Weekend Pick for July 8, 2022

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The heat is on this month, so it's a great idea to hide in the comfort of your cooled place with a nice book. We have another suggestion—a beautiful story of teenage love—offered to you by Megen Gray, who is also Dr. Shelly Shaffer’s student. Megen briefly introduces the novel below.

Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
This book tells the story of two teens who fall in love, teens who don't believe in the love stories like Romeo and Juliet. Yet, that is what they are—a Romeo and Juliet, without the death part. This book reminded me of the good parts of high school and falling in love. I wish I could reread this book for the first time over and over again just to experience Eleanor and Park's story for the first time.

Megen Gray

Rainbow Rowell

Eleanor & Park received the 2013 Boston Globe Horn Book Award for Best Fiction Book and the Kirkus Reviews Best Teen Book of 2013, among other awards. It was also named a 2014 Michael L. Printz Honor Book. The novel is set in the 1980s and draws on important cultural artifacts of the time (e.g., cassette tapes, the WalkMan, comic books), some of these may not be even known by today's adolescents.

You may read more about the novel and its use in the ELA classroom in M. Cook and L. Pitre's Exploring Relationships and Connections with Others: Teaching Universal Themes Through Young Adult Novels (2021).

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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).

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.

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