As we say goodbye to July and enter into the last month of summer, some of us are realizing that we just didn't have time to read all of the books on our lists. Many of us are starting to read less and beginning to get kids ready for school, writing course curricula, preparing classrooms, and, in general, facing the reality of a new school year. As we face it, let’s keep finding time to read.

For this YA Wednesday I want to point you to people who never seem to stop reading. Readers are my favorite people. Even though I am supposed to read and write about young adult literature for a living, I just don’t seem to keep up with some of those readers in the blogosphere. These readers are my heroes and I frequently feel that there isn't quite enough communication between these fantastic bloggers and the academic world.

I don’t have time to list all of them so I want to point to one blogger who I always find interesting, then to a collaborative effort, and then to a couple of sites that provide lists of bloggers. 

First, take a look at Anna Moore’s blog, it is simply entitled Anna Reads. I think you will enjoy this blog. She always points me to something I haven’t had the time to explore on my own. Next, I want to draw your attention to The Nerdy Book Club. Four voracious readers keep this blog going and at least one of them will speak to books that pique your interest. Next up is a website called Kidlitosphere Central and is subtitled The Society of Bloggers in Children’s and Young Adult Literature. If you can’t find a blog that will be useful for you, your students, or your book club, you just aren't looking very carefully. Don’t visit this website unless you have several hours to spend browsing. Last, but not least by any means, is the YA Book Blog Directory. While the previous website focuses on Children’s and YA literature, this page is an alphabetical listing of blogs that try to focus on YA literature. Again, make sure you have time before you start browsing. Look to see if your favorite bloggers are listed, if not you might give them a heads up so they can add themselves to the list.

All of these sites are places that you should have bookmarked on your browser. I hope you have fun exploring. I am sure that you will find books to add to your reading list. In my case, I usually find something that I need to read right away. In addition, as an academic that teaches classes on YA literature, I find that the exploration of blogs on YA literature is a good early assignment that helps students with their self-selected reading choices during the semester.

Thanks for reading.

Steven T. Bickmore

I taught Secondary English in Utah for 25 years. Every summer after the Fourth of July festivities, the state’s residences get another chance to shoot off firecrackers as they celebrate Pioneer Day, July 24th. The Mormon pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on that date in 1847. After they were forced out of Nauvoo, Illinois they went west looking for new opportunities as did so many Americans. As I begin my vacation this summer, I am reminded that my wife and I will be visiting family in Utah this year over Pioneer day. I am wondering what pioneer books I should offer my grandchildren who are also visiting Utah from Scotland with their American mother and their Scottish father.

Many young readers cut their reading teeth on Laura Ingalls Wilder’s collection of frontier stories based on her life and family.  They begin with Little House in the Big Woods and continue into Little House on the Prairie and beyond.  I found Caddie Woodlawn as a graduate student and enjoyed this story as well. I am thinking about other favorites that I read as a child or was introduced to as a scholar of young adult literature.

I am reminded that Gary Paulsen wrote quite a few more books than the perennial favorite Hatchet. Many of his books are set in the wild, but at least one series, The Tucket Saga is set in the old American West of the 1840s. Scott O’Dell, who most readers will recognize as the author of Island of the Blue Dolphins, also wrote several novels set in 19th century America. These books include: Thunder Rolling Down the Mountain, Sing Down the Moon and Streams to the River, Rivers to the Sea – a story of Sacajawea.

The book on the top of my list, however, is a novel by one of my college classmates, A. E. Cannon (I like it when I can connect myself with people who impressed me when we shared a class and have continued to do so with all of their life’s accomplishments—wife, mother, newspaper columnist, and young adult novelist.). Cannon’s Charlotte’s Rose is a novel that captures twelve-year-old Charlotte’s journey from Iowa to Utah with a handcart company along the Mormon trail. Cannon’s novel is a captivating tale of a young girl’s challenges as she helps push and pull her way across the prairie. In addition, readers get a glimpse of the Mormon migration, especially a sampling of what the 3,000 Mormon pioneers who used handcarts instead of wagons between 1856 and 1860 experienced. This will be the book I offer my granddaughters as they explore they Utah pioneer heritage. Thanks Ann, in time I will offer up, Amazing Gracie, Cal Cameron by Day, Spider-Man by Night, and The Shadow Brothers. 

   Steven T. Bickmore

Okay, sometimes a YA Wednesday needs to be self-indulgent. Since the LSU YA literature conference finished at the beginning of June we have had our share of publicity. Now, sadly we have rotated off of the LSU home page. I wish I could tell you that I have been immersed in young adult literature. I have read a few interesting books--Padma Venkatraman’s A Time to Dance, (Yeah, new and ready for some awards.); Sara Zara’s How to Save a Life, (I couple of years old, but quite powerful with some awards to its credit); and one by a LSU YA literature conference alumnus, Chris Crowe. Crowe’s Death Coming up the Hill  is brilliant, a must read, and a tease on my part—you can’t read it yet unless you get your hands on an Advanced Readers Copy (ARC).   

            Instead of reading non-stop, I have been teaching a graduate class on the history of writing instruction. I have been immersed in Donald Graves, Donald Murray, Janet Emig, Richard Braddock, George Hillocks, Peter Smagorinsky, Anne Haas Dyson, David Bartholomae and Peter Elbow. Thank you Peter Elbow! Peter Elbow saved my life as a young, confident, but fairly ignorant high school English teacher. In the late 1970s, I knew just enough about writing to know that I didn’t do it very well (but, boy did I love to read) and that to get better at writing you had to write. Elbow’s Writing Without Teachers (1973) introduced me to freewriting. I used his freewriting method without excuse and with innumerable modifications to fit my mood and/or lack of talent as a writing teacher.

            What does Elbow have to do with YA literature?

Enter Cindy C. Bennet. She is an emerging YA author with seven published novels. Furthermore, she was one of the young students I taught far too long ago for either one of us to admit. When my current college students, both undergraduate pre-service students or graduate student in English education, ask me about the value of Elbow’s freewriting, I point to Cindy. On her “About Cindy C Bennett” page she gives me a generous shout out. Which is turn is a shout out to Peter Elbow.

“I can't remember when I started making up stories and putting them down on paper, it seems I always have. Then, in high school, I had an amazing English teacher, Mr. Bickmore, who really expanded my passion for writing. Every day as we came into class, he had a "ten-minute writing" assignment, which is exactly what it sounds like. I looked forward to that ten minutes each day like you can't believe. He taught me a love of pure, creative writing, and a love of great literature.”

I was flattered when we reconnected several years ago through facebook and she mentioned that the writing activities in my class made a difference. (Thankfully, wasting time online isn’t totally useless.) As a teacher you hope you light a fire. I am thrilled that this one is burning brightly. You understand that YA literature doesn’t exist without YA writers. Reading and writing in the English classroom is an endless circle. Can one really exist without the other? Thank you Cindy, I think I will go home and read Geek Girl again.


Steven T. Bickmore

For this YA Wednesday I want to add my voice to the many voices that are remembering the notable young adult writer, Walter Dean Myers. Only two weeks ago, I was talking out loud about who I would love to invite to the LSU YAL conference. I said Walter Dean Myers, knowing that he was elderly and didn’t travel much. My students quickly said that would be awesome. They were right, it would have been. Now, I lament his passing and revel in the fact that his books, his visions of life’s possibilities survive. 

His novel, Monster (Myers & Myers, 1999), was the first novel I selected for the first young adult literature course I taught at the university level in the fall of 2002. It was published in 1999 and I thought it was a “new” selection. It won the first Printz Award, was named a Coretta Scott King Award Honor book, and nominated for the National Book Award. It was a rewarding experience for me and the students. As I visited high schools in the Athens, Georgia area, I realized that I wasn't as “cutting edge” as I imagined. It was already in classroom and in the hands of students. I found dog-eared copies everywhere. And so it goes. Teachers who know kids, know what to offer them. If you know Walter Dean Myers’ work, you understand the loss and the great gift he was to young adult literature. If you don’t, you should. I can’t come close to the tributes given by those who knew him and worked with him. I will do my best to point you to some sources. My favorite is from an LSU YAL participant, Chris Crutcher and his post on his Facebook page and I shared it on mine.

You should also bookmark the Wikipedia page, it provides a starting point and a reminder of his life and career. Bookmark a few tributes so that when you are teaching that next YA literature course or sharing with students you can reminded them that real people write the books they love. People who care deeply about who they are writing for and who, as Walter did, work to inspire and offer possibility. Check The Huffington Post, The LA Times, CNN.com, and The New York Times .

Rest in Peace, Walter
Steven T. Bickmore