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Weekend Picks May 20, 2022

5/20/2022

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Weekend Picks May 20, 2022

Looking for something to read? 
​Check out our weekly suggestions!
Are your students looking for book recommendations?
Send them to browse through the picks for this or past years.
​
For the picks from 2021 click here
For the picks from 2020 click here.
For older picks click from 2019 click here.
For the even older picks click here.
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What can we talk about in school?
 
Being gay?
 
Being Black?
 
Being Jewish?
 
Or perhaps, just being different?
 
And how kids – often needing to feel superior – ostracize kids who they believe are different too.
 
This is not a new story – and sadly, will continue as long kids gather in groups and look for someone to ‘pick on…”
 
Just for ‘fun’….
 
But, often, what starts as ‘innocent fun’ in school or on the playground – morphs into deadly consequences later in life.
 
And such is the story retold in Freedom Summer by Don Mitchell
 
I choose this book – not new, not recent, but certainly, timely – in light of the recent mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York – where a white supremacist 18-year-old – bought a firearm – legally – and proceeded to mass murder ten individuals – mostly African Americans – who were simply living their lives on an ordinary Spring day.
 
Once again, we remember – Charlottesville, Virginia – Charleston, South Carolina, - and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – all sites of mass shootings – all sites where the gunmen was motivated by hate – and the victims were singled out for their race, creed, color – and for being ‘different’.
 
With that in mind, it is time for teachers to share with their students - the true story of murder and the fight for civil rights and social justice in 1960s Mississippi. For there, on June 21, 1964, three young men – two white, one black - were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan for trying to help black Americans vote as part of the 1964 Freedom Summer registration effort in the South.
 
Sound familiar?
 
There – three young men – James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner – were murdered in cold blood – on a summer trip to register Mississippi voters – and their murderers - or rather murderer - was not convicted until forty-one years later. Told in crisp, clear and accessible language, this straightforward non-fiction account of this inspiring, yet horrifying tale of idealistic and courageous young people who wanted to change their country for the better – is a book that can be read in sections – or in its entirety – providing young readers – with a glimpse of an event that not only was one of the most significant events of the civil rights movement – but resonates just as soundly and profoundly today – as it did when it first occurred – nearly 60 years ago.
The murder of these three young men gained intense national attention and led to decades of investigations and newspaper accounts. Distilling court records, printed sources, and original interviews with surviving family members, the author, Don Mitchell, sets the ugly scene, recounting in detail the ensuing efforts to bring the killers to justice (or at least, as he puts it, "a measure of justice"), and offers biographical sketches of the victims and of four associated heroes who played important roles in the case.
For not until January 6, 2005, did a Mississippi Neshoba County grand jury indict one Edgar Ray Killen on three counts of murder. When the Mississippi Attorney General prosecuted the case, it was the first time the state acted against the perpetrators of the murders. Rita Bender, Michael Schwerner's widow, testified in the trial. On June 21, 2005, a jury convicted Killen on three counts of manslaughter; he was described as the man who planned and directed the killing of the civil rights workers. Killen, then 80 years old, was sentenced to three consecutive terms of 20 years in prison. His appeal, in which he claimed that no jury of his peers would have convicted him in 1964 based on the evidence presented, was rejected by the Mississippi Supreme Court.
On June 20, 2016, both the Mississippi Attorney General and a top prosecutor for the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice, announced that there would be no further investigation into the murders. "The evidence has been degraded by memory over time, and so there are no individuals that are living now that we can make a case on at this point,” said the Mississippi Attorney General.
Complete with photos, endnotes and a bibliography, this smart piece of historical nonfiction should grace the shelf of any teacher – of every discipline – for easy reference – as a poignant reminder of what matters most in our lives – no matter the era, no matter the social milieu….
 
That every life matters
 
That every vote counts
 
And that the dignity and courage of one individual – can change the world – in matters large and small.
 
Young people should know – that the cruelty and brutality and killings – that they see today – in real time – is sadly, nothing new.
 
That inhumanity – no matter how ugly, how cruel, and how unfathomable – has always been real to life in America – and to understand its root causes, historical events – such as the fight for civil rights in the summer of 1964 in Mississippi – need revisiting and retelling.
 
And that hope – however, fragile – still endures.
 
This is a good read. I urge you to share with your students. 
 
Jeffrey S. Kaplan, PhD
Associate Professor Emeritus
School of Teacher Education
College of Community Innovation & Education
University of Central Florida
Orlando, Florida
Jeffrey.kaplan@ucf.edu

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Don Mitchell, author, a critically acclaimed author of nonfiction for young people.
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Weekend Picks May 13, 2022

5/13/2022

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Weekend Picks May 13, 2022

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Looking for a good read?
 
This is an ‘oldy but goldy’ from the pen of acclaimed author Joan Bauer.
 
Do you know her? You should.
 
Joan Bauer is a Newbery Honor Medal best-selling author, screenwriter, songwriter, and inspirational speaker whose novel Rules of the Road was chosen as one of the top young adult novels of the quarter century by the American Library Association.
 
In the sequel to the Rules of the Road, Best Foot Forward, we meet up again with our intrepid teenage shoe saleswoman, 16-year-old Jenna Boller, who comes of age learning to manage a shoe store, run by her employer and role model Madeline Gladstone, the matriarch of Gladstone Shoes. Complicating matters is Jenna’s absent alcoholic father and her need to be supportive of both her mother and younger sister – while learning to navigate the ever-present chaos at her seemingly normal and idyllic summer shoe store job.
 
What could go wrong? Everything.
 
Gladstone’s recent merger with a larger company – think corporate buy-out – leads Jenna to untangling an unpleasant web of corporate corruption – as the new company challenges Gladstone’s time-honored way of serving its customers with honesty and distinction. Further complications ensue when Jenna learns that the merger with a discount shoe chain – has been orchestrated by Mrs. Gladstone’s less than scrupulous son, Elden.
 
And as if that weren’t enough, Jenna must also micromanage – and eventually role model – a new hire - Tanner Cobb, a guy with a past, a police record, and dangerously good looks – and to top it off – he once shoplifted from the store. Couple this with a budding teenage romance – one with a winsome looking Charlie from the local donut shop – and suddenly, you have a summer Jenna will always remember.
 
And so will young (and adult) readers.
 
I like Joan Bauer. In her sure hands, young readers are introduced to the realities of coming age through the eyes of emerging teen Jenna’s undying compassion and burgeoning confidence. Her deep and steadfast demeanor - always growing, always becoming – determined to put her ‘best foot forward’ – accompanied by vivid characterizations, crisp, believable dialogue, and true-to-life scenarios – pays off for not only for this earnest teen heroine, but also for her readers.
 
The beauty of young adult books is that there is something for everyone – from horror to reality, from science fiction to nonfiction, - there is a young adult book that will meet the needs and desires of adolescents everywhere – no matter their age, skills, and desires. For finding the right book for the right kid – is the job of any teacher, librarian, parent, and/or adult who cares about kids and reading.
 
All too often, though, well-meaning adults care more about ‘what’ kids read – than ‘that’ kids read. Yet, it is ‘that they read’ which is most important. For ‘that they read’ is what turns them into lifelong readers - who will, in-turn, nurture future young generations to do the same.
 
Joan Bauer is the perfect fit for kids who are looking for a good read about kids they know – summer jobs, they do – and less than perfect parents, they hope to change.
 
Jeffrey Kaplan, PhD
Associate Professor Emeritus
School of Teacher Education
College of Community Innovation and Education
University of Central Florida
Orlando, Florida
Jeffrey.Kaplan@ucf.edu
 
Senior Adjunct Professor
Dissertation Chair/Methodologist
College of Doctoral Studies
Grand Canyon University
Phoenix, Arizona 

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Author of Best Foot Forward, Joan Bauer
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Weekend Pick May 6, 2022

5/6/2022

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Meet Dr. Kaplan, our May contributor!

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​Jeffrey Kaplan is Associate Professor Emeritus, School of Teacher Education, College of Community Innovation & Education, University of Central Florida, Orlando and Senior Doctoral Dissertation Chair and Methodologist, Grand Canyon University. Phoenix, Arizona. Dr. Kaplan is Past-President of the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents (2012-2013) and former Chair of the NCTE Committee on Censorship (2013-2015).

Looking for something to read? 
​Check out our weekly suggestions!
Are your students looking for book recommendations?
Send them to browse through the picks for this or past years.
​
For the picks from 2021 click here
For the picks from 2020 click here.
For older picks click from 2019 click here.
For the even older picks click here.

Weekend Picks May 6, 2022

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​If I could select one book – just one book – to place in the hands of teachers – and parents – and world leaders – I would pick this one – Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish’s  How To Talk So Kids Can Learn at Home and in School (Scribner). This is not a new book (originally published in 1995) – by any stretch of the imagination – but it is a valuable book – and one that my education majors and minors – student teachers and graduate interns – simply, love.
 
Why? The answer is simple. The advice is pragmatic; the reading engaging, and the layout – fun!

Each chapter presents a different skill – on how to talk to kids so they will listen and learn – or at least, pretend – followed by a user-friendly narrative, edifying cartoon illustrations, and an easy to digest question and answer section. All designed and unified by one major principle – “kids don’t care how much you know – until they know how much you care.”
 
True, this is not a young adult novel. True, this is book that speaks directly to issues of diversity, racism, morality, sexuality, or any other ‘ism’ that teachers and parents and caregivers – and teens of all ages – must ‘wrestle’ with daily.
 
No, this books steps back from those issues – in leaps forward to demonstrate – in plain-spoken, friendly, yet informative language – how anyone – can establish a respectful environment for children and adolescents of all ages. This good, good read demonstrates how to precisely to create a world of equanimity and inclusiveness – by exploring the difference between words that demoralize and words that exemplify respect – between words that trigger hostility and argument and those that invite cooperation and compassion. For as the authors believe, ‘it is impossible for a child to think, to concentrate, to believe – without feeling respect, empathy, and desire.”
 
With specific illustrative instructions and clear-eyed examples, Faber and Mazlish walk us through the small changes we can make – as teachers, as leaders, as adults, - in the way we talk to students of all ages. One of my favorite chapters, “Seven Skills That Invite Kids to Cooperate,” presents alternatives to the ways we typically try to get students to follow instructions. Usually, teachers, in desperation, demand attention – and decry the child and the behavior – all at once. “Your essay is a mess – and so are you!” Instead, Faber and Mazlish recommend, “I really like what you wrote – can you think of one thing you can do to make it better?”  Simple, quiet and direct.

The authors’ easy-to-read style and realistic approach makes for an easy, absorbing whose principles can be applied immediately. With fun illustrations, concepts come to life in a way that written description often fails. In fact, I sometimes recall a piece of their advice because I saw it in cartoon form.
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As a teacher educator, I have handed my students many things to read – articles, textbooks, young adult novels – and all have been received politely, respectively, and with a nod to the syllabus. None though has received the attention that this book always gets. “I love this book.” “This book is terrific.” “This book taught me so much!” “I wish my teacher had read this book when I was in school.”
 
That is why Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish’s How To Talk So Kids Can Learn at Home and in School (Scribner) is my Weekend Pick. Every teacher should have this on their shelf. Every teacher should read this book at the start of every school year. And every teacher should aspire to be the teacher who best exemplifies the principles espoused in this book – so they too can bring out the best in children and adolescents everywhere.

​Jeffrey Kaplan, PhD
Associate Professor Emeritus
School of Teacher Education
College of Community Innovation and Education
University of Central Florida
Orlando, Florida 32817
Jeffrey.Kaplan@ucf.edu
 
Senior Adjunct Professor
Dissertation Chair/Methodologist
College of Doctoral Studies
Grand Canyon University
Phoenix, Arizona 


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Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish
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Weekend Pick for April 29, 2022

4/29/2022

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Weekend Pick for April 29, 2022

Looking for something to read? 
​Check out our weekly suggestions!
Are your students looking for book recommendations?
Send them to browse through the picks for this or past years.
​
For the picks from 2021 click here
For the picks from 2020 click here.
For older picks click from 2019 click here.
For the even older picks click here.
​

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Sarah Fleming
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The Truth about White Lies by Olivia A Cole
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​For my last weekend pick, I’ve selected a new book, The Truth about White Lies by Olivia A Cole. This book comes highly recommended and is blurbed by other YA authors such as Nic Stone, Tiffany D. Jackson, Mark Oshiro and Brendan Kiely, to name a few of my own favorites (see the jacket for even more!). This is the story of Shania Hester, a white high school junior who has moved to the new town of Blue Rock with her mother, after the death of her grandmother shatters her world back home in Morrisville. While Shania works evenings at the donut shop in a gentrified side of town, by day she attends Bard Academy of Excellence, an elite school for the city’s privileged class, the likes of siblings Catherine and Prescott Tate.

​Shania is enamored with Catherine’s queen-like status, and she can’t resist Prescott’s charm. But something darker lurks just underneath the surface of this shiny new space. In between trying to make the right new friends and figure out the social codes for her new school, Shania seeks refuge in the school’s greenhouse where she is able to tend to the green thumb she inherited from her grandmother. She carries around an old almanac that belonged to Gram, and inside she finds a scrawled note that sets Shania on a scavenger hunt for missing information. As Shania tries to solve the mystery of her grandmother’s past, she comes face to face with the harsh realities of her present and what Bard means for students who aren’t rich or white. Shania must confront the effects of her own silence and greater complicity in a broken system set up to fail so many others. 

​Shania is a complicated character, one who struggles with her own sense of self and her desire to be a good person and to do the right thing. Readers might relate to her squeamishness around the topic of race and her desire to build up walls of protection in her mind when she doesn’t know how to respond to her classmates’ comments. This book prompts important, uncomfortable and very necessary conversations about race and privilege, especially for those young people who identify like Shania and are just coming to realize their own racialized identity as white people. I would recommend this book for readers of Bredan Kiely’s nonfiction text The Other Talk, Reckoning with Our White Privilege, or Frederick Joseph’s The Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person. 
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Olivia A. Cole

​This is my last weekend pick for the month of April, so thank you for joining me in these reviews - and happy reading!

Sarah Fleming
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Weekend Pick for April 22, 2022

4/22/2022

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Weekend Pick for April 22, 2022

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​
For the picks from 2021 click here
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For the even older picks click here.
​Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam
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​This weekend’s pick is another celebration of beauty in narrative verse: Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam, a National Book Award finalist. I am absolutely in love with this text, and I can’t recommend it enough for everyone to read, especially as we continue to recognize National Poetry Month this April - the minute I finished it I turned right back to the beginning to start rereading it! This is the story of Amal Shahid, a young Black teen who at the beginning of the story finds himself in the courts, awaiting a verdict after being charged with aggravated assault and battery after a neighborhood fight he and his friends were involved in. The reader doesn’t know all the details of the fight yet; those details come out as the story progresses, when Amal is found guilty and sent to a juvenile detention center. And so the reader begins a journey with Amal in hopes that his conviction will be overturned. Each page brings a new poem with a provocative title that speaks to that sense of hope in the face of injustice. 


​But Amal’s story is unique to his own identity and experience, as would be that of every other boy in that detention center - something the reader comes to understand as they listen to Amal. Amal is not just a boy who made a mistake, who was in the wrong place at the wrong time - he is a poet and an artist. He is a passionate young man with a thirst for knowledge and a love for deep books. He is a son, and a brother, and a friend, and a romantic interest, and the reader gets to know him in all these ways. He is more than the crime itself, or the headlines, or the brief quips of those who spoke at his trial (watch for the testimony of his art teacher, Ms. Rinaldi, if you want to see how injustice perpetuates itself in our school and court systems).  
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​This book is so gorgeously creative in its storytelling, weaving the poems together amidst pages and pages of black ink sketches that shape our vision through Amal’s eyes and heart. Each poem takes us one step further into the very dehumanizing world of incarceration, and each poem is Amal’s desperate attempt to stay afloat in such an overwhelming sea of violence and despair. He turns to his poems, rhymes and sketches to see him through, along with the help of a new teacher and prison abolitionist Imani Dawson, who urges him to write his truth. The cover art pays tribute to the metaphors at work in his paintings, the beautiful butterflies that stand testimony to the chrysalis he and all the boys in the detention center must endure as the world seeks to rob them of their very souls. 
​About the authors - Ibi Zoboi is an exceptional writer, author of American Street (also a National Book Award finalist) and my personal favorite, Pride - a modern, Brooklyn remix of the classic Pride and Prejudice (a side note - I’ve taught Pride to my seniors, and they’ve loved it, so I highly recommend that one too!). You may recognize Yusef Salaam as one of the Exonerated Five, the wrongly convicted young men in the Central Park jogger case. Dr. Salaam is a poet, activist and inspirational speaker. While Punching the Air is not his personal story, it is informed by his own experiences as a young poet having been incarcerated for a crime he did not commit. This collaboration between Zoboi and Salaam, which both speak to in the end notes, is the end result of two people whose belief in the power of youth voices serves to remind us of all young people’s beauty and humanity.  
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Ibi Zoboi
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Yusef Salaam
Until next week,
​Sarah
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Weekend Pick for April 15, 2022

4/15/2022

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Weekend Pick for April 15, 2022
 

Looking for something to read? 
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For the picks from 2021 click here
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Rainy-day mysteries!
It's been a dreary few days up here in central New York, which means it’s a perfect time to curl up with a blanket, a cup of tea and a really good book. This weekend I have three mysteries to offer you, all certain to be engaging, quick, can’t-put-them-down reads to help you get through these April showers and into the days of sunshine that just have to be ahead of us, right?
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Karen M. McManus
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You’ll Be the Death of Me by Karen M. McManus
The first selection is You’ll Be the Death of Me, by mystery writer extraordinaire Karen M. McManus, most famous for her series One of Us Is Lying / One of Us Is Next series.  For those of us of a certain age who work with young people and enjoy reading young adult literature, McManus’s first series brought to mind some nostalgia for our Breakfast Club days, and You’ll Be the Death of Me offers a similar start: noting that the story begins with three friends who spontaneously decide to take the day off from school has us yearning for a Ferris Bueller's Day Off-themed storyline. But just like her other tales, the story quickly takes a dark turn, as Ivy, Cal and Mateo’s seemingly innocent adventure turns into a race to solve a classmate’s murder. Once close friends in middle school who grew apart over time, the threesome have to contend with the awkwardness of navigating estranged relationships all while trying to prove their own innocence when it looks as if they’re being implicated in the murder. The three set off on a dark scavenger hunt of sorts, looking to stay ahead of the police in confronting the details about drugs, family secrets, and a town scandal that is sure to leave readers’ jaws dropped. 
​The Project by Courtney Summers
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The second pick for this weekend is called The Project by Courtney Summers, author of the NYTimes bestseller Sadie.  This too is another dark tale, the story of Lo Denham, a young woman and aspiring journalist whose suspicions about The Unity Project lead her down a harrowing journey of self-discovery. When Lo was just a girl she almost died in a tragic car accident that claimed the rest of her family except for her older sister Bea. Bea, desperately afraid that her little sister Lo would die too, found solace and faith in the Project’s spiritual leader, Lev Warren. When Lo miraculously survived, Bea left to join The Unity Project and Lo was left alone, feeling abandoned and betrayed. When The Unity Project finds itself thrust into the headlines, Lo sees her opportunity to investigate the secretive organization and to hopefully find the answers about her sister she’s been searching for years. Told in alternating chapters of contemporary events and flashbacks, the mystery evolves as readers come to learn more and more of the backstory between Lo and Bea, leaving them to both hope for a reunion and to dread what might become of Lo as she gets even closer to the Project in her investigation. 
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Courtney Summers

The Initial Insult by Mindy McGinnis
My final pick for mysteries you can’t put down this weekend is called The Initial Insult by Mindy McGinnis. This one is just pure fun for all lovers of Edgar Allan Poe, as the settings, characters and storylines are borrowed from his most famous tales. Taking place in Amontillado Ohio, this is the story of young Tress Montor and her nemesis Felicity Turnado (get it already, right?). Tress and Felicity used to be best friends, but that ends when Tress’s parents mysteriously disappear and Felicity alone survives. This novel is told from the girls’ alternating perspectives (plus with a third poetic narrator told in the voice of Tress’s panther) and is the story of what happens when one girl’s horrific actions finally push the other one over the edge. Just as in “The Cask of Amontillado,” this is a story of the harshest revenge, and the details are shockingly similar. The reader is tempted to hope that young people couldn’t engage in such terrible treatment of one another, but as anyone familiar with the social realities of high school will attest, wounds run deep - and Tress can’t let go of her resentment for everything Felicity has that Tress herself had lost.  The Initial Insult is the first of a duology, and the end leaves you on a cliffhanger so be prepared to get the second installment in the series, The Last Laugh, which is out now. And that’s where I'll leave you, as it’s the next pick in my to-be-read pile too!
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Mindy Mc Ginnis

​Till next weekend!
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Weekend Pick for April 8, 2022

4/8/2022

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Sarah Fleming continues April weekend suggestions. Welcome her new post!
​Looking for something to read? 
​Check out our weekly suggestions!
Are your students looking for book recommendations?
Send them to browse through the picks for this or past years.
​
For the picks from 2021 click here
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For older picks click from 2019 click here.
For the even older picks click here.

Weekend Pick for April 8, 2022

I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys  
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​This weekend’s pick brings us back a little bit in history, to 1989 and the break-up of the communist bloc in Eastern Europe. I Must Betray You is the story of 17-year old Cristian Florescu, a student and aspiring writer who struggles to live under the extraordinarily repressive regime of Romanian dictator Nicolai Ceaușescu where everyone lives under the constant threat of surveillance and can’t know who to trust. At the beginning of Cristian’s story, he is confronted by the Securitate, the Romanian secret police, and forced to become an informer in order to secure much-needed medicine for his sick grandfather. He is directed to observe and inform on a friend, the son of an American diplomat and share information about his activities with the Securitate. 

​Cristian is devastated; he knows that “it was not a proposal. It was an order, and one that compromised all principles of deceney. I’d be a rat, a turnător, secretly informing on the private lives of others” (p. 11).  Thus begins his struggle as Cristian adapts to his new life as a secret spy, all while trying to maintain a semblance of normalcy amongst his family and friends. For today's readers, that “normal” is unrecognizable - a life in which students lived in fear, stood for hours in line to get food rations, couldn’t speak with any criticism against their country or leader, weren’t allowed to congregate in groups larger than four people at a time, and were completely cut off from the world outside their country’s borders. When Cristian is able to befriend Liliana, the girl who’s held his interest for some time, he is torn between his desire to tell her the truth and to keep quiet for their safety and the safety of his family, who he fears suspects his betrayal. Things only get more complicated when Crisitan discovers who else around him may also be working as an informer.
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​I Must Betray You is a fascinating, page-turning look at life in Bucharest, Romania just as its people rose in revolution against its tyrannical dictator. Cristian is a likable protagonist with whom readers come to empathize, as his story both teaches about a time and place with which readers are most likely unfamiliar, as well as offers the very recognizable conflicts a young person has in navigating issues of trust with family and friends. This book has much to teach young readers about the realities of living in the Eastern Bloc at this time, yet it also serves as a testimony to the power of a single voice in a sea of so many others. Cristian’s story is truly inspirational and will have young people wondering how they too can speak up and act out in the face of injustice.
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Till next week,
​Sarah
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Weekend Pick for April 1, 2022

4/1/2022

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Looking for something to read? 
​
Check out our weekly suggestions!
Are your students looking for book recommendations?
Send them to browse through the picks for this or past years.
​
For the picks from 2021 click here

For the picks from 2020 click here.
For older picks click from 2019 click here.
For the even older picks click here.
April showers bring May flowers they say. We bring you Sarah Fleming, who will be our guest-contributor  for the entire month. Sarah is a 21-year veteran English teacher now working at SUNY Oswego as a teacher educator. She loves "all things young adult literature," and lives with her husband, son, dog and cat in Syracuse, NY. Her first weekend pick follows below, and because
April is a National poetry Month, Sarah begins with a verse novel by Elizabeth Acevedo.
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Weekend Pick for April 1, 2022

Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo

​It’s one of the worst things we could imagine – the sudden, tragic loss of a parent. But then imagine that loss brings with it an entirely new world full of family secrets and a shocking reality. All of this happens in the first few chapters of Elizabeth Acevedo’s stunning novel in verse,
Clap When You Land, our first novel for April’s Weekend Picks – and, of course, in celebration of National Poetry Month! This is the story of two teenage girls – Camino, who lives in the Dominican Republic, and Yahaira, who lives in New York City – and what happens to them when they learn that their father has died in a plane crash and they each come to find out that he had another secret family, a world away. Imagine that, being sixteen years old and finding out you have a half-sister you never knew about! 
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The story alternates between chapters told from the two girls’ points of view as they grapple with their grief and this new realization. The reader comes to know each girl in her element; Camino, an avid swimmer and an aspiring doctor in her small tropical town who spends more and more time dodging the unwanted attention of a local man, and Yahaira, a talented chess player in love with her best friend next door in her Morningside Heights neighborhood. In the days and weeks that follow, both girls have to painfully navigate the daily realities of family friends and mourners' well-wishing, funeral arrangements and the expectations of school that have not changed. Yahaira decides that if Papi is going to be buried in the Dominican Republic, that she will be there to see it happen, and thus begins her journey to meet the sister she's only recently discovered. ​
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I am a huge fan of Elizabeth Acevedo. Her first novel in verse,
The Poet X, won the National Book Award and was a simply gorgeous story of young Xiomara’s coming of age through the performing of her slam poetry. Her novel With the Fire on High was an unapologetic telling of Emoni, high school senior and mother who works fiercely and tirelessly to protect her daughter, all while daring to dream of her future as a great chef.  Just like with Clap When You Land, in both these books Acevedo writes beautifully strong, complex young women through verse or prose that is lyrical and magical. If you've never seen or heard Acevedo read her work, stop what you’re doing right now and go look it up - her performances will leave you tingling, so I also encourage you to check out the audio versions of her books. Listening to her read is nourishment for the literary soul!

It is my pleasure to bring you titles for this month's weekend picks, and I thank you for reading. I will share a few more novels in verse in recognition of it being National Poetry month, but I will also have some quick, fun reads, plus a few more serious titles I just couldn’t put down. 
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Until next week, thanks! - Sarah
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Weekend Pick for March 25, 2022

3/25/2022

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Weekend Pick for March 25, 2022

Are you looking for something to read? 
​
Check out our weekly suggestions!Are your students looking for book recommendations?
Send them to browse through the picks for this or past years.
​
For the picks from 2021 click here

For the picks from 2020 click here.
For older picks click from 2019 click here.
For the even older picks click here.
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This week's pick is 2020 Schneider Family Book Award, Best Teen Honor Book--Alison Gervais's The Silence Between Us. The story follows Deaf teen Maya who moves across the country for her mother's job and enters a hearing school for the first time. As though moving in the middle of high school isn't hard enough, Maya faces the frustrating expectations of hearing culture and the subtle and not so subtle ableist mindsets surrounding her. Focused on her future dreams, graduation, and family life, Maya unexpectedly finds friendship and even romance. Despite pressures to question her Deaf identity, Maya pushes back showing Deafness is not a disadvantage, but a facet of human diversity. When looking at her self-portrait, she thinks, "...all I had to do was take out my hearing aids, close my eyes, and the world was mine. There were no limits to my imagination when it was just me and the universe." 

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I loved this story and the entirely relatable exploration of belonging first to oneself before anyone or anything else. I also really appreciate the fact that Gervais writes from experiential knowledge. As a self-identified hard of hearing author, Alison Gervais advocates for more stories with positive representations of disability stating, “It’s time we see more Deaf characters in books. It’s time we see more books celebrating sign language and Deaf culture." So this weekend, I echo Gervais's call for all of us to celebrate Deaf culture and powerful disabled female protagonists like Maya through picking up a copy of The Silence Between Us. It is a beautifully written, page turning tale of self-love. 

Thank you so much for following along with me for the picks this month, Women's History Month! I hope you found some books you loved, and I hope you continue to read stories celebrating all women throughout the year. Signing off for now.

Keep Reading!
xo
Cammie 
​

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Weekend Pick for March 18, 2022

3/18/2022

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Weekend Pick for March 18, 2022

Are you looking for something to read? 
Check out our weekly suggestions!
Are your students looking for book recommendations?
Send them to browse through the picks for this or past years.
​
For the picks from 2021 click here

For the picks from 2020 click here.
For older picks click from 2019 click here.
For the even older picks click here.
​
If you are anything like me, Spring Break season has started or will start soon. So this weekend's picks are two trilogies for the series readers that enjoy beginning a tale that has more story to offer after the first book is finished! 

​The first trilogy pick for this weekend is for the true crime, podcast listening, mystery loving folx. One series I've loved over the last few years and just recently finished is Holly Jackson's 
A Good Girl's Guide to Murder series. ​
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The story arc starts with the series title, A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, which introduces readers to protagonist, Pippa Fitz-Amobi. In the first book of the series, Pippa decides to investigate a seemingly "closed" case of the murder of local resident Andi Bell by, her then boyfriend, Sal Singh. However, to Pip, this case isn't as open and shut as the police and residents of the small town want everyone to believe. Through her investigation, new secrets emerge that raise the question of if the real killer is still out there? And if they will keep Pip from discovering the truth? The series continues with Good Girl, Bad Blood. After the investigation into murder and the publication of her true crime podcast, Pippa Fitz-Amobi finds herself wrapped up in a new investigation into the missing person's case of Jaime Reynolds. Though she had sworn off her investigating days, Jaime's disappearance on the anniversary of Andi Bell's murder is too much of a coincidence for Pip to ignore especially since the police won't do anything about it. With the help of Ravi Singh, Pip begins digging again and this time everyone is listening as she chronicles the unfolding secrets through her podcast. Will she find Jaime before it's too late? The concluding and final book in Jackson's series, As Good As Dead, finds Pip in the aftermath of her successful true crime podcast and weeks before her journey to start her first year in college interrupted by mysterious messages asking: who will look for you when you're the one who disappears? Pippa soon realizes these messages are escalating into threats leaving her and her loved ones at risk from an unknown stalker. When she starts to find connections between the stalker and a local serial killer caught six years ago, Pip wonders yet again if the wrong man was convicted of a crime. And the question that follows is if the real killer plans to make her his next victim? These three books had me turning pages and reading during the day. Jackson certainly perfects the dark and twisty by blurring the lines of our notions of what and who is "good" as well as raising important questions about justice. And if you want to know what Pip was like before beginning her true crime investigations, a short prequel, Kill Joy, was released in celebration for World Book Day! This series is the perfect mystery to keep you reading all weekend!  

If the dark and twisty is not your style, then I might suggest another trilogy I've loved (pun intended) that celebrates identity, family, friendship, and LOVE, Jenny Han's To All the Boys I've Loved series.
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This story explores the question of what would happen if all your crushes found out about how you feel about them...all at once! In book one, To All the Boys I've Loved Before, Lara Jean Song keeps her love letters in a hatbox given to her by her mother. However, these aren't letters she's received; they are letters to each boy she's ever loved--five letters in total. Laura Jean has poured out her feelings because the letters are just for her eyes. Until, one day the hidden letters are mailed out and her love life suddenly becomes much more interesting than even she anticipated. In Han's second novel, P.S. I Still Love You, Lara Jean finds herself in an unexpected situation, actually in love with one of her crushes. But then, another crush from her past returns making Lara Jean question: is it possible to love two people at once? Finally, in the last book of the series, Always and Forever, Lara Jean, everything is going so well for Lara Jean--she is having the best senior year she could hope for and is madly in love with her boyfriend. BUT, change is on the horizon. When Lara Jean's plans become interrupted, she has to finally face the challenging decisions in front of her. Han's conclusion to Lara Jean's story raises the question we all face: when your heart and your head are saying two different things, which one should you listen to? This series is so heartfelt and Lara Jean remains one of my favorite characters I've ever met while reading. I hope you enjoy her journey of finding self, family, and love as much as I did! 

Until next week, keep reading!
xo,
​Cammie 

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    Curators for the Weekend Picks

    Leilya Pitre
    Leilya taught English as a foreign language in the Ukraine and ELA/English in public schools in the US. Her research interests include teacher preparation, clinical experiences, secondary school teaching, and teaching and research of Young Adult and multicultural literature. Together with her friend and colleague, Mike Cook, she co-authored a two-volume edition of Teaching Universal Themes Through Young Adult Novels (2021). ​
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    Cammie Jo Lawton
    Cammie is a current doctoral student at the University of Tennessee Knoxville and serves the Center for Children and Young Adult Literature as a graduate research assistant. She is especially interested in how YA can affect readers, create empathy and possibly shift thinking. 
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    Nikki Bylina-Streets
    Nikki is a elementary librarian who just keeps reading YA literature. She is a constant advocate for reading at every level. You can also follow her through her ​Instagram account dedicated to my school library work. @thislibraryrocks
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