The 2016 NCTE Conference was a great experience. I mention quite a few people in this post. Some of them I know and others I don't. I have tried to link to their professional spaces if I could find them. It would be nice, if you know any of the people mentioned, if you would send this post along to them through Facebook or email. 

There were so many great sessions at NCTE 2016. I can't begin cover them all, but I can try to hit some personal highlights.

On Friday (11.18.16), it was a pleasure to present with Michael Moore, Lisa Sheriff, Gretchen Rumohr-Voskuil, and Fawn Canady. We all briefly described a text we would use to start the school year. By doing this, we hoped to offer some rationales that might help teacher think in new ways about their choices. We were fortunate to have Alan Sitomer has our discussant. He smoothly made sense of our question: What text would you choose to start the school year? Stay tuned, maybe there is an article in the making.

In addition, on Saturday morning, I heard some fine conversations about the state of research around YA literature. How do we teach it? How do we classify it? How are we tracking the work that we do? One of those sessions was G.05 Complicating Youth, Literacy, Gender, and Race through the Study of Young Adult Literature in English Teacher Education. This panel included Carlin Borsheim-Black, Amanda Haertling Thein, Sophia Sarigianides, and Mark Sulzer. The discussant, Rob Petrone, adeptly summed up the presentations.  That time slot was an embarrassment of riches for YA enthusiasts. While listening to them, I was missing G.01 The intersection of Literacy, Sport, Culture and Society that include an abundance of YA linked discussions. To see the list of most of the presenters in this session check out the table of contents of the new NCTE publication edited by Alan Brown and Luke Rodesiler, Developing Contemporary Literacies through Sports. G.40 Culturally Diverse Young Adult Literature: Voices of Advocacy and Community featuring Kekla Magoon and Meg Medina. Who would want to hear them? Included in this round table were a host of YA scholars and advocates: Steffany Comfort Maher, Emily Wender, Ricki Ginsberg, Emily Pendergrass, Judith Hayn, Sean Connors, Alice Hays, Jody Polleck, Lisa Hazlett, Amme Marie Smith, Melanie Hundley, Stacey Reece, Dawn Jacobs Martin, Kelly Bull, Kathryn Kelly, Katie Sluiter, Shannon Mortimore-Smith, Wendy Glenn, Grechen Rumohr-Voskuil, Travis Reyes, Shelly Shaffer, Terri Suico, William Williams, and Allison Varnes. Many of these folks I know. Conversations with them is one of the primary reasons I come to NCTE and the ALAN Workshop. The others I want to know and talk with. At the same time, you could have gone to G. 48 Developing Reading Identity: When I was Your Age Ari Zeiger, Karin Perry, and Sarah Debacher. Unfortunately, their chair, Teri Lesesne was able to attend this year. (A notable gap in the conference for all of us.)

By looking at a single block of time, it easy to see that you can't do everything. You have to make choices that are difficult. This doesn't even begin to look at session during the same time that looked at writing (G.12), social justice in English Education (G.09), with a shout out to one of the Co-Chairs: Jennifer King a mentee, whom I missed talking with during the conference), digital engagement (G. 03, G.06, G.17), student voice, the NCTE Research Awards Session (G.02 where there needs to be a shout out to my colleague Denise Davila), a tribute to Arthur Applebee (G.08), including parents in literacy (G.11), autism awareness (G.13) and so many more worthwhile and informative session. 

This close look at one block of sessions makes me think about planning now for next year. It also reminds us to make connections and keep in touch. We can work alone, form partnerships, and engage as communities while we move forward to advocate for literacy.  

Several friends and colleagues have sent me small paragraphs about their memories and conversations at ALAN 2016. I would welcome others. This is the first of several postings this week. I hope you enjoy and explore.

Next up is Katie Sluiter. Katie is a classroom teacher who was able to attend her first ALAN Workshop. It was a joy to meet her in person. She is participating in our National Book Award project and has contributed a post about her use of YA in the middle grades classroom.
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Going into my first ALAN conference the only thing I knew for sure was that I would get books and hear authors speak. I was not prepared for how inspired I would be by the authors and the educators in the room, nor how full my teacher heart would be as I taped up and shipped boxes of books back to my school ready to be read by my eager students. The graciousness of the authors willing to sign and take pictures was definitely at the top of my highlights, but their words are what I carried back through the sky to Michigan with me. A.S. King, Jason Reynolds, and Matt de la Peña, Sarah Zarr, Laurie Halse Anderson, and more reaffirmed how important just the right book is to teens--how important those books are as a mirror for students to see themselves as well as a path to empathy as they experience via characters feelings they would never encounter otherwise. This was my first ALAN conference, but I am confident I will attend many more.

Rounding out today's trio of contributors is Sharon Kane. She is a frequent contributor (Look here, here, and here.) and always adds to my understanding of young adult literature.

​I promised the students in my Young Adult Literature course a report on the ALAN Workshop. I’ll focus on the authors and topics we have studied during the semester. Here are a few of the highlights I’ll include:
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-As Sy Montgomery was signing a copy of The Great White Shark Scientist, I told her we had read and loved The Soul of an Octopus. She told me I made her day!

-A.S. King told us that we should care about the “Common Core of Compassion,” and write that into every lesson.  I intend to. 

-Several authors, including Neal Shusterman, talked about mental illnesses—their own, those of their loved ones, those of their characters. They helped us problematize the concepts of normal and abnormal and disability; they urged us to empathize with others and promote the emotional well-being of our students. Over and over again, authors talked about books saving lives—literally.

 -Political and ethical issues came up repeatedly and intertwined. My class has investigated YA literature using a morality lens. I will introduce Patricia McCormick’s The Plot to Kill Hitler: Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Spy, Unlikely Hero, and invite students to participate in an online discussion club during our January break to continue our exploration and stay bonded.

-And speaking of bonding, I will end my report to my students by sharing my memories of the remarks made by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely as they accepted the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award, as well as the picture I hope will stay in my mind forever of them, standing with their arms around each other, as Jason asked us to look at them, to really see what friendship looks like.     

The ALAN Workshop was sold out this year. Five hundred excited teachers, students, preservice teachers, librarians, academic, a few retired folks-who know a good thing, spouses, and participant's children attended.  Here we have only three stories, but I think you can begin to see how wonderful attending the ALAN workshop can be. I know there are more stories and memories out there. I would love to archive them here. Just drop me a line if you are interested. I will walk you through it.  

I began this post on the plane to NCTE 2016 (#ncte16) and the ALAN workshop (#alan16). By the time I got to Atlanta it was too late to finish and link everything. Then I spent all day in meetings. I was going to sit and finishing, but instead I went to hear Rich and Sandra Wallace. They delivered a powerful talk about their fantastic book, Blood Brother: Jonathan Daniels and his Sacrifice for Civil Rights. (#WhyMiddleMatters) Just when I had almost recovered for the force of their story, Antero Garcia and Laurie Halse Anderson  began a powerful dialogue about reading, advocacy, and doing something now. So, in part here is the beginning of my action.

There is too much to say. I am looking for renewal. If you have never been to NCTE, I hope this post motivates you to get to a conference. If not, you can experience the event by browsing the webpage following twitter #ncte16 and by exploring the work of some of the authors and academics below. I will be posting short blog post, tweets (@sbickmore55), and Facebook entries throughout NCTE and the ALAN Workshop.  

I am already sad that Teri Lesesne will be missing, I wish her well.  I know of a few others who won’t be there; I hope we can connect in another way. I am glad that writers like Laurie Halse Anderson, Jo Knowles, Padma Venkatraman, and a host of others will be there. I have the pleasure of introducing Maggie Stiefvater at the ALAN Workshop. I am looking forward to meeting her. I am looking forward to one last round of meetings as a member of the CEE executive meeting. In the past NCTE has always been a place where I can find renewal; where I have a chance to recharge the batteries.  For example, I know that I will have conversations with Chris Crowe, Crag Hill, Rick Williams, Mark Letcher, Shanetia Clark, Ken Lindblom, Molly Blackburn, Melanie Shoffner, Chris Goering, Sophia Sarigianides, Gretchen Rumorhr-Voskuil, Ebony Thomas, and Michael Moore. Of course, the list goes on. Many of these people I only speak with at NCTE, but the kindness, generosity, and genuine concern for education is inspirational. If you don’t know these folks, I would encourage you to drop in on a session. Indeed, many of you have your own circle of people that you connect with, that inspire your teaching, and help you move forward with enthusiasm. Any attempt to catalog influence is always to short.

If you haven’t meet someone that whose work you admire, I highly recommend that you go early to a session and introduce yourself. Yes, it can be intimidating, but do it. I can remember the first timid conversation I had with Louann Reid. I considered her a giant in English education. She was near the end of her tenure as the editor of the English Journal and probably beginning her work on CEE. She couldn’t have been more attentive and thoughtful. The same is true of Leila Christenbury. I knew about her (and everybody should); she has been a past editor of The ALAN Review and The English Journal, a past president of NCTE, and has a list of publications that could be intimidating to a new assistant professor who was trying to figure out what to do next. When Jackie Bach, Melanie Hundley, and I were putting together our application to be editors of The ALAN Review, we studied the work of previous editors. I saw Leila near the entrance to the exposition hall and slowly walked over. I introduced by self and she treated me as a long-lost colleague as I asked for a bit of guidance about working as an editor. I think I floated through the next couple of days of the conference. I consider these women silent mentors; I hope I don’t bother them too much, but in both cases a simple conversation has provided a level of confidence that has guided my efforts. As educators, we are lucky to work in a field where helping a colleague feels like the norm and not the exception. I have tried to pass it on. I look forward to meeting teachers, graduate students, and other teacher educators. I hope I have been encouraging.

Now for something new.

Introducing Maria Padian

I love finding that new author whose works dovetail directly into my own reading interests. If you have followed the blog for a while, you probably realize that I like YA that is realistic, directed to an “older” audience, and probably a bit Holdenesque. I might be indebted to Trevor Ingerson at Algonquin for putting me on to a “new” author, Maria Padian, for a long time. Trevor sent me a few books and on the cover of Wrecked he attached a personalized post-it note. He said, I think you might like this one, let me know what you think. 

Well, I think the book is fantastic. It is an exploration of truth in the aftermath of a sexual assault. While it is set on a college campus, it focuses on the experiences of freshman students and reminds me of the many adolescent novels set in preparatory boarding schools or college--The Catcher in the Rye, Prep, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, Looking for Alaska, A Separate Peace, Winger, Fangirl, and Old School.  You can certainly find more books in this category, but these will get you started--after you read Wrecked.
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The book also works on the theme of self-discovery and truth, that places it the company of books like We Were Liars, Challenger Deep, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Speak, Tyrell, and Inexcusable. Padian works with character and point of view in a way that forces the reader to engage with the story’s complexity. Just as the books above have complicated narrations and uneasy endings, so does Wrecked. The story is primarily told from the point of view of two characters, Haley and Richard, who are falling for each other even as they are unaware of their respective connections to the Jenny, the victim of the assault. Padian tells the story without slipping into sentimentality and instead builds an exploration of the theme of male and female relationships that questions the power relationship, the nature of consent, and comments on the inescapable consequences. Discussing any more about the book would verge on telling too much. Instead, suffice it to say that Padian has contributed a quality novel to the field of YA literature.  

​There is more good news. Maria Padian has other novels! As I explored more about the author, I found the other books--Out Of Nowhere, Jersey Tomatoes are the Best, and Brett McCarthy: Work in Progress. Maria has a wonderful website. It is easy to follow and informative about her books, her life, and her writing. I recommend that you check it out, right after you read her answers to the interview questions posted below. I hope she finds her way to NCTE and The ALAN Workshop next year in St. Louis.

If you would like to contribute a post please contact me at stevebickmore@gmail.com. 
If you are interested in the posts that others have posted, please visit the contributor page. Each author's post has the title hyperlinked for easy navigation.

One of our frequent guest contributors, Lisa Scherff, is at it again. Lisa has been involved in many aspects of English Education. She has been one of the editors of English Education, served on various committees, worked at a couple of universities, and returned to the front lines as a classroom teacher. As an educator, Lisa is an advocate for using YA literature and she is here to talk about her participation as a committee member on the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award. In fact, she will be beginning to work as the committee’s chair for the next round.
 
This award is relatively new and has an excellent reputation. Her discussion adds to a list of posts that have dealt with awards. A couple of years ago, Mark Letcher introduced the blog’s readers to the Walden Award. A bit later, Shane Kane introduced how she and her students discuss awards. Just a few weeks ago, Sharon revisited this topic. Inspired by Sharon, I also discussed the past winners of the National Book Award and highlighted the longlist in 2014 and again this year. Lisa has also talked about the Alex Awards in an earlier contribution. This is a great introduction to the award and to a fantastic collection of novels.

Below, Lisa provides a series of questions and answers about ALAN's contribution to book awards.  

What is the AEWA award?  Established in 2008 to honor the wishes of Amelia Elizabeth Walden, the award allows for the sum of $5,000 to be presented annually to the author of a book selected by the ALAN Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award (AEWA) Committee as “the title of the year most relevant to adolescents and having enjoyed a wide and appreciative teenage audience.” 
 
Who picks it? Every year, the Walden Committee is comprised of 11 ALAN members (1 chair, 1 past-chair, 3 classroom teachers, 3 librarians, and 3 university professors). Committee members serve from 2-3 years, and are rotated off, so that there are always new members each year. This year’s press release lists the current members 
 
How does the committee select the finalists? The award has specific criteria that we follow to narrow down to our top five. The three main criterion are a positive approach to life, widespread teen appeal, and literary merit. Each of these criterion has sub-categories that we also consider as we read and deliberate.

How many books are considered for the award? Typically, 250-300 books are submitted each year. The committee is formed in September, and books start arriving soon thereafter. The committee does not receive copies of every YA book published each year; the publishing houses determine which books they want to submit for award consideration. Committee members can also suggest books, if they have not already been submitted.

Does everyone read all of the books? No J Once the committee members are selected, smaller reading groups are formed, each with three members. This allows us to read the hundreds of books that are submitted. In Round 1, each group is assigned titles and reading deadlines by the chair, and each small group “talks” about their books via email.

How are the finalists selected?  If a group decides that a book meets the award criteria and should move forward, that book moves on to Round 2. For this we have a private group on Goodreads.  In Round 2, everyone on the committee reads all of the remaining titles, and there is more discussion and voting on the Goodreads site. From my experience, we start with 30-40 books at the beginning of Round 2 and then narrow down from there. We talk and vote until we decide on our five finalists. There are as many rounds as are needed until the committee can agree on finalists and an eventual winner. Sometimes we get to four rounds, and then other times it takes five rounds of reading and voting. Then, we vote on which finalist should actually receive the award. Each year, there is 1 winning title and up to 4 honor books. 
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What is my experience? I’ve joked that this is the hardest job you’ll ever love. There are many, many good books and then some great books. And, the reading can get intense; at several points during the year it is a book a day. When we get down to the final 7-10 books it can be really hard. At that point we are distinguishing between and among titles that could all make the final five. It means going back to the criteria and really reading closely to see which titles best fulfill all of them. I came up with my own rating system two years ago that has served me well: GREAT, SUPER GREAT, and SUPER-DUPER GREAT. That has aided me in not feeling like I am letting a book down, or that it is inadequate. It may be super great but not super-duper great.
 
I encourage all ALAN members to apply to be on the committee. The call usually goes out during the summer and the application deadline is September 1. I am so grateful to have been exposed to hundreds of new and fantastic books these past two years. And, I took part in some of the most interesting and in-depth conversations of YA books that I have ever had. I am going to miss this “work” when my time on the committee is over.

2016 AEWA Titles
 
Now for a little about this year’s winner and finalists. There are many reviews and summaries out there, so to be different I want to share some of my favorite lines from each and some quotes from my posts our private AEWA Goodreads discussion board.

Winner: All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely (A Caitlin Dloughy Book, Antheneum Books)
 
Quinn: “Nobody says the words anymore, but somehow the violence still remains. If I didn’t want the violence to remain, I had to do a hell of a lot more than just say the right things and not say the wrong things.” (p. 218)
Rashad: “And Spoony kept feeding Berry the papers, one after another, as she continued to read down the list of unarmed black people killed by the police. And I laid there on the hard concrete, for the second time in a week, tears flowing down my cheeks, thinking about each of those names.” (p. 308)
This novel had it all for me: A Positive Approach to Life; Widespread Teen Appeal; Literary Merit.
I am still thinking about it, and I re-read it two days ago. 

​Wolf By Wolf by Ryan Graudin (Little, Brown and Company)
 
Once upon a different time, there was a girl who lived in a kingdom of death. Wolves howled up her arm. A whole pack of them—made of tattoo ink and pain, memory and loss. It was the only thing about her that ever stayed the same.
            Her story begins on a train.
 
I find so much wide appeal in this book and the hope is there. I love what Ryoko says to Yael: "I watched you race last year . . . It gave me Hope."
I love early on how Yael struggles with who she was physically before the experiments--she can't remember what she looked like--and who she is now and who she is living for
I love the last lines: The world was not just moving. It was alive. And it was ready to fight. 
(Such timely lines, no?) 
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Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman (Illustrations by Brendan Shusterman) (Harper Teen)
 
My illness dragged us all through the trenches, and although my trench was, well, the Marianas, I won’t discount what my family has been through. I will never forget that my parents came to the hospital every single day, even when I was clearly in other places. I will never forget that my little sister held my hand, and tried to understand what it’s like to be in those other places (p. 304)
 
The artfulness (is that a word?) of this book is mindblowing. Every read I note connection upon connection between and among Caden's worlds. Masterful. Powerful. Flat out superb writing.

Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Pérez (Carolrhoda Boooks)
It wasn’t that Beto wanted to tell the story. It was that he had to. He hoped that, after, he could begin to dream of the fragile joy of the months before the explosion and of the family that they had made for themselves in the woods. They had been happy, for a time, before the rules found them. Before the terrible price was exacted for their transgressions. For the crossing of lines. For friendship, for love.

And so he worked. Piecing together memories. Imagining what he could not have known. Writing out the ruins of his former life. He wrote until the story was there, outside him, terrible in its truth.

​He needs you, reader. All he asks is that you take the story up and carry it for a while. (p. 396)
 
The one word I keep coming back to is haunting (and that's not a bad thing). 

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven (Alfred A. Knopf)

I don’t need to worry that Finch and I never filmed our wanderings. It’s okay that we didn’t collect souvenirs or that we never had time to pull it all together in a way that made sense to anyone but us.

​The thing I realize is that it’s not what you take, it’s what you leave. (p. 376)
 
This one has such strong characterization and the support Finch and Violet have for each other is amazing.  Literary Merit super-duper.

Thanks Lisa. This is a great group of books. I feel like I am part of the in group, there is only one book that I haven't yet read and I plan to remedy that before NCTE. If you haven't registered for NCTE and The ALAN Workshop
​www.ncte.org/annual, I believe there is still time to get involved with this great conference, but the workshop is completely sold out. 

Occasionally, I walk to campus or take a lunch break by strolling down to the student union. As a casual observer, I believe it would be easier to count the students, those walking alone at least, who are not wearing ear phones as opposed to those who are. Many students seem to migrate from one place to the other as they tune in to their self-selected rhythms. I don't blame them; I do it myself. Yesterday, I took a three mile loop home while listening to the Pandora Blues radio station. I enjoyed  Albert King, B.B. King, Stevie Ray Vaughn,  Buddy Guy and The Mick Fleetwood Blues Band and their music kept my walking pace at 3.6 miles an hour.

I have to admit, I frequently think about connections between music and YA. Music is an interest I share with my son, a music educator, and we have been writing about the connection. We have a chapter appearing in the 2nd edition of Teaching Young Adult Literature Today: Insights, Considerations, and Perspectives for the Classroom Teacher by Hayn, Kaplan, and Clemmons. It should be available at NCTE; keep your fingers crossed. Our chapter is entitled Music and the Young Adult Novel: Assessing How Adolescents “Read” the Music of Their Lives. We loved working on this chapter and in it we highlight how several novels capture adolescents engage with music. Just yesterday, we finished a second chapter for a book edited by Greathouse, Eisenbach, and Kaywell entitled Adolescent Literature as a Complement to the Content Areas (Due out summer of 2017). This time, we focus on how a teacher might engage students in music education using YA fiction. We use an exciting new novel, Brendan Kiely’s The Last True Love Story to demonstrate a cross-curriculum project that engages students in an ELA classroom that might be radically different from what you have tried in the past.

I hope the announcement that Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature has increased everyone’s excitement about the “highbrow” possibilities of popular culture (see a current discussion here). It has for me. I quickly added 5 early Dylan CD to my collection. As many of you understand, Young Adult literature often struggles to gain acceptance among the keepers of the literary canon. Nevertheless, we know that YA literature meets readers where they are and where their interests happen to be. It introduces them to ideas they care about and can move them up a reading ladder to lifelong reading. Anyone who has spent a significant amount of time in a high schools knows that many adolescents are connected to music—choir, band, school dances, school musicals, their listening devices, the piano lessons at home, the band they experiment with, and the bands and singers they follow. Can we connect these interests with our instruction in ELA settings? Well, of course we can.​
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I am also adding a new resource page to Dr. Bickmore’s YA Wednesday called Music and YA. My son and I have collected a list of YA novels that engage with music in one way or another. We keep finding more and more. If you know one, please leave a comment. We will add the list to the webpage soon as well as other resources that can help teachers use music to engage students in the ELA classroom. I would be amiss if I didn’t mention another new resource for Music and the ELA classroom. My colleagues Lindy Johnson and Chris Goering have a new text, Recontextualized: A Framework for Teaching with Music. It has been a useful addition to my own thinking about this subject. By the way, Chris plays a mean guitar as a side gig. 

The next group of books has adolescents engaged with music as spinners, the term my son and I started using for a DJ. For a number of years now, people have added to the world of music by working as a DJ, adding beats for rappers, and by expertly sampling and mixing rifs from such greats as Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, James Brown and Michel Jackson. In Coe Booth’s Tyrell the title character's entire mission centers on his successful completion of an after hours dance party. In the second book, Leila Sales’ This Song Will Save Your Life the main character, Elise, after suffering bullying and despair, finds herself through her ability to spin records and engage crowds at a night club. Both books are fine examples of novels that have well developed characters engaged in issues that go beyond their passion for music. Again, while an analysis could cover—race, class, bullying, isolation, and several other foci, including our students’ connection to music offers added texture to activities and assessment. Just imagine the variety of ways that you might have students respond to musical references in both books.  What songs might they imagine that both Tyrell and Elise would be listening to and adding to their playlists? ​

Our next group of novels imagines adolescents engage with performers and performance. How many kids have imagined themselves strumming a guitar, banging on a set of drums, screaming out a teen anthem like Eddie Vedder or providing backup vocals for the likes of Aretha Franklin, Tina Turner, Elton John, or The Rolling Stones. All of these novels are great reads and some of my personal favorites over the last several years. I don’t think you can go wrong with any of these choices. Gordon Korman has a great reputation for entertain adolescents and he doesn’t leave us wanting with Born to Rock!. Breakout by Kevin Emerson remains one of my favorite discoveries from last year’s ALAN Workshop. The main character, Anthony, remains one of the most genuine YA voices I have encountered over the last year. In addition, Kevin is great fun and if you happen to be in the Seattle area you just might find him playing with others in an impromptu gig. O’Malley’s graphic novel series highlighting Scott Pilgrim, is another great read. Perhaps the most well-known of the series is Scott Pilgrim vs. The World because it was the title of the movie based on the characters. The last novel, Amplified, by Tara Kelly rounds out the group. This novel is unique in that it features a female protagonist trying to join a bad. She is on her own; choosing to play her guitar instead of attending college. This book chronicles an odyssey of self-discovery and guides the reader through the various challenges of joining a band. ​

To conclude, I will highlight three pairs of books. All three pairs of novels share something in common that is very interesting. In each case, the author has produced real music to accompany the second novel in the series. Fictional musings about music have turned into the production of real music. The first pair consists of John Green and David Levithan’s Will Grayson, Will Grayson and Levithan's follow up work. Even without the first books connection to music, it is a magical romp. As a follow-up, Levithan has developed the musical script that was the brain child of Tiny Cooper, a friend of one of the two Will Grayson’s. Levithan remains one of the most innovative and creative voice in YA literature, both as an editor and author. This effort with Hold Me Closer: The Tiny Cooper Story serves as an inspiration for the adolescents who read both. What more could we want for our students than to let them imagine creative possibilities? ​

In the next pairing. Tanuja Desai Hidier follows up her wonderful book Born Confused with Bombay Blues. Both novels are wonderful multicultural efforts. I ran into her first novel over ten years ago and now that I am studying musical influences in YA literature I have found it again. I also found out that Tanuja wrote an album for Born Confused entitled When We Were Twins. It was an added surprise that I found out that she has combined Bombay Blues with Bombay Spleen, an album full of songs based on the novel. I find this combination of creative efforts fascinating. In reality, her life’s job is a multifaceted arts project. It is worth the time to explore her website and explore what she is up to next. Can you imagine some of your most independent and creative students doing a project around the characters, themes, symbols, music, and cultural allusions in Hidier’s work? The possibilities would be undeniably joyful.

My last pair is King Dork and King Dork Approximately by Frank Portman. King Dork is one of the books that I love beyond rational explanation. It makes me laugh out loud, I want to read passages to my wife who thinks I am crazy, and I tell every group of students about this crazy Holdenesque character. I first discovered this novel when I was researching novels that were similar in tone to The Catcher in the Rye. I was pleasantly surprised by the musical subtext that drives the novel and provides a great deal of the comedy. What you might not know yet about this author is that Portman is more readily known in the bay area as Dr. Frank, the front man for The Mr. T Experience (MTX). Dr. Frank has been playing punk music for more years than he probably likes to talk about. Now, if you buy King Dork Approximately you can also get the new sound track. This album makes Tom Henderson’s, the novel’s main character, experience as a want to be rock star complete and real. I recommend that you follow Dr. Frank on Facebook. Who knows, MTX might be playing a gig near you. ​