​This week on Dr. Bickmore’s YA Wednesday we introduce a new feature. Several Young Adult authors have been immensely helpful to respond to inquiries, answer questions, provide the occasional book, and, most importantly, they write wonderful books. The blog has been successful at providing a space for academics, librarians, and teachers. It is time to provide a space for YA authors to chime in. At least once a month, the blog will host YA authors who will be free to talk about their writing process, their newest book, their world view, their favorite authors, books they admire, or anything thing else in the amazing world of YA literature. After some initial inquiries, about 25 authors have agreed to participate. It promises to be an exciting year with some special Friday additions of YA Wednesday. I am pleased to have Brent Hartinger be our first author. I hope you know his work as one of the pioneers of YA LGBT literature. If you don’t, his post will be a great introduction.
In addition, at the end of the post see the link to the new issue of Study and Scrutiny and the call for book chapter for a new book edited by Paula Greathouse, Brooke Eisenbach, and Joan Kaywell. 

Now, take it away Brent:

It's strange to be old enough to have a "perspective," but when it comes LGBT teen lit, I definitely do.
In 1990, I co-founded the world's third gay-straight alliance in my hometown of Tacoma, Washington. Needless to say, it was a struggle.

In 1992, I wrote the first draft of Geography Club, a book very loosely based on that experience. A lot of editors wanted to publish it, but it wasn't until 2003 that Steve Fraser at HarperCollins finally managed to get it out into the world. The book was an unexpected hit, one of the first in an explosion of mainstream LGBT teen books, but it was also pretty controversial, banned and challenged at libraries all across the country.

In August, Simon & Schuster is releasing my twelfth novel, Three Truths and a Lie, a horror/thriller YA novel of psychological suspense. It features two leading gay characters, but the novel has almost nothing to do with the fact that they're gay, and says nothing "about" the LGBT teen experience.

In other words, over the course of my life and my career, I've seen LGBT teen issues go from being a very BIG issue, to becoming well on the way to being a non-issue.

I often wonder what would have happened if Geography Club had been published in 1996 or 1998 (as it almost was). Would it still have been a hit, or would it have tanked? Lots of editors and publishers, even ones who liked it, told me, "There's no market for a book about gay teenagers." Maybe that was true at the time.

Even in 2001, when HarperCollins picked it up, everyone in-house loved it, but no one except my editor expected it to do anything. By the end of the second week of publication, it had already gone into a third printing. It eventually spawned six well-received sequels and went on to be adapted as a feature film (co-starring Scott Bakula).

I'd been working with LGBT teens since 1990, and I knew there was some real energy on LGBT youth issues brewing under the cultural radar. But the book's success caught even me by surprise. (At the time, my author-friends would complain to me how hard it was to get any attention for their books, and I would think to myself, "Really? It doesn't seem that hard to me!" I've since learned that book launches don't usually go that effortlessly!)
​
I tried hard to make Geography Club fun and funny, because I was tired of the "doom and gloom" LGBT books of the past. But it was still a book about the struggles of being a LGBT teenager: how it sucked to be bullied, among other things.

Three Truths and a Lie is a horror novel. Two of the main characters are gay, but they're mostly concerned about staying alive when the locals starts terrorizing them and their friends as they spend the weekend in a remote rainforest. Or could it be one of the four friends who's secretly terrorizing and killing the others?
The only bullying is when a straight friend teases the gay characters with his own nudity while skinny-dipping.
In other words, in Three Truths and a Lie, the gayness is mostly incidental. Better still, the book is being marketed to a mainstream audience.

I think it's fantastic that we live in a time that we can take for granted the fact that heterosexual readers won't be distracted by a gay character, to the point that it interferes with the story.

In terms of LGBT themes in YA, the genre is now so rich and wonderful and varied. And I'm especially thrilled that we're seeing more and more "genre" books -- science fiction, fantasy, mysteries, and all the rest. I've been saying for years that this is clearly the next wave in LGBT YA publishing.
Then there's the question of sex.

I thought the sexual element in Geography Club was pretty tame. But the folks who equate "gay" with "sex" didn't see it that way at all. To them, my books were smut.

I can only imagine what they'd say about The Truths and a Lie, which is pretty explicit in places. You might even call it a psychosexual thriller.

In the book, I'm using sex to explore darker themes, like domination, jealousy, and secret desires, even the connection between sex and death. These themes are right in line with the genre I'm writing in, but they're pretty unusual in YA, even in non-gay books.

But the sex in this book is gay. And it was written for and is being marketed to a mainstream audience! Whenever I think about all the hassles I went through with Geography Club, all the controversies I endured, that sort of takes my breath away.
​
Over the last twenty-five years, LGBT YA lit has changed dramatically, just as society has changed. For writers, readers, and actual teenagers, we're all better off.
 
Brent Hartinger's Three Truths and a Lie is available everywhere (after 8/2). Visit Brent online at brenthartinger.com

Study and Scrutiny Vol. 2, No 1

If you haven't run across it yet, the new issue of Study and Scrutiny is published. We hope you check it out (here) and look what the contributing authors have to offer. We have articles from Victor Malo-Juvera, Paula Greathouse and Micke Diccio, and Alice Hayes. We also have an interview by Rodrigo Joseph Rodriquez with Isabel Quintero and a Book Review by Lorena German.

Call for Book Chapters

Paula Greathouse asked me to post this blurb about a new edited book on YA Literature. This is a great opportunity.

 Attention all teachers, media specialists, reading specialists, and teacher educators! Do you use young adult literature in your classroom/course or know someone who does? We have already secured a publisher and are now seeking chapters for our upcoming book on the infusion of young adult literature in the content area classroom! Please read the call for abstracts! Contact Paula Greathouse at [email protected] with any questions. Thanks!!

Please see a pdf about the call for chapters below.

In this wonderful blog post, Mary Warner explains how a teacher might incorporate Karen Hesse's wonderful novel Witness in the classroom.  In this post, she connects the work with informational texts, canonical texts, readers theatre, and other assessment activities that add to instruction. Mary is another one of those great member of the English education and YA communities with a host of accomplishments. You will wan to bookmark this posting for future reference.

Spoon River Anthology is one work; Our Town by Thorton Wilder is another.  Witness could lead to work with dramatic monologues and connect to the poetry of Robert Browning.  I’ve used Witness in my university level YA Literature course, one of the required courses in our English, Prep for Teaching major.  With my students I frequently discuss how doing a readers’ theatre of Witness could be a wonderful “into” activity prior to teaching To Kill a Mockingbird. Karen Hesse, in the study guide edition, suggests the following YA books to “compare and contrast” with Witness: Bat 6 by Virginia Euwer Wolff (1998); The Brimstone Journals by Ron Koertge (2001); The Darkest Corners by Mildred Herschler (2000); Give a Boy a Gun by Todd Strasser (2000); Mississippi Trial, 1955 by Chris Crowe (2002), Nothing but the Truth by Avi (1991); The Sixty-Six Dollar Summer by John Armistead; Summer Battles by Ann R. Blakeslee, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee; and The Wave by Todd Strasser (1981).

YA novels that also demonstrate the power of voice and multiple perspectives
(Some might work in your classrooms)
All We Know of Heaven by Sue Ellen Bridgers
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
Monster by Walter Dean Myers
Wringer and Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares
Day of Tears by Julius Lester
Freakboy by Kristin Elizabeth Clark
 All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

About the Book:  (adapted from the Discussion Guide to Witness, 163)
 
Witness tells the story of the Ku Klux Klan’s attempt to recruit members in a small town in Vermont in l924.  Leanora Sutter, a 12-year-old Black girl who has recently experienced the death of her mother, is isolated because of racial prejudice.  Leanora is befriended by Esther Hirsh, a younger Jewish girl, who like Leanora is the target of the Klan’s bigotry. Esther’s innocence and natural optimism provide sharp contrast to the other characters.  Merlin VanTornhout, a teenager, and Johnny Reeves, a minister in the town, voice the Klan’s hate-filled message of white supremacy.  Other characters – the town constable, Percelle Johnson, and the newspaper editor, Reynard Alexander, try to walk a careful line of neutrality until they realize the importance of taking a stand.  Storekeepers Viola and Harvey Pettibone represent two opposing reactions to the Klan’s methods as they discuss the issues in their own home.  Iris Weaver represents a new freedom for women, who have recently gained the right to vote. Over the course of many months, the town’s residents are affected in a number of ways by pressures that build in the community, leading up to a climactic moment of violence.

Describing the “Voice” Speaking these Lines – before starting to read WitnessBefore you give students the text – since the characters are identified in the introduction to Witness—consider having your students work with the passages below.  Each vignette below is spoken by a character in Witness.  The passages provide wonderful samples of this powerful text and foreshadow the significant characters.What lines, words, or phrases give you a sense of “who” this character is?
 
(***Note: I’m replicating Karen Hesse’s style of all lower case)
 
1. i pushed the window up in school
to get the stink of leanora sutter out of the classroom
where miss harvey brought her to show off
a dance from last week’s
recital…
leanora sutter
turned and stared through me
            that witchy girl
            with those fuming eyes
she meant to put a curse on me.
she meant to.
i left school right then.
no amount of air will get the smell of her
out of my nose,
the soot of her out of my eyes.
 
2. roads were bad.
don’t blame me.
it’s not my fault.
these roads are nothing but hog wallow during a thaw.
folks ought to know that.
wright sutter should have thought
before bringing his wife and child along to town with him.
that wasn’t my fault,
his horse and wagon miring down,
stuck in the mud.
i wasn’t on duty.
not my fault he couldn’t get help.
no one too energetic about helping a colored man hereabouts…
wife took a chill,/waiting. she put her wrap around the little girl…
sick all year…
the sutter woman died this past spring…
 
3. they made me mad.
willie pettibone and some of the other boys, they said things
about me and daddy.
i shouldn’t let them get to me but
i’m flint quick these days…
i turned my back on willie pettibone and walked out of school.
i didn’t know where i was going.
i just walked out
without my coat,
without my hat or rubbers.
i didn’t feel the cold,
i was that scorched.
 
4. well how do you like that.
down in texas,
mrs. miriam ferguson,
the wife of the impeached governor
defeated the klan candidate
by 80,000 votes
to win the democratic nomination for her state.
if she wins/she’ll be the first woman
governor in /the whole damn country.
imagine.
 
5. we shall reign in the kingdom,/neighbor.
we shall form a great fist,
and we shall still those who oppose us.
we shall strike them out,
wipe them out,
blot them out.
together we cast a long shadow, neighbor,
and with our shadow
we cast our foes in darkness.
we cast those who are not like us into the arms of satan.
 
6. folks ask why i never married.
i watched my/father swallow his breakfast whole and rush away,
leaving mother with us children to be readied for school,
lunch to be prepared for noon,
washing to be done,
and the fitting out of a big evening meal.
father would come home late,/tired out,
falling asleep in the best chair after supper,
while mother put the house to rights,
got me, my brothers, my sister
and, finally, father off to bed…
father got a holiday from time to time.
mother never did.
that’s why i moved out and came to work on the farm.
soon as i could i bought it for my own.
all these years i’ve managed fine without a man.
i may work as hard as my mother,
but i’m drudge to no one.
 
7. when the barn cat did have her six little kittens
sara chickering had takings of the baby kittens
away from their mamma.
what did you do with the little things?
i did ask sara chickering
sara chickering said the kittens did go far away.
that is what they said about my mamma, too. she did go
far away on the train to heaven.
 
8. down in town,
families listened to the independence day concert
while up on the hill a fiery cross was set ablaze.
it started burning about the time the band finished
            the star-spangled banner.
only a lunatic/would ignore the dry conditions,
or the fact that a crackling fire
could spread so easily out of control.
or perhaps it was the work of children
stirred by griffith’s birth of a nation,
            that racist rubbish,
            which will not fade away.

Readers’ Theatre
​
Almost any literary selection with multiple characters and sufficient dialogue can be adapted into a Readers’ Theatre.  Over the many semesters I’ve used Witness, I’ve varied the way I assign characters. I give the students a list of the characters about three weeks before we do the Readers’ Theatre in class.  I also have had three or more readers for each character, depending on how many students are in my class and often the character speaks in the five acts of Witness. What I’ve come to see in each subsequent semester is how much the students engage with Hesse’s text.  It could be the readers’ theatre; it could be that reading and immediately responding act by act helps the students “stay with” the text; maybe it helps that the students don’t have to read the text “alone.”   I’m also amazed at the “voice” the student readers give to the characters, demonstrating exactly how they are understanding the text.  They seem to grasp a particularly key aspect of Witness—a single experience is told from multiple perspectives.
 
When we do Witness in my three-hour class, I ask students to respond after each act to each of the following questions:

1. With which character do you relate or empathize the most? Why?
2. What voice is most powerful? Why? Or another way to focus your response: What are the “power lines” that capture your response?
3. What lines or words help you to hear and know the voice?
4. For the character you read: What in the text makes you give the character the voice you are using? Explain.

**** “power lines” is a term I created that builds on the image of electricity – the power conveyed by literal power lines – but also to suggest those words/phrase that figuratively or metaphorically give readers a “charge.”

Creating our own Readers’ TheatreFollowing the class reading of Witness, I remind students that what Hesse has done is tell a single story or recount a single event from multiple perspectives.  The key is the event has been shared or experienced by many people.  Then I suggest that all of us have had shared experiences and direct them to the following prompt.  I tell them that once we’ve written, everyone will read their vignette aloud—in any order—depending on who is “moved” to read—but that everyone will read—thus creating our own readers’ theatre. 

​Writing Prompt for 9/11—our shared event
In your own voice or in the voice of someone you’d like to represent (for example, a passenger on one of the hijacked planes, a NY fireman or emergency worker etc.) describe your experience of September 11, 2001. Develop your response in the free verse poetry style of Karen Hesse or in a short prose vignette.  Be prepared to read your vignette aloud.
NOTE: Depending on the students with whom you read Witness, you could surely create a prompt of a shared event more pertinent to them.  Sadly, racism, bigotry, xenophobia, and fear of others still permeate our world.  Any community touched by gun violence, terrorism, or natural disasters will have shared perspectives.
                                                                   
Review of Student Writings to the 9/11 prompt
I have numerous semesters of student writing to the 9/11 prompt.  I always write one too, and read it amid the reading of our own readers’ theatre.  These 9/11 writings are available on line at
http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/mary.warner/Warnerstudentlinks.htm
Two examples follow:
In the first sample Ahmed Al-Sheikh, a Middle Eastern student, expresses his anxiety and anger, knowing the backlash that was inevitable.  Both student samples, though, convey powerful voice and demonstrate how strongly they connected to Hesse’s text. In example two, Scott Ferris chose to “voice” former President George W. Bush.
 
I saw the future as I saw the towers fall
saw it before because
of Oklahoma.
Americans hate Arabs more than
Russians
Asians
Germans
or any they hated before.
They butcher us in their films
Disregard our culture as backward and oppressive
When the bomb went off in
Oklahoma,
they blamed us all.
Women covering their heads in modesty
Children saying hamdilulah instead of bless you
when they sneeze,
Men with earth tone skin and thick dark hair
They punished us all before it was revealed
to be two
white
Christian
men
I knew it would happen again when I saw
the towers fall
And when one evil man who happened to share
my faith and birthplace admitted responsibility
it became worse.
They’ll kill us all.  – Ahmed Al-Sheikh
 
I had arrived at the elementary school,
my sole task being to read a book.
A children’s book for children about
something they could understand,
something they  could cope with.
 
The children were so excited to see me
and I was excited too.
I began to read
and they began to listen,
nothing more important on our minds
than that story.
 
Not long after I had started reading
one of my men walked calmly over to me
and whispered something in my ear.
A great tragedy had occurred,
something the children
would not
could not
understand.
 
I remained calm and
continued reading,
struggling to prevent any change
in my voice or on my face.
They were so young and little
and they didn’t need to know what had happened.
Not right now.
 
A short while later,
the same man came over to me,
whispering once more.
Tragedy had struck once more.
I continued reading.
 
Perhaps I should have stopped,
perhaps I should have gotten up and left.
But what could I have done?
The damage had been done.
I had been powerless to stop it.
 
But I was not completely powerless.
Rather than scare the children,
I sat
and I read.
I did what I thought was
the one thing I could do at that moment.
I tried to protect them for just a while longer.
I had failed to protect my country,
but I would not fail to protect them. -- Scott Ferris

Ways that Readers’ Theatre addresses the CCS Anchor Standards
 
Writing:
 
Text Types and Purposes:
 
3.Write narratives to develop real or imagined evidences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.
 
Reading:
 
Key Ideas and Details:

1. Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

1. Analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas develop and interact over the course of a text

 
Craft and Structure:

1. Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.

1. Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and styles of a text.

 
Speaking and Listening:
 
Comprehension and Collaboration:

1. Evaluate a speaker’s point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric

Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas:
6. Adapt speech to a variety of contexts and communicative tasks, demonstrating command of formal English when indicated or appropriate.

​Since it was my birthday on Tuesday, I decided to give myself a gift for this week’s blog; I would like to reminisce about a few books. I often think of YA books that still ring true after some distance. Some are books that I read as an adolescent and others are books that are quite new that I have read as an adult. All of my selections have the remarkable power to stay present while I think about race, class, and gender in young adult literature. This post could be quite long, but I will spare everyone and talk about three pairs from different times in my reading life. The first pair, Double Trouble for Rupert and Berries Goodman, is from my own childhood. The second is from when I was preparing to teach or teaching high school, I am the Cheese and Whirligig. The final pair is a set of quite recent publications, All American Boys and How It Went Down, and seem to be even more important given the events in Baton Rouge, LA and in Falcon Heights, MN.

 I was an avid reader from the beginning. In fact, I don’t remember learning to read, I just remember reading. I began as my mother read to me, moved basal readers, and then continued on through Dr. Seuss, a whole series of We Were There books, Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, Henry Huggins, The Secret Garden, The Sword in the Stone, Charlotte’s Web, and a host of other books. The two books from my early reading history are old friends. The first is Double Trouble for Rupert by Ethelyn M. Parkinson. I wish I could tell you that it was a brilliant, piece of literature full of literary quality and profound insight. More than anything I remember reading this book and other Rupert stories and feeling happy. I probably bought my first copy through a scholastic book sale. I laugh at and with Rupert and probably wished that I could have been as clever, mischievous, and as carefree as he was in fiction. Nevertheless, it was fiction and I learned the great art of escaping reality for a period of time through reading and it has been a useful lesson.

The second book in this pair is Berries Goodman by Emily Cheney Neville, an author who is more famous It’s Like This, Cat a novel that earned her the Newbery Medal in 1964. Berries Goodman is a book that I love. I have written about it in a previous post. It is a book that reminds me of past friendships and my introduction to Jewish literature. Reading this book opened doorways that I never imagined. It lead me to books by Potok, Uris, Malamud, Bellow, Roth (both Henry and Phillip), Singer, and a number of other writers through the years. I layered my own occasional feelings of marginalization on the characters and themes I found in this novels. For me, this memory is a good example of what Teri Lesesne might call Reading Ladders.

The second pair of novels is part of a group of books that taught me that young adult literature can be and often is quality literature. These books are worthy of repeated readings, inclusion in classroom libraries, literary analysis, reading lists, and as part of instructional units. The first in this pair is Cormier’s I am the Cheese. While many of Cormier’s novels might be more widely known and read—especially, The Chocolate War--I don’t believe any are better or more profound in their structure, theme, or character development than this extraordinary novel. 

The second book is Whirligig by Paul Fleischman. I can’t remember exactly how I came upon this book. I used it with high school students a few years before I went to graduate school and before I started channeling young adult fiction all of the time. I am quite sure that a librarian introduced me to the book.  I was teaching AP English Literature and was looking for an activity to keep the students engaged between the end of the test in the first week of May and the end of school during the first week of June. If you have worked with AP students, I am sure you can hear the high pitched whine that goes something like this: “Why do we have to work? The test is over?” As if they have learned everything there is to know. Instead, of letting them do nothing (I know I was mean, as they were fond of reminding me), I developed a three week young adult literature project. Each student had to read one of three YA classic: The Contender (Lipsyte), The Chocolate War (Cormier), or Homecoming (Voigt) and then two more YA novels for a B and three for an A.  (The list would be different now that I know more, but these three proved to be a good starting point for smart students who had lost track of the joy of reading for pleasure.) After reading one of those books and discussing it in their groups they wrote a review of the book using middle grade students has the audience. In addition, during that first week I book talked other titles and the librarian visited the classroom with a raft of new books to show them.  The students read widely and enjoyed the assignment. Some dedicated themselves to an author: Lowry, Voigt, Cormier, Paulson, Zindel, O’Dell, Myers, Draper, Blume, Bauer, Konigsburg, and Hinton. Others focused recent releases Holes, Esperanza Rising, Whirligig, Speak, Monster, Make Lemonade, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower. The room became a sanctuary for silent sustained reading.  More students than I like to admit asked me why they couldn't read more books like these in class. You know, I didn’t have a good answer. Many confessed to rereading books they remembered enjoying from an earlier time and finding out that they were falling in love all over again with The Giver or Hatchet. I enjoyed reading their book reviews and passing them on to a few of my middle school colleagues. A year or two later the school I was in used the book as a whole school summer reading. Is drunk driving an issues you would like to discuss with your students? Then check out Whirligig and its tale of a journey of redemption. 

The final pair of books was selected from books I have read in the last year or so. In any given year I read a lot of books, but only a few surface into my thought process time and time again. They show up when I think about constructing a new syllabus, preparing a workshop, talking with students, thinking about conference presentations, writing articles and book chapters, and most frequently when I think about how YA books can help us think about the issues that challenge our society today. These issues include equality, opportunity, the educational climate, charter schools, excessive testing, the absence of self-selected reading in classrooms, black lives matter, and white privilege.

I started writing this post early on July 7, 2016, I was buried in work and hadn’t heard much news. I was a part of the English Education faculty at LSU in Baton Rouge for seven years. My daughter still lives in the area and called me and asked if I heard about the Baton Rouge shooting and the additional news about the additional tragic shooting in Falcon Heights, Minnesota.  I hadn’t, so I began looking at the out pouring of news through social media and more traditional news outlets. I wonder, are we all crazy? Just a few weeks ago, I reminisced about the tragedy in Orlando. Last week, Shelly Shaffer talked about books that might help us talk about school shootings. Perhaps we are in more crisis than we imagine.

As I mentioned, I started writing this post early on Thursday, but I began thinking about the books I would include over the 4th of July weekend. I had to sort through several options before deciding on the first two pairs, but these two books, All American Boys and How It Went Down were already locked in. If you don’t know these books, you are missing out. Both books create a plot that captures moments of tension that exist in our society. I think we often think about books that will engage our students and we should. On a slightly different note, I think that many teachers avoid books that make themselves uncomfortable and then mask not using them under a myriad of excuses:  the students are not ready to discuss this, the book is of a high enough literary quality, we don’t have time, it isn’t approved, I don’t have copies, we are preparing for the test, and on and on. After what has happened over the last week can we afford to avoid the difficult questions? I am sure the authors of these two books would join me in shouting from the roof tops about these issues. The students are ready; are we?

In All American Boys, Reynolds and Kiely capture a moment of police brutality that deserves discussion. In this joint authored book, the authors examine the event from two distinct points of view. Please just read it. If you are a teacher who cares about students, you will find a host of ways to either teach this book or introduce it to your students. The next author, Kekla Magoon, who actually wrote the review of All American Boys for The New York Times, contributed to the difficult conversation of race and policing in America with How It Went Down. The plot of Magoon’s powerful novel is revealed through a variety of voices. A reader is forced to consider point of view as they contemplate the details and debate with themselves the motivations and risks of each character. Together they from a perfect pairing for classroom instruction or each could serve as a follow-up to the other as students or teacher develop their reading lists. Both of these books deserve to be a continuing part of young adult literature set in urban spaces. 

I have resisted going on and on about both of these novels. I want to, but I won’t. They can hold their own in terms of their literary quality and their powerful story lines. Oh sure, some might find something to nitpick about, but that is missing the point. These books represent young adult literature's continuing contribution about how literature can help us make sense of our lives. Frankly, I wish that I wasn’t writing on the heels of a week of tragedy. I feel for the family and friends of the black men who lost their lives and for the family and friends of the police officers who lost their lives as well. As Americans we should all feel the loss. Again, yesterday was my birthday. I wanted to have a day of fun and joy (don’t I always?). I did, but I also had a measure of hope added to the day as I listened to the Dallas Memorial service with my wife as we drove around. I was never a big fan of President George W. Bush, but I was open minded and patient while he spoke during the service. I was moved by this quote: “To often, we judge other groups by their worst examples, and while judging ourselves by our best intentions.” Okay, that works for me. Too often, I hear educators and others talk about “those kids.” Are we judging them by one event, one news story, and one situation? Ultimately, I think I will be judged by my actions and not my best intentions. While those intentions might be noble, they don’t mean a damn. The actions matter. How I make the students I teach feel about themselves and their lives matters. I commit to do better.

We continued to listen to the Memorial as President Obama began speaking while we drove. When we reached our distention we both just continued to sit in the car and listen. As I listened to the speech, I latched on to the words of hope: from President Obama:

"I understand how Americans are feeling.  But, Dallas, I'm here to say we must reject such despair.  I'm here to insist that we are not as divided as we seem.  And I know that because I know America.  I know how far we've come against impossible odds.  (Applause.)  I know we'll make it because of what I've experienced in my own life, what I've seen of this country and its people -- their goodness and decency --as President of the United States.  And I know it because of what we've seen here in Dallas -- how all of you, out of great suffering, have shown us the meaning of perseverance and character, and hope."

My children and many of my students might see me as a gentle curmudgeon with a gruff and satiric façade, I do so to hide a tender interior. While others will spend time critiquing either President Bush or President Obama's contributions to the Memorial Service, I will not. I hope this posting lasts as a humble effort to join two opposing political ideologies in a moment of unity that will live beyond the mourning and towards continuing efforts to unite us despite our differences. One of my former students, Austin Yde, posted a statement of hope. In his post he links to a Rufus Wainwright’s post where Rufus sings Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah with the members of CHOIR CHOIR CHOIR. After you listen to this video, maybe we can start by reading together.

This is week's guest post is provided by Shelly Shaffer, an assistant professor of Literacy at Eastern Washington University. It is an insightful look at an issue that is not only timely; but, it remains important. Thanks Shelly.

​Guns and gun violence are on the minds of many Americans, especially after the recent mass shooting in Orlando, Florida on June 12, 2016. Forty-nine people were killed and 53 others were wounded by a gunman who was eventually killed in a police shootout. As a result of this type of violence, people are rightly concerned for their safety and the safety of others. Places that have always been associated with safety and community such as schools and churches have become, instead, places where worries over safety and security have become commonplace. Teachers and young adults should not have to worry about whether somebody will come to school with a gun. That is exactly why books about school shootings are valuable for young adult readers. After providing a brief history of the literature dealing with school shootings, I will discuss several books in a sub-genre I call “school shooting” literature. 

The History of “School Shooting” Literature

​As far as I can tell, the roots of school shooting literature dates back to the 1970’s with Stephen King’s book Rage. Written while King was still in high school in 1965, this book was originally published in 1977 under the pseudonym of Richard Bachman. In Rage, the main character, Charlie is a high school student who shoots one of his teachers and takes his classmates hostage.

During the 1980’s and 1990’s, Rage was linked to several school shooting incidents and even though, King admits that the book provides an honest portrayal of the experiences of children in high school, it was taken out of print, and King’s website notes: “No future printings will be made of this novel [Rage] at Stephen's request due to the sensitive nature of the content.”  

As a fan of YA literature, I am familiar with many books that have been written in response to events in the community. For example, in 1996, after a school shooting in Moses Lake, WA, author Chris Crutcher, who lived just an hour away in Spokane, WA, was called out to comment on the event. Crutcher talks about this experience at the Allen Public Library in 2011. This shooting, according to Crutcher, was the “granddaddy” of school shootings. Columbine hadn’t happened; Sandy Hook hadn’t happened; Virginia Tech hadn’t happened. In 1996, school shootings were still rare events. Crutcher admits he is speechless when asked for comments while on the scene of the shooting: “How do you comment on something like that?”
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But as Crutcher drove home, he started thinking. He started thinking about the type of kid that would carry out a school shooting. He started thinking about the experiences of a kid that would be capable of such violence. By the time Crutcher had driven the hour home, he had decided to write a book. But, as luck would have it, the manuscript was on his editor’s desk when news of Columbine spread. Crutcher talks about his decision to pull the book in an interview with Publisher’s Weekly. The book was never published in its original form even though Crutcher did salvage some of the characters and key chapters from the original novel: it eventually became Whale Talk. 

Both of these examples illustrate a hesitancy among authors to write about school violence. Crutcher, a strong voice against censorship, did not scrap his original manuscript and rewrite the story as an act of censorship, but rather as a show of sensitivity to the families affected by the shootings. Since Columbine, however, several authors have courageously taken on school shootings in their novels for young adults, providing insight into gun violence, bullying, and mental illness. 

YA “School Shooting” Books

Each of the following books offers a unique perspective for readers on school violence. Within this small, sub-genre of literature, authors have written about the lives of the shooters; the lives of the families, friends, enemies, and girlfriends of shooters; the victims and survivors of shootings; and the aftermath of school shootings.
To begin, Todd Strasser’s Give a Boy a Gun (2000) provides one response to mass shootings in America’s schools, specifically Columbine High School. The book takes place at fictional Middletown High School and is a collection of interviews, notes, diary entries, emails and online conversations which give readers a unique and chilling experience. As told from the point of view of neighbors, classmates, parents, and other community members, readers begin to understand why the shooters, teenagers Gary and Brendan, go to the school dance heavily armed and hold their classmates and teachers hostage. The two boys, victims of bullying by athletes at the school, gain access to guns and weapons, and Strasser clearly advocates for gun control throughout the text, as evidenced by the footnotes containing facts about gun violence.

Shooter by Walter Dean Myers (2004) was also written in the aftermath of Columbine. This book, like Strasser’s, is written in an alternative format, emulating a threat assessment analysis report that brings the story to life. Including realistic transcripts of interviews, newspaper clippings, autopsy reports, and diary excerpts makes the book read like a report of an actual school shooting rather than a fictional account. The book opens with an interview of Cameron Porter, an African-American teen and friend of the shooter, Leonard “Len” Grey. As the readers evaluate the data, they soon realize that bullying sits at the heart of the novel; the bullying Len experienced resulted in his violent shooting spree. In fact, right before shooting himself, Len wrote on the wall of the school “Stop the Violence” in blood, an ironic statement in the midst of the violence created by Len himself.

End Game by Nancy Garden (2006) takes the readers into the mind of Gray Wilson, a fourteen year old on trial for four counts of murder and one count of assault with intent to murder for opening fire on classmates at his school. The book begins in juvenile detention as Gray awaits trial. Throughout the novel, Mr. Falco, Gray’s lawyer, visits him to ask questions about the events. Gray’s feelings of being out of control of his life escalate as he experiences torture by bullies at school who not only vandalize his favorite drum set, kill his dog, and cause him to lose his only friend, but also sexually and physically abuse him. He cannot find allies at home or at school, and eventually, his frustration turns into violence. The readers begin to empathize with Gray as he reveals the atrocities committed by the bullies, but his lack of remorse and inability to understand the severity of his actions shows that Gray must be held accountable for his actions, regardless of the bullying.

Jennifer Brown’s Hate List (2009) is told from the perspective of the shooter’s girlfriend, Valerie Leftman. The story begins with a newspaper clipping describing the shooting, followed by Valerie’s return to school after the shooting. Even though Valerie was shot during the spree, her feeling of responsibility for the shooting is clearly a factor. Nick, Valerie’s boyfriend, chose targets for his killing spree based on a list written by he and Valerie. The list referred to as the “hate list,” included people and things that annoyed the couple, but Valerie never imagined Nick would use the list as a list of potential victims, nor did she imagine Nick was capable of such a violent act. In fact, once Valerie realized what was happening during the shooting that day in the cafeteria, she took a bullet in order to save one of the victims. This book is a story of healing and hope in the face of tragedy. 

Kathryn Eskine’s book Mockingbird (2010) explores the life of ten year old, Caitlin, who has Asperger’s syndrome, in the aftermath of a school shooting in which her older brother, Devon, is killed. Devon’s presence haunts both Caitlin and her father—his bedroom sits untouched since the tragedy and his Boy Scout Eagle project stands in the corner of the living room covered with a sheet. Caitlin’s daily routines are in upheaval with the loss of Devon, and the difficulty she experiences while trying to adjust to the loss of her brother is beautifully described by Erskine. As is the case with many school shootings, the families of the shooters and the families of the victims both must move on with their lives, and fictional James Madison Elementary School is no exception: along with Caitlin, Michael, whose mother was also killed in the shooting, and Josh, whose brother was the shooter, all must figure out how to move forward. At school, Caitlin struggles to make friends, but in these two boys, Caitlin is able to find friendship. Caitlin spends her time trying to find closure, and she discovers a way to help the entire community deal with the tragedy. 

            Silent Alarm by Jennifer Banash (2015) tells the harrowing story of a school shooting from the shooter’s sister’s point of view. The main character struggles with the image of the brother that she loved and the boy who not only shot and killed fifteen people before turning the gun on himself, but also pointed the gun at his own sister. As she tries to reconcile her memories, her brother continues to haunt her. Meanwhile, Alys’s long-time best friend and boyfriend both abandon her, and she finds a surprise friend in Luke’s best friend, who is also caught up in the aftermath of the shooting. This heartbreaking story illustrates the strength of the main character as she figures out how to rebuild her life.

            Violent Ends (2015) is a seventeen chapter anthology, with each chapter written by different, recognizable YA authors, including Shaun David Hutchinson, Tom Leveen, Neal and Brendan Schusterman, Kendare Blake, and others. The book revolves around the story of Kirby Matheson: a saxophone player, a reader, and a boy with friends, who became a school shooter. In twenty-two minutes, Kirby changes the lives of his community forever by entering his high school gymnasium, killing six people and injuring five others. Each chapter tells a different victim’s story, including Kirby’s neighbor, sister, and even his gun. The book considers the many dimensions of school shooters’ lives and provides interesting viewpoints on the many factors involved in the aftermath of a shooting spree.
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This is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp (2016) tells the story of a mass shooting that takes place at fictional Opportunity High School. The story begins at 10:01 am as the principal of Opportunity High School ends her semester welcome speech. When students begin to head for the doors of the auditorium after the speech, they all realize that they cannot get out. The doors are locked. Soon, Tyler takes center stage, holding a gun, and everybody in the auditorium finally pays attention. Tyler’s sister, Autumn, along with almost every student at the high school, is in the audience. This book alternates between multiple points of view and takes place during the span of just 14 hours. As the reader enters Tyler’s point of view, we realize that Tyler blames his sister, his mother, his ex-girlfriend, and his school for abandoning him, and his anger pervades everything that he does and says. Autumn also tells her story, and through her, we learn about Tyler’s home life and his sister’s love in spite of his flaws; Sylvia, Autumn’s girlfriend, is terrified of Tyler, and as she tells her story, we hear about another side of Tyler. Nijkamp also includes perspectives from Claire, Tyler’s ex-girlfriend, and Tomás, Sylvia’s twin brother and Tyler’s arch-enemy. All of these points of view create a multidimensional story that helps readers to fully grasp the impact the shooting has on each of the characters. 

Some of these stories tell survivors’ perspectives of the shooters and the shooting. Others tell the account of family members of the shooter or family members of the victims. Some even tell the story from the shooter’s viewpoint. Each of these books can help readers to examine mass shootings in new ways and gain new insights into this grim phenomenon. In reality, the survivors of school shootings continue to struggle with trauma long after any physical wounds have healed, but these books provide some perspective on this senseless tragedy. All of these YA books about school shootings, published in the past 15 years, can provide hope for readers. Some of the books offer the hope to understand the roots of the violence; in others, hope comes in the form of the resilience of the survivors, who are able to find strength and carry on; others illustrate hope that humanity can change the narrative of school violence by enacting stronger gun laws or by providing better mental healthcare.