​A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about M. T. Anderson’s Symphony for the City of the Dead, (indeed a great book), and promised to follow up with a Part 2 that would be dedicated to a discussion of Steve Sheinkin’s Most Dangerous. I was side tracked by the events in Orlando. After that Sunday, I sat down to write and I just could not stop thinking about the event and the associated news coverage. Without much deliberation, I found myself responding in writing and I ended up with "Say His Name!"  Before I return to the value of reading YA nonfiction, I have to give a shout out to Matt de la Peña. I know, another distraction. In his Newbery acceptance speech Matt not only captures why we, as teachers and librarians, keep screaming about more independent and self-selected reading, but he punctuates the speech with important moments from his own reading history. Elegantly, he references a few moments when he was an engaged reader. It is important to note that he only recognizes them now, as an adult, with the added benefit of hide site. For many years, he classified himself as a reluctant reader, but educators, at several levels kept nudging him towards the next reading experience. I hope you take a moment to read his speech. It is great for students, preservice teachers, librarians, and any educator who wonders if the individual struggle to talk with a student and to recommend a book is worth the effort. By the way, it is worth the effort every single time.

​I have always found reading history fascinating, I like reading it as an adolescent. From time to time I turn to historical YA texts as a break from tons of YA realistic fiction I seem to inhale. I try to keep up with the new YA historical nonfiction, but some of what the authors are calling history doesn’t seem that long ago. Okay, we have been over this ground before. I am getting old. As a result, some of the events that are showing up in historical YA fiction are events I have lived through. Over the last decade if you have watched the nominations for various young adult award lists, it is hard not to notice that Sheikin’s name keeps showing up. Sheikin has been on my “you had better get to this soon or you are slacker” reading list for quite some time. As a keynote at the Youngstown State University English Festival, I had the opportunity to read and discuss with adolescents his fantastic book, Bomb,--no jokes,--the events in that book are a decade or so before my arrival in to this world.

​Sheikin’s book that caught my attention and held my attention, however, was Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War. For me, this book was a riveting account of a period in history that I thought I knew relatively well. I lived it. We cared about the draft during the Vietnam War and its consequences. I graduated from high school in 1973, I remember the discussions, the protests, the news coverage, the riots in Chicago at the 1968 Democratic convention, the music of the time, Watergate, and President Nixon’s resignation. At the same time, I had heard of the Pentagon Papers, but I didn’t know the details and the players—who knew how much G. Gordon Liddy got around.

For the last 15 years, I have often wondered why high school and college students seem less engaged in the combat activities that American soldiers are involved with now that take place in wide variety of locations throughout the Middle East and Africa. Are they not engaged because of the fact that there is not a draft? Certainly the cost of our military activity has affected the economy. We are and will continue to incur costs to care for our returning veterans now and for years to come; and we should. Who are our current “Ellsbergs” trying to get our attention and the ears of politicians and policy makers?

​Sheinkin’s treatment of Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers is sensitive and well documented. As I read, I felt that I was carefully introduced to a man who cared deeply about his country and wanted to help. It is often difficult for us to decipher the difference between propaganda and the “real” story. In most cases, there are levels of truth in the propaganda dispersed by parties on both side of an issue; nevertheless, it is often difficult for us to understand the various nuances in the midst of a contemporary moment. As a result, it makes it even more important that we, as educators, engage in more accurate cross-curriculum instruction that engages students in deep moments of critical thinking. Combining Most Dangerous with other books like: Death Coming up the Hill, (Crowe); March, (Lewis, Aydin, & Powell); Slaughter House 5, (Vonnegut); Revolution, (Wiles); Fallen Angels, (Myers); The Things They Carried, (O’Brien) and a host of other YA and more traditional selection about war, adds a policy and protest dimension about war on the home front that many classroom only discuss briefly or not at all. A teacher who wants to provide students the opportunity to think deeply about the events surrounding the Vietnam War might use Most Dangerous as a touchstone text for the entire class and then allow them to select a supplemental text from a well-informed lists. Once again, I find myself advocating for more student self-selection. When students engage in comparison contrast activities they think more critically about the topic at hand.

​In a time when young adult literature is enjoying a renaissance of publishing, it is hard to keep up on every book in every genre. However, I highly recommend that you read Most Dangerous as soon as you can. It won’t surprise you that this book was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2015. Your colleagues in the social studies will thank you if you introduce them to this book and perhaps you can find room for collaboration across departments. Furthermore, it won’t surprise you that Sheinkin has been a finalist in two additional years. Once for The Port Chicago 50 in 2014 and for Bomb in 2012. Sheinkin has become a writer I watch. Those two titles combine with two earlier works, Lincoln's Grave Robbers and The Notorious Benedict Arnold, that show that he has already produce an interesting body of work. I can’t wait to see what topic he will explore next. 

This week's YA Wednesday guest contributor is Brian Kelley. Brian recently graduate with his PhD from Fordham University and studied under Marshall George. He is now an assistant professor at the Borough of Manhattan Community College. In his post, he discusses how we react to what we read. In several ways, his post echoes some of the concerns I covered last week. Last week's blog post was picked up and excerpted by the NCTE Blog--Literacy & NCTE. It is my pleasure to thank Brian for continuing the conversation about the importance of reading.

When I sit down to enjoy the classic summer film, Great Outdoors (starring the great John Candy), there are any number of scenes that cause me to burst out in laughter. But nothing is as simultaneously barf and laughter inducing as the result of the raccoons’ havoc. John Candy’s character, fresh from a triumphant night of eating a big slab of beef (gristle included) to prove his masculinity, hurls at the mention, sight, and thought of maggot-infested garbage.
 
A strange introduction, perhaps, to this post on literatures for young adults, but I encourage you to now think about your reaction to that paragraph. Did anything bring a small chuckle? Maybe a sense of discomfort? Disgust? Can you pinpoint exactly where that might have occurred and why?
 
Reactions to comedic texts may be more evidently subjective than those reactions we experience when interacting with other texts. Taking scenarios that in one context might be disgusting (maggots swarming garbage) and making them humorously disgusting is a talent comedic writers must possess; the use of comedic timing and bodily reactions a talent that actors possess so as to deliver that humor. All texts—whether humorous or serious—are written to evoke emotional reactions from readers. While writers create these texts (or, in the case of movies/television programs, written, performed, directed, and produced by teams), textual reaction and response relies on the reader/viewers in a process we refer to as “hot cognition.”
 
Audience reception—the way the reader/viewer constructs the texts and utilizes schemes of reference to interact—shows a key interplay between emotion and reasoning. Let’s return to this scene in the Great Outdoors for a moment for a clear understanding. In order for me to find the film—specifically that scene—humorous, I, as an audience member, must have been conditioned to find that stimuli humorous. What is it about John Candy’s discomfort that makes us laugh? How is it we know he’s experiencing discomfort? Why do we find the need to vomit laughter inducing in one situation (picking up garbage covered with maggots)? And do we really understand why we have these emotional reactions? Why do these stimuli add up to make me laugh, perhaps in disgust?

Affective Reading
For my dissertation, I studied readers’ affective reactions and responses to the literary reading of the sequential art narrative, Refresh, Refresh. There were a few reasons for the study, though none more essential than my belief that literary reading is an experience. From the most initial empirical studies of literary readers by I. A. Richards (1929) to later empirical studies (e.g., Auracher & van Peer, 2008), affect had consistently taken a back seat to interpretation even though it is a key aspect of the literary experience. The affective turn in literary scholarship (e.g., Ngai, 2005; Vermeule, 2010), which brings the work of psychologist Sylvan Tomkins (1962, 1963, 1965, 1991, 1992) to understandings of text, presents to teachers an important means of supporting students’ readings of literatures for young adults.
 
Sylvan Tomkins’ work on the relationship between schema, stimuli, and emotion offers important information about human personality and what makes human beings human. He posits that individuals not only feel emotional reactions to stimuli about which they’ve been conditioned to reply (e.g., why do I feel an overwhelming sense of joy when my team wins in a sports match?); we can also recognize in others how they feel from facial/body language cues. Apart from graphic novels or films, which provide visual cues, we also sympathize with characters in particular situations in traditional literary texts. For instance, we can “feel” what Lizzie “feels” as she watches her sister deteriorate in Rossetti’s “The Goblin Market,” or we can “feel” what the speaker feels as he waits for the death of a fellow inmate in “The Ballad of Reading Gaol.” Of course, our ability to “feel” and “sympathize” or “empathize” comes in time as we mature into adulthood and investigate our consciousness. According to Tomkins, though some scholars might disagree (e.g., Ngai [2005]), affects can be broken into nine basic emotional categories, seven of which (not counting dissmell and disgust) function as continua.
 
Affective reading encourages students to wrestle with their emotional reactions while reading and think about how these emotional reactions are triggered.  Of course, becoming aware of our emotional reactions is not sufficient. As we know from Tomkins’ scholarship, emotions are intricately tied to values that we have been conditioned to experience. The affective dimension of education (though consistently ignored, Krathwohl, Bloom, Masia [1956] in the second handbook of educational objectives posited that we teach in a way the integrates cognition and affect and thus influence behaviors) is perhaps most important in adolescence, as adults transition to adulthood and have to begin thinking critically about their values. Again, let’s use Great Outdoors as an example—what is it about that scene that makes me burst out laughing and yet find it simultaneously disgusting? What does it say about my values that someone’s discomfort should evoke chuckles and the thought of maggots festering in rotten, fetid garbage that makes my skin crawl? How did I learn this?
 
In the context of literary teaching, where we encourage students to wrestle with the human experience (which is dependent on emotion), we can encourage students to really think about their values and the social contexts in which they live (and how these social contexts change). In essence, we can encourage them to become conscious of the “why” and wrestle—critically—with these understandings. How integral to their personalities, their identities, are their affective state, and how do their emotions stem from the values they were conditioned to believe—and should they continue to believe in them?

Strategy: How to…
There are a few ways we can meaningfully integrate affect in the literature curriculum. First, encouraging students to record notes about their emotions as they experience them. I asked my participants to annotate Refresh, Refresh with Post-It notes (primarily because graphic novels aren’t the easiest medium for taking notes while reading). This process alone encourages students to think about their emotional reactions as they occur.
 
To make this clear, let me use the example of Marvel Comic’s X-Men: Magneto Testament, a text that focuses on the very human Erik’s internment in a concentration camp as a child and adolescent. Very accessible, the text features numerous images and textual moments that are emotionally powerful. As students read, they can affix Post-Its to these images.
 
The second method I had participants engage in was close reading selected segments of the text that they found to be the most emotionally salient. These close readings encourage individuals to think about how the text is being constructed and what stimuli the author uses to invoke these emotions. Further, we can encourage conversations about what ideologies affect the interactions between values, emotions and, stimulus.

Using X-Men: Magneto Testament as an example again, when the students go back to the panels they marked as emotionally evocative, which ones stand out as salient. Can they close read what the author did to make these panels evocative? Can they have conversations about what ideologies create these emotional reactions? Why do they find a particular scene gruesome or horrific? What is it that adds an air of dread or fear?
 
One of the key things I realized as I worked on this dissertation is that values are very individualistic and subject to change. Consider how Ancient Greek audiences might have responded to Medea in ways that might be different from contemporary audiences. Or how Elizabethan audiences would have responded to Caliban or Shylock. When we consider the ideologies of the times against the textual evidence, would these characters really be sympathetic? What is it that has changed over the centuries that has caused us to think Shylock (the silver-tongued lawyer who uses emotion in the realm of law) or Caliban (the slave who attempted rape against a virginal daughter of a master) sympathetic? Was Euripides the first feminist playwright, or is he doing something sinister with his portrayals of gender?
 
Encouraging students to then engage in reflection, exploring what they learned about their own emotions and values not only encourages them to be more aware of their own identities. Students become more primed to think about how texts are created and the relationship between ideologies and societal contexts. We are giving them tools that they can carry beyond the classroom.

Some Key Considerations
As teachers, we often expect students to have a grasp on adult sensibilities that teenagers are just coming to think about. When I conducted my study with teachers using the graphic novel, Refresh, Refresh (date; adapted from a short story by Benjamin Percy from his collection Refresh, Refresh: Stories), I found that there were many emotional reactions participants had towards the text that we couldn’t expect teenagers to have. While all readers might sympathize with the protagonists, I found that the adults in roles of protector of teenagers were often very forgiving. They reasoned about characters’ actions in ways that teenagers—who are of the age of the protagonists—might not. While I didn’t find any real gender differences about the violent behaviors of the boys in the novel, there might be differences in responses of teenagers based on gender. Further, if we ask teenagers how they would react were these female characters behaving in the same manner, we might also encourage teenagers to have deep conversations about why they associate behaviors against particular values they have about genders.
 
Of course, this doesn’t mean that teachers have “superior” values or ideological schemes against which emotions are enacted when stimulated by textual moments. As societies evolve, values shift and change, with youthful generations sometimes expressing emotional reactions to textual stimuli adult readers might not have experienced. Becoming socialized into a culture and community certainly requires perpetuating particular ideologies, but there are points where ideologies clash and are contestable, and one view that was previously a minority ideology might become the dominant. So, when students “read against” what we might feel about textual actions or moments, like what has happened in scholarship to Caliban and Shylock, let’s not assume they’re wrong—let’s invite these conversations and see how these thoughts reflect ideologies that, while counter to ours, are not necessarily inferior.

LGBT Issues and Affect
Consider for instance the realities of LGBTQ individuals. More visible in society, more visible in schools, and more visible in children’s and young adult literature, many younger individuals are finding themselves more accepting of sexual and gender diversity than their teachers might have found when they were adolescents. Of course, this could certainly be true about any socially contestable issues, like race, religion, etc. As society progresses, we might find students who are more receptive and open to issues we might have previously felt too controversial for inclusion in the curriculum.
 
Of course, changes are not happening only in society writ large; publishers are also redefining how sexual and diversity is represented in literature. At a time that homosexuality was designated psychological abnormality, Mary Renault’s The Charioteer or Blair Niles’ Strange Brother humanize gay men. The authors rely on the dangers that confronted gay men at the time to make them sympathetic, going so far as putting their lives at risk. If we wanted readers to feel sympathetic about queer characters, we had to put them in peril. Isabelle Holland’s The Man without a Face remains a controversial text, but the controversy illuminates still prevalent criticisms about homosexuality alive in more conservative communities.
 
Literature for teenagers about LGBT characters has dramatically shifted as societal thinking has evolved.  While many books featuring LGBT protagonists still focus on the issues of sexual or gender diversity as the key purpose of the text, newer publications, like We Are Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson or Swimming in the Monsoon Sea by Shyam Selvadurai or One Man Guy by Michael Barakiva have now integrate being LGBT in with other experiences of being a teenager. This is not to say that the didactic nature of many LGBT books for young adults is a negative quality. Books like, Tim Federle’s The Great American Whatever; Highly Illogical Behavior by John Corey Whaley; Someday This Pain Will be Useful to You by Peter Cameron; Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan; Hero by Perry Moore; The Miseducation of Cameron Post by emily m. danforth; Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli; Openly Straight by Bill Konigsberg; Saints of Augustine by P. E. Ryan; Absolutely Positively Not . . . by David La Rochelle not only promote sexually and gender diverse individuals as human beings, they also promote cultural relevance and help LGBT teens seen quality possibilities for their lives.

The fantasy Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare (now a television show, Shadow Hunters) features gay and bisexual characters who need to explore whether and how to make their identities public in a world that has no visibly gay Shadow Hunters. In coming out, one character, Alec, serves as a role model for other LGBT Shadow Hunters. Not only is the character someone to admire, his choice to come out—one that affects all LGBT individuals—allows readers to think about the repercussion of this moment on their lives. The Masks trilogy by Hayden Thorne, a series for young adults featuring gay superheroes published by an independent queer press, rethinks the traditional superhero world with gay protagonists.
 
To dip a toe into the realm of comics, though there have been long-standing LGBT characters (and some who are now identified as LGBT), the Young Avengers series (focusing on teenaged heroes) features two characters—Wiccan (son of Scarlet Witch) and Hulking—who are in a committed and loving relationship since their introduction. Providing a loving and genuine relationship for teens shows them that it is possible to find love.
 
Of course, young adult literature can’t ignore that there are awful situations confronting sexually and gender diverse teenagers. Consider that in real life the brutal death of Matthew Shepard can be seen as a key turning point in the fight for LGBT awareness and visibility; his death was a catalyst for many people to rethink how they speak about and address LGTB individuals as well as those who are to come out. October Mourning: A Song for Matthew by Leslea Newman captures the powerful effect that his gruesome murder had on a community and on a country. The young adult non-fiction title, Branded by the Pink Triangle, illustrates how LGT individuals were treated by Nazi Germany during World War II.

​Consider also that after Supreme Court rulings that established equality, reactions to circumvent the rights of the LGBT community are being enacted as a cause for “religious freedom.” Or the “fear” of transgender individuals and the fight over bathrooms and the Girl Scouts. And, of course, consider the horrific shooting and massacre in Orlando; we’re again having key conversations about treatment of LGBT individuals by American society and the precarious position of LGBT individuals in this country. LGBT teens are coming of age and coming out into a world where they are simultaneously embraced and marginalized, and they do need to be aware of the challenges confronting them as they become adults.
 
Judd Winnick’s graphic memoir, Pedro & Me is a testament to the power of knowing a human being who is confronting horrible realities and yet still finds the power to survive, endure, and appreciate the fundamentals of life (e.g., finding love). The memoir shows an individual who was a reality TV celebrity (before reality TV took off) confronting the AIDS crisis that, even today, continues to tear asunder generations of gay men. Winnick, while confronting his own emotions about the very public death, also writes from a place of anger about how gay men and people who are HIV positive or who have AIDS were treated in society.

​On the positive side, Ellen DeGeneres and her wife Portia DeRossi, Ricky Martin, Jim Parsons, Caitlyn Jenner, and numerous other celebrities have chosen to publicly come out and make their identities visible.. In young adult literature, consider the case of Zac (formerly Heather) Brewer who has transitioned as a transmale. Brewer, who has published under both names, has written the popular vampire fantasy series Chronicles of Vladimir Tod (five books), the sequel trilogy, The Slayer Chronicles, and the novel Cemetery Boys. Even though he doesn’t directly include transgender characters in his books, it is important to make transgender identities visible for teenagers as they wrestle with their values and understandings of the diverse human experience. Of course, including young adult titles (literary fiction and non-fiction) that encourage students to emotionally react to the experiences of transgender characters (George by Alex Gino; Parrotfish by Ellen Wittlinger; Some Assembly Required by Arin Andrews; Rethinking Normal by Katie Rain Hill, Beautiful Music for Ugly Children by Kirstin Cronn-Mills; I am J by Cris Beam; Pantomime by Laura Lam; Gracefully Grayson by Ami Polonsky; Freakboy by Kristin Elizabeth Clark; Adam by Ariel Schrag; Alex as Well by Alyssa Brugman) can also encourage them to think deeply about the human experience by encouraging students to connect their own experiences as human beings. The non-fiction title, Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out by Susan Kuklin is particularly moving as the text captures real teenagers who are exploring their gender identity.
 
            I write this conclusion one week from the massacre in Orlando and with the extreme right on the rise throughout the world. If we want to encourage our students to think about the importance of the human experience—which is really the key purpose the humanities serve—then we have to engage them meaningfully with texts that can directly affect their lives. Encouraging students to see each other as human beings requires that they think affectively and engage in emotional reasoning. If you need more of a reason, or justification, affective reading is based on literary scholarship (e.g., Ngai [2005]),educational objectives (e.g., Krathwohl, Bloom, and Masia [1956]), and psychological scholarship (Tomkins, 1962, 1963, 1965, 1991, 1992).

Works Cited
 
Auracher, J., & van Peer, W. (Eds.). (2008). New beginnings in literary studies. Newcastle, UK:
Cambridge Scholars Press
Krathwohl, D. R., Bloom, B. S., & Masia, B. B. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives:
The classification of educational goals: Handbook II: Affective domain. New York, NY: David McKay Company, Inc.
Ngai, S. (2005). Ugly feelings. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Richards, I. A. (1950). Practical criticism. New York, NY: Harcourt, Brace, & World. (Original
work published in 1929)
Tomkins, S. S. (1962-1992). Affect imagery consciousness (Vols. 1-4). New York, NY: Springer
Publishing Company.
Tomkins, S. S. (1965). Affect and the psychology of knowledge. In S. S. Tomkins & C. E. Izard
(Eds), Affect, cognition, and personality: Empirical studies (pp. 72-97). New York, NY: Springer Publishing Company, Inc.
Vermeule, B. (2010). Why do we care about literary characters. Baltimore, MD: The Johns
Hopkins University Press.

Brian Kelley can be contacted at [email protected] 

It is has been a year. Lest we forget. ​http://www.cbsnews.com/news/pulse-nightclub-shooting-orlando-memorial-services-anniversary/  

Last week I promised to go directly to a discussion of Steve Sheinkin’s Most Dangerous, it seems more important to pause a bit and reflect on the loss of life at Orlando. A couple of months ago, my son, Isaac, and I finished a book chapter that reflects on the engagement of young adult literature and music. At a point near the end of the chapter, we comment on Janelle Monae’s song Hell You Talmbout “wherein she and many other voices chant the names of black people who have been killed, mostly by police, but they also chant the names of Trayvon Martin and Emmett Till, who were not killed by police but by citizens.” (More about the chapter when the book is available in the fall.) ​

I can’t begin to provide an eloquent eulogy, but it has been done by others who are closer to the people and the issues. Any senseless death is heartbreaking. The victims deserve to be remembered, not the perpetrator. I appreciated the way that  Anderson Cooper has addressed the loss in Orlando by saying their names. It is a valuable statement. It is worth providing a place in this blog to say their names as well. Thank you Anderson.

Some may think that this blog dedicated to young adult literature isn’t the place for this remembrance. I disagree. Reading literature that is vibrant, engaging, and controversial provides adolescents with a place for them to hear the names—even if they are imaginary or vicarious—of those who are neglected, marginalized, abused, discounted, scorned, and bullied. I see the events in Orlando as an ultimate act of hate and bullying from which there is no recovery for those who are gone and no easy recovery for those who survived.
​
Recently, I have been trying to make the point that scripted curriculum that has students reading fewer books and only snippets of texts has contributed to the language of hate, bigotry, and division that seems to be consuming our political and social conversations. In my opinion, students need longer and more frequent opportunities to discuss complex ideas that might fulfill the promise that Jefferson and other founding fathers offered when they promoted education in the new democracy. Yes, I know that women, African Americans, and others were denied the vote, an education, and other opportunities, but the idea that an educated populace was essential in the promotion and protection of a secure democracy seems to me to remain a key idea if our democratic republic will continue to flourish. We have made advancements in terms of inclusion, but I fear that current policies have turned us to constant testing instead of promoting and fostering inquiry, critical thinking, and open debate—not just argumentation. (Please listen to Jimmy Fallon's short statement below. The video is a youtube version of his speech--it may not stay, may blog sight accomadates only Youtube. The link to his official website post is here.)

To conclude, I would like to point to a recent event that does involve Young Adult Literature. It is the recent banning and bullying of Phil Bildner by Round Rock ISD (a school district in Texas). He was disinvited to speak to school children after several years of having successfully contributed in the past. This week, author R. J. Palacio contributed to the support of Phil Bildner. Her support is admirable and speaks to the way so many young adult authors support each other and the education of children. Much of the action of Round Rock ISD seems to be connected to a discussion of the book George by Alex Gino. All three authors—Phil Bildner, Alex Gino, and R. J. Palacio demonstrate the courage to speak names. They speak their own and the names of their characters. Thank you. ​

By promoting censorship in any form we stifle education. We need to work vigorously to promote reading and critical thinking instead instead of scripted, routinized instruction.
​
We need to say their names, not only the names of those who are lost, but those who continue on by doing good works through their words and actions. I would like to say a few names that have been important to me lately—in the future, I am sure there will be others. Some you will know and some you won’t. It doesn’t matter, but I will say their names. Some of the people are authors, church leaders, scholars, and many of my former students who amaze me. The only family member is my wife, Dana, who is a rock, but all of my kids should be here and many of my current and recent students. Here are their names: David Levithan, Meg Medina, Jason Reynolds, Virginia Euwer Wolff, Paula Meiling Siebers, Matt J. Stannard, Dana Bickmore, Bernie Sanders, Elder Patrick Kearon, Bill Konigsberg, Jo Knowles, Teri Lesesne, Corey Whaley, Ryan Williams, Kylene Beers and Amy Albritton.
​
In two short weeks I will return to Steve Sheinkin’s Most Dangerous. It truly is a book where the author dares to speak his name: Daniel Ellsberg.

Truly, and without hyperbole, two of the most enthralling books I have read this year are M. T. Anderson’s Symphony for the City of the Dead and Steve Sheinkin’s Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War. They are the type of books that I can’t resist talking about with other people. My poor wife has endured several spontaneous explanations about the events and the people that I am learning about. In part one—this week’s posting—I will briefly discuss M. T. Anderson’s book. Next week, in part two, I will discuss Sheinkin’s.

I finished reading Symphony for the City of the Dead about ten days ago. We were on vacation to Cancun, Mexico and it became beach reading that was so captivating I kept forgetting to get in the water. As we took a day trip to the Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza the two hour bus ride both directions allowed me to move quickly through the book. Frequently, reading on a bus trip can give me a headache, but not this time. First, I was ashamed about how little I really knew about the Siege of Leningrad. Second, I knew a little bit about the composer Dmitri Shostakovich, but not about his struggle to write and produce music that met the call of his own muse under the pressures of Stalin’s purges. 

I have long valued the way in which Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (his only novel allowed to be originally published inside Russia.) helped me understand the Gulag system in post World War II Russia. It was one of the books that I enjoyed teaching the most in the 1980's to tenth grade English students. At the time, I tried to add nonfiction (informational) texts to the unit and we frequently read Solzhenitsyn’s 1970 Nobel Lecture. Two observations from that speech have stayed with me as a teacher of literature over the last 30 years. The first is Solzhenitsyn’s humility as he recognized his good fortune to survive the Gulag to become a writer. 
In order to mount this platform from which the Nobel lecture is read (It is noteworthy that Solzhenitsyn was not allowed to leave Russia at the time to accept the award and give the speech.), a platform offered to far from every writer and only once in a lifetime, I have climbed not three or four makeshift steps, but hundreds and even thousands of them; unyielding, precipitous, frozen steps, leading out of the darkness and cold where it was my fate to survive, while others - perhaps with a greater gift and stronger than I - have perished. … Those who fell into that abyss already bearing a literary name are at least known, but how many were never recognized, never once mentioned in public? And virtually no one managed to return. A whole national literature remained there, cast into oblivion not only without a grave, but without even underclothes, naked, with a number tagged on to its toe. Russian literature did not cease for a moment, but from the outside it appeared a wasteland! Where a peaceful forest could have grown, there remained, after all the felling, two or three trees overlooked by chance.

​The second is this statement: And they were mistaken, and will always be mistaken, who prophesy that art will disintegrate, that it will outlive its forms and die. It is we who shall die - art will remain. And shall we comprehend, even on the day of our destruction, all its facets and all its possibilities?
​
It still amazes me that we find ourselves defending the arts. In this recent era of education, we see a decline in the teaching of arts in all its forms, especially in the younger grades and for those we label as needing to “catch up” due to the score on some test that is often used for questionable purposes.  Do we really expect students to flourish and succeed to their fullest potential in schools that are reduced to heavily scripted routines and curricula? I firmly believe that educational policy makers shouldn’t promote school settings, practices, and climates that they would not be happy with if their own children had to attend them. 

​Anderson’s Symphony for the City of the Dead would have been a welcome addition to my classroom. His tale of the siege of Leningrad at the beginning of World War II and the life and music of Shostakovich would have added a dimension to my unit on One Day in the Life. Together, these two books would have provided an opportunity to conduct in depth cross curricular instruction.  I would be a failure at any attempt to adequately praise what Anderson has achieved with this book. It really is a compelling history, as the subtitle suggests, of Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad. I found myself looking up people and events on Wikipedia.  I mourned and was uplifted as I learned about the endurance of the people of Leningrad and the perseverance of Shostakovich and his friends and acquaintances. I could not help but ponder the plight of the world's refugees and those who remain in place and endure the bombing, gunfire, and invasions that are occurring now. Do we learn nothing? I am thankful that Anderson’s remarkable book has taught me so much. More importantly, I was reminded to stop and feel something beyond my own immediate woes. Upon returning home, I listened to Shostakovich’s  Symphony No. 7 in C Major, Op. 60 “Leningrad,” I felt like I had found a new friend.

​Don’t miss this book. I think many students would love it, but especially those who are immersed in history and/or music. It would be a gift to them that they would thank you for forever. It would be a moment of education worth the time and the effort. 

I look forward to discussing Sheinkin's Most Dangerous next week.

This week post is by Jon Cullick, who had a post a couple of months ago about To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman.  While we discussed that posting, Jon mentioned something about little libraries. I have long admired the people that build and sustain these wonderful little spaces for sharing books. (Read about the history of these libraries here.) Jon lives in a Kentucky town that seems to have made this project a success. Maybe we should find and support these libraries in our own towns by adding some of the books that we haven't pulled off the shelves in while. Perhaps some of you might make this a summer project of your own. Thanks Jon.

Reflections on Literacy and a Little Library
By Jonathan S. Cullick, Northern Kentucky University 

While retrieving the newspapers from our yard on a recent soggy Sunday morning, I paused to gaze at the Little Library.
 
Nearly one year ago, our front lawn became home to a small, colorful wooden box about the size of a large bird house. Ryan Salzman, a resident in our city, built and installed it for us. My wife, Cheryl, and I sealed, painted, decorated, and filled it with books. All of us were motivated by a desire to share our love of reading with fellow readers in our community.
 
Now, looking at it, I thought, “It’s weathered the year nicely.” At the same time, I made mental notes: “This spring, I need to re-seal that nail and put some touch-ups where the paint has chipped.” On this wet morning, the Little Library was asking for a little tender loving care. ​

​Little Free Libraries are decorative boxes positioned in front of homes, businesses, and churches throughout Bellevue and Campbell County, Kentucky, the town and county where I live. As decorative as they are, they serve not only as ornaments. They are serving literacy. Children and adults can find in these boxes books that are free for the taking. Or, if they prefer, they can leave a book or two.
 
The first Little Library in Bellevue and in all of northern Kentucky is called the Bellevue Book Nook. Placed in front of St. John United Church of Christ, it was built by Girl Scout Tyler Poirier in 2012 as her Girl Scout Gold Award project.
 
Then two new residents, Ryan and Catherine Salzman, moved to Bellevue. When they saw Tyler’s project just around the corner from their new house, they were hooked. Ryan decided to initiate a project to bring Little Free Libraries to neighborhoods all around Bellevue. 

​The Little Free Library idea actually originated in Wisconsin. A non-profit organization (http://lfl.org) started the trend about fifteen years ago to bring books into neighborhoods. In bringing this project into our community, the motivating factor for Ryan was a desire to support our local schools by encouraging children to read. Ryan and Catherine were expecting their first child. They want her to grow up in a community that values reading.
 
The nature of reading is changing as more and more people are reading books and newspapers on small screens rather than on paper. But there is still a need for paper books. Ryan saw that the Little Free Libraries are “a unique, fun way to keep the hard copy tradition alive.” The Little Libraries are a unique and fun way for members of a community to share their love of books.
 
Equipped with only a couple of tools and an idea, Ryan built the first one for his own house. Eventually, he promoted the idea on a Facebook page that he and Bellevue resident Tim Vogt created, called the Bellevue Alliance. But first, to comply with city zoning ordinances, Ryan created a Little Free Library program with the City. He decided to keep the libraries on private property. This means that individual property owners can act as the stewards of their own libraries, monitoring, restocking, and sometimes repairing them. It’s a distribution of workload that makes the project work. 

Moreover, a key to the success of this literacy movement, Ryan explains, is for every library to be an expression of individuals who want to extend their love of reading as a service to the community. 

Eventually, Ryan partnered with J.C. Morgan, Executive Director of Campbell County Public Library (CCPL). The public library provides books through their non-profit fund-raising organization, “Friends of CCPL,” which creates bags of books that Little Library owners can pick up at any public library branch and use for stocking their Little Libraries. Each bag contains approximately twenty books with a mix of classics, non-fiction, popular books, and books for children and adolescents—all of which the librarians select.
 
The next phase of the Little Free Library project was the “Big Build.” Ryan built thirty Little Libraries for placement throughout Campbell County, Kentucky. Campbell County Public Library sold the units to individuals, who were invited to enter a decorating contest to be judged by the library. All of these activities coincided with a week to promote reading in the county. Ryan, who now serves on our town’s city council, rightly calls this program a “model for our region.”
 
We got our own Little Library in last year’s Big Build program. Because our street is an active traffic area, our Little Library gets frequent visitors. We check it daily to be sure it is well stocked. Thanks to many individuals, our basement has amassed a collection of books for readers of all ages. When books are taken (and we love it when books are taken!), we have others to replace them. 

​We notice changes in the Little Library’s inventory as we pass it on our way to and from the house. We don’t usually see people stopping by, so we know we’ve had visitors when we see that books have been taken or new ones have appeared. When we do actually see someone visiting our library, we don’t stare. We don’t want anyone to feel like they are being watched. Still, occasionally, we get glimpses of our fellow book lovers. 

​We remember a summer day when several 8-12 year olds spent a long time examining the books—slowly, intently, one at a time. The smallest girl had to keep jumping up to see what was in the Little Library, so one of the older kids struggled to hold her up so she could peer over the edge to view the Little Library’s contents.
 
Adult readers with more well honed reading tastes know exactly what they are looking for. They pause briefly to take or leave a book on their brisk daily walks.
 
We have seen young parents pushing strollers, pausing to check out the children’s books. As they walk away, we’ll see little hands in the stroller holding a book.

​People have driven up and parked next to our Little Library with a mission. They carry a stack of books from their car to leave with us. Or they choose a stack of books to take back to their car. Once when I was doing yard work, a gentleman pulled over and told me that he was driving to all the Little Libraries in Bellevue to locate books for his grandchildren to read over the summer.
 
Another time, a young couple walking by asked me for permission to take a book. They wanted to know if they had to return it or pay for it. I assured them that they are welcome to take whatever they want, whenever they want, and keep it at no charge!

Because we have noticed a demand for books across all age groups, we keep our Little Library stocked with selections for everyone. I organize the library with books for children on the left, adolescents in the middle, and adults on the right. This arrangement makes it easy for us to see at a glance which category need restocking. 

​One interesting aspect of having a Little Library is discovering which books are most popular in our part of Bellevue. Some books “fly off the shelf,” as the saying goes.

For adults, the most popular books have been anything written by James Paterson and John Grisham. 

The most popular books for adolescents have been anything published by Sarah Dessen. Books for girls have been in greater demand than books for boys, a phenomenon that reflects a national pattern among adolescent readers. I wish we could get more boys interested in reading. I always make sure we have “boys’ books” such as adventure novels by Gary Paulsen. As an English teacher, I try to stay up to date on books that are popular among teenage readers. 

For younger readers and children, the most popular books have been the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling and all of the Golden Books.

The all around most popular book is also a children’s book: Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White. Every copy we put out finds a new home quickly. It’s reassuring to know that children are still enjoying this great classic about the friendship between a patient spider and a gentle pig named Wilbur. 

Each Little Library, Ryan once explained to me, is an expression of the individual owners. I agree with him. I’ll also add to that statement. Our Little Library has become an expression of all the visitors who stop by our house to leave and take books. They shape it through the books they give. And because we try to restock with books people will like, they even shape it with the books that they take. Our Little Library is owned by Cheryl and Jon Cullick, but it belongs to every reader in Bellevue.