Working in the world of Young Adult Literature is a joy. I am constantly reminded about the goodness of the people in this community. I began hosting guest contributors since August of 2014 and during the past three years these contributors have addressed issues that address teaching strategies, topics of potential research, and, most importantly, the difficult issues that adolescent deal with in their everyday lives. If you are planning a YA course for this fall or if you are just interested in more actively discussing books with students, I hope you will revisit what the guest contributors have produced. This week’s contribution is a perfect example of an academic who cares about the issues that adolescents confront. Dr. Gretchen Rumohr-Voskuil has contributed several times before and has now become a valued colleague and collaborator. (You can revisit her previous posts here: Beyond How We Were Taught: Using "Book Love" to teach YA Literature Methods.,   ALAN16 Memories and Stories, and Trending Now: YA, Current Events, and Taking Action.)
This week Gretchen discusses eating disorders. Thanks once again Gretchen for another thoughtful post.

During my sophomore year of college, I kissed my then-boyfriend (and now-husband), Karsten,* goodbye as he embarked on a semester-long internship in Washington, D.C. He was strong, confident and smart, and in our time together we’d enjoyed a healthy lifestyle, shopping at the Farmer’s Market, cooking meals together, and taking runs around campus and along the shores of Lake Michigan.  I eagerly awaited Karsten’s return, yet when he stepped off the plane, he was a mere shadow of his former self.  In only 16 weeks, His sturdy, 170-pound frame had been whittled to a frail, almost skeletal 145 pounds.  Not only had Karsten learned about politics in D.C., but he had also developed an eating disorder.  When he wasn’t working, his time was spent counting fat grams and running.  Throughout the following weeks and months, Karsten exhibited many symptoms of disordered eating: an irrational fear of certain types of foods; irritability around grocery shopping, meal preparation, and meal times; a rigid, exhausting, and all-consuming workout schedule. Many of his friends, who expressed support for his initial weight loss of a few pounds, were now gravely concerned with his new appearance and behaviors; several asked if he was seriously ill.  Thankfully, with time, interventions from friends and family, and the support of a nutritionist, Karsten overcame his eating disorder. I am grateful that my beloved husband maintains a healthy weight (along with a reasonable, joyful eating and exercise regimen) today.
 
According to the National Institutes of Health, eating disorders, which include anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge-eating disorder, affect 2 percent of males and 3.5 percent of females.  Karsten is one of 30 million people who will deal with a “clinically significant” disorder during their lifetime, according to the National Eating Disorders Association. Given the stigma of mental health issues such as anorexia and bulimia, many eating disorders go unreported, making the likelihood of this disease--albeit closeted--even higher. In short, many of our young adults have, or know someone with, an eating disorder. Such prevalence leads me to wonder:  What eating disorder-related texts are available to our young adults? 

A quick show of my cards: I realize that for certain young adults, especially those with similar disorders themselves, books about eating disorders can be what some call “triggering,” as they could provide additional information, or even encouragement, regarding the “hows” of the disease.  Teachers should be aware of this concern, yet also consider Louise Rosenblatt, who argues that literature situates such issues “outside us, enables us to see them with a certain detachment and to understand our own situation and motivation more objectively” (40).  In other words, books can offer perspective, especially when the reader can “live” through characters’ thoughts and decisions.  In addition, when responding to any kind of literature,  teachers must keep multiple lines of communication open (so as to intervene when necessary), discussing literature collectively and individually and offering various opportunities for students to respond to literature in personal ways, especially through writing.   With Rosenblatt’s wisdom as well as our goal of open communication in mind, below I offer some recent and classic eating disorder-related young adult books.

I read The Art of Starving by Sam J. Miller, likely among the most recent YA book about eating disorders, in one afternoon.  Miller, a survivor of an eating disorder himself, describes hunger as “a pack of wolves, starving and mad running through [the] bloodstream, gaunt ribs showing through mangy scabbed fur, fangs bared at every shadow” (163-164) as he tells the story of Matt, a gay teen who feels that his eating disorder gives him special powers.  Told with suspense, tenderness, honesty and magical realism, The Art of Starving brings awareness to male eating disorders and their relationship to sexual orientation.

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson is another possibility.  Anderson captures the attitudes, habits, and feelings of Lia, who struggles with anorexia while grieving the bulimia-induced death of her best friend, Cassie.  This book is disturbing in all the good ways, holding the reader in suspense, frustration, and empathy for Lia.  Wintergirls continues to help me--and my students-- to understand the complexities of eating disorder recovery.  For those who enjoy Wintergirls, Meg Haston’s recent novel Paperweight explores similar themes.

Butter (Erin Jade Lange) was a great Summer of 2016 read, and I found that it increased my compassion for those dealing with binge-eating disorders.  Telling the story of lonely, obese, suicidal “Butter,” who plans to eat himself to death in front of his Internet audience, this book also explores online bullying, “catfishing,” and society’s treatment of people who are overweight.

Nell’s Quilt by Susan Terris was one of the first YA novels I read.  Terris places her story in turn-of-the-century Massachusetts, where Nell delays her marriage to an undesirable man by promising that she must first finish her quilt.  While Nell works on her project, she slowly eliminates certain foods--and eventually all foods, wasting away.  When I first read this book at the age of 13, I assumed that Nell perished at the end, and I still remember descriptions, events, even phrases. Since rediscovering this book (and related critical work) for this blog post, I’ve learned that Nell actually survives at the novel’s conclusion.  It’s interesting how my perspectives on eating disorders as well as my skill with close textual analysis have developed since I was a young reader.

A book that I plan to read this summer is Believarexic by JJ Johnson. Reviewers have noted that the novel’s protagonist, Jennifer, grows stronger in body, prose, and typeface (!) throughout this uniquely formatted book.  In fact, Johnson focuses less on Jennifer’s eating disorder and more on her recovery, making this a strong read for those concerned about “triggering” literature. 

A book that doesn’t match the content of the novels above, yet explores the societal roots of disordered eating, is Julie Murphy’s Dumplin’. This book considers the many ways our society promotes thinness above all other qualities.  In addition, considering that I am a mother of four daughters, this book has helped me think about how I model body positivity in my home.  Most of all, though,  I am delighted with Willowdean, a self-proclaimed fat girl who is perfectly happy with her body until she attracts the affection of handsome, popular Bo.  Wishing to re-establish confidence in her own body, Willowdean enters the Miss Clover City beauty pageant and, along the way, finds support in new friendships and discoveries.  This book is a strong choice for anyone desiring to help others celebrate all body types.

For those desiring nonfiction, Thin by Grace Bowman and Elena Vanishing, co-written by Elena and Clare B Dunkle, are good choices.  Both memoirs bravely and honestly explore the causes of the writers’ nearly fatal anorexia, as well as their long recovery.

Those wishing to add additional titles to their reading lists or classroom libraries can consult this list from Goodreads.
 
I concur with Joan Kaywell that books save lives.  May the above books help readers understand what eating disorders are, recognize symptoms of eating disorders in themselves as well as their peers, and connect them to people and resources that can bring healing and joy to themselves and those they love.
 
*shared with permission
Gretchen Rumohr-Voskuil
Associate Professor, Aquinas College
ghr001@aquinas.edu

Hi all. Once again we have a contribution from Georgia McBride's network. Georgia works tirelessly for the benefit of the reading lives of children and adolescents She is the operator of Georgia McBride Media Group (GMMG). This is the home of Month9Books, Tantrum Books, Swoon Romance, and Tantrum Jr.  This post is written by Chris Ledbetter, one of authors in the Month9Books. Take it away Chris.

As a former teacher, I can say with certainty that the quickest way to get a student to eye roll one eye while the other one glosses over into a haze… the quickest way for them to fall into a dribble-on-their-desks, sleep-through-the-bell, and be-late-to-next-class slumber… is to tell them the lesson is about history. That’s not completely true. But close enough.
 
I can hear the groans now. And the teeth sucking. And the sighs. Wait… is that my own PTSD? But I digress.
 
Everyone knows that if you don’t learn history you are doomed to repeat it. Usually, that only applies to the bad things. Or at least, that’s the selling point. Repeating good things is not necessarily doom, last I checked. I wish I could be doomed to good, positive things. Sign me up!

​History has many lessons to teach our youth. (And frankly, our older generations, as well.) But it’s all about the delivery system and, dare I say, the presentation. The best restaurants use healthy amount of pizzaz in their plating of food, and for good reason. To some youth, reading about history is like sitting down to a plate piled high with nice, perfectly healthy vegetables. Your parents can sing the praises of the veggies until their cheeks turn a nice shade of azure, and those sad little veggies still won’t taste better and they will have zero cool factor and even less street cred.
 
Seriously, who wants to be that kid who pulls out a baggie of celery stalks and baby carrots when everyone around them is mowing down pizza and fries? But as I said, it’s all in the delivery and presentation. Now, there are actually sneaky ways to get your kids to eat veggies. They’re hidden in juice box blends, apple sauce, and even pasta.

​Lesson: You have to Make Veggies Fun Again.
 
And that is how we can get youth, reluctant or not, to consume history… we hide it in plain sight behind an expertly eye-catchy and well-designed cover, and within a tightly plotted, unputdownable story with unforgettable characters. Who doesn’t love a good story? It’s like when you eagerly anticipate talking to your favorite uncle at Thanksgiving because you love the tall tales. And he’s got a million of ‘em. The very best history teachers are the ones who can teach it in such a way that the people throughout history become characters, each being the protagonist hero or heroine in their own plotline. That’s what makes them truly come alive.
 
Similarly, the YA author’s job in historical fiction, as well as any other story, is to transport the reader, dropping them in to a lush, fully realized, three-dimensional landscape with characters and stories so compelling that the reader completely forgets that they’re reading about history. They’re learning without even knowing it, similar to how Karate Kid learned his martial art craft by waxing the car and painting the fence.
 
Sometimes a YA story will dive into the head of a historical figure to offer a close view of what it might have been like to be that person in that period. Other times, authors will create a character that bears witness to real historical events. The end result is that the reader arrives at the end of the story with a deeper understanding of time, place, context, and significance. In that way, it’s similar to sliding on a virtual reality viewer and taking a walk through a particular moment in history… all the while having fun. It’s just like when you serve your child their favorite spaghetti and meatball dish made with veggie-infused pasta and of course, a primo red sauce chockablock with veggies they never even saw coming. 

Thanks Chris. Chris tries to practice what he advises in his new novel, The Sky Throne. It has been released this April, 2017. It is described as a YA Zeus origin story. You can read about it and by it here.

I really think Chris is on to a good idea. We have several other guest contributors who have addressed making the history and YA connection in early posts. My colleague and occasional coauthor, Dr. Paul Binford has written twice for the blog. His first post was Revisiting Emmett Till’s place in Mississippi State History and his second was Before the Dust Settles. Another post that builds on historical fiction is by Mary Warner. Her post helps us see how our students can help make voices from the past come alive: Discovering (Rediscovering) Karen Hesse’s Witness and Its Multi-genre Potential.

To finish up this week's post I am providing a slide show of several non fiction or works of historical fiction that I think are fantastic. Enjoy.

This week's Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday is a contribution by one of our past contributors, Angela Insenga. Previously, Angela wrote an engaging post about "bridging the classics with YA texts." You can read it here.  This week she writes about service learning and some of its connections to YA. I will turn it over to Angela. 

My first foray into Service Learning projects (SLPs) had nothing yet everything to do with YA.  I developed a grant-funded project for first-year college STEM majors wherein they chose a service site from a “menu” of community partners I had fostered; analyzed the needs of their participants; and created a program that highlighted STEM concepts.  The catch: their perspective audience comprised first through fourth graders, some of whom were studying the solar system and others who were learning basic concepts in Biology.  Thus, each of the seven SLP teams grappled with developing an age-appropriate program aimed at reinforcing the students’ existing curriculum.  Randy Stoecker’s Liberating Service Learning and the Rest of Higher Education Civic Engagement taught me to privilege community need in any Service Learning endeavor, so I sought to teach students to synthesize STEM knowledge with an awareness of how their participants communicate and interact—science meets rhetorical situation, if you will.  

​Some students were surly during the planning and coaching phases of the project, unsure of how to proceed with their one-hundred-dollar budget; others were nervous about being around little kids (“They are sticky!” one young woman groused); some thrived, immediately creating hands-on projects blended with scientific explanations; and still others appeared apathetic to the whole gig, staring at me incredulously.  But on site, like a match to dry tinder, my first-year college students took to their participants, who greeted them with an enthusiasm that was inspiring (REAL college students are fascinating to 2nd graders). The design of each program allowed them to discuss the existing school curriculum while guiding students through tactile, engaging activities.  They made star jars while learning how stars are born and die; they learned about bacteria and then made hand sanitizer at carefully orchestrated stations around the room; they watched a student-made video on the life cycle of a sunflower and then drew their favorite stage; they heard about the phases of the moon and tried to create them by taking bites out of Oreo cookies; and they learned about planets before making their own. At one point, while I was acting in the role of the sun so that eight students could orbit around me, I looked across the crowded lawn to see the most reluctant of my students laughing with a shy and withdrawn second grader as they decided who would be Mercury and how Mercury might behave as it orbited. Would it tuck in its arms and crouch down?  How might it spin?  And should it shiver and shake or blow steam?  I saw SLPs at work, doing community good for kids who would remember better because they had interacted as they learned. Though my time with these first-year students ended after two months, I could not shake the magic experienced in those classroom spaces.  I wanted more of it and fast.  

Because I first encountered YA in community schools while watching students pass a battered copy of Twilight back and forth or watching a kid try to hide Hopkins’s Glass in the spine of his literature anthology (an impossible feat if you have seen that hefty tome), it made sense to move my YA students “into the wild,” where they could work with both adolescent and “new adult” readers. As I had done before, I fostered site partners. Because this was my department’s first SLP in an upper-division English major course in over a decade, I was careful to choose physical sites close to or on campus:  Ingram Library on my campus; the Lambda chapter at UWG, and the Newnan Carnegie Library.  I also made contact with a virtual partner, LibriVox.  Each student received a “spec document” for each potential project that explained the option’s purpose, provided the site partner’s contact and needs, and offered concrete ways to get started.  Groups then chose their sites. I followed the same planning phase model as I had with the STEM students:  YA groups met independently and with their site partner(s); I met with each group twice to coach and troubleshoot; and they deployed their projects.  Throughout the two-month process, then, students achieved benchmarks while they prepared.
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Each group encountered obstacles during this process.  Some had interpersonal conflict as they sought to plan, and others struggled to find a common meeting time.  They fought to choose texts they wanted to donate or discuss.  They held fiery debate over how best to present materials to their audience.  They (and I!) wrestled with technology. In sum, they behaved like budding professionals, learning how to negotiate their way towards a successful program.  

​And successful they were. The LibriVox group settled on creating a dramatic reading of Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.  They created voices for over 100 characters, even enlisting a dramatically-inclined friend to coach and participate.  Their rendition of the text is now part of LibriVox wide-ranging library of free audiobooks. Ingram Library’s SLP folks created two book display cases that emphasized YA within Women’s History Month and did so again during Sexual Assault Awareness month. After researching our current YA holdings, this group also proposed a comprehensive list of YA “must haves” for ordering with my department’s yearly library allocation.  The group working with Lambda settled on etiquette for their discussions of Julie Ann Peters’s germinal novel, Luna.  They met four times with Lambda members to discuss “chunks” of reading.  And, finally, the group working with Newnan Carnegie created a program on YA graphic novels in which participants learned the history of graphic novels and fashioned themselves as graphic novel characters at Makerspaces.  The best creation won art supplies and graphic novels. As before, I felt more like a witness than a professor, noting this time the advanced performance as they considered nuances and acted swiftly to solve challenges.  

Since Service Learning emphasizes process learning, I experienced intermittent fears that the ELA content central to my class would get lost. After all, this SLP served as a large portion of the grade in —25%— and my learning outcomes emphasize reading, writing about, and discussing YA literature.  But, repeatedly, my worries were allayed, since each community partner’s needs foregrounded literature in unanticipated ways.  At Ingram Library, the examination of cover art became an imperative while building eye-catching displays. Students in this group also had to locate powerful “pull-out” quotations that might attract patrons to their book cases. They had to decide how to choose and group texts in keeping with that month’s theme. In Newnan, my students had to conceive of ways to share content, not teach it, a difficult rhetorical shift, since all of them were enrolled in teacher training courses that included field work. The book club had to develop guiding questions for each meeting to foment discussion, and they collaborated to decide on doing much more listening to Lambda members than pontificating about the trans* teen experience. And the LibriVox volunteer group had to read Baum’s novel, annotate it carefully to parse out roles, and demonstrate clear articulation in audio submissions sent in for review by LibriVox mentors.  In each case, my students encountered ELA content in context. Language and image came to the fore naturally, in keeping with the site partner’s needs. They saw their discipline working beyond the brick and mortar classroom.

Beginning next year, my university will have an official “Service Learning” designation for courses that include community work.  I will request that my YA class is one of them. Just as practitioners and scholars in the field teach our students that age-appropriate literature affords teachers and parents with an opportunity to talk with young people about literature instead of at them, I now wish to show my students how YA can do its good work in various community arenas.  I’m tired of only telling them. 
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Do you use Service Learning in YA? Tell me about it! I want to learn from you. ainsenga@westga.edu