we would refine our ideas on the golf course. I miss those outings. We were also able to discuss politics amicably. In reality, I am a bit left of center and he is a bit right of center. Although, in some conversations he sees me as extremely to the left and I can occasionally caste him as too far to the right. The most important part of our relationship was mutual respect and open lines of conversation. 

I love the dimensions of the Social Studies that he has added to my understanding of curriculum and classroom activities. I hope I have helped him see how Young Adult Literature can be a cross-curricular tool in both subject areas. Indeed, our joint publications have always tried to focus on that concept. I love how this blog references sports, film, and autobiography as a way to introduce students to reading. Thanks Paul.

Paul also hosts an educational blog, Ring of Truth that focuses on the Social Studies. You should check it out. He also has links to his previous posts on this website on his website as well.

Part one of I am Third describes the waning weeks of Sayers’ fourth professional gridiron campaign. A middling Bears team was playing the San Francisco 49ers. In the second quarter, Sayers took a handoff and was running behind one of his blockers when a 49er defender submarined the block and made the tackle. The full force of the defender hit squarely on Sayers’ right knee joint with the running back’s fight foot firmly planted in the sod. Sayers knew instantly, “It’s gone.” He had played football for four years in high school, and four years at the University of Kansas without a major injury. In his fourth year of professional football, the law of averages, as his doctor explained it, had finally rendered him an injurious blow. All the medial (inner side) ligaments of the knee were gone. His season and, perhaps, his career was over.
​
Later that same Sunday, Dr. Fox operated on Sayer’s knee for three hours. For the next six weeks, he wore a fifteen pound cast from toe to hip. The remaining pages of part one provide an account of Sayer’s daunting but determined effort to strengthen his knee, so that he would be fully healthy by the start of the next season. The running back soon came to loathe questions about his injury. His single-mindedness rehabilitation stressed his marriage and his friendships.

Sayers and Pick, both running backs, began rooming together in 1967. The Bear’s coaching staff asked Sayers, an African American, if he had any objection to rooming with a White player. The All-Pro player did not object, so they roomed together—the first two players in NFL history to have an integrated assignment. (This was not the first time Pick helped bridged the racial divide; another incident in college speaks to his character as you can read here.) “The best thing about our relationship …” Sayers recalled, “was that we could kid each other all the time about race, do our thing in perfect ease. It was a way, I guess, of easing into each man’s world.” ​

By this point in their careers, Sayers was the franchise player and Pick served as his backup. When Sayer’s suffered his season ending injury in 1968, Pick started in his place for the remainder of the season. Throughout his knee rehab, Pick encouraged Sayers to regain his All-Pro form. “He was really a comfort to me during the 1969 exhibition season and into the regular season … He was one of the few guys … who built up my morale.”
​
Unfortunately for the Chicago Bears, the 1969 season was memorable for its futility and tragedy. Sayers did play a full season, but he was not as explosive or as elusive. When another player was injured that season, Brian Piccolo (or Pick) played alongside Sayers as the starting fullback. However, the Bears struggled mightily with a league worst record of 1-13.  More poignantly, Pick, who suffered most of the season with a chronic cough, was diagnosed with embryonal cell carcinoma. A week later a grapefruit size malignant tumor was removed from his chest. Following his surgery, Piccolo reflected, “At one time, football was the most important thing. But when you're lying on your back and you wonder whether you're going to live or die and you're thinking about your three little girls, you come to discover there are more important things than football.”

Until next time.

I hope you all have a few friends that you don't see very often, but who you can't wait to run into at a conference. For me,​
René Saldaña, is one of those people.  We have know each other for over a decade, but always have stories to share and tales to tell. In fact, I appreciate his perspective so much that we presented together at NCTE in 2019 and had planned to do it again in 2020, but alas, the best laid plans.... I was very happy that he took the opportunity to submit a proposal for the blog. Once again, I have more books on my "to be read" list. Thanks again, my friend.

Ni de aqui, ni de alla: In-betweeness
​
Those of us from here say we live in the RGV, short for the Rio Grande Valley of deep South Texas. Those of us slightly older use the term Vallucos to refer to ourselves: “Soy Valluco” (“I am from the Valley”). The older and more proper generation might say, “Soy de El Valle.”

This is the same Texas-Mexico border region that gave us Américo Paredes, folklorist, historian and novelist, who wrote about the border towns of Brownsville and Matamoros in his novel George Washington Gómez. The rushing and winding waters of the Rio Grande, as it is called in the U.S., the Río Bravo as it is called by Mexicans and many of us who grew up here, empties into the Gulf of Mexico not far beyond Brownsville.
​
It also gave us Rolando Hinojosa Smith, a novelist whose work has been compared to Faulkner’s. Hinojosa is better, though. His Estampas del Valle tells about the RGV in Spanish. Enough said.

We rest between two borders. To the south of us, the Mexico-Texas line. On a given day, traveling from Mier, Tamaulipas in Mexico from visiting my family, a Customs agent will ask, “You a U.S. citizen?” I’ll answer yes. He waves me into the country. I am home. That same day, I’ll drive northward to visit my tía in San Antonio, but not even an hour on the road, just shy of Falfurrias on I-69, I have to slow to a crawl behind cars, trucks, busses, all of us inching our way to the Border Patrol station that boasts high numbers in arrests of illegal aliens and drugs confiscated. “Citizen?” the officer asks. Again I say yes, and again I’m waved on, like I need permission to leave the Valley, like I’m traveling into another country, my own and at once not.
​
It is a magical place. A land of in-between: two borders, two languages, two cultures. Soy ni de aqui, ni de alla. This is where I grew up. This is where I’m from. This is where I write about. Soy Valluco.

​Long the List of Brown Words

You would think that with so many of us brown-skinned living here and so many well-regarded brown writers from here that our required reading lists would reflect people and place. You would think. But you’d be wrong.

In addition to Paredes, Hinojosa, and Anzaldúa, there is Jovita Gonzalez (born in 1904 in Roma, Texas, on the westernmost part of the RGV, which is the entry-point for me when I travel to Mier) and Genaro Gonzalez whose Rainbow’s End tells of three generations of a South Texas family. Writing for children and adolescents are David Rice (Give the Pig a Chance and Crazy Loco), David Bowles (They Call Me Guëro and The Smoking Mirror), Viola Canales (Orange Candy Slices and Tequila Worm), Xavier Garza (Lucha Libre: The Man in the Silver Mask and Creepy Creatures and Other Cucuys), myself (The Jumping Tree and A Good Long Way), Daniel Garcia Ordaz (his book of poems Cenzontle/Mockingbird deals with much of this and more), and Ruben Degollado (Throw).

​There are many more titles we’ve published. More writers I’ve left off the list. Apologies to them.

You would think that today, knowing so much about the effectiveness of the use of books as mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors (Bishop), that teaching them would be the standard practice in any and every ELA classroom. Again, thinking so, you would be wrong.
​
Home, like many points beyond and farther north of Falfurrias, is only now beginning to place value on a child’s funds of knowledge (Moll, Neff, and Gonzalez) and make use of them to enrich their reading experiences. And the movement is at a snail’s pace, taking its sweet time, but time’s not a commodity we’ve got much of.

Literature Wasn’t Reading
​
I haven’t always loved reading. I’ve written about this before in other places: how the moment I started junior high, we stopped reading and instead did Literature[1]. The earliest story I can remember is de Maupassant’s “The Necklace.” I didn’t understand why I should care about a woman who wanted to go to a ball, dress beyond her means, including borrowing a fancy necklace, only to lose it, etc. We read O. Henry. Bradbury’s stories “The Veldt” and “All Summer in a Day” I liked most,  and Theodore Thomas’s “The Test,” which is not to mean I liked them enough to say I loved reading again.

None of these stories mattered to me personally-speaking. That is what reading should cause in a kid: a reaction. A kid should read a book and say, “Aha, that’s why I read that book and why I’ll always remember it: it tells the story of ME.”
​
[1] I document this experience in an upcoming issue of Study and Scrutiny in my article called “On Becoming a Life-Long Reader, and How I Almost Blew It as a Teacher: An Extended Testimonio” and in another article titled
"Mexican American YA Lit: Literature with a Capital 'L'" published in The ALAN Review, Winter 2012 issue.

​After reading Thomas, I understood one thing: when it came to reading, I was purposefully being relegated to outside the pages. I did not exist in literature. My story deemed worthless, of no value.
​
This realization was my herida abierta. I knew that there was at least one book that told my story, but if I had not stumbled upon it, I would never have known even that. I began wondering why we weren’t being made to read Thomas in class? If I liked it, I was sure others would, too. It would have made a difference for me and them—a teacher, who I took to be the sole authority figure in the classroom, intentionally selecting my story as the one to assign would have been big: I mean, everyone reading my story on the pages of this book, everyone reading me/us!—of course it would have made a difference.

What Happens to a Dream Deferred?
Desgraciadamente, though there are more stories about brown kids being published yearly, and though there are more teachers today than in my day introducing these brown stories to their classrooms, it is still not enough.

A shelf of these titles set apart in a library for these kids is not enough.
September set apart for all of us browns is not enough.
Much less so, literacy by chance.
​
I dream of that day when brown kids walk into a school library or a literature classroom and find themselves surrounded by all those books reflecting them and be able to say, in Esperanza’s words: “All brown all around, we are safe” (28).

Works Cited

Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. 3rd. ed., Aunt Lute Books, 2007.

Bishop, Rudine S. (1990). “Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors.” Perspectives: Choosing
and Using Books for the Classroom, vol. 6, no. 3, 1990. Accessed from https://scenicregional.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Mirrors-Windows-and-Sliding-Glass-Doors.pdf

Cisneros, Sandra. House on Mango Street. Vintage Books, 1987.

Moll, L.C., Amanti, C., Neff, D. & Gonzalez, N. “Funds of Knowledge for Teaching: Using a Qualitative Approach to Connect Homes and Classrooms.” Theory Into Practice, vol. 31, no. 2, 1992, pp. 132-141.

Thomas, Piri. Stories from El Barrio. Alfred A. Knopf, 1978.

References

Bowles, David. The Smoking Mirror. IFWG Publishing, 2016.
---. They Call Me Güero. Cinco Puntos P, 2018.
Canales, Viola. Orange Candy Slices and Other Secret Tales. Piñata Books, 2001.
---. Tequila Worm. Wendy Lamb Books, 2007.
Degollado, Ruben. Throw. Slant, 2019.
Garcia Ordaz, Daniel. Cenzontle/Mockingbird. El Zarape Press, 2018.
Garza, Xavier. Creepy Creatures and Other Cucuys. Piñata Books, 2004.
---. Lucha Libre: The Man in the Silver Mask: A Bilingual Cuento. Cinco Puntos P, 2005.
Gonzalez, Genaro. Rainbow’s End. Arte Público P, 1988.
Hinojosa Smith, Rolando. Estampas del Valle. Bilingual Review P, 1992.
Paredes, Américo. George Washington Gómez. Arte Público P, 1990.
Rice, David. Crazy Loco. Dial, 2001.
---. Give the Pig a Chance. Bilingual Review P, 1996.
Saldaña, Jr., René. A Good Long Way. Piñata Books, 2010.
---. The Jumping Tree. Delacorte Books for Young Readers, 2001.

Until next week.

Meeting Sarah Donovan was a fortunate event. Since we met at a summer ELATE conference, I have been admiring her work and dedication to English education. I have been lucky enough to collaborate with her on several projects. By far the most rewarding collaboration has been having her participate in the Summit since it was rebooted at UNLV. She has helped in the planning and is a valued presenter. Last year she helped as a co-director of the 2020 Summit as we moved to an online format. Now, she continues in that role for the 2021 Summit.

It is great opportunity for the blog to have her serve as a guest contributor for Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday. She has plenty of work to do running her own blog--Ethical ELA. After reading this post, be sure to checkout all of her projects at Ethical ELA.

Poetry can help us make sense of these points of transformation in the white space and line breaks of our lives. We need not do it along. The authors of verse novels have much to teach us: line breaks for life’s shifts, white space to breathe, a comma for uncertainty, a dash for contemplation. (See Lesley Roessing’s verse novel recommendations here and my junior high students’ here.)

In this past year, I found that in writing autobiographical poetry with the support of verse novelists that I could revisit and heal wounds of the past and find joy in the everyday, often overlooked moments of my life. 

While I am an advocate for reading verse novels, my goal in writing this piece at this time is to encourage educators to uncover what verse novelists can offer you as a writer, as a way of nurturing your writing life. ​

Venkatraman, through Veda, allows readers to bear witness to Veda tenderly attending to Paati’s final moments while noticing her parents’ movements and reaction in this scene. We are with Veda’s family here, seeing the actions and gestures moment by moment. 

Reading this scene stirred in me a flash from the day my father died that had been dormant for years the moments just before I learned of his death.

The white space on the right of the poem was, for me, an invitation to at once sit alongside Veda, to hold space, and remember my own loss. The page welcomed me to tell my story in the bits that I wanted to remember, could remember. Of course, I could have turned the page if I wasn’t ready; it was the open space at the end of the page that trusted me to decide. Authors do these things for their readers. (Thank you, Padma.) So instead of turning the page, I opened my notebook and wrote. (Actually, I write in Google docs now because my typing fingers keep up better than my cursive fingers.)

My poem (below) does not look or sound like Veda’s/Venkatraman’s. I did not mimic her way of being as I sometimes do to begin writing, but I did try to re-witness the day I learned of my father’s passing. I stepped into my nine-year-younger eyes and moved through the scene looking for artifacts, noticing gestures, wondering thoughts. The line breaks gave me permission to shift abruptly and not spend too much time in one moment. I was as I composed. ​

Until next week.

Once again, Stacy offered another idea for Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday. Occasionally we have a special Friday edition and it is with great pleasure that I am hosting another guest post by Stacy Graber. I think you will find it interesting and I hope you visit the Contributor's Page to revisit some of her earlier posts

Objects too have agency.
--Bruno Latour (2007), Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory
 
I gradually discover myself as family historian/archaeologist.
--Eric Gansworth, Apple: Skin to the Core
​

The agency of objects shows itself in other compelling ways that call for equal attention, particularly in the host of artifacts of popular culture, everyday objects, and objects of art and ritual that assert themselves with alternating positive and negative valence, calling the speaker and reader into emotional discourse with a material universe.  For instance, Gansworth (2020) causes us to ponder the relics of childhood: toys, games, and signifiers of fantastic protagonists (e.g., Hulk, Batman, Captain Marvel, Black Panther, etc.) materialized through t-shirts, helmets, and masks—in particular. These objects enact a drama of play and provide sanctuary, however momentarily, as they enable escape from crushing circumstances of want and judgment. Later in the text, the sign of the mask metamorphoses when the artifact shifts to ceremonial masks, wrongfully obtained and held hostage in museums, which require gag orders on docents who claim the authority to represent their cultural and religious meanings, to speak on behalf of others.  Through the sign of the ritual mask, Gansworth (2020) maps a landscape of academic interventions that do violence in the name of “preservation” (p. 120).
​       
As previously stated, the artifacts of popular culture resonate strongly throughout Gansworth’s (2020) text and offer a structural vehicle, especially sound recordings that comprise the psychic playlist of the poet’s life.  Music serves as a way to narrate critical tensions, conflict, and aporia that would otherwise be inexpressible through the limits of language.  So, the exformations of The Beatles and Bowie provide the shared medium through which it becomes possible to be understood. This same tendency emerges in the capability of television shows to express collective wish images and films—particularly horror texts—to communicate oneiric intensities of dread and unrelenting anxieties and to exorcize them for good.

But perhaps the most significant expression of the agency of objects in the collection of poems is found in the potency of places that act through the forces of love or rage, contingent on the space they inhabit in personal and public memory.  On one end of the continuum, there is the beloved family home on Dog Street, which is the repository of spectral memory of cherished people now gone, intimate meals taken, and moments of uncanny solitude.  On the opposite end of the continuum there is the sadistic Carlisle Indian Boarding School, the violent machine of acculturation that whispers its mechanics through hidden graveyards and grotesque before/after portraits rationalized as markers of “progress.”  These places are more than geographic coordinates for Gansworth (2020)—they are testimonies.  And, considered through Latour’s (2007) framework, they are hieroglyphics that require interpreters to express their latent histories (p. 79), which Latour indicates as the province of the artist (p. 82).
​
All of which is to say that things have a tremendous power to act within Gansworth’s (2020) poetry, and that this is no mere expression of Disneyfied anthropomorphism (as Giroux would say).  Meaning, objects exert real force culminating in an array of effects that can be profoundly restorative or lethal.
​
In terms of the pedagogical implications of this discussion, Gansworth’s (2020) text makes a project proposal.  He implicitly suggests that we engage secondary students in decoding the ethnography of objects, tracing their provenance, and reading the ways that these things have the power to shape and direct a life, and how a more sustaining vision of community and the future might be realized through objects of art.     

​Gansworth, E. (2020).  Apple: Skin to the core, A memoir in words and pictures.  Levine Querido.

Kafka, K. (2008), Metamorphosis. In Metamorphosis and other stories (pp. 85-146) (M. Hofmann, Trans.).  Penguin Books.  (Original work published in 1913)

Latour, B.  (2007).  Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network-theory.  Oxford University Press.

Biographical Statement: Stacy Graber is an Associate Professor of English at Youngstown State University.  Her areas of interest include critical theory, pedagogy, and popular culture.

Until next week.

The Summit is really just around the corner. We are at the beginning of evaluating presentation proposals and putting together a program. One thing is certain, we have six outstanding authors whose works are of notable literary quality, represent a variety of lived experiences, and are notable for the various windows, mirrors, and sliding doors (Bishop 1990) they offer students. We have other new components for the summit that will improve the experience. One of those will be the opportunity to participate in a series of follow up professional development events throughout the 2021 - 2022 school year. These will be conducted under the direction of the Zeiter Literacy Center and with the expertise of affiliate faculty from a variety of universities. Wouldn't you like to meet and discuss the research and teaching of YA literature with experts every 6 weeks or so? 

Those sessions are being planned now and will involve reading books by authors who will be visiting the summit in 2022. Right now, all of the authors for next year will remain a closely guarded secret. What I can tell you is that part of those professional development sessions will involve revisiting some of the texts and authors discussed during 2021 Summit. So, let's take a closer look at the authors who will be visiting us in June. Many of these authors have been among my favorites for a long time. Some, I have only recently discovered. Either way, I enjoy reading these books. More importantly, these are authors whose works I keep thinking about. I think about them when I plan courses, when I write a paper, and when people ask me about what they should be reading. 

References:
Bishop, R. S. (1990). Mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. Perspectives: Choosing and Using Books for the Classroom, 6(3 ). 

Until next week.