How One Box Refreshed My Heart by Cindi Koudelka

12/8/2021

I first met Cindi at UNLV Summit in 2018. She is one of those remarkable book worms that reads so many books you wonder how she finds the time. We have kept in touch over the years and she keeps coming to the Summit. Yeah!

Once again, Cindi has some wonderful reading suggestions.

How One Box Refreshed My Heart

Cindi Koudelka

There are so many things I miss about attending live conferences, and I look forward to the day when we return to casual yet powerful conversations between brilliant sessions, encounters with authors, and perusing through aisles of glorious young adult novels. It was on a particularly challenging day when my ALAN box showed up. I was so excited, but I didn’t have time to dig into it. Instead, I dragged it to school and had an official “unveiling” with a group of students. The absolute joy we shared as we dug through the box together and found a variety of novels refreshed my heart. It was energizing to engage in conversations about books and see the excitement on the students’ faces as they found books that called to them. I went from a very full box to a nearly empty box in less than an hour! These are a few of my favorites from the box.

The links for the titles take you to my favorite “black woman owned bookstore and gallery space” in Chicago, Semicolon. Not only do they carry an amazing selection of books that can be shipped anywhere, but they host #cleartheshelves events where they invite CPS Students into the store to pick out whatever books they want free of charge.

Me (Moth) by Amber McBride
Oh my gosh - this book is so beautiful. It is a novel in verse about a girl whose family was killed in an accident. As she struggles with her grief and her sense of isolation, she ends up taking a road trip with a boy who is also searching for his roots. The story beautifully embeds history and culture into what could have been a typical teen love and road trip story to make this a much more complex exploration of life, love, grief, identity, and family

Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo
This historical fiction novel examines both gender identity and culture amidst the backdrop of 1950s San Francisco. The Lesbian bar, The Telegraph Club, becomes a haven for seventeen year old Lily Hu when she falls in love with Kathleen Miller. As Lily comes to understand her sexuality and must deal with her father’s potential deportment due to the Red Scare, she must navigate multiple worlds and find herself in the process. In spite of the complex intersection of racism, immigration, and homophobia, the story weaves the elements seamlessly mirroring the realities of life.

Huda F Are You by Huda Fahmy
One of my students saw the title, and began giggling uncontrollably at the play on words with her name. Once he sat down to read it, he discovered a graphic novel different than he was expecting…which was perfect. This funny and poignant book tells Huda’s story as she tries to understand who she is as she moves from being the “Hijab girl” to her new school where she finds a multitude of girls who wear Hijabs and have identified themselves in other ways. She must dig more deeply to find out who she is in the world.

Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim
Fantasy lovers will adore this one. It blends traditional fairy tales and East Asian folktales to tell a beautiful story of Shiori'anma, the only princess of Kiata who must hide her magic. When her stepmother discovers her secret, she is banished and her brothers are turned into cranes. She is told that if she speaks, her brothers will die, one by one. Alone and unable to share the burden with anyone else, she must find a way to save her brothers and the kingdom. The fast-paced action and complex characterizations in this book make it a compelling fantasy for all readers.

Dr. Cindi Koudelka (koudelka21@gmail.com; @cmkoudelka) is a Curriculum Specialist with National Board Certification in Adolescent Young Adulthood/English Language Arts at Fieldcrest School District in Illinois and an Adjunct faculty member at Aurora University. Being a bibliophile and school nerd, she holds multiple certifications from PreK - 12 and is an active member in several literacy and research organizations. Her research interests reflect her passion as a youth advocate by focusing her work on critical adolescent literacies, young adult literature, positioning, and youth participatory action research.

Until next week.

1 Comment

Dr. Steve Bickmore
Creator and Curator

Dr. Bickmore is a Professor of English Education at UNLV. He is a scholar of Young Adult Literature and past editor of The ALAN Review and a past president of ALAN. He is a available for speaking engagements at schools, conferences, book festivals, and parent organizations. More information can be found on the Contact page and the About page.

Co-Edited Books

Meet
Evangile Dufitumukiza!

Evangile is a native of Kigali, Rwanda. He is a college student that Steve meet while working in Rwanda as a missionary. In fact, Evangile was one of the first people who translated his English into Kinyarwanda.

Steve recruited him to help promote Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media while Steve is doing his mission work.

He helps Dr. Bickmore promote his academic books and sometimes send out emails in his behalf.

You will notice that while he speaks fluent English, it often does look like an "American" version of English. That is because it isn't. His English is heavily influence by British English and different versions of Eastern and Central African English that is prominent in his home country of Rwanda.

Welcome Evangile into the YA Wednesday community as he learns about Young Adult Literature and all of the wild slang of American English vs the slang and language of the English he has mastered in his beautiful country of Rwanda.

While in Rwanda, Steve has learned that it is a poor English speaker who can only master one dialect and/or set of idioms in this complicated language.

Blogs to Follow

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Stay tuned for information regarding the Summit on the Research and Teaching of Young Adult Literature!