In the book Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, after a vicious attack on a student that involves legends about the founding of the school, the kids at Hogwarts are suddenly interested in history. Normally, they fall asleep to the droning of boring facts and dates by the ghost teacher, Professor Binns. He is surprised and annoyed when the kids pepper him with questions that don’t involve a mathematical recitation of the facts. His quick dismissal of their interest sends the kids back into their academic stupor.
​
As someone who loves history, I’ve always been struck by this scene. The students’ interest in history is related to the sudden relevance of it to their present. The teacher missed an opportunity to use the storytelling power of history.

History is more than facts and dates. It's the story of us in all of our beautiful and terrible reality. It contains the power to educate, to make us feel, and to meditate on the human condition.

As I developed the setting, for my YA novel, Stanley and Hazel, I wanted to really delve into this idea. One of the most alarming books I’ve read is Edwin Black’s War Against the Weak. Everyone knows about the horror of Nazi Germany and Hitler’s gas chambers, but many people don’t realize they had their origins on American soil. Black shows in devastating historical detail how Eugenics and the forced sterilization of over 50,000 Americans would eventually become the monster of the Holocaust. Even more disturbing, is that this point of view was shared by The United States Supreme Court, presidents, civic leaders and sadly, even some religious clergy. Eugenics sought to cleanse America of all people deemed “unfit”, “moronic” or undesirable.

The rhetoric of the current rise of white supremacy and the alt-right echoes the past too closely for my comfort. I knew I had to put this into the book. History, even if fictionalized, can show us the patterns and thinking errors that lead to injustice and terror. But, at the same time, no one, especially teen readers, want to be preached at while they are trying to enjoy a novel. Story comes first, history lessons second. It’s important to do research, but to only share what is relevant to the story. There is no need to be obvious. The reader, even if young, is not stupid.

When I was a high school teacher, I saw the tight connection between the Social Studies (SS) and English Language Arts (ELA). However, I didn’t do much about it. I occasionally had a brief conversation with a social studies teacher, but we never brought it to a coordinated action. For example, for several years I taught A Tale of Two Cities to tenth graders while, at some point during the year, my colleague taught the French Revolution in a world history class to the same students.  A perfectly natural pairing, right? Laziness? Or was it just that we never had such cross-curricular opportunities explained to us during our preparation? Maybe a bit of both. In teacher education most of us understand that most teachers are victims of the apprenticeship of observation. In short, regardless of our preparation, most of us revert to teaching the ways we were taught. Schooling remains the same. ​

In regards to YAL, Steve first opened the pages of possibility for me by suggesting that I read Roll of Thunder:  Hear My Cry.  Although a bit ambivalent at first, reading this Newbery Medal winning work of historical fiction convinced me that YAL had much to offer to both ELA and the Social Studies.  As a result, I have read many more compelling YAL books—often at Steve’s suggestion, which shed light on the human experience:  Chains, Death Coming Up the Hill, March, Muckers, Mississippi Trial, 1955, Out of the Dust, and, most recently, Bound by Ice.  As a long-time ELA teacher, Steve instinctively considers pre-reading, during reading, and post-reading activities to enrich student understanding of a YAL book.  These were not pedagogical moves that I was aware of until after dialoging with Steve; nor I suspect are they intuitive to most social studies teachers.

Bound by Ice:  A True North Pole Survival Story, by Sandra Neil Wallace and Rich Wallace, is a rich historical treatment of the U.S.S. Jeannette expedition (1879-1881).  Bound by Ice describes the Arctic odyssey of Captain George W. De Long and his crew, which endured many months stuck in the ice, a portaging of life boats, materials, and supplies, the gales and swells of the open sea, and a traversing of the Siberian tundra.  While reading Bound by Ice, I gradually became aware of a period of Arctic exploration (the 19th century in particular) seldom mentioned in the standard secondary textbooks.  From 1818 to 1908, there were 92 expeditions (from nine different countries) to the Arctic in search of the elusive Northwest Passage, the northernmost point in Greenland, and, of course, the North Pole.
​  
Why not provide historical background information about Arctic exploration, through a pre-reading activity, so students could contextualize the U.S. Jeanette expedition in Bound by Ice?  

It is such a busy week. I am swamped as I get ready to go to AERA in New York City! To keep me focused, one of my daughters posted this image from the Facebook page LeVar Burton for kids. The image features a quote from Judy Blume. She is clearly one of the rock stars in Children's and YA Literature. I love libraries! I have for as long as I remember. My mother took me, I walked to the book mobile, and we had field trips to the big library when I was in the the sixth grade. When I moved to Las Vegas after the 7th grade, one of the first places of refuge I found was a little local branch in the shopping center on the northwest corner of Alta and Decatur--long since gone. I found my first Louis L'Amour novel, The Sackett Brand, in that branch. 

Jennifer's post today inspired me to talk about books once again. So, this morning I took fifteen minutes to do what I am asking all of you to do. I visited our curriculum library, the TDRL, (Teacher Development and
Resources Library) and took some pictures of the books I found--both new and old. I added books to my TBR list. I found some old friends--some from a long time ago. I don't have time or the space to book talk them all. The pictures will have to tell the story. Now, get thee to a library and find those old, familiar friends and the new ones that are siting on the shelf.

After the slide show, Jennifer takes over. Remember, she is one of the people who will be presenting at the YA Summit in Las Vegas this June. Scan down past the wonderful keynotes and view the bios of all of the fantastic presenters. Las Vegas teacher and librarians, Follow Frank Sinatra's advice: "Start spreading the word!" Well, I am leaving to New York. You need to make it to Vegas!

​There is strong support for teacher book talks, a practice I learned about from Nancie Atwell’s In the Middle and later in Penny Kittle’s Book Love. While I am totally in favor of the teacher book talk, one of the best ways to get kids reading is to get them talking about books. “To foster a love of books, children need opportunities to talk about them. Studies suggest that informal conversations around books, such as book talks or book chats, enhance children’s motivation to read” (Neuman, n.p.).  Readers of any age often choose to read books people recommend, especially if the recommendation is personalized to what the reader likes. But for those students with limited reading experience, how do they even know what they like? How can we increase the likelihood they will find a good match, repeatedly, while increasing their knowledge of books they might like? Let them do what they want to do anyway: talk to their peers, of course!
 
Here are four practices to frame student talk about books in your classroom, without using formal speech or discussion structures or increasing your paperload.

Books We Love Shelf: I discovered this strategy while watching Nancie Atwell discuss her classroom setup on the DVD Reading in the MIddle: Workshop Essentials. She stressed the importance of giving students ownership over a shelf in the classroom, so it starts the year empty and students fill it with their favorites. I gave it a try.  I taught students about “their” shelf and showed them the tiny heart stickers I bought for them to put on the spine to indicate it belonged on the Books We Love Shelf. As the year progressed, students realized that all the best, peer-recommended books were in one place in the classroom. This convenience narrowed the field and vastly improved selection time. A student only had to linger in front of the shelf for a minute or two before a student would slip up and make recommendations. And then another student would pop over to suggest another book. And someone else would offer another suggestion. Once a student made a choice, I had her record the other recommendations in her TBR list. Many passionate and persuasive conversations happened in front of this shelf over the last few years.

After my (Steve’s) freshman year in high school, my best friend asked me if I wanted to go work on his uncle’s farm. I said yes. Thus began three summers of intense farm work that framed much of how I viewed the world and interacted with other people. I learned how to work hard. I learned the difference between a pair of pliers and a wrench; and more importantly, the difference between a wrench and an “effen” wrench.
 
I also learned that I was going to college. After the first summer, I knew that college provided a variety of different work options that went beyond dark, early mornings, cold water, mud, and heavy lifting. In addition, much of what I learned, I learn alongside undocumented Mexican laborers who worked hard and kindly taught us the tricks of how to move pipe through sugar beets, potatoes, and grain. In the rural farm land outside of Nampa, Idaho quite different from Las Vegas, there were 400 people moving pipe. About ten of us were high school students. Most of the rest, were Mexicans who traveled back and forth between Mexico and Idaho for six to eight months at a time. There were not taking the work from adolescent, most of those adolescent, at the time, wouldn’t take the work. Most of the other adolescents we meet at church, at drive-ins, or other activities thought that we were crazy for doing the type of work we did. I also learned not to judge others just because they were different or their language was different. They were kind, funny, and tried to be inclusive. For two of those years, my buddy, David, and I lived in the same labor camps that were provided for the other workers. The sound of Spanish became familiar and even though I didn’t learn to speak it during those summers. When I began to study Spanish intensely, it was familiar and came easily.

Dominant narratives in Trump’s build-the-wall presidency would have us believe that “illegals” who cross the border are criminals, looking to exploit our resources, take our jobs, and take advantage of our social systems (among other things). In my experience, and as told by the stories in Illegal, The Border, and Enrique’s Journey, these deficit narratives are gross oversimplifications of deep-seated political and historical dynamics that persist outside of the characters, yet control their every move.  

​ In Borderlands/La Frontera (1987), Gloria Anzaldua writes “The U.S-Mexican border es una herida abierta where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds” (3). This “grating” may be the only common experience between people in stories of border crossing. In a place where everyone is forbidden, unwanted, and simply trying to live, there is not one single narrative, but rather a symphony of the voices of thousands who have run out of options. Bringing these voices into the classroom not only fosters empathy, but provides a necessary counter-narrative to what we hear on the news and in the media. 

​Bettina Respito’s Illegal adds the voice of a 15-year-old girl, Nora, to the symphony. Nora crosses the border (along with her mother), in search of her father, who leaves the family in search of an income in the States. Crossing the border as a (young) woman poses its own unique set of challenges. Gendered experiences of border crossing would be one theme to explore with students, in addition to themes of loss, resilience, family and faith. The imagery in Illegal is filled with recurring sensory details that form memory in the protagonist and the reader. Another way this text challenges dominant narratives is by providing a story that starts in a small-town in Mexico, largely untouched by narcos. In addition, much of the story takes place in Houston, demonstrating that problems don’t disappear once the border is crossed, in fact, it’s often quite the opposite. 

​The Border by Steve Schafer offers another perspective, this time from a teen and his three friends who attempt to cross together. It’s fast-paced, and will appeal to students who may struggle with getting “hooked” on a text-- escape from narcos is at the core of the story.  The characters challenge stereotypes in different ways, via gender roles and representations of poverty. For the majority of the text, the group of friends encounter very real hardship in the form of gangs, bullets, snakes, and dehydration as they attempt to cross the desert into Arizona. One salient moment is when the protagonist realizes the border is merely some barbed wire between posts; more of a statement (you don’t belong here) than a physical structure. This would be an excellent opportunity for students to the messages behind current rhetoric. 

​Although not necessarily a YA text, I have to mention Enrique’s Journey: The Story of a Boy Determined to Reunite with His Mother. There is an adapted version of this text for young readers. Enrique’s Journey is the true story of an adolescent Honduran boy more than a decade in the making, who tried to cross the border six times before he is successful on the seventh in order to reunite with his mother. This text (or parts of it) can add an important missing piece to the narrative of border crossing; those living in Central America who need to ride “The Beast”, a relentless train through Mexico that takes the lives and limbs of the hundreds who ride atop its cars each year. These travelers face additional hardships, many of them a result of increased discrimination. 

From Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson
​
Mrs. Marcus
Says
Line breaks help
Us figure out
What matters
To the poet.
Don’t jumble your ideas
Mrs. Marcus says
Every line
Should count.

​Freakboyamzn.to/2GuHud5 by Kristin Elizabeth Clark
Brendan has always identified with his birth-assigned gender. He lives as a male; he is an athlete, and he has a serious girlfriend. But during his senior year, Brendan realizes that he wants more, or wants different, and begins to question his sexuality and/or gender identity. When he meets Angel, a transgender woman, he finds someone who has suffered adversity and now is confortable with herself, demanding that others accept her as she is. Angel works at the Willows Teen LBGTQ Center and wants to provide Brendan, who is not a client, with the support he needs. Brendan’s girlfriend Vanessa now worries what she is since she loves Brendan who says he is trans. Told through three perspectives, this verse novel gently examines gender fluidity and leads readers through Brendan’s, Angels’s, and Vanessa’s stories.
 
The author includes few shape (concrete poems) as well as an interesting technique where the last word of stanzas, read vertically, create their own messages.

​Moo by Sharon Creech
Reena, Luke, and their parents move from the big city to rural Maine where Reena and Luke are volunteered by their parents to take care of their eccentric neighbor’s cow (and pig, cat, and snake). The story is delightful, but it is the text that will grab the reader’s interest. The story is written in prose, and all types of poetry—free verse, shape poems, and there might have been some rhyming poetry. And the author plays with script and fonts and spacing to enhance the story—as on page 29,
Flies
            dipped
                        here                 there
                                    and
 
and page 61,
and the
            f  l  u  t  e    m  u  s  i  c
                        drift
                                    ing
                                                d
                                                o
                                                w
                                                n
and then abruptly stopping.
Readers will examine not only how relationships are portrayed but the effectiveness of style and punctuation choices.

​We Come Apart by Sarah Crossan and Brian Conaghan
I fell in love with Jess and Nicu as they fell in love with each other. Both teens have reasons to escape; Nicu is an immigrant, and Jess comes from a violent home. This is a story about bullying, racism, cultural values, abusive parents, but most of all it is the story of building a friendship—standing up for others and putting them first. There are two characters and two authors—and an unfortunately realistic ending and powerful message. Two authors, two voices.
 
I also recommend two other verse novels by Sarah Crossan: The Weight of Water, about an adolescent immigrant with a broken family. Kasienka and her mother emigrate from Poland to England to find the father who has left them. She discovers prejudice in her middle school but also a new family and a new friend. In this novel Crossan makes an important point of many teachers who choose to ignore bullying in their classrooms and bullied students who don't know what to say when one finally intervenes. And One, the story of conjoined twins, told from the viewpoint of one of them, about love, sharing, and an impossible, critical choice.

​Forget Me Not by Carolee Dean
One of my favorite verse novels is Forget Me Not, not only for the storyline, which will generate important conversations among teens about cyberbullying, shaming, and suicide, but for the format. Dean creatively employs a variety of poetic forms—villanelle, pantoum, cinquain, tanka, shape poems—and meter, as well as script writing to identify the characters and alter the mood of the plot so subtly and artistically as to not disrupt the reading and the reader. In response to a compromising photo of her that is texted throughout her high school and the resulting shaming by her peers, Ally commits suicide —or so she thinks—as her only way out. A friend tries to save her by showing her that her life has value and that she can make the decision to live.

​Somewhere Among by Annie Donwerth-Chikamatsu
Ema is binational, bicultural, bilingual, and biracial. Some people consider her “half,” and others consider her “double.” Her American mother says she contains “multitudes,” but Ema sometimes feels alone living in Japan somewhere among multitudes of people. When fifth-grader Ema and her mother go to live with Ema’s very traditional Japanese grandparents during a difficult pregnancy, readers experience six months (June 21, 2001-January 2, 2002) of customs, rituals, and holidays, both Japanese and American. There are challenges, such a choosing a name for the new baby that will bring good luck in Japan and that both sets of grandparents can pronounce. Ema celebrates American Independence Day and Japanese Sea Day, and she now views some days, such as August 15 Victory Over Japan Day from diverse perspectives. On September 11, 2001 she experiences both two typhoons in her town and the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in America on television. As the reader traverses the intricacies of two fusing two distinct cultures with Ema and her family, our knowledge of others is doubled.

​One reason we read is to experience other cultures, times, and places. With diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba recently restored, it is crucial that our children learn more about its history, culture, and people. And what better way to learn than through the provocative, well-written, diverse verse novels written by Cuban-American author Margarita Engle.
 
Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings: A Memoir by Margarita Engle (memoir)
Through this memoir in verse, the narrative of Engle’s childhood as a Cuban-American growing up in LA during the 50’s and 60’s, readers can experience the challenge of children torn between cultures and, and learn about the Cold War.


The Lightning Dreamer by Margarita Engle
The story follows feminist Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda, known as Tula from 1827, from when she tells us that “Books are door-shaped portals…helping me feel less alone” to 1836 where she begins the first of her books to spread her hope of racial and gender equality.


As a girl, Tula reads in secret and burns her writings as reading and writing are unladylikes. A13 she is nearing the age of forced marriage, and her grandfather and mother make plans to barter her for riches. The reader follows Tula through Engle’s beautiful verse as she writes plays and stories to give hope to orphaned children and slaves; refuses not one, but two arranged marriages; falls in love with a half-African freed slave who loves another; and at last independent, moves to Havana to be healed by poetry and plans the writing of “a gentle tale of love,” a story about how human souls are “free of all color, class, and gender,” an abolitionist novel written by the real Tula to spread her hope of racial and gender equality.
 
Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba by Margarita Engle (historical fiction)
I have read many Holocaust novels and memoirs of diverse people in diverse situations set in Europe but had not read about the Jews who sought refuge in Cuba. In Tropical Secrets, Engle shares the intertwined stories of Daniel, a young boy who is a German-Jewish refugee, unwittingly arriving in Cuba in 1939, of Paloma, a Catholic native teen surviving a mother who left and a father who is profiting from the refugees, and of David, a Jewish refugee who fled the pogroms, both serving as Daniel’s (and the readers’) “guides” to island life.  Interestingly, I found the verse grow smoother and more lyrical as David adapts to Cuban culture.


This book is even more relevant today as xenophobia grows, no longer allocated to specific places or times. It is important that our children learn
A refugee,
not a spy.
Still, there is the terror
of being questioned
by police…
it will help them
understand
that those who feel safe today
could be the ones in need of refuge
tomorrow

Between the Lines by Nikki Grimes
Grimes’ newest publication is a prose novel where poetry is employed so the readers (and the other characters) can be introduced to the characters. Why do we read and write poetry? “Because poetry, more than anything else, will teach you about the power of words,” says Mr. Winston, the librarian, as he explains to Darrian why he should learn about all sorts of writing, even poetry. And Grimes shows us the power of words—to heal, to strengthen, to discover. Like Bronx Masquerade, this novel takes place in Mr. Ward’s English classroom where he holds Open Mike Fridays and students work towards a Poetry Slam.
​
Mr Ward’s eleventh grade class is a microcosm of the outside world—Black, Brown, and White and maybe in-between. The reader views the eight students through the lens of Darrian, a Puerto Rican student who lives with his father and has dreams of writing for The New York Times because, “Let’s face it, some of those papers have a bad habit of getting Black and Brown stories wrong.…But I figure the only way to get our stories straight is by writing them ourselves.” So Darrian joins Mr. Ward’s class to learn about words. He does learn the power of words, but he also learns about his classmates as they learn about each other and about themselves through their narratives, their free writes, and the poetry they share. These students, as the students in our classrooms, are more than their labels. As Tyrone explains about his class the year before, “Before Open Mic, we were in our own separate little groups, thinking we were so different from each other. But when people started sharing who they were through their poetry, turned out we were more alike than we were different.” And Darrian finds out that each word can be unique and special, as Li says about poetry, but also a newspaper story “can be beautiful, especially if it’s true.” Truth is what these characters and novel reveals.

Garvey’s Choice by Nikki Grimes
This short novel is the story of Garvey, an adolescent who doesn't fit the expectations of his father who wants him to become an athlete and or his classmates who bully him. Through a good friend, he discovers his own special talents by joining the school chorus. Written in tanka, Garvey's Choice is a journey of discovery and identity that will give hope to many readers who need to find their own strengths and will help those who already have to gain empathy for others.

​Full Cicada Moon by Marilyn Hilton
One my favorite female adolescents in literature is Mimi, a biracial—half Japanese-half Black—who therefore faces racial prejudice and sexism from her peers, a friend’s parent, and teachers. The year is 1969; Neil Armstrong will be walking on the moon, and Mimi plans to become an astronaut. She enters the 8th-grade Shop class in her Vermont school and is told that “Shop is for boys; Home Ec is for girls.” Sensing she needs this education for her future profession, she persists—and is suspended. When Mimi returns to school, her female classmates join her in a Shop class sit-in. As a biracial feminist fighting stereotypes, Mimi serves as a beneficial role model for teen girls and will provide a mirror and map for some and hopefully a window for others.

​Every Shiny Thing by Cordelia Jensen and Laurie Morrison
In this new multi-genre novel readers follow the journey of two new friends from different types of lives as they discover themselves and how they can navigate their lives. Lauren is a wealthy teen who goes to a Quaker school. She is very close to her brother Ryan, but when he is sent to a boarding school for teens on the autism spectrum, Lauren is sure that he isn’t happy, that the school is not meeting his needs, and that her parents sent him away. She then realizes that all teens who need it can’t afford the help Ryan is getting and she designs a scheme to raise money, selling the “shiny things” that she feels her affluent family and friends don’t really need. Her scheme spirals out of control as she begins stealing items from stores, family, and friends, selling them on line, and the thrill of stealing takes over. She even involves her new friend Sierra. Sierra’s father, a drug addict, is in jail; her mother, an alcoholic, who Sierra has cared for for years in a life of poverty, is also in jail. What she wants is her family; what she needs is a stable loving family—and a friend, but not a friend who gets her involved with her own addiction.
​
Sierra moves in next door to Lauren with foster parents Carl and Anne, an interracial Quaker couple who are surviving the trauma of losing their own child. She pushes them away, anxious to get back to her old life. Sierra and Lauren’s friendship guides them in finding a new way of thinking. Sierra realizes she can love her mother but she can’t help her, and she can let Carl and Anne help her. Lauren realizes that she can stop worrying about Ryan who is happy in his new environment and she can’t save the world.
Lauren’s and Sierra’s narrations are written by each of the authors in their own unique style: Lauren’s narratives in prose and Sierra’s in free verse, styles which fit their lives and personalities. 

​The Way the Light Bends by Cordelia Jensen
Jensen's newest verse novel, like her first verse novel Skyscraping, is the story of relationships and the ways "the composition of a relationship changes as we change individually." (p.380) Though they used to be "in tempo/ in time" (p. 4), sisters Linc and Holly in their sophomore year are following "two paths/ one in light/ one in shadow/ diverging." (p. 5) They have different skills and talents—and different dreams. Holly, though adopted, appears to fit more easily into the family and consistently wins her parents approval; she is academically gifted, athletic, and a school leader. Linc is artistic, creative, a photographer. As the narrator of the story, the reader feels Linc's pain as she tries to be a better student and daughter while following her passion but she constantly fails—at academics, at love, and, it seems, at being the daughter her parents want. As her photography improves, the rest of her life falls apart—and she makes some wrong choices and turns. It takes a family secret and truthful sharing to make them all realize that "a family isn't something you're born into as much as it is something you chose to be a part of every day." (p. 370)

​Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
In Will’s neighborhood there are three rules: you don’t cry; you don’t snitch; you get revenge. When he older brother Shawn was shot and killed, Will takes Shawn’s gun to avenge his murder because he is sure he knows the story—well, he is almost sure. As he takes the elevator down, it stops on each floor where someone who has been killed in gun violence gets on and shares their story, and he learns that everything is not always as it seems. What will he do with this information? Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote "Poetry: The best words in the best order." Jason Reynolds’ first verse novel proves that, maybe more than any verse novel I have read. In this powerful work, every single word, punctuation, and spacing counts. It is a perfect novel for reluctant readers because, even though the words are simple to read, the story generates inference, prediction, making connections re-reading, and employs all the reading strategies necessary to a good reader. It also brings up ideas of loss and retaliation and where, or if, we can break the chain of violence and who makes that decision for us. This novel takes the reader a long way down—in the space of a minute.

​Forget Me Not by Ellie Askeroth Terry
Seventh grade is hard to navigate, even when you are not different. Jinsong is the president of student body, and even though he has faced prejudice in his past, he is now one of the popular kids. When Calliope June moves in next door, with her weird clothing and tics, he immediately likes her. But does he like her enough to risk his standing with his "friends," who are bullying Callie and some of whom have turned on him in the past? Callie has moved ten times during her life—every time her mother finds and breaks up with a new boyfriend. Diagnosed with Tourette syndrome, it is hard enough to fit in and make friends, especially since her doctor told her it would be better not to tell anyone. So Callie dresses to draw attention to her clothes and tries to hide her Tourette's (which only backfires) as she desperately tries to make friends—until she meets Jinsong and Ms. Baumgartner, the school counselor. Callie moves for an 11th time, leaving a legacy of tolerance and acceptance, at least between Beatriz and Jinsong—and ready to share her whole self with her new friends. "Because wouldn't/ talking/ about something/ make it better understood?"
 
The reader learns about Callie, her past, her present, her future dreams, through her free-verse chapters and about Jinsong through his short prose. This is a perfect novel for reluctant readers as it is very short but leaves much to discuss (and contains both a male and female main character). Author Ellie Askeroth Terry's shares her own experience in this debut multi-genre novel.

Orchards by Holly Thompson
According to the National Center for Education Statistics and Bureau of Justice Statistics, 28% of U.S. students in grades 6–12 experienced bullying. In surveys, 30% of young people admit to bullying others. In addition, a study in Britain found that at least half of suicides among young people are related to bullying and that 10 to 14 year old girls may be at even higher risk for suicide. As the social hierarchy intensifies in middle school, girls form cliques and can get meaner.
Kana Goldberg, an American middle school girl, feels guilty when Ruth, a classmate, commits suicide.
 
Kana reflects on the social hierarchy in her eighth grade class who were “electrons/ arranged in shells/ around Lisa/ Becca and Mona/ first shell solid/ the rest of us/ in orbitals farther out/ less bound/ less stable/ and you/ in the least stable/ most vulnerable/ outermost shell.” Lisa was mean to Ruth and “we all/ followed/ her lead.” Kana’s Japanese mother and Jewish American father send her to her maternal grandmother’s mikan orange farm for the summer to “reflect in the presence of [her] ancestors.” While there she learns to farm, becomes part of the family and community, and learns the rituals of her Japanese culture, but most important she reflects on her actions and those of her clique and thinks about Ruth and what happened and where to place blame because they didn’t understand her. She finally realizes that the list of what they didn’t do, what they could have done “…seems so basic and short.” There is another tragedy and through the rituals surrounding death Kana practices with her relatives and the Japanese community, she returns home with ideas of ways to create a memorial to the friends who were tragically affected by the bullying—and to help, not just the girls but the entire 8th grade class, to “go on.”