Wow! Collaboration reaps rewards. Meeting Bryan was one of the great rewards of holding a YA Conference while I was at LSU. After reading his post for this week, I realized just how I missed his presence at the YA Summit at UNLV last June (has it been that long? it was such a great event.) Bryan just adds an intriguing aspect to everything he is involved with. His willingness to redefine different aspects of a writing project makes the event dynamic and exciting. It seems that the teacher and students that become involved just flourish. Below he and his collaborators explain what has been going on.

                                              Joke #1: Why don’t oysters share their pearls? Because they’re shellfish.
                                              Joke #2: Why did the dolphin cross the beach? To get to the other tide.
                                              Joke #3: Do fish go on vacation? No, because they’re always in school.

For many of us who chose a career in education, it seems we, like fish, are always in school. Knowing that many of us have returned/are returning to classroom obligations this week, we thought a few jokes might be a playful way to start a piece on “how we spent our summer vacation.” Despite rumors and myths about ‘time off,’ it is more honest to say that teachers use June, July and August to participate in professional development, to sign-up for pedagogical workshops, and to enroll in courses at local colleges and universities. For many, summer months mean the busy season, including most of us who work with National Writing Project sites.  

​We’ve adopted a 4-rule policy, however, to make it seem like we’re actually on summer vacation: (1) Read everyday, (2) Write everyday, (3) Talk everyday, and most importantly (4) Have FUN! It’s summer, after all! Our priority is to have a no bummer summer while spending a ‘vacation’ fine-tuning instructional practices. From June until August, the Connecticut Writing Project at Fairfield University hosts a traditional writing institute for teachers, part of the NWP tradition that has been named as a transformative experience (Whitney, 2008) and highly effective professional development (Applebee & Langer, 2013; Darling-Hammond, 2017). Unique to our site, however, are the creation of Young Adult Literacy Labs, one and two-week summer writing opportunities for young people that are genre and/or interest focused. These labs are designed to help young people achieve written outcomes during the summer months. In previous years, we hosted a two-week writing camp where multiple genres were blended in a very short time, but in 2014 we conducted a formative experiment (Reinking & Bradley, 2008) and asked ourselves, “What would happen if we redesigned summer programs, allowing teachers who participate in our summer institute for teaching writing to learn alongside youth attending Young Adult Literacy Labs?” The result has been Little Lab for Big Imaginations (3rd-5th grade), Sports Writing (6th-8th), Novel Writing I - Character Matters and Novel Writing II - Plot Matters (6th-8th, 9th-12th), Who Do You Think You Are? The College Essay and Other Narrative Writing (9th-12th) and Project Citizen - Writing For Change (9th-12th). We also initiated Ubuntu Academy, a two-week literacy lab for immigrant and refugee youth (9th-12th) (Crandall, 2017).

Additionally, we asked ourselves, “What if we added more young adult literature into summer programs?” Our site Director, Bryan, attended two Young Adult Literature Conferences hosted by Steven Bickmore where he led a seminar on refugee narratives in young adult literature and another on exploring the potential of YA books to enhance NWP goals. Through interaction with YA Lit scholars, teachers, and writers during these conferences, he returned to Connecticut with an inspired vision to use more young adult literature in CWP-Fairfield’s programs.

The formative experiment resulted in a re-energizing of our summer work, including intentional use of YA texts to promote relevant writing instruction with youth participants. The Young Adult Literacy Labs now average 200 young people each summer (no bummer there), with over half receiving full or partial scholarships. The teachers who participate in our summer institute for teaching writing, too, have several opportunities to work alongside young people in the literacy labs. All are published in our anthology, POW! Power of Words, the collection of our best summer writing.

Throughout the work we reflect through a lens of Writing Activity Genre Research (Russell, 2009) and Ubuntu, the S. African Bantu philosophy for togetherness and community (Caracciolo & Mungai, 2009; Swanson, 2007). We explore how young adult literature, a tool, helps us to build innovative writing communities. In the words of Swanson (2007), “Ubuntu is recognized as the African philosophy of humanism, linking the individual to the collective through ‘brotherhood’ or ‘sisterhood’”(p. 55). A writer becomes a writer, we believe, when he/she feels part of a larger writing community. The literacy labs are designed as democratic spaces to promote togetherness and collaboration. That is why we’ve been intentional with the use of young adult literature.

​For the last two years, Young Adult texts have helped us to enhance our Young Adult Literacy Labs, especially Project Citizen and Ubuntu Academy. Project Citizen is a summer program for argumentation and activism, and was intentionally designed for diverse demographics. Ubuntu Academy is our literacy lab to promote English language learning for newly arrived students. We select YA books that we predict will have a wide appeal among our young writers, but those with much instructional potential. We host Project Citizen,Ubuntu Academy and a summer writing institute for teachers simultaneously so there will be numerous opportunities to collaborate. We also use copies of chosen texts to model possible writing and to initiate conversations between teachers and youth. During the labs, we schedule events so that young people and teachers can interact with one another without the traditional hierarchy of school. Our end-goal is for everyone to achieve a written outcome for publication, and the young adult novels are our catalyst for conversation, interaction, and instruction.

​In 2014, the 1st year of CWP-Fairfield’s redesign, Bryan asked Jessica, then a graduate student, to collaborate on a literacy lab for English language learners called Ubuntu Academy. Bryan found success using texts by Kwame Alexander while leading professional development in K-12 schools and speculated The Crossover might be great to use with beginning writers of English. Alexander’s poetic style offered digestible mini-lessons, especially in regard to vocabulary and word-play. For example, Alexander’s “As In” poems were analyzed while teachers challenged students to write their own. Remy, a high school sophomore from Democratic Republic of Congo, wrote:

Ubuntu
/ʊˈbʊntu/
noun
An African philosophy that means,
“I can be me because of who we are together.”
Don’t think about your own self; think about others.
Treat others as you want to be treated.
 
As in, working together in a team with friends,
because we can achieve our goals to
change the world more easily.
 
As in, a group of unique men and women from different backgrounds
who speak different languages, but who have the same goals.
 
As in, using communication to practice English language
and to get along, get to know, and understand
each other while making new friends.

Through the poetic narration of Alexander’s Josh Bell, young people attending Ubuntu Academy were also prompted to write their own narratives. Simon, a 10th grade student from Rwanda, for example, wrote an autobiography and penned:

I miss my teachers. I miss hunting rabbits in the forest. I would go to the market and sell the rabbits for money. I miss the food from Rwanda, too, like Maize and beans, but in the USA there are only beans. I miss Rwanda, my friends, my school and the people. I miss my Uncle Safi because he gave me money to go to the market for gum and candies. I would swim in the Lake Kevu with my friends Azali, Sabi, & Claude. I miss the mangoes, cassava, potatoes, and juice.
​
Simon’s autobiography, as well as Remy’s poem, resulted from opportunities to read The Crossover and to think about Alexander’s craft. As new writers of the English language, participants benefited from writing instruction during Ubuntu Academy, especially in terms of style and language used by the author. Reading like writers, enhanced their written outcomes.

Since 2014, Ubuntu Academy has enrolled over 122 young people from Vietnam, Ecuador, Bangladesh, Benin, Eritrea, Haiti, Guatemala, Tanzania, Sudan, Honduras, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi. William King, an ESL teacher who works with many of these young people during the school year, has found ways to use the summer reading as a carryover into his school year. William shares, “Using engaging texts, like Outcasts United, has been my way of meeting students where they are. Through reading such work with them, they teach me what I need to know. In turn, I provide them new opportunities and safe spaces for intellectual growth.” In the last few years, young writers in Ubuntu Academy have advanced their language skills through reading Alexander’s Booked (2016) and Rebound (2018), as well as Warren St. John’s Outcasts United (2009). Another influential text was Katherine Applegate’s Home of the Brave (2007), a narrative, like Alexander’s, told in poetic form. We used Applegate’s book as a collaborative tool between Fairfield University Art Museum and participant’s in our program. Teachers in the summer institute, as well as youth in Ubuntu Academy, discussed Applegate’s poems in relation to Rick Shaefer’s Refugee Trilogy, the art exhibit that debuted at Fairfield University the following semester. Ubuntu youth and summer institute teachers wrote in response to Home of the Brave and recorded their writing into podcasts. These podcasts could then be heard by museum patrons while viewing Shaefer’s artwork at Fairfield University.

​One of the poems resulting from this collaboration was “I Wish” by Akbaru Niyonkuru, a Burundi youth who grew up in a Tanzanian refugee camp. In his poem, Akbaru wrote, “I make a wish / My wish should touch only the ones it concerns / I wish only you and I would heal the world / I wish we would grow wise and worldly / That no one could be wounded.” The poem was heard by singer Frederick Johnson and pianist Daniel Kelly, and improvised into a musical collaboration, as well.

Akbaru’s writing was the outcome of a YA text, the sharing of lived experiences between teachers and youth, and and the intentional creation of building community between artists, writers, learners and educators.
​
Ubuntu Academy benefited from the adoption of YA texts, especially those written in verse, and texts depicting relocation stories (for additional texts, see The Tired. The Poor. The Hungry from January 29, 2017). Such literature has provided a foundation for the lessons we create, the vocabulary we share, the genres we promote, and the self-esteem we hope to build. The opportunity to explore YA texts during summer months also helps us to celebrate YA literature with colleagues in our individual school districts. Sharing writing achieved by youth during the summer is great evidence for the power of using such books during the school year.

In 2014, Shaun Mitchell envisioned  a young adult literacy lab for promoting student activists, which quickly became Project Citizen. The goal of Project Citizen is to guide young people to find an issue they are passionate about and, through research, inquiry and self-exploration, suggest solutions in their writing. In the first years, OpEds and newspaper articles were primary mentor texts as Shaun collaborated with Brynn who taught in a journalism lab. In 2017, however, after National Writing Project investment in our summer work, Project Citizen grew into a two-week young adult literacy lab that provides space to introduce newly released young adult novels, as well. Over the last two years, Project Citizen has served 52 young people from a wide variety of schools in urban, suburban and rural settings, including 9 who traveled to Fairfield University from the Cheyenne River Reservation in S. Dakota in partnership with Simply Smiles. Democracy and citizenship are promoted while young writers collaborate on solo and group projects. The writing is posted, too, on a website where they receive feedback from peers across the United States. 

Project Citizen first benefited from knowledge gained from an LRNG Educator Innovator Award funded by John Legend, the MacArthur Foundation and NWP.  We Too Are Connecticut: Digital Ubuntu with Matt de la Peña’s We Were Here, a yearlong collaboration between teachers from six high schools, taught us how unifying a young adult novel can be amongst diverse readers (Crandall, et. al, 2018). Kim and Shaun, who participated in the LRNG Award, wished to highlight other young adult novels during Project Citizen in the same way they used We Were Here in their classrooms. For the first year, we chose Solo by Kwame Alexander and Mary Rand Hess, and Flying Lessons and Other Stories, edited by Ellen Oh, that featured Kwame Alexander, Matt de la Peña, Jacqueline Woodson, Soman Chainani, Grace Lin, Walter Dean Myers, Tim Federle, Meg Medina, Tim Tingle and Kelly Baptist. We encouraged 26 young people to ‘go solo’ with new writing as they offered ‘flying lessons’ on issues they felt important to them. The young people created memes, too, that were posted on social media (e.g., #ProjectCitizen @CWPFairfield) in anticipation of Solo’s publication later that summer.

Use of Solo and Flying Lessons & Other Stories resulted in a diversity of writing. Because we recognize the danger of a single story (Adichie, 2009), we highlighted professional writers’ different styles and modeled multiple ways the authors communicated and argued in their writing. We looked into the #WeNeedDiverseBooks movement, as well, and some writers, like Ashanti, a young woman from the Cheyenne River Reservation, wrote OpEds. In “The Status of the Lakota Language,” she crafted:

Our language is in danger. Not only are Lakota speakers becoming fewer in number, they are also becoming older. In 1993, the median age for a Lakota speaker was over 50 years old and the existing speakers are dying and not being replaced by new Lakota-speaking generations. According to one analysis, the language stopped being transmitted during the mid-1950s. The effort to reverse this language shift relies on creating a new generation of Lakota speakers while there are still native speakers available to be teachers.

Ashanti’s writing demonstrates her research, her awareness of audience and her desire to educate others, the learning objectives instructors highlighted while reading the YA texts. The sharing of diverse stories helped us to provide a safe writing community for Ashanti and the others to realize their stories matter, too.

Other writers in Project Citizen composed personal essays. Nathaniel, an urban school 10th grader, for example, wrote in Immigrant Boy:

This is the story of my Abuela, Georgina Martinez, an American citizen. Before she became an American citizen, she was just an immigrant who came from the Dominican Republic. She didn't grow up with much. Her parents owned a shop that sold fresh fruits and vegetables. She was the oldest of four children. She had two daughters in the Dominican Republic and was living an okay life, but wanted more – not for herself, but for her kids. She wanted a better future for them, better than the life she lived. She didn't want them to struggle like she and her family did. They were poor and barely had enough money to make it to the next day.

In his ‘flying lesson,’ Nathaniel recalled the impact his Grandmother had on his life. Reading stories crafted by diverse professional writers opened the doorway for him to find his own story to share. Others, like Kemoy and Michael, one an African American 10th grader from an urban school and the other a White American 10th grader from a suburban school, wrote collaboratively. With influence from Alexander and Hess’s Solo, they penned a two-voice poem called, “In The Eyes of Their Nation,” which included,
 
(K): In the eyes of our nation,
I have to be the
Strongest
 
(M): In the eyes of our nation,
I’m not meant to be an
Artist
 
(K): In the eyes of our nation,
(M): Mainstream media is labeled as
(Both): Fake news
 
(M): In the eyes of our nation,
(K): Our success is determined by
(Both): Hues
 
(M): In the eyes of our nation,
(K): Black folks are dropping like
(Both): Rain
 
(K): In the eyes of our nation,
(M): The government doesn’t care about our
(Both): Pain
 
(K): In the eyes of our nation,
(M): There’s no time for the impoverished to
(Both): Shine
 
(M): In the eyes of our nation,
(K): It’s okay for indigenous land to be taken by a
(Both): Pipeline
 
The collaborative writing achieved instructional goals we had for Project Citizen to unite young people from multiple communities. Reading Solo and Flying Lessons & Other Stories also helped us to initiate dialogue to assist our writers to locate their own personal writing projects (within the genres that appealed to them the most).

Perhaps the best indicator for the success of Project Citizen, year one, was revealed through a collaborative song composed between Luca, a White-American 12th grader, Akbaru, a Burundi-American 11th grader, Lambert, an 11th grade participant in Ubuntu Academy and Dave, a high school English teacher who led a hip-hop workshop during Project Citizen. Their collaboration, which mixed voices of participants, used music and poetry to represent the ‘humbled togetherness’ we wished to achieve.

Their collaboration showcased democracy, citizenship and Ubuntu and resulted from reading, discussing and analyzing Solo and Flying Lessons & Other Stories together. Reading multicultural texts, too, helped us to promote diverse writing with our summer participants.

This summer, the 2nd year, Project Citizen worked in partnership with #UNLOAD - Guns in the Hands of Artists, and used Dear Martin by Nic Stone and Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds, two of the many writers scheduled later this fall for the Saugatuck Story Fest, October 12th-14th, including the Hoops Africa: Ubuntu Matters kick-off event on October 11th. Once again, we chose young adult novels we knew would be of high interest and that would help us to connect with an art exhibit. We offered selections from Fresh Ink, an Anthology edited by Lamar Giles, that included Walter Dean Myers, Jason Reynolds, Nicola Yoon, Gene Luen Yang, Aminah Mae Safi, Sara Farizan, Sharon Flake and others. In particular, “Tags,” a script by Walter Dean Myers, provided text where instructors could workshop dialogue and voice, and model how language is meant to be performed. Such technique, for instance, was used by Kaitlyn, Chloe and Savanna, three young women from the Cheyenne River Reservation, who wrote a choral essay called, “We All Have a Story To Tell.” The collaborative writing began:

The topic we chose was teen suicide on Indian Reservations. We decided to do this because it is a problem. Suicide looks very different in Native communities than it does in the general population. Native American youth suicides and attempt rates are at a crisis level. Native Americans carry the outlook that things won’t get better for them. Because of this, suicide on the Indian reservation has increased over the last 30 years. We chose this topic because we have either struggled with it or were affected by it. We all have a story to tell.

As each of the young women collaborated on this essay, the refrain “We all have a story to tell,” united their individual contributions. Kaitlyn, Chloe and Savannah staged a reading of their writing, as well, and shared it with an audience of parents, community members, and peers.

Another resonant moment during the 2nd year of Project Citizen was the endearingly groupie-eseque way in which students posed questions to author Nic Stone about Dear Martin during a Skype session while they shared admiration for her book. Their nervous giggles and earnestly blunt questions oozed of enthusiasm and, subsequently, transformed their reading and, reciprocally, writing experiences. Stone’s generous Skype-visit allowed youth participants to connect with the writing process in a rare way, pulling back the proverbial curtain on process for something they had just devoured by talking to its creator about craft, perspective, audience and purpose. It also demystified and made more accessible the writing process for less confident or veteran composers/poets/etc, as the author offered them sage advice, “You just gotta write.” It is rare for teens to interact with authors of well-known works, and such ‘face-to-face’ time enhanced the written outcomes of participating writers, as Nic Stone’s visit helped to solidify the writing community we desired.

The confluence of Guns in the Hands of Artists, Dear Martin, Long Way Down and Nic Stone’s Skype visit was timely, as school and mass shootings were reported by youth participants as forefront on their minds. Across class, race and culture, gun violence - reflected in the books we chose - became a lightning rod for engagement and was reflected in the writing and performances, too. For example, during an "open mic" reading following a teacher/student workshop in partnership with #UNLoad: Guns in the Hands of Artists, Navontae, an African American 10th grader from an urban high school, wrote "Dear Shooter,” and shared:

Dear shooter, please don’t shoot
Don’t take your anger out on me
Your thoughts in silence lead to gun violence
But don’t take your anger out on me.

He also reported that shootings were “too commonplace” in his community. Similarly, Mila, a 9th grade Puerto Rican female who attends a suburban school, wrote about school shootings in "Goodbye," one of several poems crafted for her yet-to-be-named 1st novel (one inspired by reading Rebound by Kwame Alexander):

It was 9:35; barely through first period,
But after the first shot, he knew that this was serious.
A man was running through the halls,
Kids were hiding in bathroom stalls,
Cradling their friends like dolls,
Tears streaming down faces, like Niagara Falls.
​
Mila, who attends a high school near Sandy Hook, was fueled by youth activists from Stoneman Douglas High School and set out to narrate the effects gun violence has on youth communities like hers through dramatically telling the story of a school shooting in poetic form.

​Similar to year one, too, we found using YA literature in Project Citizen as helpful. The books we chose inspired young people to be ‘fresh’ with their ‘thinking’ and ‘inking,’and offered workable models for them to compose original pieces of writing. They wrote about health care, nationalism, civil rights, immigration, and much more. We continue to be critically reflective about such summer writing as we think about how to better serve adolescent readers and writers with YA texts. We are thankful to authors, however, for helping us to improve our own pedagogical practices through the novels they scripted that young people want to read.

            Joke #4: Why do robots go on summer vacation? They need to recharge their batteries.
            Joke #5: Why don’t mummies go on summer vacations? They are afraid to unwind.
            Joke #6: Where do eggs go on summer vacation? (This is bad) New Yolk City.

​Fairfield University is 60 miles east of New York City, so we relate somewhat to vacationing eggs. During the summer, teachers need to be recharged and many find programs like ours as a means to unwind. CWP-Fairfield’s redesign has allowed us to experiment with new strategies for teaching writing and to put our own writing craft (as well as instruction) to work. Summer provides a space for us to explore young adult literature with a wide range of readers and composers and to think about how these publications can help youth to build their own craft. In short, we are scaffolding writing communities in southern Connecticut and thinking anew about how we collaborate and partner with one another.
           
Two years ago teacher Dave Wooley attended CWP-Fairfield’s summer institute for teaching writing and collaborated with several young people participating in Ubuntu Academy. During the workshop where he looked at Rick Shaefer’s artwork, Dave penned “Walls,” and rapped:

They’re chantin’ build that wall - I’m hearing hate and anger
And the shouts for the wall are getting louder and louder
They wanna build it high, higher than the towers
Higher than the monsters imagination’s empowered,
Please build me a wall, as high as you can!
Makes me wonder what we’re walling out or walling in.
​
Dave also performed the song during a presentation at the National Council of Teachers of English conference in St. Louis, Missouri, a year later.

His verse continues:

We gotta knock down the walls - be a light in the darkness
Putting up walls - only makes you a target
Reaching out your hand seems a whole lot smarter.
​
CWP-Fairfield, through our summer redesign, worked to create democratic spaces for teachers to be reflective of instructional practices, writing pedagogy, writer’s craft and professional collaboration. This, coupled with young adult novels and Young Adult Literacy Labs, however, have begun knocking down the walls that have too often been built to separate youth and teaching communities. With our philosophy of Ubuntu, we are reaching out our hands to one another, finding ways to improve writing instruction, and realizing the power of listening to youth. This is how we spend our summer vacations and what we mean by the no bummer summer. We’re having fun being inspired by young writers attending our programs.

​Alexander, K. (2014). The Crossover. New York: Houghton Mifflin Hartcourt.
Alexander, K. (2016). Booked. New York: HMH Books.
Alexander, K. & Hess, M.R. (2017). Solo. Michigan: Blink
Alexander, K. (2018). Rebound. New York: Houghton Mifflin Hartcourt.
Applegate, K. (2007). Home of the Brave. New York: McMillan.
de la Peña, M.  (2010). We Were Here. New York: Delacore Press.
Giles, L. (2018). Fresh Ink, an Anthology. New York: Crown Books for Young Readers
John, W. S. (2009). Outcasts United; A Refugee Team, an American Town. New York: Spiegel & Grau.
Oh, E. (ed.). (2017). Flying Lessons and Other Stories. New York: Crown Books for Young Readers
Reynolds, J. (2017). Long Way Down. New York: Atheneum
Stone, N. (2017). Dear Martin. New York: Crown Books for Young Readers

Adichie, C. N. (2009). The danger of a single story. TED Talks.  Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.html

Applebee, A. N., & Langer, J. (2013). Writing Instruction That Works: Proven Methods for Middle and High School Classrooms. New York: Teachers College Press.

Caracciolo, D., & Mungai, A. M. (2009). In the Spirit of Ubuntu: Stories of Teaching and Research. Boston: Sense Publishers.

Crandall, B. R., Bedard, K., Fortuna, P., Herzog, K., Mitchell, S., Wahlde, J. v., & Zabilansky, M. (2018). We too are Connecticut: Digital Ubuntu with Matt de la Peña's We Were Here. In J. S. Dail, S. Witte, & S. T. Bickmore (Eds.), Toward a More Visual Literacy: Shifting the Paradigm with Digital Tools and Young Adult Literature. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield.

Crandall, B. R. (2017). Writing with Ubuntu in support of refugee and immigrant youth. English in Texas, 46(2), 12-17.

Darling-Hammond, L., Hyler, M. E., Gardner, M., & Espinoza, D. (2017). Effective Teacher Professional Development. Retrieved from Washington, DC:

Reinking, D., & Bradley, B. (2008). On Formative and Design Experiments. New York: Teachers College Press.

Russell, D. (2009). Uses of activity theory in written communication research. In A. Sannino, H. Daniels, & K. D. Gutiérrez (Eds.), Learning and expanding with Activity Theory (pp. 40-52). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Swanson, D. M. (2009). Where have all the fishes gone? Living Ubuntu as an Ethics of Research and Pedagogical Engagement. In D. Caracciolo & A. M. Mungai (Eds.), In the Spirit of Ubuntu: Stories of Teaching and Research. Boston: Sense Publishers.

Whitney, A. (2008). Teacher transformation in the National Writing Project. Research in the Teaching of English, 43(2), 144-187.

While many of you are working to put finishing touches on a syllabus for your YA class, I am wishing I was teaching a YA class this fall. Alas, not my turn. (I guess they don't know I would probably teach it for free.) Don't worry I am still working on a couple of syllabi for other courses before students arrive next Monday. 

I can't help but think about which books I would include, which books I would book talk, and how I would use the weekend picks  as a ready resource for my students who might be reluctant consumers of YA. (I love what my colleagues have chosen so far this year). I keep thinking about what approach I might take: historical, genre, focusing on awards, including Nonfiction, or making sure they discover YA verse novels. Would I include author studies? Should I introduce pedagogy by including literature circle activities? Should I include films with adolescent themes as I know that Angela Insenga and Angel Daniel Matos will be doing? The possibilities are both endless and intriguing. I am a bit jealous, but I will get over it as I watch what what all of you are doing.

First, I would use my colleague's posts for this blog as a way to start a variety of conversations. Most of these blogs are relatively short, but directly address interesting topics.

Here are five that I think are worth revisiting over and over again.

1. I love Padma Venkatraman's post about verse novels' by a verse novelist. You can find it here. She talks about writing her first verse novel, A Time to Dance and a list of others including Inside Out & Back Again, Crossover, and Brown Girl Dream. The last book is a novel I like so much, that I want to reread every time I think about it. I wrote about it for First Opinions, Second Reactions (a journal everyone should follow) about a year ago and i wish every one felt as strongly about it as I do.

2. This one is a cheat. I have been studying YA syllabi for while. I have seen a lot of great ones. People are doing great work. When I first discovered Anglea Insenga's syllabus in blew me away. She was thinking about things that I hadn't considered and now her ideas are always there. She has written for the blog twice and both are exciting. The first is Between the Bookends: YA and Critical Collaboration and the second is YA in the Wild:  Building Literacy through Humanities-Based Service Learning Projects

3. There are a lot of teaches who struggle to include Shakespeare in their classroom. Most of these teachers love Shakespeare and really do want their students to love him as well. At the same time, very few of them consider including Shakespeare inspired YA as a tool to engage students with the bard. Don't get me wrong, I loved teaching Shakespeare and felt that I did a pretty good job engage students, but I did get them all. Some were clearly disinterested, some were just enduring school, and some were actually readers who couldn't be bothered with my agenda as they just went ahead reading what interested them. If I were back in a classroom and working with Shakespeare, I would definitely use Anne Cramer's post: Too Much Of A Good Thing: A Condensed Version of the World of Shakespeare as a guiding light.

4. Robert Prickett has produced several post for the blog. You can find them on the contributors page. Decide to include Robert here because he has an expertise in YA that I don't have. I am not even close. I think he can suggest YA graphic novels in his sleep. AS illustrated by the wide variety of contributors, we all have different strengths and interests. I can introduce my students to my students, but Robert can inform and inspire graphic novels in a ways that are worth revisiting as you take about this genre. I would start with this one: YA Graphic Mysteries by Robert Prickett and Casey Cothran​​

5. Okay, the last one is selfish. I think we are often overlooking the cross curricular and collaborative possibilities of using YA in the curriculum. For my fifth pick I have selected a post that my social studies colleague, Paul Binford, and I wrote about some of our explorations in the area: Bridging Curricular Silos Through Collaboration. It has been a great journey but there are lot of things we are trying to figure out. 

This coming fall we will be present at 2018 NCTE Annual Convention in Houston, TX,
 
Our session title is: Crossing Selma’s Bridge with Visual Discovery Strategy and Young Adult Literature: Allowing Voices from the Past to Echo in the Present
 
The Panelist will include: Laurie Halse Anderson, Steven Bickmore, Paul Binford, Brendan Kiely, Luke Rumohr, Gretchen Rumohr-Voskuil, Rich Wallace, and Sandra Neil Wallace.  
 
We will be focusing on Anderson’s Seeds of America series, Wallace and Wallace’s Blood Brother, and Kiely and Reynolds’ All American Boys.

I would be remiss if I didn't explain how much our colleague Gretchen Rumohr-Voskuil has helped us in our efforts. Last January, the three of us had an article in the MIddle Grades Review that explores this further. You can download our article, Crossing Selma's Bridge: Integrating Visual Discovery Strategy and Young Adult Literature to Promote Dialogue and Understanding, here.

Second, there are some new books that I would share with my students. Several of these are getting good traction, but a few need more attention. 

Jeff Zetner's Good Bye Days This book is beautiful as it explores friendship and grief.

Mary H. K. Choi's Emergency Contact This debut novel grabbed me from the beginning. I blazed through it.

A. S. King's I Crawl Through It.  I am not sure I can explain why I love this book. I do know I was thrilled when I heard that my colleague, Sharon Kane, is using this novel a full class read to start her YA course this fall. You see, I am jealous. 

Peter Brown Hoffmeister's Too Shattered for Mending. News flash!! This book is not to be missed. I find myself suggesting this books all summer to people who have been asking me about what new. Really this book is amazing.

Nic Stone's Dear Martin. Okay, I get The Hate U Give, but with all the apologies I can muster, I keep returning to Dear Martin.

Julius Lester's Day of Tears and To Be a Slave. Julius passed this year and we should not forget his contribution to children's and YA literature.

Dashka Slater's The 57 Bus. This is one of those true stories that really helps us show students the value of a variety of genres.

E. K. Johnston's Pursued by a Bear. Shakespeare, Yo!

Elizabeth Partridge's Boots on the Ground. Honor and respect. These book does a great deal for Veterans and joins of host of YA books--fiction and nonfiction.

To conclude, I want to make it clear that I think there a host of other post on Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday blog that would make a great contributions to a YA course. Last fall, we started almost every class with a common reading of one of the post. It was a great way to introduce a genre, a theoretical lens, an author, or a theme. It was also a quick way to introduce students to scholars and teachers who are researching and teaching young adult literature. They quickly begin to realize that the YA community is vibrant, innovative, creative, and robust.  

Thanks for letting me think a just a little bit about a potential YA course. Since I won't be teaching it, I am focusing on get to NCTE and the ALAN workshop this November. I hope to see you there. I am looking forward to hearing how you constructed your courses.

​Until next week.

This week Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday gets the benefit of another scholar who presented at the YA Summit. Dr. Alice Hays provides some wonderful insight about one of the topics she passionately pursues. Dr. Hays carefully outlines how she works to engage students social activism.

As we are gearing up to begin school (or already facing week 3 of looking at your fresh-faced, bright-eyed students,) you may be thinking about how you can engage your students or get them to take a more active role in their education. One way to do this is to shift the dynamic of the classroom to a more student-centered one that may result in getting the students to work harder than you in the long run.
 
Six years ago, I realized my senior composition course had become stale. I taught the assignments as isolated writing types and as a result, it had become a skill-based course in which none of us (teacher or students) were engaged.  This lead me to ponder how I might shift the dynamics of the classroom.
 
I attended a symposium where I heard about someone who focused their writing course on following the journey of a students' t-shirts. While the book they used wasn’t YA (Where Am I Wearing, by Kelsey Timmerman), it was accessible for students and encouraged them to think about the global impact of their choices. I thought it was a brilliant idea. I wasn’t sure that all my students would be as interested in the same thing, though, and I wanted to provide as much choice as I possibly could. When I thought about what I really wanted my students to learn, I realized that beyond becoming better writers and researchers, I wanted them to be prepared to make a difference in the world.  As a result, I decided to center my course around activism. I tied all of our learning goals to this idea of preparing my students to become active citizens within our society. We wrote narratives on our involvement with a social issue, we researched social issues, we gave speeches about our social issues to our class, to the school and to the community. The final project was for each student to develop an action plan addressing the issue they learned about throughout the year. Students then carried out their plan to the best of their abilities. 

That senior composition course was more successful than any I’d taught prior to that semester, and I realized my students were hungry to complete authentic assignments, make a difference in the world around them, and have a sense of control over where they focused their attention. Fast forward three years and I found myself guiding other teachers in this curriculum with a new and exciting twist – the addition of young adult literature.
 
I am fortunate to work with several teachers in both middle school and high school who allowed me to come into their classroom and share my love of activist oriented curriculum with their students. These teachers have used this approach as full semester projects, as well as short-term projects. They all gave their students the opportunity to choose their research topics, time to read relevant novels in small groups, and a chance to develop (and sometimes implement) action plans to address the social justice issue they researched. The addition of young adult literature allowed students with little experience with the issue to develop a stronger sense of identification and empathy for the problem, while allowing students with experience in the issue to see that they were not alone.

Some of the issues that the students focused on included immigration, refugees, racism, religious discrimination, environmentalism, poverty, mental illness and abuse. The books that we used follow. 

All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely focuses on parallel narratives of two boys who share similarities, but are initially placed on opposite sides of a racism/police brutality issue.  Rashad is the victim of a brutal beating by a police officer due to a minor collision followed by a false accusation by a store owner. Quinn is the young man who witnesses the beating, and recognizes that his best friend’s older brother is out of control. The story follows both of their stories as they figure out what their role is within this situation, and how each one of them needs to come to terms with the way they must stand up and say something regarding the situation.  This novel is particularly powerful in that it is an acknowledgement of the pain behind the racism some of your students may have experienced, and gives them an opportunity to share and discuss their experiences. This novel also allows students who may not believe that racism exists (or that victims of police brutality have somehow brought it upon themselves) to enter the space gradually, which may prevent them from putting up defenses to the overall message.  Students who read this novel completed action plans that included putting posters around school, creating a mini-documentary of racist experiences their peers had, and traveling to various classes to show and discuss the realities of racism in the community. 
​

Does My Head Look Big In This  by Randa Abdel-Fattah explores a young woman’s decision to begin to wear her hijab after winter break, exploring issues of religious freedom. This 16-year-old girl realizes that it will be difficult to walk into school wearing this expression of faith so openly, and even her parents are concerned for her decision. Ultimately, she decides to do it, and the novel explores the surprising and not-so-surprising reactions of people within her community. Students who read this book drew connections between their own faith and hers, and were cognizant of the fact that they appreciated their ability to demonstrate their faith in fairly external ways and felt that this same level of equality should be extended to all religions. These projects remained focused on spreading awareness through Twitter pages and Wix websites.  If you are interested in discussion questions for this book, the Multnomah County Library has created a set of discussion questions here: https://multcolib.org/does-my-head-look-big
​

Openly Straight by Bill Konigsberg is a book that twists the typical LGBTQ coming out story upside down. In this book, Rafe is sick and tired of being the token gay kid at school. He has extremely supportive parents, and everyone at his fairly liberal Colorado high school accepts him for who he is, but he is tired of having to be the voice for every gay kid in existence. He persuades his parents to let him travel across the country to attend a boarding school where he presents himself as straight. The novel is both humorous yet painful, as you experience Rafe’s struggle with hiding who he truly is. Students who read this book developed a deeper understanding of some of the difficulties of being LGBTQ in a heteronormative society, even if they had already been an LGBTQ ally.  Projects completed by students who read this book included starting the Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) club on campus and creating a magazine focused around the documentary-style interview of a transgendered wrestler from the school. 

​Kingsley by Carolyn O’Neal is an environmental issue based novel, which is focused on the experiences of 14-year-old Kingsley, who is the last boy who was ever born on Earth. This dystopian novel is focused on the events that occur after the final bee colony has collapsed, and there is now a virus that is attacking the Y-Chromosome. While the book is much more dense in terms of the writing style and vocabulary  than the other books in this grouping, the students who chose to read it were not put off by its relative difficulty.  The projects proposed for this novel included raising awareness, with an emphasis on planting trees as well as creating a community “bee garden”. 

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell was the novel read by students who chose poverty as the issue they were interested in addressing.  In this novel, Eleanor is somewhat of a social misfit who struggles to fit in. When she is ostracized by others on the school bus, Park reluctantly lets her sit by him. The two of them strike up a relationship, and over the course of the novel, Park realizes that this girl is experiencing poverty, and he questions whether he can help her to overcome this issue. The students who read this book are exposed to the concept of poverty indirectly, which may allow them to more deeply empathize with the awkward Eleanor and her struggles before brushing her off as too different from them. Students who read this book focused on spreading awareness about poverty or volunteered at charitable organizations such as the United Food Bank. 

​It’s Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini focuses on mental illness and is a semi-autobiographical novel written over the course of one month, after Vizzini was released from a mental institution. In this book, Craig Gilner checks himself into a mental institution after considering suicide. Craig struggles with pressures to be successful in his highly competitive prep school, coupled with friends who just don’t get it. He turns to art as a means of coping and discovers a few things about himself.  This book has been interesting in that everyone I’ve interviewed who chose this book, or one about mental illness, has confessed to struggling with their own issues. This is a powerful book that ends with hope, although I do have some concerns that students who research Vizzini may become discouraged at the fact that he did ultimately commit suicide years later. In discussing this with students, however, they do not seem to be as bothered by it. It may be that it is validation that mental health must continually be nurtured, and it is not a one-time fix issue. Students who chose this issue tended to focus on spreading awareness of facts about depression or mental illness or sharing resources for people who might need this help. 

The Good Braider by Terry Farish depicts the travels of a refugee, Viola, and her mother, from South Sudan to Cairo and then to Portland, Maine. The novel manages to convey the critical necessity behind why they left their home without being overly graphic, and explores the struggles Viola faces as they begin their journey as refugees.  The plot spends quite a bit of time in a refugee camp, an experience that is often glossed over in American news narratives and can be eye opening for many students. Farish’s writing allows students to more fully understand an experience that they may be completely unfamiliar with. Students who read this book focused on projects that included working with charitable organizations, and one student hosted a pots and pan drive for refugees in her community. 

​Chinese Handcuffs by Chris Crutcher focuses on abuse of all types. Chris Crutcher draws on his experience as a family therapist to create characters who are realistic and who are dealing with the nitty gritty details of trauma such as incest, rape, suicide and emotional abuse. While this book is graphic and somewhat difficult to get through, it is important to note that Chris Crutcher has written his books to provide a mirror for students who have been through those situations in order to let them know that they are not alone.  In this particular book, Dillon Hemmingway is a 16-year-old athlete who is a kind person, but is dealing with his brother’s unexpected suicide. He is also dealing with his attraction to his friend, but is confused by her sudden change in behavior, which the reader later discovers is a result of sexual and domestic abuse.  An interesting reaction one student had in reading this was that she could understand how some people might find solace in drugs or alcohol if their lives were that bad, whereas previously she couldn’t understand why anyone would touch those things. It was an unexpected form of empathy for people that she had previously judged.  Students who have read this book have tended to focus on projects that spread awareness of the issues to people who may not understand these various types of abuse. Additionally, they often focus on creating websites as resources for students who may need help in dealing with any of the types of issues encountered in the book. 

​The Circuit by Francisco Jimenez is a semi-autobiographical piece and is an incredibly powerful book to share with students who are interested in immigration issues.  In this first book, Francisco describes his journey to America, and the struggles his family endured to survive. He spends quite a bit of time discussing his experiences in education, and students who have had their own language struggles, or their own immigration experiences will see themselves reflected in this story. Those students with no real understanding of immigration beyond the inflammatory rhetoric in the news will get an opportunity to see the humanity behind the rhetoric through this child’s story.  Students who have read The Circuit have focused on raising school supplies for students like Francisco, or on providing more English Language Learner support at their schools. 

​The following books were ones that have been utilized for 7th graders. While the students read the books and conducted research on their issues, most of them did not conduct action plans as the high school students did, although the discussions they had from the book were powerful. 

Stella by Starlight by Sharon Draper focuses on racism. This novel is set immediately following Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s election and the KKK makes an appearance in their sleepy town, causing a great deal of fear for Stella and her family. Sharon Draper writes about the segregation they experience in a straightforward realistic manner, which is important for young readers’ understanding. Throughout the novel, Stella realizes that writing may be one of her powers to help her get through the evil she and her family are experiencing. Students who read this book indicated that the book was powerful and inspired them to want to take action to stop racism. 

​It Ain’t So Awful, Falafel by Firoozeh Dumas focuses on Cindy, who has moved to California from Iran to avoid political upheaval. The novel is set in the 1970’s and is an interesting exploration of the inner turmoil experienced by this family as their home country is turned upside down while they are simultaneously unable to fully fit into their new country. While Cindy’s tale is well written, younger students may not have a frame of reference for the Iranian upheaval to make an in-depth connection with the story, although there is certainly room to draw comparisons. 

Hoot by Carl Hiaasen is an ecological mystery novel that centers on a family of endangered miniature owls whose home is at threat of being destroyed by Mother Paula’s All-American Pancake house. The main character, Rob, is a boy who recently moved to a new school, and in trying to avoid a bully, he ends up meeting his two new friends who join him in their thrilling adventure to try to save the owls.  Interestingly, the students I interviewed had chosen the environment as their chosen social justice issue, and they did not feel like this was about the environment. In choosing a book for students who are interested in the environment as a social justice issue, it might be important to clarify if they are interested in a book like this that deals with animal rights, or if they are wanting something that deals more with the actual climate.  Carl Hiaasen has also written Flush, which deals with water pollution, and might be a better choice for some students.  

​Crenshaw by Katherine Applegate deals with poverty and homelessness through the narrator, Jackson, and his imaginary cat friend, Crenshaw. This book elegantly depicts the human faces behind the people on the street corner and shows how families are not immune from losing everything, no matter how loving or decent they are. Jackson copes with the poverty by relying on Crenshaw for emotional support. This book will give students an opportunity to live through the experiences of this family in and out of homelessness while being able to relate many of their typical family issues to themselves. This book is appropriate for students as low as 4th grade, although the 7th graders who read this novel did enjoy reading it, because they could relate to the situations depicted, and the relationships between the son and father in the book. 

​Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus by Dusti Bowling deals with physical disabilities, and to a lesser extent bullying. This book was selected from a list of books that deal with mental illness, although there are only brief mentions of anxiety in the book.  In this book the protagonist, Aven, enjoys telling people that she lost her arms in any number of ridiculous ways, such as losing her arms in an alligator wrestling match. In truth, she was born without them, and has learned how to cope quite efficiently. She ends up at a new junior high, and meets two other students who are also struggling with their own issues that cause them to feel like outcasts. Together, the three of them solve a mystery and find friendship. Through their combined disabilities, they grow stronger together. While we originally read this book for mental illness issues, the students took a sense of empowerment away from their reading. They focused on the bullying and admired the way that Arven and her friends bonded together to fight off the issues. 

​Ghost by Jason Reynolds is the first in a series of books that focuses on a group of kids who make a middle school track team. In this book, Ghost began running when he ran away from his father who was trying to shoot him and [his mother? His brothers?] in the street, but over time, he began to be the one causing his own troubles. His coach is determined to keep Ghost from throwing away his shot at success and works to help Ghost escape the abuse he is trying to run from. 

This list of books is not exhaustive, and the topics of books that you might use should come from the issues that your students identify as important and needing to be addressed. There are two important things to consider with using young adult literature for social activism. One is that the reader be able to identify in some way with the characters, which makes YAL much more powerful than nonfiction research on its own. The second thing that students identified as much more important than just reading was actually being asked to identify an action they might take.
 
As I reflect on my own quest to create a more active and student-centered classroom, I am grateful that I gave myself and my students permission to break out of our traditional approach. Seeing my students come alive when they presented their findings, and get involved in the community was more of a reward than any set of A papers had ever been. It is my hope that you, too, have a positive experience with curriculum like this.
 
Whatever you choose to do, I hope you have a fabulous school year!
 

This week Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday has another contribution from Lesley Roessing. Lesley is an abundant source of all kinds of information on YA Literature. I am constantly amazed at her knowledge and how brilliantly she groups YA books around a topic. This is a follow up post to a contribution she did last December about Bullying. There are references to it in her post, but you can read it here if you like.

Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior among school-aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. A type of youth violence that threatens young people’s well-being, bullying can result in physical injuries, social and emotional problems, and academic problems. The harmful effects of bullying are frequently felt by not only the victims, but friends and families, and can hurt the overall health and safety of schools, neighborhoods, and society. A young person can be a perpetrator, a victim, or both. Even youth who have observed but not participated in bullying behavior report significantly more feelings of helplessness and less sense of connectedness and support from responsible adults (parents/schools) than youth who have not witnessed bullying behavior.

According to stopbullying.gov, a federal government website managed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, there are two modes of bullying: direct and indirect (spreading rumors), and there are four types of bullying: physical, verbal, relational, and damage to property. The newest type of bullying is electronic bullying or cyberbullying. According to the National Center for Education Statistics and Bureau of Justice Statistics, 28% of U.S. students in grades 6–12 experienced bullying. In surveys, 30% of young people admit to bullying others. 

Adolescent suicide is now the second leading cause of death of young people of age 10-24 (“10 Leading Causes of Death by Age Group, United States–2016,“ National Vital Statistics System, National Center for Health Statistics, CDC). The CDC cites studies that have shown that youth who report frequently bullying others and youth who report being frequently bullied are at increased risk for suicide-related behavior. Youth who report both bullying others and being bullied have the highest risk for suicide-related behavior of any groups that report involvement in bullying. While bullying may not be the sole cause of suicide, the bottom-line of current research findings is that being involved in bullying in any way—as a person who bullies, a person who is bullied, or a person who both bullies and is bullied is one of several important risk factors that appears to increase the risk of suicide among youth.

​On December 4, 20117, I wrote about this critical issue and reviewed and recommended 15 MG/YA novels.  The novels I highlighted are in the slide show below and you can read the post here.

As I stated then, it is vital that adolescents experience bullying and the effects of bullying, not in real life, but through novels. it is imperative that students, especially middle grade students, read novels about bullying to open conversations about this important topic and to discuss bullies, victims, bystanders, and upstanders, and the ongoing shifts among these roles. Novels can generate important conversations that adolescents need to hold and share truths that they need to know; stories can provide not only a mirror to those who are similar to them—or have faced similar situations—but also windows into those they may view as different from them. But, even more significantly, these novels can serve as maps to guide adolescents in working through conflicts and challenges and maps to help them navigate when they may become lost. Novels can help readers gain knowledge of themselves and empathy for others. 
 
I share eleven additional novels—in no particular order—that present bullying from a variety of perspectives—victim, bully, and bully-victim—and portray a variety of types of bullying. 

​Bullying is not a problem only in the United States. As Holly Thompson so powerfully and effectively portrayed female bullying—bullying by exclusion, spreading rumors, and meanness ("Mean Girls")—in her verse novel Orchards (reviewed in my December 4 blog), she portrays the more physical and verbal abusive bullying of males in Falling into the Dragon’s Mouth.

Jason Parker is a sixth grade American boy living and attending school in Japan where he is different—and bullied for being different. He has redefined “friend” as anyone who doesn’t punch or kick him or refer to him as a “stinking foreigner.” Near the end of the school year Jason is placed in a group, or han, with five of the meanest kids in the class. What follows is relentless bullying, and the reader sees the importance of telling an adult, but not just any adult. The teacher has to be aware of what is going on, and Jason is afraid that his parents will make it worse. He is hoping to last until his parents can afford to send him to the international school.

With the support of his little sister, two new friends outside school—an older man with Parkinson’s disease and a teen who quit school because of the bullying, his English group, and aikido, Jason perseveres until the bullies “play” the choking game and Jason’s parents and the school finally become involved. Jason’s aikido instructor explains “…we need to train so that we sense danger in order to avoid it” but also warns him “the world is full of all kinds of people and some of them are a bit lost” (308-309).

In short lyrical free-verse lines, the reader learns about Japanese culture but also the trials of being perceived as different in any culture. The reader experiences the effects of bullying on children and the importance of effectively stopping and preventing bullying but also becomes aware of the dilemmas involved with trying to end bullying. I found myself frustrated that Jason did not tell his parents, but then I am an adult. I also was disturbed that his teacher ignored all the signs, but I have learned that this is too often true. In fact, Jason wants to change the rule that allows teachers to hit students.

An effective student examination of bullying would be for a class to read both Orchards and Falling into the Dragon’s Mouth to gain different perspectives and begin conversations on the different types of bullying, or for half a class to read each one or to combine these novels with other books on bullying that I reviewed in “Books to Begin.

​Can anyone, even a brutal bully, start over? In Restart I met a new favorite character—Chase Ambrosea, at least the new Chase Ambrosea. The eighth grade MVP football player fell off his roof and suffered from a concussion—and amnesia. The “new” Chase is a nice guy who plays Barbies with his 4-year-old half-sister and volunteers at the senior citizens’ home. When he returns to school, becomes a valuable member of the video club, and begins making new friends, he finds, to his horror, that the "old" Chase was not just a bully, he was the Head Bully; one boy even had to change schools to avoid him. His new video-nerd friends are some of the kids he bullied the most.

After a particularly vicious prank, pulled with his best friends, fellow football team members Aaron and Bear, he was given community service as a punishment (which is how he became involved with the senior citizens he now helps voluntarily). Surprisingly his father approves of Bully Chase and is disappointed that his concussion prevents him from playing football.

As Chase navigates his “new” world, he is worried that he might slip back into old habits and that he won’t be able to convince his new friends and his step-family that he really has changed. He finds that he might still have to pay for who he was and figure out who he will be able to become. I read this well-written novel straight through, worrying that it might be too late for Chase to be accepted for who he now is.

​“So hit me with your best challenge for spreading kindness…. A challenge that helps people relate to people…. Share a little piece of yourself, like I did, and let us get to know and love you.” (238) These final words from Danny, a boy who suffered and died from progeria, guide Flint and McKell in their search for acceptance and belief in themselves.
 
Flint, nicknamed Squint because he has an eye disease that compromises his eyesight, has two goals: to win a comic book contest and make friends in middle school. McKell is a new student from a school where she had few friends. In Flint’s school she hangs out with the popular kids who bully Squint. But McKell befriends Squint, and they encourage each other, following her brother’s Danny’s video challenges, to attempt something new and follow their passions. When Squint adds a female superhero hero, Diamond, to aid his comic hero also named Squint, he supports McKell in overcoming her fear of sharing her talent. As they step out of their comfort zones, Squint confronts his bullies and finds that relationships are not always what you think they are.
 
This is a powerful novel about trust in others and trust in oneself and about adolescents learning to be themselves as they navigate middle school with all its rules. I was hoping for some comics (graphics) to go along with the story, but the Squint does share the text of his comic book as he creates it.

​There seem to be more books about boy bullies than girl bullying. Female adolescent bullying is different—it is a bullying of exclusion, manipulation, and rumors. What I loved about this novel is that it does NOT follow the expected plot arc—mean girl becomes a loser and is disrespected and insulted by her former friends; the nerds support her, and she sees the light and changes, dropping the popular kids forever. Neither is it the opposite. But, like middle school, it is somewhere in between; the story is nuanced as is adolescence.

Kacey is a bully. She does not see herself s a bully or even as a mean girl; she sees herself as honest, as knowing what everyone should say, do, and wear, and she is just there to help them or help them get real. "The truth may hurt, but it's always better to know"(189). Her world as school leader falls apart when an eye infection leaves her with glasses and new braces leave her—a school news reporter and star of the musical—with a lisp. Her best friends drop her and cyber bully her and while an old friend offers to help, it is to receive help herself, having decided in fifth grade that she was embarrassed to be seen with Kacey (which is not how Kacey remembers the end of the friendship). And the cute nerd seems to be dating her former best friend. Kacey reclaims her popularity, but takes responsibility for herself and her past actions.

​Somehow, in Runt, author Nora Raleigh Baskin gets inside the head of members of class of sixth graders, kids who two years prior invited everyone to their parties. The reader follows the ongoing individual stories of these students and their intersecting lives. In this novel Baskin draws parallels between sixth grade behaviors and the behaviors of dogs, specifically the dogs boarded by one of the students, Elizabeth. This is not a story with an ending but an ongoing saga that plays itself out in middle schools across the country. As Freida concludes in her report on crimes and punishments in ancient times, “And in modern times, of course, there are all sorts of safe and creative punishments for people who try to step out of their ascribed social standing. No one, however—not Moses, not Hammurabi—could have predicted middle school.” (15)
 
As the students in this novel’s middle school bully each other, are aghast or sometimes proud of their attempts, become bullies and are bullied, they each deal with bullies and the effects of bullying. Elizabeth ruminates on the effect of her unintended bullying of a scared little dog who now shakes at her approach, “There are some kids of hurt that are just too much to feel.” (95) But middle school bullying as outlined above takes many forms; in general boys are more physical and girls employ relationship bullying, exclusion. In both genders, bullies seek out the weak. “In the wild mountain lions have been known to attack their own leader when he appears weak and unable to protect his pride.” (171) Apparently no one is safe.
 
As the dog who narrates the Afterword says, “I want to know where I belong.” (194). These characters and their stories will help generate discussions that may help readers clarify not only where they belong but where they want to belong, how they want to be treated and how they want to treat others.

Sometimes stories are just magical enough. I am not a fan of books that rely on the supernatural, but the magic in this Winner of the 2018 Newbery Medal can easily be the enchantment within ourselves and our cultural beliefs. The magic in Hello, Universe is the power of friendship and of believing in oneself. It is not always the bully who will see the light and make changes but will lose his power because those he bullies find their strength and make their own changes.
 
Three young adolescents find each other and, even though “there are no coincidences,” they bond through a series of happenstances. Virgil is trapped and his life is endangered when Chet Bullens, the school bully, throws Virgil’s pet guinea pig down an abandoned well in the woods and Virgil follows to save him. Searching for him with new friend Kaori, and the assistance of little sister Gen, Valencia finds Virgil and the friendship they both desperately want and need. Through these connections, Virgil gains the strength to stand up to the bully and demand his place in a family who is quite different from him. 

When I received a copy of The Truth as Told by Mason Buttle, I wondered if I would be as captivated by Mason as I was with another Leslie Connor character, Perry T. Cook (All Rise for the Honorable Perry T Cook). Perry and Mason have a lot in common; they are both loyal, resilient, glass-half-full guys who persevere through challenging experiences. Mason has faced a variety of challenges. He is the largest kid in his grade, sweats uncontrollably, has trouble reading and writing; he lives with his grandmother and uncle in a house he refers to as the “crumbledown”—and Shayleen moves in and takes over his bedroom.

Mason has suffered more than his share of losses—he had a walkaway daddy, his grandfather and mother died, and, along with most of the town, Mason is still mourning his very best friend who fell from the ladder of their tree house and died. And there are two bullies who are always after him.

What Mason does have, beside an indomitable spirit, are a compassionate school social worker, a new best friend who is as loyal as Mason, a neighbor’s dog who loves him, and a supportive family. However, what Mason doesn’t realize is that Benny died under mysterious circumstances and some people, including the lieutenant who questions him incessantly and Benny’s two fathers, think Mason may be to blame. As Calvin and Mason create their own hideaway and battle bullies, Mason inadvertently solves the crime, but he still is never one to think badly of anyone, “My heart feels scrambled” (p. 320). The truth as told by Mason Buttle is the truth.

The reader will fall in love with Mason, and even though he may begin the story wearing a T-shirt that proclaims him as “STOOPID,” he ends with the revelation that “Knowing what you love is smart.”

With very short chapters and a wealth of diverse characters, this novel would be a good teacher read-aloud.

There are problems all around in Miss Woods' sixth grade. Bullies come in all ages and sizes—Randi's mom Jane bullies her about gymnastics and schoolwork hoping for a future scholarship; Trevor's brother bullies him, so Trevor bullies his classmates. Gavin has trouble reading and is embarrassed of parents who did not graduate high school. Scott has a big heart which always gets him into trouble. Mark's dad is on the school board and Mark feels he has to take care of Trevor. And Natalie, an aspiring lawyer, tries to always be in the right but as she sees from one of her mother's cases, this is not always possible.
 
With the help of their two teachers who have their own personal problems, these classmates band together as The Recruits and face off against the biggest bully of all, the standardized test.

Each chapter is narrated by one of these students, demonstrating perspective but also providing an opportunity for a Reader's Theater read aloud of the novel. Or students could read this book in lit circles, each lit circle tracking one of the students.

​When she was 8, Lucy was struck by lightning. Damaging the left lobe of her brain, the right lobe works overtime, causing acquired savant syndrome. Lucy is a math genius—and has OCD; she makes certain movements 3 times to quiet the numbers of pi in her head and is germ phobic. Homeschooled by her grandmother, she never had to worry about fitting in, except with her fellow math geeks on the Math Whiz site. At age 12 she has her GED and thinks she is ready to begin college classes.
 
But Nana has other plans, and she enrolls Lucy in 7th grade at the local middle school for one year. There Lucy hides her identity as a “freak” and makes two friends, but when her secret is revealed, she finds out that middle school is where many feel different and anxious, even the popular kids.
 
Reading this wonderful new book for grade 4-8 readers straight through, I fell in love with Lucy and empathized with her struggles to understand human behavior—the mean girls who bully her, making fun of her differences and excluding her; the boy who cheats off her in math class and is constantly taking photographs; the BFF who betrays her. When she works on a school project and falls in love with a dog at the shelter, she learns to reach out to save him and finds there are people she can depend on, especially Levy, the cheater. Levy grew into my favorite behavior because, an outsider himself, he understood human behavior and was able to capture, appreciate, and share the complexity through his photography.
 
Middle school is where very few fit in—whether a genius or not.

“I learned a lot through my friend troubles and surgeries. Like, small acts of kindness can go a long way….And when things are rough, you can always find a way to laugh.” (242) These words are from the real Maddie, the authors’ daughter. And this is the story of a girl who fights a bully and a brain tumor, told convincingly in the voice of a sixth grader that rings true.

There is a girl in story-Maddie’s class who is a bully. She bullies in the distinctive way of girls—through exclusion. Cassie decides who can play with her each recess and excludes all others. As Maddie wins the part that Cassie wants in a class production, she becomes even more mean, and when Maddie is diagnosed with a brain tumor, Cassie tells the other students that she made it up. However, Maddie has created amore inclusive playground with her imaginative games as she invites more and more students to join in.
​
Through two surgeries Maddie keeps her wild imagination and sense of humor—anything is funnier while wearing a mustache, discovering that she has quite a lot of school friends and a wide community for support and even a boy who likes her. But she learns that many children are going though tough times and they all need a little support, even if they don’t ask for it. Bullying takes place with a perceived power imbalance; Maddie balanced that power.
This is a novel that many children need as they face—and help others face—bullies and all sorts of problems that our young people of today are facing.

Stan Lee said, “To my way of thinking, whether it’s a superhero movie or a romance or a comedy or whatever, the most important thing is you’ve got to care about the characters.” This is true whether watching a movie or reading a novel, and I thought of this when I read Natasha Friend’s newest YA novel, How We Roll.

Quinn has a brother who is on the autism spectrum, and his tantrums and food requirements consume her parents’ at6tion, especially her mother’s. So when Quinn’s hair falls out and she is diagnosed with alopecia, an autoimmune disorder, she handles the challenges on her own, assuming that her middle school friends will support her. Which they do—until they don’t. Bullied and ridiculed by her peers and ignored by her two lifelong friends, Quinn copes by keeping to herself and putting her energy into skateboarding and basketball.

Serendipitously, when the family moves across the country so her brother can attend a special school, she has a chance to start over, with her two new wigs—Guinevere and Sasha. At her new school she meets a group of girls who adopt her. She also meets Jake. Jake, the former star football player, was in an accident and is now a bilateral amputee, sad and bitter, and the two become unlikely friends. Quinn also finds out that it is possible to have friends who like you for who you are, not what you look like.
​
What impressed me was how three-dimensional the characters were and not only how supportive Quinn is despite her heartbreak, but she is learning to trust that others can be as supportive. I really came to like all the characters, even Jake’s flawed brother and the ninth-grade popular girls (except for the old schoolmates whom the reader was not supposed to like). Readers will experience just how demanding life with a neuro-diverse child can be but, on the other hand, just how supportive a family and a community can be. This is a community I didn’t want to leave. 

This week Wendy Williams offers a thoughtful and provocative post about the quality of Young Adult Literature. I think it builds a bit on what I was getting at a couple of weeks ago. (found here) Many of us that admire and promote YA literature realize that some it is better than the rest. This is true of any medium of art, but Wendy takes the time to give some specific examples. I think this is a post that all of us  should keep in mind has we build our course and make selections for the fall.

Young adult (YA) literature can help young people as they navigate their way through adolescence. A multitude of experiences, viewpoints, and possibilities are represented in these texts, making YA literature an important resource for teens. YA books are valuable. They show readers that they are not alone. They comfort, challenge, and inspire. They open minds and change lives.
 
In this week’s YA Wednesday blog entry, I entertain the idea that in addition to being beneficial for youth, YA literature is also a formidable art form in its own right. Within this body of literature are strokes of genius and many surprises. Play and experimentation abound. In today’s entry I pause to appreciate some of the artistry and innovation in YA literature. I consider just a few of the texts that immerse readers into imaginative worlds, contain innovative text/typography, experiment with structure, or creatively employ images. In the comments section, please add your own examples of artistry and innovation in YA literature, so we can continue the conversation.

​Within YA literature are many examples of imaginative worlds. In addition to containing memorable villains, heroes, and helpers, many stories also introduce us to unique customs, rules, and language. A world might contain reapings, peacekeepers, tributes, victors, districts, tesserae, and mockingjays (The Hunger Games). Or it may introduce us to house elves, boggarts, hippogriffs, death eaters, spells, a department of mysteries, and o.w.l.s (the Harry Potter series). We may witness family units, a ceremony of twelve, a committee of elders, a receiver, a nurturing center, stirrings, and sameness (The Giver). 

I would put the intricately crafted worlds of Lois Lowry’s The Giver (1993), Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games (2008-2010), and J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter (1997-2007) up against the best artwork in other mediums. These stories provide immersive experiences into imaginative worlds. To me, these books are as aesthetically important as paintings by Hieronymus Bosch, animation by Hayao Miyazaki, and epic poetry by Homer. They are deep, beautiful, powerful, disturbing art. 

            Also in YA literature are examples of authors experimenting with the particulars of how the story appears on the page. Laurie Halse Anderson’s Wintergirls (2009) is a postmodern text that experiments with text/typography. For example, she uses strikethrough lines to show a character revising her thoughts:
            I’m hungry I need to eat.
            I hate eating.
            I need to eat.
            I hate eating.  (p. 145)  

In addition, the author includes several pages with only three words: “Must. Not. Eat.” (p. 185-187), and some other pages are empty. There are even calorie counts in parentheses after food items to show a character’s thoughts about food: “I pour too much cereal (150) in the bowl, splash on the two-percent milk (125)” (p. 7). Also, Anderson combines words for effect: “Breakfast is themostimportantmealoftheday” (p. 7). This author’s inventiveness reminds me of works by e.e. cummings and Italo Calvino. She is not just telling a story; she applies the tools in new ways. Anderson pushes the boundaries of what is possible in this medium. 

Many YA texts experiment with storytelling structure. Jacqueline Woodson’s book, Brown Girl Dreaming (2014), is a beautiful, moving memoir told through a series of poems. Isabel Quintero’s Gabi, a Girl in Pieces (2014) uses a collection of diary entries, lists, letters, poems, and a zine to take readers into Gabi’s world. 

​Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese (2006) alternates between three different storylines, which ultimately come together at the end. And in Tom Leveen’s book, Party (2010), eleven characters share their perspectives in chapters of their own. Rather than tell stories in a straightforward or linear way, many YA authors are mixing forms and experimenting with different structures. Creativity in storytelling method seems to be a valued component of YA literature. 

​YA literature also contains many examples of visual storytelling. Illustrated books and graphic novels are popular. One of my favorite visual narratives is Brian Selznick’s The Invention of Hugo Cabret (2007). The many images in this text are not merely illustrative of the words on the page; instead, they play an essential role in telling the story. 

Selznick’s pencil drawings are captivating, and they show how images can be used to provide perspective, create movement, and establish setting. I particularly love the opening pages, which bring the viewer into the story by zooming in from afar, which is not unlike the opening of Baz Luhrmann’s film Moulin Rouge (2001). YA literature welcomes the visual in a way that adult literature typically does not. I am excited to see how YA authors/artists continue to push the boundaries of storytelling through their use of images in the years to come.

Some people claim that only 5-10% of the work produced in any area is of the highest quality, and the rest falls far below. When I look at the shelves of YA books in my office, it is true that some books stand out more than others. With so many books published each year, there is bound to be a range of quality. Still, the best YA literature can stand up to the best art created in other mediums.  

Wendy's can be reached at: Wendy.R.Williams@asu.edu and her faculty webpage is found at this link.