Weekend Pick for April 7, 2023

Weekend Pick for April 7, 2023

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April is here, and we continue reading suggestions on Dr. Bickmore’s YA Wednesday blog. Please, welcome our guest contributors Cindi Koudelka and Katie Russell. They will be presenting book choices for this month.

Cindi Koudelka

Katie Russell

Cindi Koudelka (@cmkoudelka) is a Curriculum Specialist with National Board Certification in Adolescent Young Adulthood/English Language Arts at Fieldcrest School District in Illinois and an Adjunct professor at Aurora University. She is involved in multiple literacy research organizations through which she has presented and published on various educational topics. Her research interests focuses on critical adolescent literacies, young adult literature, positioning, and youth participatory action research. She is a youth advocate who believes in the power of literacy to disrupt systemic oppression.  Her passion is to help adolescents reflect critically and foreground activism, community, and love. 
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Katie Russell has taught in a variety of educational settings over her 11+ years in education. She has always had a deep love for reading and discovered during her first year of teaching that her desire was to help struggling readers. Shortly after, she returned to Southern Illinois University to obtain her Master’s Degree in Reading and Language Studies. She worked as a Reading Specialist before moving into the field of special education. Katie now works at Murphysboro Middle School as a special education teacher for sixth grade. Katie is the Past President of the Illinois Reading Council and has presented and numerous local, state, and national conferences. ​

Kwame Alexander

​If you are like us, you are very excited about the TV series featuring Kwame Alexander’s book, The Crossover premiering this week on Disney+. That book motivated many of our students who identified as non-readers to read. The relationships that he created through a novel-in-verse format connected for many readers as they identified with Josh, Jordan, and their father as they connected through basketball, and faced the challenges of growing up, change, and loss. 

​Alexander’s newest book, The Door of No Return, however, is even more powerful as he weaves the tale of 11 year old Kofi Offin who gets stolen from his home in Ghana in 1860 and sold into slavery after a family tragedy. Kofi’s powerful connection to his family is his grounding force, allowing him to hang onto his humanity while facing the inhumanity of others.
Since April is national poetry month, this book seems particularly appropriate as Alexander’s beautiful and lyrical writing is juxtaposed with the harsh realities of our history. He so masterfully brings the reader into the joy of Kofi’s life at the beginning, and demonstrates how colonialism can be embedded so insidiously into life with Mr. Phillips’ portrayal. But then Kofi’s life slowly begins to unravel and the reader is taken on a gut-wrenching journey that is all the more horrific because it is based on an ugly truth.

What I particularly loved most, was how well each character and their relationships are depicted while still told through Kofi’s eyes which helps keep the heart of the story centered  honoring the Kwanta culture and telling the hard truth about the inhumanity of colonization and slavery at a level that scaffolds middle grade students’ understanding. I would suggest preparing readers in advance because of the emotional and physical violence and the losses that Kofi must face. All the hope that is at the center of Kofi’s heart drives this tale forward. This is the first book in a trilogy, so it does end rather abruptly leaving me very anxious for the next installment.
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In the spirit of literacy and hope,
Happy reading!
Cindi and Katie