It is a great privilege for Dr. Bickmore’s YA Wednesday to host a blog post by Lesley Roessing. Lesley is a YA advocate who posts frequently on Facebook.  I have been following her for a long time. We have been friends on Facebook, but we have yet to have a “live” face to face conversation. This is a perfect example of how social media brings people together who share common interests. I am sure that one day we will find each other at the same conference or YA event and have a great conversation. I was pleased when she suggested a post that discussed one of my literary heroines, Nancy Drew.  Yes, I read every single one that was in print when I was in the fifth and sixth grade. I loved the wonderful adventure of these book as well as the Hardy Boys, Trixie Belden, and a host of other novels in the “pulp fiction” category. I know that many people consider the quality of these books as less than literary. I believe that is beside the point. These books and many others never stopped me from reading other, more challenging books; instead,I am still reading a wide range of novels in the "solve the caper" genre—including Donald E. Westlake, Jo Nesbo, Walter Mosely, Michael Connelly, Sue Grafton, J. A. Jance and a great many more (is it a little crazy that I rest from reading YA titles by reading?).

Furthermore, Lesley’s post reminded me about how these same books were influential in the reading lives of my three daughters. All of them read a great deal growing up and continue to read as adults. (I think there might be a possible guest blog post from them about their childhood and adolescent reading habits.) I was never a big fan of all of those Sweet Valley High books that kicked around the house, but they helped make great readers. I know that you will enjoy Lesley’s post and I hope it not only sends you down memory lane, but will encourage you to include her suggestions in your classrooms and library shelves. 

​Now, its your turn, Lesley.

I, Lesley, became the strong, independent woman I have become because of five people: my mother and father and Nancy Drew, Jo March, and Anne Shirley. My parents were the children of immigrants, but even in the ‘50’s and early ‘60’s, even though they never went to college, held high expectations for me as a teen; they expected high grades in academic subjects and they constantly told me I could be anything I wanted, even President. However, without the added models of my fictional female teens, I don’t think that I would have believed them.

Besides Nancy, Jo, and Anne, there were not many strong female teen characters in the 1960’s. There were biographies of famous adult women but those didn’t provide an adolescent with teen examples. Luckily, there were numerous Nancy Drew casebooks—and I owned and read them all, Anne of Green Gables appeared in eight novels, and I read and re-read Little Women innumerable times. I am sure there were others characters who inspired me but have faded in memory, but I distinctly remember WWND (What Would Nancy Do?) always in the back of my mind. Nancy Drew was independent,  with a supportive family, and supported by her friends, intelligent, determined, and spirited. Although the series was created by Edward Stratemeyer, there were definite female influences on the character and story lines. Mildred Wirt Benson, the first Carolyn Keene, was the ghostwriter of the first eight novels as well as many others, and, after he died, Edward Stratemeyer’s daughters took over the syndicate, and Nancy.

​While these characters were inspiring to an adolescent reader, they did not face, and conquer, the same problems as I: mean girls, feelings of alienation, membership in a minority group, negative body image, small town to big college transition. My peers faced such challenges as physical differences and physical difficulties. 

Adolescent problems have only intensified—or maybe my awareness of adolescent problems has increased. I was not aware of any peers who were affected by death or trauma, who suffered the challenges of mental illness or learning differences, who were bullied, faced racism, or were suicidal. In my small town, I was unaware of any refugees or those who questioned their sexuality or gender identification.  Peers were not publically shamed and, since there was no Internet, there was no cyberbullying to contend with.
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In contemporary novels, strong female characters demonstrate resilience over a variety issues and concerns—facing challenges, traumas, and adversity in diverse forms. These are characters who mirror the issues that are faced by current adolescent girls and who provide models and maps for navigating those problems. Characters who are their own persons, make hard choices, and have defined their moral codes, sometimes against the majority, sometimes at great cost.

​One of the most unforgettable characters is Kendra in Scars. At age 15 Kendra begins remembering years of childhood abuse and feels that she is being stalked by her abuser whom she cannot remember. She uses art and cutting as a way to cope but finally finds the strength to face the former abuse, recall her abuser, and save herself and her mother. In Call Me Hope, Hope is constantly verbally-abused by her mother. Inspired by Anne Frank, the young adolescent builds a support system and confronts her mother and helps her to change. Another character who learns to manage the trauma caused by family abuse is 16-year old Sarah (Still Life with Tornado) who, with the help of her ten-year-old, twenty-three-year-old, and forty-one-year-old selves, exposes the family secrets so she can become whole again.

​Mina (The Lines We Cross) is a Muslim refugee whose family encountered considerable trauma and death in Afghanistan, during their escape by boat, and throughout their stay in a detention camp. Moving to a new town in Australia, Mina, a high school junior, stands up for refugee rights against Aussie Values, an organization that believes that Australia is accepting too many refugees—especially Muslim refugees, an organization created by her boyfriends’ parents. For younger readers, the main character of Amina’s Voice, a Pakistani-American Muslim girl, faces the challenges of fitting in middle school and a diverse community which includes some Islamaphobic members.

​There are characters who are suicidal but are able to overcome those tendencies and decide to live, which is the challenge. One such character is Ally (Forget Me Not), shamed and cyber bullied after compromising photos of her are texted throughout her school. In My Heart and Other Black Holes, Aysel plots her suicide, worried that she has inherited her father’s violent tendencies. Spending time with her suicide partner, she finds strength as she realizes that she does not want to die and does not want Roman to die either. In All the Bright Places Violet Markey is able to save herself from suicide but is not as fortunate in saving Finch, the boy who helped her find a reason to live. Finding strength through others, Vicky Cruz (The Memory of Light) works through her suicidal depression with the help of her hospital therapy group.

​Adolescents who are grappling with the repercussions of rape often also are forced to contend with the additional torment of shaming by their peers. Some Boys features an adolescent who has been raped and shamed but stands up for herself, even again the rapist’s best friend. In this provocative novel Grace and Ian narrate alternating chapters, and when Ian questions the way she dresses, Grace asks why her clothing choices should matter or be assumed to send a message. In All the Rage Romy has been assaulted by the sheriff’s son. No one believes her allegations and, by coming forward, she is bullied by her former friends. As other girls become hurt, Romy has to decide how hard she will fight to be believed.  A victim of teen prostitution, 13-year-old foster child Dime (Dime) finds her strength and the courage to make a plan to leave what she thought was love and security to save a baby. 

​Transgender girls face a multitude of challenges, many external, some internal, as they define who they are. One of my favorite books is If I Was Your Girl. After attempting suicide, Amanda Hardy has transitioned, transferred schools, and moved in with her father to start a new life. But when she shares her secret, she learns that not all “friends” can be trusted, but she also learns that it is not always who you think who are the dependable friends and truly strong girls. In other novels, two delightfully strong girls are Lily (Lily and Dunkin) and Grayson (Gracefully Grayson) who have accepted themselves and expect others will also as they live life on their own terms.

Mean girls are an adolescent girl’s nightmare, but strong girls of all ages learn to handle them as does gutsy Piddy Sanchez (Yacqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass) and immigrant Kasienka (The Weight of Water).

For younger adolescent readers, there are characters who deal with physical differences, learning differences, or developmental disorders, such as Kiara (Rogue) who has Asperger’s syndrome and learns to use her “special ability” to help her new neighbor Chad, a victim of parental abuse, and seventh-grader Rachel (Braced) who is diagnosed with scoliosis and is required to wear a body brace 23 hours a day. Middle school student Molly (Finding Perfect) learns to manage OCD as does high school junior Samantha McAllister (Every Last Word).

​Sometimes families present the challenges. Other novels that feature strong or resilient girls are Skyscraping, the story of Mira, a high school student, who discovers her father is gay and that her parents are in an open marriage. After her father is diagnosed as HIV-positive, she learns to accept her family as they are. In another type of family crisis, Claire (Falling Over Sideways) deals with bullying at school and, at home, learns to support a father who has experienced a stroke. Male authors can create strong female characters; challenging the advantages of strength, Parker Grant (Not If I See You First), who copes with blindness and her father’s recent death, learns not to be too strong and to let others help her. 

Readers also meet strong girls in a multitude of memoirs, such as Positive: A Memoir, the narrative of Paige Rawl. Born HIV positive, Paige was bullied by middle school classmates after her best friend shares her secret and coaches, her counselor, and administrators refuse to intervene, resulting in a suicide attempt. Positive is really a story about surviving bullying rather than surviving illness and the courage to face the world and share a journey.

I have to say that my favorite strong girl is the half Japanese-half Black Mimi who faces racial prejudice and sexism in Marilyn Hilton’s Full Cicada Moon. 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. An 8th grade biracial feminist fighting stereotypes!

​The “new” Nancy Drew is still strong, intelligent, determined, and spirited, but she isn’t solving mysteries; she is surviving the complex issues of contemporary life.

Below is a slide show of all of the book titles that Lesley covers in this post. You could probably use it as a source for several book talks with students.
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A middle school teacher for twenty years, Lesley Roessing is currently Director of the Coastal Savannah Writing Project and Sr. Lecturer at Armstrong State University where she works with teachers and teaches Bibliotherapy. She is the author of Bridging the Gap: Reading Critically & Writing Meaningfully to Get to the Core; Comma Quest: The Rules They Followed. The Sentences They Saved; No More “Us” & “Them: Classroom Lessons and Activities to Promote Peer Respect; and The Write to Read: Response Journals That Increase Comprehension. Lesley is a columnist for AMLE Magazine and editor of Connections, the journal of the Georgia Council of Teachers of English.
 
Lesley can be contacted at: [email protected]
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Thanks for following.

This is the second time I have been able to host a contribution from Marshall George. In the first post he discussed the relevance of calling this books we talk about "adolescent literature" or "Young Adult Literature." What's in a name? It is one that is worth visiting again. You can find his first post here. Marshall has been one of the primary contributors to scholarship around this field for about 20 years. If you don't know his work, you should. If you don't know where to start, I suggest you start with a call to action that he wrote for the CEE Commission on the Study and Teaching of Adolescent Literature in 2004. Thanks, Marshall for another timely and important post.

​When I was in middle school and the first two years of high school (late 1970s early 1980s) I remember that most of the texts we read in our English Language Arts were short stories, with the occasional poem thrown in. We always read a play (and in 9th and 10th grade I think we read two- one Shakespeare, and one contemporary). All of these texts were found in a literature anthology that was 3-4 inches thick and weighed 10 pounds at least.  The color of the anthologies’ covers changed from year to year, but the structure inside did not. At the time, I was neither aware of nor interested in how these texts were organized or if my teachers grouped the texts together with any purpose in mind. I loved reading, and read whatever they assigned with energy and gusto (Ms. Jobe, my middle school ELA teacher might dispute this characterization, but I am sticking by my assertion).
           
While I started teaching in an era when prescriptive curricula and high stakes standardized testing were not yet a thing, I still utilized an anthology and organized my curriculum the way those anthologies were organized- around literary genre. Every year, we started with a short story unit and moved through units focusing on drama, poetry, some nonfiction, and a novel or two (one of which was usually an abridged version actually in the anthology). I am contrite to say that the focus of our study was mostly on literary form (read literary terms and devices) and formalist analysis. For the first several years of my career, I taught much as I had been taught and organized my curriculum pretty much as those I studied in high school myself were organized. Somewhere along the way (sadly, I cannot remember where so that I can give credit where credit is due) I learned about a thematic approach to ELA curriculum design. Suddenly, curriculum development became fun. I began to create multi genre text sets that included novels, short stories, poems, and nonfiction texts that shared a common theme, topic, or context. My unit titles had names like “Facing the Challenges of Family and Friendship” or “Learning from Change and Challenge” instead of “Short Story Unit.”
 
When I got to NYC in the late 90s and started visiting middle and high schools here, I found that, while not using anthologies in their ELA courses, teachers for the most part were organizing their curricula by genre study. Some “progressive” principals had outlawed the anthologies that had been used in years gone by, and many teachers (especially old timers) had them hidden in classroom closets so that they could refer to them when developing their curriculum. My observations were similar to those documented by Arthur Applebee:  most literary study focused on novels (YA lit in the middle schools and canonical lit in the high schools).  Schools had book rooms full of paperback novels, but very few collections of short stories, poems, or essays. Teachers who wanted to include these genres often found them wherever they could (often in those closeted anthologies hidden away in their classrooms or somewhere online), photocopied them, and used them either in stand-alone units (the poetry unit is almost always in April, National Poetry Month) or as stand-alone texts to “shake things up” when they finished teaching a novel. Occasionally, the short stories, poems, and essays were linked to the current novel study. Sadly, I find this to be true in many NYC schools today, twenty years later.
 
I do a fair bit of consulting with schools around NYC and often work with teachers as they plan instructional units. When I talk to them about organizing their study of literature around big ideas and themes, they almost always like the approach but are perplexed about where to find short stories, poetry, and informational texts (CCSS’ new name for genres we historically called nonfiction) that appeal to the young readers in their classes. This frequently encountered “problem of practice” is what led me to write this blogpost.
 
Following is a brief annotated bibliography of collections of poetry and short stories (and a few essays), primarily written for adolescents and young adults, that I have found to contain a wealth of great literature. I encourage teachers at all levels (elementary, middle, high school, college, and teacher education) to consider organizing their literature curriculum thematically, at least some of the time, and to commit to incorporating short stories, poems, and essays written for young people. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Joan Kaywell, in her four-volume series, Adolescent Literature as Complement to the Classics, encouraged us to pair works of adolescent literature with classic canonical literature. Similarly, I feel that stories, poems, and essays written for adolescents and young adults can and should serve as complements to novels (middle grades, YA, contemporary adult fiction, and classics) as well as other short stories and poetry that were not specifically written for young people. These texts can be read as a scaffold before reading a longer text, they can be read alongside the novel to provide support around a concept or idea found in the longer work, and they can be read after the reader has finished the novel to allow for intertextual analysis or to extend a discussion. 

I debated about how to organize this section. While my first instinct was to group the works by genre (old habits die hard), I immediately realized that was antithetical to the whole premise of this blog post. I then considered trying to organize the collections by themes, since I believe strongly in thematic “big idea” curriculum design. However, I feared that by doing so I might place a collection in a “box” that works for my thinking or one context, but might stymie the creativity of a teacher or professor using this post as a resource for their own situation. Thus, in an effort to move outside of the traditional and limiting boxes that I have criticized in this post, yet to have some sort of order, I decided to go with alphabetical order of author’s first names.
 
This list has developed over time. I learned about some of the texts from the teachers with whom I work, the preservice teachers that I teach, my colleagues in the world of adolescent and young adult literature, and good old Amazon.com. Each year when I teach my course, Adolescent Literature in Our Multicultural Society at Hunter College-City University of New York, I require students to read at least one anthology of short stories or poetry and to integrate a minimum of three genres into the thematic unit plan that they create in the course.
 
I have provided a very brief annotation for each of the twenty collections, with a hypertext link from the title to a published review that provides a more thorough description of the book along with a brief critique in most cases. In no way do I consider this a complete list of collections of short stories and poetry written for adolescent and young adult readers. I had to trim the list and made every effort to include works that represent the experiences of the incredibly diverse youth who inhabit our classrooms today. I hope that readers will add to this list in the comment feature of this blog so that we can all continue to learn about texts that will enhance our libraries and reading lists and will allow us to provide literary windows and mirrors to all of our students in their reading of multiple genres. Even if we still have some genre study units (and I do think they are OK sometimes), let’s create others that blend multiple genres and allow for intertextual analysis across genres.

​Out of Bounds:  Seven Stories of Conflict and Hope by Beverley Naidoo
 
This collection of fictional short stories about young people living under Apartheid in South Africa reveals the depth of the oppression and injustices faced in that country from 1948-2000.
 
Sudden Flash Youth: 65 Short-Short Stories edited by Christine Perkins-Hazuka, Tom Hazuka, and Mark Budman
 
Each of the sixty-five short stories in this collection has no more than 1000 words. The narratives tell the stories of challenging moments of change that occur during adolescence and young adulthood. The authors are a mix of writes for adolescents and young adults and adults.
 
Outside Rules: Short Stories about Nonconformist Youth edited by Claire Robson
 
This collection of fourteen stories focuses on the experience of “outsider teens” as they try to negotiate relationships with their peers while being true to themselves and their identities. 

​Tough Boy Sonatas by Curtis L. Crisler
 
This collection of 38 poems provides an “unflinching narrative” that tell the stories of young men and boys who struggle to live in the industrial suburbs of Chicago.
 
The Full Spectrum:  New Generation of Writing about LGBTQ and Other Identities edited by David Levithan and Billy Merrell
 
This multigenre collection includes poems, short stories, and (mostly) essays written by young adults in their teens and early twenties and focuses in the experiences of young people who identify as LGBTQ or other identities.
 
First Crossing: Stories about Teen Immigrants edited by Don Gallo*
 
This collection of stories written by popular YA authors explores the realistic (though fictional) experiences of teenage immigrants as they face the challenges of relocating to America. 

​Owning It: Stories about Teens with Disabilities edited by Don Gallo*
 
This collection of stories written by popular YA authors explores the experiences of young people with physical, psychological, and cognitive challenges. 
 
Visions: 19 Stories by Outstanding Authors for Young Adults edited by Don Gallo*
 
This collection of short stories written by popular YA authors focuses on a wide variety of common experiences and issues faced during adolescence and young adulthood. 
 
13: Thirteen Stories that Capture the Agony and Ecstasy of Being Thirteen edited by James Howe
 
The title pretty much says it all. These stories are written by popular middle grades and YA authors. 

​Behind the Wheel: Poems about Driving by Janet S. Wong
 
These 36 poems about the early experiences of driving and learning to drive are simultaneously poignant and hilarious- something most teens (and adults) from “driving cultures” can identify with (in NYC, most teenagers do not learn to drive while they are still in high school).
 
Cool Salsa:  Bilingual Poems on Growing Up Latino in the United States edited by Lori Carlson
 
This bilingual collection of poems explores the experience of growing up as a bicultural, bilingual Hispanic youth in America.
 
Face Relations: 11 Stories about Seeing Beyond Color edited by Marilyn Singer
 
This collection of short stories written by diverse well-known authors of books for adolescents and young adults explores the challenges of racism in today’s world and offers glimpses into ways that young people are embracing diversity rather than letting it divide them. 

​Am I Blue?  Coming Out from the Silence edited by Marion Dane Bauer
 
This collection of original short stories is written by popular YA authors and explores the experiences of growing up LGBTQ or having parents who identify as LGBTQ.
 
Every Man for Himself: Ten Stories about Being a Guy edited by Nancy E. Mercado
 
This collection of short stories, written by popular male authors of adolescent and young adult literature, provides insights into the trials and tribulations of being a young guy. The authors use a mix of humorous and serious tones to engage readers.
 
A Maze Me: Poems for Girls by Naomi Shihab Nye
 
This collection of 27 poems by a beloved poet offers young readers a window into the common experiences faced by girls over the age of twelve and a mirror into their own souls. 

​19 Varieties of Gazelle:  Poems of the Middle East by Naomi Shihab Nye
 
In sixty narrative poems, this gifted poet shares with her adolescent and young adult readers the varied experiences of youth across the Middle East. 
 
What are You?  Voices of Mixed Race Young People by Pearl Fuyo Gaskins
 
In this sensitive multigenre collection of interviews, essays, and poetry, over 40 mixed race young adults relate their experiences growing up in the United States. Their racial identities represent a wide blend of cultures: European, African, Asian, Native American, Jewish, Arabic, Caribbean, Hispanic, and Pacific Islander.
 
Firebirds: An Anthology of Original Fantasy and Science Fiction edited by Sharyn November
 
This collection of sixteen original stories written by a range of award winning science fiction and fantasy writers is intended for young adults and adults alike.

Girls Got Game: Sports Stories and Poems edited by Sue Macy
 
For this collection, nine American women authors of books for adolescents and young adults wrote stories or poems about girls engaging in a variety of sports and athletic activities. The book also includes bios of each author, focusing on their own real life experiences playing a sport.
 
Everyday Struggles:  The Stories of Muslim Teens by Sumaiya Beshir
 
This collection of short stories was written my Muslim teenage girls for their peers. The stories they share provide insight into their thoughts and feelings about the unique challenges they face as developing Muslim women.
 
* I feel that I would be remiss if I did not give a shout out to Don Gallo, who I consider the father of the YA literature short story anthology. The three collections included in this list are but a sample of the numerous collections Don collaborated on with many of the greatest writers in our field. Do an Amazon search to find many other titles. Many thanks, Don. G.

Marshall George can be reached at mg2003@hunter.cuny.edu  

Thanks for following. I hope you are as inspired as I am to include some of these books in your next YA literature course. If you are a librarian or a teacher, I hope some of these find their way to your shelves.

Several years ago, I heard Simone Elkeles speak at an ALAN conference. I was impressed with her enthusiasm and the direct way she talked about how adolescents deal with intimate relationships, between parents, siblings, friends, or those individuals they are romantically attracted to, whether they understand how to articulate their feelings or not. I began to follow her career more closely. I asked teachers and librarians about how Simone’s books faired in their classrooms and libraries. Well, the news is great. Her books are always being read. Her books automatically reach the readers who are interested in realistic, contemporary romance. In addition, many of the main characters of her books are kids that adults consider are only existing in the margins of school or society. Kids who are being pulled in to gang activity or trying to leave it. Kids who might function on the playing field, but not seem to succeed academically. Kids, who might appear popular in school, but are dealing with difficult family situations.

Those of us who have worked with adolescents realize that most kids are actually pretty good kids. If anything, they manage remarkably well in the face of challenges that they silently endure. Despite what some parents might think, these adolescents are less naïve than they appear. They know who uses foul language, who is in or on the edge of the drug culture, or who is sexually activity. What Elkeles seems to understand is that most adolescents are dying for someone to engage them in conversations that acknowledge their struggles, questions, and awareness of the reality they are rapidly trying to navigate. Her novels, while they deal with romance, are often about adolescents navigating the liminal space between childhood and adulthood (Bickmore and Youngblood 2014). In many ways, it seems that Elkeles has looked at these students through a Youth lens (Sarigianides, S. T., Lewis, M. A., & Petrone, R. 2015) as she writes about them with respect and understanding.
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I am not saying that some kids and parents won’t find problems with some of the situations or language that occurs in the book, but these concerns should be contextualized. Not every student or family shares the same values nor ideological outlook on how literature does or does not help students. I am one that believes kids should read what they want. Of course, I also believe that parents should be talking openly with their children from the get go. If that were the case, realistic fiction that is open and frank, just as Elkeles writes, wouldn’t be as problematic. Instead, Elkeles work would be more celebrated. When you get done browsing the information below, check out the interview at the bottom of this blog entry.

I just finished Wild Crush, the second book in the Wild Card series. I like the way the book was centered around members of a football team and their significant others. You should explore Elkeles' blog to find out about other cool things associated with the series.

The Perfect Chemistry series falls within the star-crossed lover genre. As I stated before, Elkeles work is widely read and reviewed by many on Amazon, Goodreads, and several blogs. For this series, I included a link to review from the Mother, Gamer, Writer blog. 

For the Leaving Paradise series. There were several review options. I chose to link to the blog Kimberly’s Novel Notes. Here is the link for these reviews.

I found another readers blog that reviewed Elkeles’s Ruined series. The Reading after Midnight Blog written by Paula Stokes. The review of the ruined series is here.

Please find the interview with Simone below:

References:
Bickmore, S. T., & Youngblood, K. (2014). ‘It's The Catcher in the Rye… He said it was the kind of book you made your own': Finding Holden in Contemporary YA Literature. English in Education, 48(3), 250-263. doi:10.1111/eie.12049

Sarigianides, S. T., Lewis, M. A., & Petrone, R. (2015). How Re-thinking Adolescence Helps Re-imagine the Teaching of English. English Journal, 104(3), 13.  

Last year, during the winter holiday season, I started posting Dr. Bickmore’s YA Wednesday Weekend Pick on Fridays. It has now been a half year, 26 weeks, of posting books and it is time to do a review. This post will also give you a few more titles for your summer reading list. I started by selecting books that I believe deserve more attention. Generally, these are books that I would like to include in a class—if there were world enough and time. Of course, there never is enough room in a college course for everything. I am tracking the weekly picks on a single page within Dr. Bickmore’s YA Wednesday blog. That page is entitled Weekend Picks and on that page, I put the date and link the cover image to a book review. Sometimes, I write a small blurb, but, unbelievably, I have other work I need to be completing. When I have decided on a book to highlight, I post it on my Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts (I hope you are following so you get each post). My hope is that teachers and librarians might make this growing list available to students as a source of recommended books. In addition, I hope an academic or two might consider including these books in their courses.

The books I have chosen can be placed in several categories.

The first category is rather small. It is comprised of books by authors who are new to young adult literature. Sometimes I find them through a presentation at the ALAN Workshop- The Art of Holding On and Letting Go, a publishers recommendation--Girl in Pieces, or an author or an agent contacts me--Edna in the Desert. 

I mark the beginning of the modern era of Young Adult Literature as 1967 the year of The Outsiders and several other foundation texts. Fifty years have now past, and there now so many YA titles being published across multiple genres that it is hard to stay current. Many of us focus on a set of authors, a specific genre, or books nominated for awards. In the abundance of publication that is producing so many great books, I often feel that some of the early texts that helped established the field are being forgotten. To help counter this a bit, I often select books that I believe should be included in our courses and, certainly, in classroom libraries. Here are a few selections I have made from this category of "classic" young adult literature. May of these older books that I have selected have been: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry; Homecoming; and, one of my personal favorites, Berries Goodman, an early novel by Newbery winner Emily Cheney Neville. 

Another category are books that I believe are standing the test of time. Some are award winners, some are by major authors, and some are books that I believe should stay on the shelves and, ultimately, in the hands of adolescents. Many of these are books that I haven’t seen referenced in a while or that I believe deserve continued attention. In this group are: Freaky Green Eyes, Fallen Angels, Copper Sun, Inside Out and Back Again, and The Realm of Possibility. 

Sometimes, I just pick a book that has been on my mind because of current events, or represent themes that I have been thinking about, or books that seem to be important in the current educational times. For example, Thirteen Reason Why has been in the news because of the Netflix original there has been more discussions of teen suicide and bullying. Regarding how I think books and themes; I frequently think about books that might help preservice teachers think about how they might introduce discussions of race in their future classes. Some of the books in this group include: Stella by Starlight, Chains, and Garvey’s Choice. In the current political climate, there are so many educational issues in the news that it is hard to know which one to think about. However, I found myself wondering about how schools will continue to work with LGBTQ students in the DeVos era of educational leadership. As a result, I have been thinking about books like, From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun. 

Once again, thanks for following the blog. 
For easy access the main blog page is here. The main blog page usually holds about six entries. It is easy to browse entries by the month by clicking on any month in the archive column on the main page.
The link to the weekend picks is here and each image is linked to a review..
The link to the contributors page is here. Currently, the contributor's page runs from the oldest at the top to the most recent at the bottom. Each contributor's post has the authors name and the title is hyperlinked to the page.

This week's guest contributor is Dr. Shelly Shaffer, an assistant professor of Literacy at Eastern Washington. This is not her first time post. She contributed last summer when she wrote a post about using YA to discuss school shootings. You can find that post here. This week she discusses how she uses YA literature, in a variety ways, with preservice teachers. Thanks, Shelly, for helping once again.

I, Shelly, love reading YA books. I am probably like most of you who constantly look for any excuse to read a YA book. This includes reading when I’m riding, eating, waiting, listening, and even teaching. I always have a book on my phone--Bone Gap; in my bag--Boys Without Names; in my backpack--Surviving Santiago; and in the Puppy Room--Girl in Pieces (there is a new litter of bulldogs). At each place, I find a different book—that at any time—could take me on a new adventure or into a different point of view. Like some of you, I enjoy reading so much that I have been criticized by family members for being antisocial because I have been known to read at family functions. I cannot help it; I cannot wait to find out what happens on the next page or in the next chapter. I have always been this way, and since becoming an English teacher in 2001 and a professor of literacy in 2015, things have gotten worse (or better-depending on your point of view). Piles and piles of books sit on shelves, on the floor, and in boxes—waiting to be read. 

Through my experience reading YA novels, I have discovered that they are not only great reads. These texts are also extremely useful. A couple of the reasons YA texts are so appealing and versatile are: 1) they can support and/or replace curriculum in K-12 schools; 2) they help young adult readers by addressing difficult issues in ways that support and respect them; 3) they are becoming more and more mainstream; 4) they can spark important discussions about difficult topics; and 5) they can be used to help adults understand the experiences of youth in authentic ways. With these many reasons for reading YA literature, I have found ways to incorporate YA into almost every course that I teach, not limiting YA literature solely to my YA or Children’s literature courses. YA literature provides a different experience than simply reading theoretical and research-based texts or participating in other sorts of class activities. Reading a book is valuable because the reader is able to step into the character’s shoes and walk around for a while. This experiential learning (Dewey, 1938) can be especially valuable for future teachers because they are often not familiar with cultures other than their own. Understanding the experiences of students can help future teachers imagine what the lives of future students may be like. 

In a recent course I taught that focused on the impact of inequality on education, I incorporated several YA texts to support the curriculum. The catalog description for the course is:

This course explores concepts, principles, history and practice of educational equity and inequity, as well as, their function in the United States. Issues addressed are: ethnicity and race, socioeconomic status, gender and other inequalities within the society and the impact of those inequalities on the achievement gap among American K-12 students. The major goal of this course is to facilitate the journey to help students become a culturally responsive professional. (Eastern Washington University, 2017)

Students in the course connect research and theories, such as out-of-school knowledge and literacies (Gutierrez, 2008; Martinez-Roldan & Franquiz, 2009; Moll, Amanti, Neff, & Gonzalez, 1992), inequality in schools (Kozol, 1991), poverty (Jensen, n.d.), the school-to-prison pipeline (Caraballa, 2016; Christle, Jolivette, & Nelson, 2005; Wald & Losen, 2003), Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Freire, 1970), and culturally responsive pedagogy (Brooks & Brown, 2012; Gay, 2010) to a YA book club text. I chose YA texts to aid future teachers in visualizing who their future students may be and how inequalities might impact their future students’ education. The book club assignment was the culminating assignment for the course and included an online discussion, in class discussion, and a written paper reflection. 

The YA texts addressed in the book clubs met the catalog requirements of addressing “ethnicity and race, socioeconomic status, gender and other inequalities within the society” (Eastern Washington University, 2017). As Cook (2016) suggests:

Teachers must give serious thought to the books they choose. My advice here is: know what you want students to analyze, push against, and to value, and carefully select texts that will allow them as individuals, and your class as a community, to approach those ideals. (p. 24)

Following Cook’s suggestions, the following YA texts were chosen: All American Boys (Reynolds & Kiely, 2015), Gabi, A Girl in Pieces (Quintero, 2014), The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (Alexie, 2009), Girlchild: A Novel (Hassman, 2012), and Out of the Pocket (Konigsberg, 2008).

In book talks, I describe each of the texts while holding up each book. All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely tells the story of two high school boys, an African-American and Caucasian-American. In the first chapter of the book, the African-American boy, Rashad, is beaten up by a cop for allegedly attempting to shoplift. Quinn, a Caucasian-American student witnesses the beating. Isabel Quintero’s, Gabi, A Girl in Pieces tells the story of Gabi Hernandez’s senior year. From helping her friends through their problems to dealing with her drug addicted father and ultra-religious aunt, Gabi’s story is told through diary entries, poetry, Spanglish, and phone conversations. The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie explores the experiences of Junior, a Native American high school student who attempts to break away from life on the Spokane Indian Reservation in order to go to school in an all-White farm town named Reardan. Tupelo Hassman weaves the story of Rory Hendrix as she struggles to break the cycle of poverty in which she lives in Girlchild: A Novel. From a trailer park in Reno, Nevada, readers experience the devastating story of Rory’s life as Rory searches for a way out. In Out of the Pocket, Bill Konigsberg writes the tale of Bobby Framingham, a high school quarterback who is gay. When he comes out to one of his friends, the entire world soon finds out that he is gay, and this revelation causes issues with Bobby’s teammates, coach, and scholarship.

These brief descriptions of each book allow students to quickly understand the main idea for each book and then write down their choices for book club in order of preference. Afterward, I try to match students to their top choice for texts, and the rating systems helps me to gauge preference. 

All American Boys

In All American Boys, while Rashad is in the hospital, news of the beating reaches school. The teachers and students must decide how they are going to deal with the situation. This book illustrates the way that events outside of school impact in-school activities and teaching. Not only do Rashad and Quinn attend the same high school, but the younger brother of the cop also attends the same school—and is Quinn’s best friend. At school, some teachers choose to ignore the situation completely, such as the basketball coach who tells students to leave it off the court, but that is really difficult when Quinn, Guzzo (Officer Paul Galluzzo’s sibling), along with several of Rashad’s best friends are all on the team. Other teachers struggle with their conscience while trying to meet the needs of all students. Students divide along racial lines, supporting either Rashad or Paul, the cop.

This book complicates many issues, demonstrating that it’s not always right or wrong, black or white, family or friend. Future teachers who read All American Boys in this course consider how power and perception influenced Officer Paul Galluzzo’s decision to beat Rashad. With Rashad’s baggy pants and dark skin, Officer Galluzzo immediately concludes that Rashad was stealing when he saw Rashad leaning toward his duffle bag in the store. Along with this text, students watch a video describing how African-American parents teach their children, especially their sons, how to act when pulled over or stopped by a cop. The majority of the students in my classes are White and do not realize how privileged they are. I share a story of my son, Jeffrey, a nineteen year old White male, who was following our car on a recent trip from Washington to Montana. We passed a couple of state patrol vehicles after crossing into Idaho. My husband and I looked at each other and said, “Jeffrey’s going to the get pulled over. Watch.” Not five miles later, the patrols caught up to Jeffrey, flashed their lights, and pulled him over. He was a teenage driver, with a car full of teenagers, profiled by the cops. However, because of his White, privileged background, it had not even crossed his mind that he would be pulled over. He was not doing anything wrong, but because of his age, he looked “wrong” to the cops. This example demonstrates how many K-12 students in our class may feel on a daily basis due to discrimination just because of the color of their skin or their ethnicity. By reading and discussing All American Boys, my future teachers were able to imagine the experience of students who experience inequality due to discrimination by people in authority.
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Reynolds and Kiely also illustrate complicated family dynamics through All American Boys. Future teachers may not realize that students’ parents may have been killed or injured in war, like Quinn’s dad. Quinn felt additional pressure from his mother and the community to be a hero like his dad. Quinn was living with his mother in a single parent household, trying to “be the man” of the house even though he was still in high school. Because of Quinn’s dad’s death in Afghanistan, Paul Galluzzo takes Quinn under his wing and acted like a father figure. This is a major influence on Quinn, and when he sees Paul beat up Rashad, Quinn cannot decide what to do even though he believes Paul was wrong. On the other hand, Rashad’s family was intact, but not without its own complications. Readers discover that Rashad’s dad and brother are at odds with each other because his brother is an activist, fighting for equality in a movement similar to the Black Lives Matter movement. Rashad’s dad is a former police officer who injured another young man while on duty, in a manner similar to Paul Galuzzo’s. Rashad’s father’s victim ended up in a wheelchair. Family issues such as these are important in the lives of our students, and future teachers’ exploration of these issues through a novel like All American Boys, in a university classroom setting, helps create more culturally responsive teachers. 

​Gabi, A Girl in Pieces

In Gabi, A Girl in Pieces, Gabi’s complicated family life may not be known to teachers at her school, and without understanding of these issues, teachers may misunderstand Gabi as a person. Future teachers can learn to consider issues beyond the classroom that affect students’ performance in class. Although Gabi is able to deal with her issues effectively, not all students are able to persevere in the face of such difficulties. First, her meth addicted dad has been on and off of drugs throughout her life. With this in mind, Gabi pretty much lives in a single-parent household. Gabi’s mother holds onto the hope that her husband will “get clean,” but despite the support of his family, he cannot and he eventually dies from his addiction. Her aunt is ultra-religious throughout the story, but Gabi eventually learns that her aunt is in love with a married man and her religious zeal is a cover for her own insecurities. All of these family issues affect Gabi, and future teachers can develop an awareness of students’ complicated home lives through the window of Gabi, A Girl in Pieces. This awareness can help future teachers to build more equity into their curriculum.

Not only is Gabi’s dad an impact on her life, but the expectations of her mother affect her, as well. Gabi struggles with not being “Mexican” enough or “American” enough. She is trying to fit in with both cultures, but feels like she does not fit into either. Her dreams of attending Berkley are impacted by her mother’s insistence that going away to college is a thing “bad girls” do. Future teachers may not realize that tensions exist between Latino and American culture. Without the tools to bridge transcultural worlds, a young Latina, like Gabi, may feel isolated and alone (Zayas, Gulbas, Fedoravicius, Cabassa, 2010); she feels like she does not fit into either culture, and pressure from teachers at school and parents at home may add to the distress she feels.

Sex and sexuality also impact the plot in Gabi, A Girl in Pieces. Cindy, Gabi’s best friend, is pregnant. Gabi feels personal tension throughout the story as she comes to terms with her own sexuality. She wants to be a good girl in the eyes of her family, but she dreams of having sex. Also, Gabi is mad at Cindy for getting pregnant by not being safe when she had sex with German, but readers (and Gabi) discover partway through the story that Cindy was raped by German. This part of the plot can help future teachers to explore and discuss attitudes about sex and gender roles in Latino culture. Both of these ideas may not come up in a K-12 classroom directly, but indirectly these attitudes may affect the way Latino students respond to situations inside and outside of class. Not only do attitudes toward sex and gender influence students as they come of age and discover themselves, Latino students may be affected by these roles through their family structure and dynamics, as well.

Gabi complains throughout the book about her weight. She feels like she is a fat girl and is unhappy with how she looks. She eventually decides to use her writing to raise body awareness: “I wanted the zine to make people think about how girls are raised to think about our bodies and who gets to decide how we think about them” (Quintero, 2015, p. 204). Later in the book, Gabi’s confidence becomes evident to readers when she says,

Then I looked myself straight in the eyes and said, ‘Gabi, get over it. You look spectacular. You look amazing, so stop your bitching or do something that makes you feel better.’ I took a deep breath and took off my shorts and shirt and stepped out on the beach like I owned that shit and didn’t give a fuck about all the skinny girls around me. After a while, I didn’t feel like an outsider and nobody made comments or even cared about what I looked like. The other think about being fat is that you spend too much damn time worrying about being fat and that takes time away from having fun. But I decided today would be different. And it was. (Quintero, 2015, p. 273)

Gabi is able to become more confident in herself throughout the story, and this occurs as she realizes her own worth. Future teachers can gain insight into students’ struggles with self-image through Gabi’s diaries. 

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Sherman Alexie’s story addresses many issues of family and belonging in the novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Like Gabi, in Gabi, A Girl in Pieces, the main character, Junior struggles with not being “Indian” enough because he chooses to attend the all-White school in Reardan. Junior’s life is split into two pieces, as illustrated and discussed throughout the novel. Junior’s struggle to fit in with his culture while trying to fit in at school is difficult. Junior’s friends and family on the reservation feel that Junior is trying to be better than them because he is going off the reservation for school; however, Junior knows that he must do what is best for his future. The theme of fitting into multiple cultures is a common theme in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and Gabi, A Girl in Pieces. During class, we listen to the spoken word poem “Beneath Two Skies” (Hepworth, H2010). This poem discusses the problems that Myrlin Hepworth experienced growing up with a White father and Latino mother. He felt like he did not fit into either culture. Future teachers are able to connect the poem to the book club text and to the possible experiences of their future students. This activity helps to illustrate the tensions so many students feel while trying to navigate school culture and home culture or a mixed culture background. Acknowledging that many students are trying to obtain balance between cultures helps to create more equity in classrooms.

Junior’s life on the reservation is shaped by alcoholism and death. He often writes and draws about people he has loved and lost to both. For Junior, this is just part of his life; even though he does not want these things to be in his life, the circumstances of the reservation make this a reality for Junior and the others living there. The circumstances students encounter in their home lives can affect them at school. Future teachers see into Junior’s experiences and realize that Junior’s experience could be the same experience students in their classrooms may be having. Drugs, alcohol, and trauma affect students’ lives. These difficult issues are overwhelming, but in the course, future teachers are able to discuss how they could address such problems if they are encountered in their future classrooms. Suggestions include accessing community resources and making these available for students.
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This book also addresses issues of poverty and fitting in. Junior compares his own clothes, bought at Kmart, to the brand name clothes of his White classmates. This tension reveals the feelings that students from low SES may feel at school, and future teachers can imagine how Junior’s feelings may be similar to those of other students from low SES who may be in their future classes. Our university is located in a town where there is very low SES and nearby, a school with one of the lowest SES rates in the State of Washington serves students. For many education students, living in poverty is a foreign concept. Reading books that deal with poverty helps create a window into life for a students in this situation. Some future teachers begin to realize that students in their future classrooms may come to school hungry or in dirty clothes, not because they do not care, but because they do not have a choice. 

Girlchild: A Novel

Tupelo Hassman’s novel, Girlchild, also addresses poverty. The main character, Rory, is White and lives in a trailer park outside of Reno, Nevada. Rory dreams of escaping the trailer park, and throughout her childhood, she imagines joining the Girl Scouts. She reads and rereads the Girl Scout manual, trying to gain insight, and Rory often measures her actions against the Girl Scout manual. Like Junior in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Rory dreams of escaping her poverty, of escaping the trailer park, and of moving beyond the limits of her current life. In class, we discuss connections students can make to Rory’s experience. I share my personal experience of teaching in Arizona where I taught at a school that served very low SES students. While teaching there, many parents refused to fill out FAFSA forms for their students to apply to college because the parent did not want the child to attend college. We learned that the parents relied on the income the child earned-either through their welfare check or job. If the child left to go to college, the parent feared this income would be lost. Barriers to school success such as this exist in many households, and poverty affects students in many ways that may or may not be observable to teachers. Future teachers may not realize the barriers to college and breaking the cycle of poverty. Through course discussion surrounding this text and research articles, they are able to get a clearer idea of what poverty means and how it affects students.

Rory is smart and excels at school. Her grandmother tells her that she can get out of the trailer park, but when Rory gets close to succeeding, she purposely fails because she is afraid of leaving behind her mother. An example of this occurs when Rory becomes the spelling bee champion. She is at the spelling bee, when she sees her mother in the audience and decides to misspell the word. Even at her young age, she observed that she did not fit in with the “sweater set” and fear took over. Future teachers can learn from Rory’s experience that students may not perform at their full potential due to unseen circumstances. When students perform poorly because it is not expected by their family or peers, teachers should try to discover what barriers are affecting the student. All students benefit from high expectations, and future teachers should work toward establishing high expectations for all students. Understanding students’ motivation can help teachers to be more culturally responsive. 

Out of the Pocket

Out of the Pocket by Bill Konigsberg explores the experiences of a young man who is quarterback of the high school football team, dating one of the prettiest girls in school, and on the short list for several colleges to play football. It seems like everything is going great for Bobby Framingham, but beneath the surface, Bobby knows that he is living a lie. He is gay, but nobody knows. When they find out, his world comes tumbling down. Future teachers in my course must consider the fact that students in their future courses may be “out,” “in the closet,” or still “questioning” their sexuality. Because young adults often struggle with their identities, this source of stress can be extremely difficult.  

Bobby’s struggle illustrates the strain between developing a personal identity and doing what other people expect. Young adults struggle with becoming themselves while meeting expectations of others. The book also explores the societal consequences Bobby encounters after being outed. Teammates no longer want to share the locker room with him. Opposing teams become more aggressive on the field. Scholarships are pulled. Like characters in the other texts, Bobby’s decisions are impacted by his culture, which is defined by sports. Konigsberg’s insight into navigating the world of sports while being gay provides future teachers with an idea of difficulties young LGBTQ+ students face in school. Being sensitive to students’ exploration of their sexuality can help future teachers to meet the needs of their students. 

Conclusion
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These five novels are just a small sampling of novels that could provide a window into cultural diversity in classrooms. By reading a YA novel in conjunction with theory and research addressing “ethnicity and race, socioeconomic status, gender and other inequalities within the society” (Eastern Washington University, 2017), future teachers gain insight into the diverse lives students may lead. Reading YA novels move future teachers beyond simple understanding to empathy. By reading novels in addition to more academic texts, the experiences of students are humanized. Future teachers become familiar with students’ lives in a way that they cannot by only reading theory and research; rather, YA novels provide a space where theory and research are modeled and demonstrated. I suggest using YA novels as supplementary texts to methods courses, courses focused on equity pedagogy, and in other educational settings. I believe that these texts can provide a way for future teachers to apply and analyze theories and research they have learned about in class in authentic ways. 

References

Alexie, S. (2007). The absolutely true diary of a part-time Indian. New York, NY: Little, Brown & Company.

Caraballa, L. (2016). A matter of justice: Sharing responsibility for dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline. Retrieved from   http://blogs.ncte.org/index.php/2016/06/matterjusticesharingresponsibilitydismantlingschoolprisonpipeline/

Christle, C. A., Jolivette, K., & Nelson, C. M. (2005). Breaking the school to prison pipeline: Identifying school risk and protective factors for youth delinquency. Exceptionality, 13(20, 69-88.

Cook, M. P. (2016). Using young adult literature to question stereotypes, society, & self. Multicultural Education, 24(1), 19-24.

Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

Eastern Washington University. (2017). Retrieved from http://catalog.ewu.edu/

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: NY: Seabury Press.

Gay, G. (2010). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, and practice (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Gutierrez, K. D. (2008). Developing a sociocritical literacy in the third space. Reading Research Quarterly, 43, 148-164.

Hassman, T. (2012). Girlchild: A novel. NY: Picador.

Hepworth, M. [Myrlin]. (2010, July 9). Myrlin Hepworth "Beneath Two Skies" @ Arizona State [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncp6KgiJO3A
 
Jensen, E. (n.d.). How poverty affects classroom engagement. Retrieved from http://reading4all.com/entries/page/1156

Konigsberg, B. (2008). Out of the pocket. New York, NY: Dutton.

Kozol, J. (1991). Savage inequalities: Children in America’s schools. New York, NY: Crown Publishers, Inc.

Martinez-Roldan, Carmen and Franquiz, Maria. (2009).Latina/o Youth Literacies: Hidden Funds of Knowledge. In L. Christenbury, R. Bomer, & P. Smagorinsky (Eds.) Handbook of Adolescent Literacy Research (pp. 323-342). New York: The Guilford Press.

Moll, L. C., Amanti, C., Neff, D., & Gonzalez, N. (1992). Funds of knowledge for teaching: Using a qualitative approach to connect homes and classrooms. Theory into Practice, 31(2), 132-141.

Reynolds, J. and K. Brendan. (2015). All American boys. NY: Atheneum Books.
Wald, J. & Losen, D. (2003). Defining and redirecting the school-to-prison pipeline. New Directions for Youth Development, 2003(99), 9-15.
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Zayas, L. H., Gulbas, L. E., Fedoravicius, N., & Cabassa, L. J. (2010). Patterns of distress precipitating events, and reflections on suicide attempts by young Latinas. Social Science & Medicine, 70(11), 1773–1779. doi:10.1177/13-63461512463262

Dr. Shelly Shaffer can be contacted at sshaffer1@ewu.edu 

​Thanks for following.

The 2017 CEE conference was a rejuvenating event. It was well organized and plenary sessions were inspirational.  Thanks to all involved. There so many that help behind the scenes, but a special thanks goes to Mollie Blackburn and Kristen Suchor. The fact remains that the small nature of this conference makes a big difference. I learned something new from every discussion session or panel presentation. The side conversations at meals and between sessions are important for my work and for the opportunity to expand my thinking about ideas both old and new.

It was rewarding for me to connect with others who have an academic interests in literacy education that are different from mine. I need the infusion of new ideas as I plan a new methods class or work on a new syllabus for a graduate course. I appreciate the intellectual stimulation.
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It is also a place to make connections with people who do similar work. I loved the discussions at the two commission meetings on the Study and Teaching of Adolescent Literature.  A host of ideas were discussed and we have a new Facebook page to help us stayed connected between conferences. If you have a new article, a new book, an academic book review, or a call for proposals, we want to hear about it and post it on this page. The commission is doing what it can to sponsor new work, report on projects, support collaborations, and to invite practicing teachers and librarians into this academic space. 

Among the people at the conference were a large group of people who have previously contributed to this blog. I am going to list their names here with a link or links to their previous contributions. I appreciate their work, their ideas, and their willingness to share with others. I hope you take a few minutes to click on a few links. I think you will still find what they had to say worth revisiting; especially if you are planning a YA course this fall.
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Mark Letcher, Alan Brown, Crag Hill (2nd), Myra Infante-Sheridan, Sharon Kane (2nd and 3rd), Patricia Dunn, Gretchen Rumohr-Voskuil (2nd and 3rd),  Sophia Sarigianides, Mark Lewis, Marshal George, Michelle Falter, and Rob Petrone.

The number of discussion and breakout sessions focused on YA literature was rewarding. It was a great time and wish I could have been at every session. I thought it would be interesting for readers to see how academic types are thinking about Young Adult literature. This hints at various studies, pedagogies, and theoretical approaches.
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Some of the books I heard discussed during these sessions and other conversations are the following:

Wonder                                              R. J. Palacio
March                                                 John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell
All American Boys                            Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely
Still Life with Tornado                     A. S. King
The Hope U Give                             Angie Thomas
Ghosts                                               Raina Telgemeier
Probably Still Nick Swanson          Virginia Euwer Wolff
13 Reasons Why                              Jay Asher  
Out of My Mind                                Sharon M. Draper
Shine                                                  Lauren Myracle

Understanding Ourselves in Relation to Others through Young Adult Literature
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A large body of young adult literature helps adolescents to be aware of the challenges that many of their “atypical” peers face, and the related discussions and reflections about the literature equip learners to move away from stereotypes and gain deeper and nuanced understandings of the lives some of their peers lead. The session invites discussion about the power of YA narratives to foster empathy

Stephanie Thompson, Kaplan University
Ashley Boyd, Washington State University
Janine Darragh, University of Idaho
Crag Hill, University of Oklahoma

​Literary Characters Who Demonstrate Compassion and Critical Consciousness Can Mentor Readers
 
Stories can help readers investigate issues of diversity and equity as characters grapple with social issues and injustices in their fictional worlds. Panelists will discuss how they help students apply principles of powerful literacy and critical literacy while analyzing literary characters who show compassion and/or critical consciousness.
 
Sharon Kane, SUNY at Oswego
Anne Fairbrother, SUNY at Oswego
Tania Ramalho, SUNY at Oswego

The Role of English Educators in Fostering Critical Approaches to Reading, Defining, and Approaching YAL
 
This panel provides a frame for young adult literature (YAL) involving market-based, reader-based, and content-based definitions. We argue that content-based definitions are most useful in establishing (com)passionate interpretive practices in the classroom that allow students’ intersectional identities to be taken up as a resource for literary interpretation.
 
Mark A. Sulzer, University of Cincinnati
Amanda Haertling Thein, University of Iowa

​Analyzing and Complicating Children’s and Young Adult Literature
 
Presenters in this combined session will review methods for and affordances of incorporating multicultural children’s literature and pop culture into K-12 classrooms. Specifically, presenters will consider the potential for such pedagogical approachers to welcome and value students’ diverse experiences, identities, and cultures in schools.
 
Margaret Robbins, University of Georgia
Chaz H. Gonzalez, University at Buffalo
Nichole A. Barrett, University at Buffalo

I hope that all of these presentations end up as a blog post in the near future. It would be great to share their power point presentations and highlight the books they referenced in this space. All of these presenters are people worth following. I am sure that many of them will be doing something interesting at NCTE in St. Louis in just a few mont

Thanks for following.