I find myself, ten years into my teaching career in New Orleans, Louisiana,finally  facing censorship possibilities that have been creeping up more and more violently as realities. My state passed its own version of Florida’s sadly renown “Don’t Say Gay Bill” as my ninth year in the classroom came to a close, joining a growing number of states where anti-LGBTIA bills have passed. ​

These new restrictions put hate into action, demanding more creative ways to make sure all identity stories are told in schools, and requiring teachers like me to think more deliberately about the rationales of including texts, like George M. Johnson’s All Boys Aren’t Blue: A Memoir Manifesto (2020), in classroom conversations. One way is by consistently grounding the use of the texts in course standards. 

Johnson’s evocative All Boys Aren’t Blue lends itself perfectly to rhetorical analysis, whether an introduction to the concept with younger students like 9th graders, or a refresher on the rhetorical situation for students enrolled in AP English Language and Composition. The very first standard (1.A) for AP Lang is: “Identify and describe components of the rhetorical situation: the exigence, audience, writer, purpose, context, and message.” ​

When I’ve used Johnson’s memoir in the past, I’ve used the story “Smile” as an essay option with English I students who have just been introduced to the elements of the rhetorical situation, and who have previously practiced identifying those elements with various TED talks. Students then select an essay to present on, first identifying the elements of the rhetorical situation, then identifying three choices made by the writer to further their purpose, finally constructing a thesis statement making an argument about the rhetorical situation of their selected essay. 

In this reimagining of the project, I give students who have a similar exposure to the rhetorical situation as described above, six essays to read from Johnson’s text: “Identity” (chapter 2, pages 36 - 51), Honeychild” (chapter 3, pages 52-64), “Nanny: The Caregiver, The Hustler, My Best Friend” (chapter 7, pages 128-143), “Daddy’s Second Chance” (chapter 8, pages 144-159), “A Lesson Before Dying” (chapter 10, pages 182-192), “Setting Myself Free or Setting Myself Up?” (chapter 13, pages 224-239). These selected essays work beautifully with identifying purpose, context, and message, but are purposefully selected because they allow students to unpack Johnson’s identity in a multi-faceted way, layering his sexuality with his race, his family, and his home. ​

It feels important to acknowledge the gravity of the situation that many teachers are facing right now: choosing to expose their students to voices that are real and relatable over the safety of their careers. In this time, I find turning back to the why incredibly important. As Johnson notes in their text: “There were no books for me to read in order to understand what I was going through as a kid. There were no heroes or icons to look up to and emulate. There were no road maps or guidelines for the journey” (Johnson 295). How beautiful and important it is to be able to hand students texts that potentially give them a sense of understanding or, equally important, a sense of empathy for others. 

If you’re looking for ways to introduce the conversation of censorship in with your discussion of this book or author, I recommend starting with this NPR piece: “Banned Books: Author George M. Johnson on the need to tell all people's stories”.
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I choose to continue to try to find ways to put those mirrors in the hands of my students, whether through projects like these that meet core standards while diversifying the voices of the authors my students encounter, or by keeping these books on my classroom shelves.

Last month I completed my doctoral work and successfully defended my dissertation which, in part, focused on teaching the Holocaust in my eighth grade ELA classes using Gholdy Muhammad’s framework for culturally and historically responsive literacy. Of the five pursuits Muhammad includes, the pursuit of joy was the one my students clung to the most. Since COVID, my students have routinely commented on the desire to read books with more “happiness”. Admittedly, our eighth grade curriculum includes four anchor texts that explore heavy topics: Ghost Boy by Jewell Parker Rhodes, Yellow Star by Jennifer Roy, The Giver by Lois Lowry, and Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson.

​In the fall of 2022, I participated in a two-day workshop with Gholdy Muhammad when her book Unearthing Joy was on the cusp of release. Muhammad states in her book that to follow the pursuit of joy, “[t]eachers and leaders must understand how to connect beauty, aesthetics, wellness, wholeness, solutions to problems, and/or happiness to their curricular, instructional, and leadership practices'' (50). This is exactly what my students have been asking for.
 
During her workshop, Muhammad took the time to sit with me and talk about how to include the pursuit of joy in our Ghost Boys unit, and from there I have begun to incorporate the pursuit of joy throughout the school year.
 
The following is a glimpse at some of the ways we have started intentionally pursuing joy in one of our novel units in our eighth grade ELA classes.

Jewell Parker Rhodes’s novel Ghost Boys tell the story of 12-year old Jerome who gets shot by a white police officer while playing with a toy gun in a Chicago neighborhood. Inspired by Tamir Rice, Rhodes begins the novel with the shooting and has Jerome tell his story as a ghost who can only communicate with one living person: his shooter’s 12-year old daughter, Sarah. By also including the story of Emmett Till, Ghost Boys explores violence against Black boys in America for a middle grade audience.

Gholdy Muhammad and I quickly decided to elevate Black Boy Joy and Black Girl Magic during this unit as a way for students to explore their own joy and magic regardless of their race identity. We begin the school year with this book, so we are already doing lots of identity story-telling via poems and other writing. It was an easy transition to create prompts for writing and discussion that asked students to talk about what sort of joy or magic they bring to their world.
 
I also moved to Black Boy Joy and Black Girl Magic specifically by giving each student a sticky note and having them jot down a word or two that tells what they think of when they hear one or both terms. About a quarter of our student population identifies as Black and an additional percentage identify as mixed race with one Black parent. Many responses were personal: sticky notes with “Me!”, “my family”, “my friends”, “my little brother”, etc. written on them. Non Black-identifying students also gave positive responses: “my best friend”, “Lizzo!”, “Black kids who are happy and doing cool things”, and “their awesome hairstyles!”

We went on to list things that are associated with joyous Black culture (without falling into stereotypes): hiphop, dancing, fashion, hair styles, Juneteenth, food, etc. Students then looked back at their own writing to find specific examples of the joy in their own youth culture.
 
Students referred back to joy with all the young characters in the book: Jerome and Emmet Till for Black Boy Joy and Jerome’s sister Kim for Black Girl Magic, but also Sarah (the white cop’s daughter) and Carlos (his friend who he learns about el Dia de los Muertos from).
 
This allows us to look at the violence against Black boys as something that is extinguishing joy and magic from our collective culture of the United States. Students are able to think about our own reality in our small, urban school district and what might contribute to the destruction of their joy and magic.

We do not end the unit in despair, however. Jerome’s friend Carlos decides to memorialize Jerome via a Dia de los Muertos celebration bringing together his and Jerome’s families. Sarah decides to begin a website about Jerome and other Black boys who have been killed by bias-influenced violence. Both of these bring a sense of healing and joy to Jerome.
 
Joy in the face of violence and despair leads us into the idea of informed action and how they might identify similar issues of joy destruction and form ways to enact change.
 
We still have a lot of work ahead of us to completely reframe our curriculum to align with Muhammad’s five pursuits (identity, skills, intellect, criticality, and joy), but just shifting our focus from the destructive results of human injustices to the actual joy-filled humans is a healthy start for us and most especially for our 8th graders.

Works Cited
 
Muhammad, Gholdy. Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and
            Historically Responsive Literacy. Scholastic, 2021.
Muhammad, Gholdy. Unearthing Joy: A Guide to Culturally and Historically Responsive
            Teaching and Learning. Scholastic, 2023.
Rhodes, Jewell Parker. Ghost Boys. Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2018.

    Class Act (2020) is a sequel to Jerry Craft’s award winning novel New Kid, which Craft published in 2019. New Kid followed the storyline of Jordan Banks, a light skinned Black student who was new to the Riverdale Academy Day School, a wealthy and well-regarded private school in New York at which the student body is predominately white. Jordan’s story continues in Class Act, as he tries to navigate being younger than most of his peers, hitting puberty late, and finding a balance between meeting his parents’ high academic expectations with pursuing his passion for the visual arts. ​

However, the primary character of the novel is Drew Ellis, one of Jordan’s best friends. Drew is an intelligent student athlete who wants to do well in school, yet has to balance these desires with the expectations that he will perform as an athlete. Drew lives with his grandmother, who is a single parent, and faces microaggressions in part due to his tall stature and his darker skin. Jordan’s periodic comic drawing interludes show his empathy for Drew as he witnesses these experiences, and empathy is an important life skill for young adolescents to learn. Despite having different life experiences, Jordan and Drew both learn to feel empathy for their good friend Liam, who is white and wealthy, yet still feels isolated at times because of difficult family issues. ​

    The following scene below from page 169 shows how Drew and Jordan are both struggling to find a balance as they navigate middle school life: ​

Drew feels pressure to keep his grades up because of his scholarship to the school. However, as he discusses with Jordan, the hardest part of school is actually the social and emotional part of it, such as navigating relationships with friends, crushes, and teachers. Using Melissa Shieble’s (2014), concept of critical visual literacy, we can notice that the picture of Drew and Jordan walking on the school grounds looks like a maze or a labyrinth. For middle and young high school students, navigating social situations can feel like being in a maze: there are many obstacles, and sometimes, there is not a clear way out. Part of finding the solution, then, is continuing on the journey, even when it is challenging. ​

A large part of conversations in my classroom with my Grade 7 students is around one of their teachers, Mr. Roche. Mr. Roche is a well intentioned, but sometimes misguided white man who often ends up leading diversity awareness programs that he is not equipped to run on his own. This powerful scene from page 95 of the book demonstrates how Drew often feels invisible at some of Mr. Roche’s gatherings and events: ​

This particular scene takes place after Mr. Roche asked Drew to be a tour guide for students coming from the more racially diverse public sister school to the RAD day academy. Drew felt that he was chosen not because of common interests with the students, but because of his race, although he did manage to make a strong connection to one female student in particular. Mr. Roche is reflecting on the tour experience, during which he made a few missteps and left the students from the sister school feeling that they did not belong at RAD. He looked for solace, and while Drew might have wanted to give it, he just didn’t feel he could. The panel series of Drew fading away from the conversation exemplifies his feelings of invisibility in a way that words alone could not. ​

Later in the novel, Mr. Roche and some of his colleagues are preparing to go to a diversity conference, showing their commitment to learning new information about forming connections. As both Jordan and Drew point out, this commitment shows that Mr. Roche and his colleagues are trying, despite these occasional missteps. Through this part of the novel as well as in other key scenes, students can learn to be empathetic with the adults in their lives, as they also are learning. ​

    Before having these and other conversations related to diversity and identity in the secondary classroom, it is important to set up class norms related to civil discourse and respectful discussions. I have found that Essential Partners norms related to the dialogic classroom are helpful. Additionally, the fishbowl discussion technique, similar to Socratic seminars, is a productive way to involve all students, whether or not they are likely to speak up in a larger class environment. Some students need to be reminded to “move up” if they are more likely to be hesitant to speak or to “move back” if they are more likely to be vocal to allow a chance for quieter students to speak up. I’ve found this technique a rewarding way to ensure that all students have a chance to participate in the discussion about this important novel. The discussion questions are student generated, although I occasionally re-word or eliminate questions if they sound too similar to each other.  ​

Jerry Craft and Kwame Alexander are now collaborating on a middle grades book project called J vs K, which will be released in 2025. I look forward to reading that novel and seeing how I might bring it into classroom and writing spaces. Through its combination of relevant themes and visual techniques, Class Act by Jerry Craft has been one of my favorite novels to teach in recent years. ​

Students in 2024 have lived through a huge amount of trauma, whether first or second hand. Almost all have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent disruptions to their lives. In addition, most have access to first-hand accounts of genocide, racism, sexism, and violent crime through social media at any given time. Beyond these external pressures, research indicates that “approximately 25% of American children will experience at least one traumatic event by the age of 16” (The National Child Traumatic Stress Network, n.d.), be it an instance of gun violence in schools, the traumatic loss of a loved one, abuse, or any other of the myriad instances which can cause a person to experience trauma or grief. All of these facts indicate that in the average American classroom, at least one quarter of the individuals in that room have experienced, or will experience, trauma, either in the own lives, or by second-hand witnessing trauma. 

We know that there exists YAL on a wide variety of topics which could be labeled as traumatic. For example, there exists young adult novels on the topic of rape, like Speak, by Anderson (1999), police brutality, like The Hate U Give by Thomas (2017), and suicide, like All the Bright Places by Niven (2015), along with so many other texts, ranging in traumatic topics from the more commonplace to the more extreme. One need only visit the YAL section of a library or a book store to see the wide variety of traumatic topics on display within books for teens. Missing, however, seems to be a larger examination of how books on these topics, and books on other similarly traumatic topics, are used with alignment to trauma-informed pedagogy. In essence, how can, or should, a secondary ELA teacher utilize these books within an educational space to further a trauma-informed pedagogical stance?

While being somewhat new to the scene, trauma-informed pedagogy has a wide-reaching impact on the field of education at all levels. Defined by the American Library Association as “striv[ing] to understand how various forms of trauma may have impacted the lives of learners and us[ing] that understanding to accommodate learners’ needs, prevent[ing] further or retraumatization, and promot[ing] resilience and growth” (Zingarelli-Sweet, 2021), trauma-informed pedagogy is rooted within the idea that the behaviors of people are often rooted in traumatic experiences, and that by purposefully engaging in specific practices, an educator can help learners succeed on an academic, social, and emotional level. There is a great amount of literature and guidance about how to adopt such a stance within one’s teaching practice, and many k-12 and postsecondary institutes of education provide training or recommendations for practice. 

As a professor of literacy in the state of Maryland, my colleagues in the school of education have often discussed the expansion of trauma-informed pedagogy expectations at the k-12 level. Recent guidance provided by the Maryland State Department of Education (or MSDE), titled “A Trauma-Informed Approach for Maryland Schools” (2021) serves as the perfect example of the ways in which k-12 teachers are now being asked to include aspects of trauma-informed pedagogy in regular teaching practices. For example, MSDE recommends that faculty and staff within k-12 spaces utilize a trauma-informed care model as “a standard of care across not only health professions but in school settings, regardless of whether a given individual has reported or experienced trauma and without requiring school staff to know whether a specific individual has a trauma history” (p. 17). In this way, it is becoming an expectation in Maryland that all k-12 faculty and staff are “trauma-informed,” and are mindful in the ways in which students may express traumatic grief within educational spaces. 

Anecdotally, I know that many other states and education systems are having similar conversations, both with and without state guidance. The missing piece, it would seem, is guidance regarding the use of young adult literature within this conversation. To my mind, YAL seems to help bridge the gap between making such heavy content like gun violence in schools, with a teacher’s ability to help students process and reflect on traumatic incidents, perhaps in the hopes of change-making. However, again, an important element is missing: how, if at all, can teachers use YAL written about traumatic events in their trauma-informed teaching practices?

While organizations like Lee and Low Books (a recent recipient of the 2024 ALAN Award) have resources like a Trauma-Informed Diverse Reading List (2019) to support k-8 teachers, there seems to be a distinct lack of guidance or resources for ELA teachers in grades 6-12 with regards to best practices regarding the use of YAL in trauma-informed pedagogy. In the coming years of research on YAL, our field must explore the ways in which YAL on traumatic topics can be used within education spaces in a way that is responsible, trauma-informed, and beneficial to all involved. 

References

Anderson, L. H. (1999). Speak. Farrar Straus Giroux.

Bickmore, W., Rumohr, G., Shaffer, S., & Sluiter, K. (2020). Empowering English teachers to content with gun violence: A COVID-19 conference cancellation story. Language Arts Journal of Michigan, 35(2). https://doi.org/10.9707/2168-149X.2281

Brown, L. A. (2022). School Gun Violence in YA Literature: Representing Environments, Motives, and Impacts. Lexington Books.

Jensen, K. (2018). YA books about school shootings to build empathy, sympathy and understanding. Book Riot. https://bookriot.com/ya-books-about-school-shootings-to-build-empathy-sympathy-and-understanding/

Lee & Low Books. (2019). Trauma-informed diverse reading list. https://www.leeandlow.com/educators/reading-lists/trauma-informed-diverse-reading-list
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Lockhart, E. (2014). We were liars. Delacorte Press.

Maryland State Department of Education. (2021). A trauma-informed approach for Maryland schools.
https://www.marylandpublicschools.org/about/Documents/DSFSS/SSSP/MSDE-Trauma-Informed-Guidance.pdf

The National Child Traumatic Stress Network. School personnel. https://www.nctsn.org/audiences/school-personnel#:~:text=Research%20suggests%20that%20approximately%2025,and%2For%20behavior%20at%20school.

Niven, J. (2015). All the bright places. Knopf Publishing Group.

Raymond, B. (2021). Creating a safe space for students to explore trauma and build resilience through young adult literature, creative composing, and personal experiences. In M. F. Rice & A. K. Dallacqua (Eds.) Luminous literacies: Localized teaching and teacher education (pp.  71-83). Emerald Publishing.

Shaffer, S. (2016). Humanizing and understanding school shootings: How YA “school shooting” literature provides multiple insights. Dr. Bickmore’s YA Wednesday. http://www.drbickmoresyawednesday.com/weekly-posts/humanizing-and-understanding-school-shootings-how-ya-school-shooting-literature-provides-multiple-insights

Shaffer, S., Rumohr-Voskuil, G., & Bickmore, S. T. (2019a). Contending with gun violence in the English language classroom. Dr. Bickmore’s YA Wednesday. http://www.drbickmoresyawednesday.com/weekly-posts/contending-with-gun-violence-in-the-english-language-classroom

Shaffer, S., Rumohr-Voskuil, G., & Bickmore, S. T. (2019b). Contending with gun violence in the English language classroom. Routledge.

Stefan, H. C. (2021). Mad violence, white victims, and other gun violence fictions: The gap between school shootings and systemic gun violence. Research on Diversity in Youth Literature, 3(9).

Thomas, A. (2017). The hate u give. Balzer + Bray.

VanSlyke-Briggs, K., Rhodes, S., & Turner, J. (2020). The darkest themes: Perceptions of teen-on-teen gun violence in schools as portrayed in teen literature. Journal of Research on Libraries and Young Adults, 11(2). https://www.yalsa.ala.org/jrlya/2020/04/the-darkest-themes-perceptions-of-teen-on-teen-gun-violence-in-schools-as-portrayed-in-teen-literature/

VanSlyke-Briggs, K., Rhodes, S., & Turner, J. (2021). Pearl clutching and the normalization of school shootings in young adult literature. In K. VanSlyke-Briggs & E. A. Bloom (Eds.), Dress rehearsals for gun violence: Confronting trauma and anxiety in America’s schools (pp. 17-42). Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
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Zingarelli-Sweet, D. (2021). Keeping up with…trauma-informed pedagogy. American Library Association. https://www.ala.org/acrl/publications/keeping_up_with/trauma-informed-pedagogy

However, I work at an HSI institution that has a newcomer center on our campus for the local community where more supportive activities occur than I most likely know. While I have somehow removed the immigrant experience from my life it is alive and present on the campus and in the schools where I work and collaborate. In addition to the immigrant narrative, it is imperative that we examine and have significant and deep discussions on what the Fourth of July and the American experience is and means for our indigenous communities.
​
 All of this means that July 4th is a perfect time to reflect upon what it means to be an American and provide our students rich literary experiences through a diverse set of books that could be utilized in our classrooms. And while most teachers are not in a classroom around July 4th, the examination of the American experience and what it means to be a citizen in this country can occur anytime.
​

​In 2020, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, suicide was the second leading cause of death for children ages 10-14, and young adults, ages 18-25, were reported to have the highest rates of serious mental illness and mental health concerns compared to adults (Duszynski-Goodman & Henderson, 2024). In response to the growing numbers of teens facing mental health issues, many school districts have incorporated Mental Health Literacy (MHL) into the curriculum and now require teacher training on mental health awareness and early detection. According to Claire Goodfellow (2022), MHL was first developed in Australia in 1997 and incorporated into the curriculum to destigmatize mental health issues and to enhance youth’s belief in seeking out help as an effective action. Since the early establishment of MHL which was originally designed to inform “knowledge and beliefs about mental disorders,” the scholarship regarding MHL has expanded to incorporate four major components: 1) to maintain positive mental health; 2) to identify and understand disorders and treatment; 3) to reduce the stigma of mental health issues and seek out help; and 4) to supply essential resources for support and seeking help (Eisenback & Frydman, 2003, p. 2). While MHL is often supported with resources, such as the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Action Guide for School and District Leaders (2023), there is less literature available that directs teachers’ inclusion of MHL in conversation with curriculum, learning outcomes, and state standards.

​What is clear, however, is that one major element of the success of MHL in schools is the role of a teacher who is committed to incorporating its components (Eisenbach & Frydman, 2023). There is no disagreement that MHL is important and should be included in the curriculum, as education can “open dialogue and break the stigma associated with mental illness” (Eisenbach & Frydman, 2023, p. 2). However, when it comes to MHL, teachers may rightfully feel pressure when incorporating content outside of their area of expertise and/or may cross into unfamiliar territory being placed in the role of a counselor or psychologist. Despite these potential challenges, we follow Esenbach and Frydman (2023), feeling that “excluding such topics is a disservice to student learning” (p. 2) and noting the import of building collaborations with qualified school personnel to broach such topics in the classroom.

As educators of literature, we believe that stories, especially those crafted in YAL, have the power to transform the lives of readers. Outside of our own opinions and love for YAL, research has shown that the inclusion of YAL can promote empathy (Sherr & Beise, 2015) and has the potential to create change or inform social perceptions (Ginsberg & Glenn, 2019). According to Eisenbach and Frydman (2023), narratives have the power to change personal beliefs and attitudes regarding the world, and conversations cultivating MHL can “educate readers on the truths of mental illness while challenging stigma and providing a safe space for exploration and discussion” (p. 2). Literature can facilitate these discussions in a multitude of ways. As a mirror (Bishop, 1990), readers can see themselves reflected in the readings in meaningful ways and even help inform their own feelings or situations when they may not have the understanding or the words to name and discuss their situation on their own. It gives readers agency in discussions of their own well-being. According to Goodfellow (2022), over half of the teens involved in a UK survey expressed “that they did not seek help for poor mental health, because they didn’t understand what it was that they were going through” (para. 6).  Literature as a mirror may also help a reader identify that there is a need to seek out help in relation to character portrayal, diagnosis, or depictions of mental distress presented in the text.

​As a window (Bishop, 1990), depictions can inform readers who do not experience mental health issues about the realities of mental illness. And, as a sliding glass door (Bishop, 1990), students may be able to experience empathy for characters whose lives are different from their own, asking students to walk through a narrative understanding what someone who is different from them may feel. Webber and Agiro (2019) remind us that “inducing empathy toward a person belonging to a stigmatized group not only improves attitudes toward the whole group, but also increases the chance that those positive attitudes will prompt actions to benefit that group” (p. 2). Falter (2022) cautions us to take the idea of empathy with YAL a step further and offers a “critical empathy framework” for reading that “moves beyond mere identification with others and perspective taking, and understands that social, cultural, and historical elements are always at play and complicate our ability to feel and think with another fully” (p. 24).  In what follows, we describe our approaches to inviting students’ mental health literacies into our classrooms through a focal text.  

​The assigned reading for this unit was introduced to students a week in advance with content warnings (Appleman, 2022) and students were given the option of choosing between two texts depicting mental illness so as to offer a space for choice and self-determination. In preparation for the unit, students also received information for seeking help for themselves, both at the institution and state levels. They were offered statistics regarding teens’ mental health, reported by the CDC (2024) which informed them that 1 in 5 young adults have a mental health issue and that many go unreported. They were asked to discuss the content with their peers and determine how they wished to proceed with the unit in terms of text choice. Below we focus on one of the choice texts, The Words We Keep (2022) by Erin Stewart.  

​Focal Text:  The Words We Keep
The Words We Keep (Stewart, 2022) follows two sisters through their intense struggles with mental illness. Lily, the younger sister, has anxiety and desires to live a “normal” life.  Lily’s story begins as her sister Alice returns home from a treatment program where she was diagnosed and medicated for bipolar disorder. Lily remembers Alice’s traumatic suicide attempt and sees the burden of her diagnosis on the family, especially her father, but she sees even more how different Alice is after she returns. Alice doesn’t have her previous flair, and her personality is muted. She no longer dons her brightly colored clothing or has eccentric plans or enthusiasm. Instead, Alice is withdrawn and distant. Under close supervision of their father, Alice is not allowed to be alone; all sharp objects have been hidden; and there is a tension in their home as the family supports and navigates Alice’s diagnosis. In the midst of Alice’s mental health crisis, Lily feels like she has to be perfect. She spends most of her time worried about getting into college and being the model daughter to support her sister and family. This exacerbates her anxiety throughout the text and even though she meets Micah, a new student at her school (who also attended the same treatment center as her sister), she feels alone. Throughout the novel, Lily uses art as a way of expressing the ‘words we keep’ inside, hidden, and private. As her school poetry project unfolds, Lily finds that she is not alone in her experiences. Lily, Alice, and Micah journey through the unknowns of mental health issues and face the stigmas surrounding mental health to find that their journey together is what matters most. This exceptional novel is raw and descriptive of what mental illness can look like in multiple forms–through Lily’s anxiety, Micah’s depression, and Alice’s bipolar disorder.  

​​Reading with Students 
Students’ reading of this novel was divided into two sections, with half the novel assigned per class meeting. During the halfway mark, students reported that: they loved the text and couldn’t put it down, had completed the novel already, or felt that the content was so vividly descriptive that they had to take multiple breaks and were behind schedule. Some students shared that the novel was graphic and brought up their own experiences with trauma, but they felt that the content was accurate in its portrayal. Even though they knew that everyone experiences mental health related issues differently, the students shared that they enjoyed the accuracy of the text based on their own understanding of the elements within the novel. While some expressed that the novel was difficult to read, each student did successfully complete the reading and stated that while it brought up hard issues, they were important topics to discuss in the classroom. They understood that mental health issues impact a large portion of the population and expect that they will encounter people in their lives and in their future classrooms who are in crisis. The students appreciated the additional resources delivered with the unit. Some students, interested in writing a novel themselves, went on to have further discussions of mental health representations and the need for more accuracy to fight against stigmas of mental health. Some students identified with having anxiety and resonated with the depictions of Lily feeling like she needed to be perfect. Others understood the realities of bipolar disorder. Ultimately, students repeatedly expressed that while the text might be difficult to read, it facilitated healthy conversations about mental health, representation, stigma, and access to resources.

​The students’ responses all point to the myriad ways that YAL dealing with mental health can promote honest conversation and connection. Our students experienced the text as a reflection of their own struggles, while others learned more about aspects they had not experienced, such as the effects of medication. Still others noted being transformed by the narrative, especially as it reflected the impact of mental health on family members and how sometimes surrounding a person with love is not enough when they need professional help.  

In the novel, Stewart (2022) expertly depicts the dynamics of friendship, family, and romance.  We drew on several discussion questions to solicit their connections of these themes alongside mental health, reminding students throughout that they were not expected to disclose any personal information unless they chose to, which many did. We prodded them to deeply consider the parents’ roles, asking: How did Lily’s father miss the signs that his daughter was struggling?  And, how was Lily’s stepmom helpful (and not) to her stepdaughters?  To help students see the damaging effects of Lily keeping secrets, we asked:  How did Lily think she was helping Alice?  And, to unpack the stigmas in the text, we asked students to locate microaggressions and aggressions expressed at school as well as how the students at the party reacted to Alice’s episode toward the end of the novel, which resulted in social media postings. Our readers delved into how social media can contribute to declined mental health, especially through cyberbullying.  With our final assigned social action projects (Boyd, 2017; Boyd & Darragh, 2019), we extended the opportunity to students to act on their knowledge gleaned from the text. In almost every semester that students have completed the projects in this course, multiple groups choose to focus on mental health, raising awareness of campus resources, building websites, or hosting movie viewings and critical conversations. Using The Words We Keep as a springboard, a recent group constructed a website to give students quick and easy access to mental health resources on campus. Using flyers to advertise this website, the group focused on preventative mental health and wellness, advocating for the importance of caring for your mental health even when you feel “fine.” The flyers created were bright and colorful, depicting mental health awareness as positive. They heralded the power in knowing oneself and provided resources for improving mental health wellness as well as resources for mental health crises. Using a QR code, the group reported that they advertised in private spaces, such as bathrooms on campus as well as on public information boards and received multiple visitors to their website.

​​Integrating Mental Health Literacy 
As noted above, MHL has expanded to incorporate four major components: 1) to maintain positive mental health; 2) to identify and understand disorders and treatment; 3) to reduce the stigma of mental health issues and seek out help; and 4) to supply essential resources for support and seeking help (Eisenback & Frydman, 2003, p. 2). Our unit attempted to address these elements through reading, research, and discussion. We provided resources at the outset of the unit and offered data on the prevalence of mental health issues, definitions of various types of diagnoses, and practices for establishing mental well-being. As also mentioned above, we focused extensively on the authenticity of the narrative and how Stewart’s (2022) representation revealed and debunked common stigmas. Olan and Richmond (2023) write, “many texts featuring characters with mental illness include authors’ language and descriptions which perpetuate stigma via the readers’ positioning of the characters through a deficit narrative model … In YAL, for example, this could mean characters with mental illness are written as not having effective relationships, not fitting in, experiencing violence/harassment, being positioned as victims, experiencing social isolation, or having negative futures” (p. 22). We asked students how The Words We Keep worked against such tropes.  

​One caution, however, that we ourselves experienced (and our students worried about for their future classrooms) was being placed in the role of a counselor. Because we work with college students, we realize we are uniquely positioned with resources and support at the university. For secondary teachers, we encourage the use of Eisenbach and Frydman’s (2024) model in which middle grades teachers “consulted with the school’s social support staff on content and delivery” (p. 7), collaborating with professionals who can “clarify misconceptions, fill in knowledge gaps for the teacher, and provide resources to deepen teachers’ understandings” (p. 11). We don’t–and shouldn’t–do this work alone. Many resources exist to guide us in selecting texts with authentic depictions of mental health, educating ourselves, and working with those trained to provide mental health instruction (e.g. Anti-Defamation League, 2013; Eisenbach & Frydman, 2024; Olan & Richmond, 2023). A few other points to note are that we did offer student choice in the texts, allowing students to select a mental health related option of interest to them since “MHL interventions need to be developmentally appropriate and applied within the most suitable developmental context” (Kutcher, Wei, & Coniglio, 2016, p. 154). Finally, we embedded the text amongst others and within a focus on ELA curriculum and texts, rather than as an added entity for study solely on mental health. 

​Thus, despite the fears that we, as teachers, may experience surrounding working with mental health, we echo scholars before us who have argued that ignoring sensitive topics only perpetuates suffering in silence or in ignorance surrounding conditions, and we feel it is imperative to incorporate novels like The Words We Keep and MHL into our ELA classrooms. We seek to support our students and to engage them with meaningful literature, and we believe we can accomplish these through units such as that which we have described.  

Anti-Defamation League. (2013). Evaluating children’s books that address disability. Education Division. adl.org
Appleman, D. (2022). Literature and the new culture wars: Triggers, cancel culture, and the teacher’s dilemma. Norton
Bishop, R. S. (1990). Mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. Perspectives – Gerontological Nursing Association, 6(3), ix–xi.
Boler, M. (1999). Feeling power: Emotions and education. Taylor & Francis Group.
Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (2023, December). Promoting mental health and well-being in schools: An action guide for school and district leaders. DASH. file:///C:/Users/hrsw4/OneDrive/Documents/DASH_MH_Action_Guide_508.pdf
Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (2024, May 1). Adolescent and School Health. https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/mental-health/index.htm 
Boyd, A.  (2017).  Social justice literacies in the English classroom:  Teaching practice in
action. Teachers College Press. 
Boyd, A. & Darragh, J.  (2019). Critical literacies on the university campus: Engaging pre-
service teachers with social action projects. English Teaching: Practice & Critique,
19(1), 49-63.    
Duszynski-Goodman, L., & Henderson, L. (2024, February 21). Mental health statistics and facts. Forbes Health. https://www.forbes.com/health/mind/mental-health-statistics/#footnote_5
Eisenback, B. B., & Frydman, J. S. (2023). What are we doing?: Teacher role confusion in mental health literacy education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 132, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2023.104236
Eisenback, B. B., & Frydman, J. S. (2024). Integrating mental health literacy in the English language arts middle school classroom. Middle School Journal, 55(3), 5-15.  
Falter, M. (2022). When the shoe doesn’t fit: A critical empathy framework for young adult literature instruction. The ALAN Review, 50 (1), 18-32.  
Ginsberg, R. & Glenn, W. J. (2019). Moments of pause: Understanding students’ shifting perceptions during a Muslim young adult literature learning experience. Reading Research Quaterly, 55(4), 601-623.
Goodfellow, C. (2022, March 4). Mental health literacy in schools: Let’s talk about how we talk about mental health. Education Today. https://www.educationtoday.com.au/news-detail/Mental-Health-Literacy-in-Schools-5540#:~:text=Mental%20health%20literacy%20was%20first%20defined
Hines, M. B.& Johnson, J.  (2007). Teachers and students as agents of change: Toward a taxonomy of the literacies of social justice.  In D. Row, R. Jimenez, D. Compton, D. Dickinson, Y. Kim, K. Leander, & V. Risko (Eds.), 2007 Yearbook of the National Reading Conference (pp. 281-292).  Oak Creek, WI:  National Reading Conference. 
Khorram, A. (2018). Darius the great is not okay. Penguin Books.
Kutcher, S. Wei, Y. W. & Coniglio, C. (2016). Mental health literacy: Past, present, and future. The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 61(3), 154-158.  
Monaghan, A. (2016). Evaluating representations of mental health in young adult fiction: The case of Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Enthymema, XVI, 32-42.  
Olan, E. L. & Richmond, K.J. (2023). Narrative of deficit and authentic portrayals of mental illness and cultural sensitivities in young adult literature. Study and Scrutiny: Research in Young Adult Literature, 61(1).  
Richmond, K. J. (2018). Mental illness in young adult literature: Exploring real struggles through fictional characters. Libraries Unlimited.  
Sherr, M., & Beise, B. (2015). Using young adult literature to enhance empathy skills: Preliminary findings in BSW education. Journal of Baccalaureate Social Work, 20(1), 101-110.
Webber, K. & Agiro, C. P. (2019). Not from around these parts: Using young adult literature to promote empathy for the immigrant experience. Talking Points, 30 (2), 2-9.
Zentner, J. (2017). The serpent king. Random House.
 

This week we welcome Lisa Hazlett. Lisa is a long time English Educator who has been an active member of the YA Academic community longer than I have been. I have admired her persistence and knowledge for these past 20 years. She has experience and knowledge that is hard to duplicate and is increasingly hard to find among active academics. Thanks Lisa for sharing with us.

A website for Lurlene McDaniel’s is currently not available as of this writing, but Amazon lists all titles, and Most Recommended Books and Book Series in Order have compiled her titles and dates written.  These addresses are below, with multiple sites appearing by simply entering her name in a search engine.
 
Her nearly 80 titles, all mass market series books, appeal to ‘tween females (grades 5-7/8), with the majority depicting a female protagonist’s cancer diagnosis, subsequent treatment, remission, reoccurrence, death, and family/friends’ acceptance and moving forward.
 
These titles also all follow the same plotline; stories are so identical that events occur on approximately the same page in all novels. Frankly, if having read one Lurlene McDaniel novel, one’s read them all.
 
‘Tweens devour these quick, easy reads and share among friends, and although they know what will occur in each novel and when, this matters little, as each protagonist is a new character, and they are eager for her story.  They resemble the protagonists (or wish to), and enjoy experiencing their intense emotions and situations, losing themselves inside the novels. 

​Educators do care, however, and as these are mass market books, they aren’t taught and probably not recommended in schools.  Moreover, many were written in the 1990s (although as series ones, less dated than contemporary fiction) with beginning educators not as familiar with them.
 
Still, although their readers discuss novels together, such talk is largely focused on emotions and drama, and individuals’ feelings of characters and situations. ‘Tweens are too young and inexperienced to recognize and understand McDaniel’s deeper textual implications without teacher assistance or discussion.
 
Below is these novels’ format/plotline (full of foreshadowing), with their often-overlooked messages of female strength and choice in italics:

Stage 1:  The Beginning
 
The protagonist (PT) excitedly begins a new school year, and while playing a sport, falls with pain remaining.  A Dr.’s appointment is finally made, difficult with busy schedules. 
 
Stage 2:  The Diagnosis
 
The PT has an atypical cancer, but she assumes she’ll be cured although her disease warns otherwise.  The PT chooses to begin treatment immediately.
 
Stage 3:  The Illness and Treatment
 
Treatment becomes more arduous, but the PT is informed of and approves all treatments and has no desire to stop or halt procedures, although some rests are recommended.
 
She remains optimistic and befriends a patient with her form of cancer, now in remission and going home. The PTs excitement and hope is renewed. 
 
Stage 4:  Remission
 
The PT enters remission in Feb/March and is adamant to return home earlier than advised. 
 
Still week, she’s tutored at home but eager to return to school and works hard to prepare to attend classes again.  She chooses to return to school earlier than recommended and quickly discovers she no longer fits in, having been away for so long.  Still, she presumes things will improve and actively works for better acceptance

Pivotal Point:  The PT learns of the death of her hospital friend.  She is shocked but remains confident about her own diagnosis.
 
Soon stronger, the PT spends time with friends and boyfriend.  She feels there is much to anticipate and looks forward to better days.
 
Stage 5:  Reoccurrence
 
The PT begins feeling worse and at first presumes nothing serious, but eventually knows   her remission has ended.  She’d planned to attend a dance/party and decides to go although feeling ill, believing it will be her final, magnificent event and not recognizing the extent of her decline. She chooses to keep her health status private.
 
Stage 6:  Acceptance
 
The PT collapses at the party and returns to the hospital, denying additional treatments and ready to accept her terminal condition.
 
Pivotal Point:  The PT considers whether or not to sleep with her boyfriend, a difficult decision.  Ultimately she declines having sex, feeling it inappropriate and ultimately hurtful.  She has the power of choice over all aspects of her body, with this decision not from fear or shame.
 
The PT declines quickly, and the decision to end treatment is her own, although additional ones could be explored. 
 
Stage 7:  Finality
 
The PT asks her boyfriend to take her outside where she dies in sunlight. She chooses when, where, and how she will die, a sad, yet beautiful, moment.
 
Stage 8:  Grief
 
The PT is buried in a pre-chosen white dress, symbolizing purity and heaven’s wellness, with a significant symbol associated with her (dove, rainbow, tulip) appearing during the funeral. 
 
Stage 9:  Moving Forward
 
The PTs boyfriend remains paralyzed with grief, and at a crisis point, a miraculous sign (e.g., a vacant field fills with her favorite flower) appears.  This is presumably from the PT, indicating grief’s end and wanting others to resume their lives.

Key Observation.
​
McDaniel’s novels are more thoughtful and purposeful than the above summary and as their covers appear, as all demonstrate that while individuals cannot choose what happens in life, they can decide how to respond.  Content is direct and realistic, honestly portraying the details and emotions regarding teens’ terminal illnesses and dying, without resorting to miracle cures. They show that bad things happen, regardless of how good a person or how hard one prays and permit the PT control of choices for all treatments and procedures, including final ones.
 
Characters express love, friendship, and sadness; more emotions than only fear or dread, and don’t resort to prolonged self-pity, antagonism, or blame.  These PTs are living while dying; continuing to be their best selves until the end with death portrayed as joyful, a release from pain.
 
Additionally, all depict the human element, as ethics, morals, values, and hard decisions are often overlooked in other stories in favor of portraying technological explanations/treatments. As such, readers are left with inspiration, peace, and hope. 

Most importantly, however, is these novels portray female strength and empowerment throughout.
 
‘Tweens are discovering new limitations, more uncertainties, different expectations and dangers, and fewer choices in their rapidly changing lives.  Reading of older females retaining the power of choice during the saddest and severest situations imaginable provides invaluable role models and can assist their assertion in uncertain situations.
These novels further permit ‘tweens to understand there are many life stages, with none to be feared.  All lives can be lived authentically and with purpose, regardless of length. 
 
Granted, minorities are largely unseen, families are loving and nuclear, financially secure and educated, and PTs bright, talented and popular.  These novels are melodramatic in places (boyfriend issues), but not unrealistic and valuable for younger, impressionable ‘tweens.
 
Why not reconsider McDaniel’s titles and their positive effects upon ‘tween females?
 Although not recommended for classroom teaching, their informal discussion and other talk could easily occur with ‘tweens and would certainly be valuable.

Sources:
 
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=lurlene+mcdaniel&adgrpid=1346902315835455&hvadid=84181466916757&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=64425&hvnetw=o&hvqmt=e&hvtargid=kwd-84181753795881%3Aloc-190&hydadcr=16815_10453543&tag=mh0b-20&ref=pd_sl_48pmd8rley_e
  
Book Series in Order
https://www.bookseriesinorder.com/lurlene-mcdaniel/
 
Most Recommended Books
https://www.mostrecommendedbooks.com/series/lurlene-mcdaniel-books-in-order

The Allure of a Bouncing Basketball and Other Siren Songs
​
​Growing up, I loved basketball. At the 2023 Sports-Themed YA Lit roundtable at NCTE, I listened to Mindy McGinnis (author of 2019 sports-themed YA novel Heroine) talk about the siren song of a basketball bouncing, and this resonated with me. As a kid, as soon as I heard the bounce bounce, I was out the door and playing in the neighbor’s driveway. I also loved to watch the Fab Four play for U of M in the 90s. In middle school, I devoured the one book I came across about the Fab Four, written by Mitch Albom. This was a story of athletes playing the game they loved, and all the drama that went with collegiate sports; it was a world that intrigued me, but it was a world where I also didn’t see myself, a female athlete, reflected or represented. There didn’t yet exist a Caitlin Clark – or, more accurately, the world had not yet decided to embrace the existence of the female athlete and her stories. I wish more stories would have been told of girls playing hard and competing, winning and gritting, failing and trying again; I know the athletes and their stories were out there. But they didn’t get the airtime and attention that we are finally starting to see with female athletes. 

Sportlerroman: Representation and Inclusion for Female Athletes
​
A parallel story can be told in the YA publishing world. In 2003, YA Lit scholar Chris Crowe coined the term “sportlerroman,”or a coming-of-age story where “the protagonist is an athlete struggling to maturity...” (p. 21). The early 2000s proved an important era for sports-themed YAL; however, it was primarily the inclusion of boys in these sports stories - and the exclusion of girls. A 2017 TeenVogue essay captured this moment: “More than 3.3 million girls played high school sports last year, […] So if there are so many girls playing sports, and we know that representation is so important and valuable, why aren’t there more YA books about athletic girls?” (Felicien, 2017).
 
Perhaps in an effort to reclaim what wasn’t available to me when I was an adolescent, but was desperately missing, I have been lining my bookshelf and TBR list with all the girl sportlerroman I can find. Recent YAL publications featuring female athletes has produced a list of inspiring, award-winning tales (including Furia [2020] and Heroine [2019], which have been previously highlighted on this blog). Stories of girls in sport can provide important (and currently still underrepresented) mirrors and windows for all students (not only female athletes). Themes of empowerment, grit, determination, ambition, friendship, expectation, pressure, resilience, failure, and family are present in girl sportlerroman stories and are universally relatable.
 
The books I will highlight in this post include stories of basketball, ice skating, soccer, and romance. Wait, romance? Yes, that’s right. If you’re new to the girl sportlerroman genre, you will soon learn that sports and romance tend to go together like peas and carrots. In fact, the female athlete who is afflicted with heartache, boyfriend blues, and/or crushing lust is quite typical in these stories; “sportlerromance” seems an apt genre-blending title. 

Sportlerromance: Broken Beautiful Hearts

Broken Beautiful Hearts (2018) by New York Times best-selling author Kami Garcia tells the story of soccer player Peyton Rios whose sole focus in life has been on earning a soccer scholarship to University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. When, in the opening pages of the novel, that dream is realized, it seems her senior year of high school is shaping up just as she’d planned. She describes her sport with a devoted reverence:

“After school, I’m the first person on the field for soccer practice. The letter makes me want to get out here and earn it. I stand in the center of the field, passing the ball from knee to knee. This is the place where I feel most at home – the most like me.” (p. 19)
​
She goes on to explain that in the chaos of uncontrollable factors in life, “the way I play and the effort I put in – that part is my choice” (p. 19). And, true to this chaos theory, when a series of unpredictable events happen, Peyton finds herself moving to a new town with new characters to complicate her soccer-focused life. This is where the feel of the story takes shape, and somewhat one-dimensional soccer-focused Peyton questions everything she has believed to be true in the world, including who she can trust, the importance of truth, and what love looks like. While her future as a collegiate soccer player continues to primarily steer her decisions, Peyton must confront the conflict that surrounds her, and this includes letting go of people from her past in order to move into a future with genuine, supportive relationships. 

​Garcia crafts a cautionary tale against performance-enhancing drugs and the damage – bodily, emotionally, and interpersonally – that can alter lives forever. The cautionary tale aspect of Broken Beautiful Hearts is expertly balanced with the steamy love story that unfolds in this sportlerromance (my favorite of a handful I’ve read this spring). The depiction of the relationship that unfolds is tender, careful, and intentional; Peyton and her love interest have both been, as the title suggests, broken by life events, and they have every intention of not breaking one another. One gets the sense that this maturity in both characters stems from the dedication, endurance, and grit they have developed from playing their respective sports (soccer and martial arts). Ultimately, when Peyton is pushed to the edge in the novel’s climax scene, she relies on her deceased father’s soccer advice in order to escape a life-threatening moment: 

​And this the attraction of sports, and by extension, sports stories: the lessons learned on the field and court never stay on the field and court. 

The Heart of Competition: Skating on Mars
​
When I set out to read sportlerroman featuring female athletes, I expected to read primarily stories of competitive situations on the field or court. While this is sometimes the case, many of the sports stories I’ve read instead focus on relationships (familiar and romantic), overcoming mental health challenges (i.e. addiction and OCD), and even quitting the sport altogether in order to find a healthier balance in life. In her recent publication on YA sports literature, Wendy Glenn highlights the importance of counter-narratives in the sports stories told about female athletes due to the exclusionary climate female athletes often report experiencing in competitive sports (Glenn, 2023). Many factors including the inequities, pressures, and bias that girls face in sports result in lower rates of participation and higher rates of quitting as compared to boys (womenssportsfoundation.org). Stories that reflect this reality, and that provide another way of seeing oneself in the sports world (not only in the high-stakes competitive environment) are important in working toward gender inclusivity and equity. 

Skating on Mars (2023) by Caroline Huntoon is, on the one hand, a counter-narrative because it pushes on the strict gender binary that separates all sports, including the binary my own research constructs as I consider YA sportlerroman literature about girls. On the other hand, Huntoon’s depiction of Mars, a non-binary (a.k.a. an “enby”) seventh grade ice skater, showcases the hard-core competitiveness that might be anticipated in a traditional sports narrative – in this case it’s in the world of ice-skating. The descriptions of Mars preparing for competitions and training on the ice are epic in their images of the physicality of this sport, and Mars’s competitive drive toward the skaters they come across is palpable. This scene captures the moment when Mars meets the skater (Xander) who will become their nemesis: 

​From the opening pages, it is impossible not to cheer on Mars in all they want to accomplish – on and off the ice. Landing triples and perfecting “twizzles” may involve intricate footwork on the ice, but creating a space where Mars, as an enby athlete, can compete becomes the most important challenge they have faced:

​Mars is someone who knows what they want (a space to compete), isn’t afraid to work hard for it, and ultimately enlists the help of those around them to build the world they envision. And, similar to the certainty that we saw Peyton exhibit when life put her to the test, Mars demonstrates a similar confidence that seems to stem from the hours of training and trust they’ve built in themselves:

Mars and Peyton both exhibit a conviction that, while not unique only to athletes, the self-assuredness they possess is something that has been enhanced by their participation in their respective sport (ice-skating and soccer). These stories of triumph, defeat, empowerment, and grit have universal themes of interest for all students, regardless of gender or athletic identity – and the accessibility of these titles on our bookshelves is fundamental to our understanding of what it truly means to have gender equality, representation, and inclusion. ​

​Nikki on the Line (2019) by Barbara Carroll Roberts
Gravity (2019) by Sarah Deming
A Season of Daring Greatly (2017) by Ellen Emerson White
All the Things We Never Knew (2020) by Liara Tamani
Breath Like Water (2020) by Anna Jarzab
Catalyst (2002) by Laurie Halse Anderson
Heroine (2019) by Mindy McGinnis
Fast Pitch (2021) by Nic Stone
Furia (2020) by Yamile Saied Méndez
How to Breathe Underwater (2018) by Vicky Skinner

And, finally, the book that I cannot wait to read next: A Map to the Sun (2020) by Sloane Leong. This book excites me 1) it’s about basketball, one of my favorite sports, and 2) it is a graphic novel that is breathtakingly beautiful at first glance (see photos below for proof). 

​50 Years of Title IX. womenssportsfoundation.org
 
Crowe, Chris. More Than a Game, Sports Literature for Young Adults. Scarecrow Press, 2003.
 
Felicien, Bria. “Three Reasons We Need More YA Books About Girls Who Play Sports". Teen Vogue. 2017.
 
Glenn, Wendy. “Fictional Girls Who Play to Play: Pushing on Narratives of Competition in Young Adult Sports Literature.” Sport, Education and Society", 2023.

​Shakespeare remains one of the most commonly taught authors in secondary English curricula. I was often impressed and sometimes surprised by my high school students’ responses to reading Shakespeare. When I taught Othello, one student was so indignant he said in exasperation, “Othello and Desdamona die? Man, I was waiting for someone to bust a cap in Iago so Othello and Desdamona could live happily ever after.” To be honest, I couldn’t entirely disagree with my student’s assessment. Desdamona especially deserves so much better than being murdered because of Iago’s lies. While I have yet to find a version of Othello where Desdamona lives, many YA authors have adapted Shakespeare’s stories into novels and short stories, making their own changes to the Shakespearean text.
 
Why and how have YA retold Shakespeare in new time periods and settings? Hutchinson (2012) argues that the appeal of adaptations comes from their combination of familiarity thanks to what readers know about the source material and surprise of what’s changed, removed, or added. YA adaptations often seek to critique Shakespeare’s plays by reframing these stories for today’s readers (Barber & Esther, 2011), and the more interesting retellings may be the ones that diverge the most from the source material, resisting traditional takes on canonical stories (Miskec, 2013).
 
Isaac (2000) notes that authors have adapted Shakespeare for younger readers since the early 19th century and encourages educators and students to critically analyze the changes contemporary authors make in their adaptations. Two issues that Issac suggests students consider as they read adaptations of Shakespeare: How is the story changed by eliminating characters and plot lines? How is the story impacted by turning a work of drama into a novel? It’s important for students to examine changes in both plot and form.

I don’t think Shakespeare would object to today’s YA adaptations of his plays. After all, he adapted Greek and Roman myths, stories from Chaucer, and English history, so it makes sense that writers today are adapting Shakespeare’s plays into novels, short stories, and films. Check out three recent YA adaptations of Shakespeare and see how these authors give us new takes on Shakespeare’s characters, plot lines, and themes.

References
Barber, S., & Esther, H. (2011). Supplementing Shakespeare: Why young adult novelizations belong in the classroom. ALAN Review, 38(3), 52-59.

Hutchinson, L. (2012). A theory of adaptation. Routledge.

Issac, M. L. (2000). Heirs to shakespeare: Reinventing the bard in young adult literature. Heinemann.
​
Miskec, J. M. (2013). Young adult literary adaptations of the canon. ALAN Review, 48(3), 75-85.

​As the climate crisis has intensified, we’ve increasingly felt its effects in our daily lives. Hotter temperatures. More severe storms. Increased drought. Most of us in North America found ourselves breathing in the effects of global warming in the summer of 2023, as we were immersed in waves of smoke from Canadian wildfires, which consumed more than 9.8 million acres of forest (Bilefsky, 2023). The NOAA’s annual report (Assessing the Global Climate in 2023, 2024) ranked 2023 as the warmest year since 1850 when global temperatures were first recorded, and the top ten warmest years in the entire record were—you guessed it—the last ten years. We could go on, but the upshot is this: The global climate emergency has led to no small amount of doom scrolling.
 
But this is where, as lovers of literature, we can pause. We know, because we’ve seen it time and again, that the story is not over until the last page. That’s one theme of Elizabeth Kolbert’s (2024) new book, H is for Hope: Climate Change from A to Z, a collection of 26 short essays, one for each letter of the alphabet. In the chapter for D, Kolbert addresses despair, putting it plainly: “Despair is unproductive. It’s also a sin” (p. 31). Given Kolbert is the Pulitzer-prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, and thus knows a thing or two about the darkest prospects of the climate crisis, we can imagine this rejection of despair as coming from a place of wisdom.  

And that is perhaps the most hopeful thing about the rise of YA nonfiction on climate. It is a publishing trend driven by youth activism.
 
As youth activists have challenged oil and gas powerhouses on the world stage, demand for climate-related books on the children’s and young adult market has skyrocketed. “The Greta Effect,” as reported by The Guardian (Ferguson, 2021), is real. Described by Rachel Kellehar, head of nonfiction at Nosy Crow, the Greta Effect means, “She [Swedish youth activist Greta Thumberg] has galvanised the appetite of young people for change, and that has galvanised our appetite, as publishers, for stories that empower our readers to make those changes” (para. 6). While Greta Thumberg tends to be a household name in the discussion about youth activism, even a “messianic-like face for the climate movement” (Muhammad, 2019, para. 2), young people of color have always been on the frontlines in the fight against global warming, powerfully foregrounding the role of colonialism, imperialism, and racism in climate disasters around the world (Janfaza, 2020). YA publishing is paying attention.

​Confession #1: We love this. It’s amazing. We are cheerleaders for this YA publishing trend.
 
Confession #2: YA publishing trends give us pause.
 
Here’s some context. I (Mark) have been interested in YA nonfiction for some time. And that interest is predicated on the idea that nonfiction is not a monolithic category, but an “aesthetic object” (Kiefer & Wilson, 2011, p. 294) full of authorial decisions about how best to tell the story of a topic, event, or person (Colman, 2007). With those ideas in mind, a certain type of YA nonfiction is particularly interesting: youth adaptations. So that includes anything with “young reader’s edition” or “adapted for young adults” or something similar on the cover. Youth adaptations are essentially a version of another book that is revised, repackaged, and rebranded as YA literature. Why are youth adaptations interesting? If we look at youth adaptations, we can better understand how the YA publishing industry—the imprints, editors, authors, ghostwriters, and artists—produce content specifically for young people. I’ve written about youth adaptations in the past, and here are a couple of things I’ve learned: 

​1. Youth adaptations go beyond just making the language more accessible, although that’s part of what they do.
 
2. Youth adaptations are not all the same. They’re made in all sorts of ways. Some are written by the original author(s). Some are ghostwritten. Some have distinctly different emphases and themes. Some rearrange content. Some sanitize content. Some omit topics that might be perceived as controversial. Some take on an authoritarian tone, directly telling youth readers what meaning they should make of a person, action, event, or topic. And on the other side, some youth adaptations invite youth into complex conversations about complex topics, closely approximating their original versions. The variation in youth adaptations is extremely wide, and it’s hard to discern the nature of the adaptation without fully reading it. But generally, through youth adaptations, the YA publishing industry “talks to” young people differently and, oftentimes, in not-so-generous ways. (If you would like more thoughts on this, I’ve provided some references below to articles about youth adaptations of nonfiction texts.)   

​When it comes to youth adaptations of books on climate, we’re mindful that notions about what is deemed appropriate for youth are often based on stereotypes about who youth are as readers and thinkers in the world (Lesko, 2012). Therefore, when thinking about youth adaptations of nonfiction books on climate, we had this question:
 
How do youth adaptations of climate-related nonfiction books differ from the original versions of those books?
 
To explore this question, we did some reading. Here are four sets of books, each book originally published on the general nonfiction market and then revised and republished as a youth adaptation on the YA nonfiction market:

​So, a throwback to Confession #1, we love this trend. These books provide such compelling pathways into understanding our climate. Across these books, we have beautiful writing about climate science, frameworks for thinking about the health of our planet in terms of what we wear and what we eat, and engagement with the most pertinent social, cultural, historical, political, and critical questions related to our collective future.
 
But, a throwback to Confession #2, while we’re still working on a more in-depth analysis, we did notice something: 

​The youth adaptations tend to prioritize content about individual action over policy action. That is, the adaptations tend to feature content about what you individually can do right now, such as recycling, making a garden, eating less meat, and avoiding fast fashion. These actions are super important, absolutely. Everything counts in the fight to save the planet. However, this change in emphasis tends to leave less space, proportionally, for content about what climate-friendly policies look like, the role of government in the fight against global warming, and the levers that citizens might wield if they band together in concerted efforts to control the behavior of elected officials and corporate entities.
 
Let’s walk that observation back for a moment. The youth adaptations of the set of books we examined, while they do emphasize individual action to reduce carbon emissions, often also put those individual actions in the context of larger forces in play. That, in our estimation, is great!
 
We agree with Beach’s (2023) view that climate education should go beyond an emphasis on individual, solo acts of conservation to critical inquiry about the objects, outcomes, roles, tools, rules, norms, beliefs, and discourses that shape our relationship to the environment and our agency in saving it. In short, climate education should involve systems thinking. 

​These books set the stage for that type of thinking. And yes, while we did notice a shift in the youth adaptations to a greater emphasis on individual actions youth readers can take, it’s not like systems thinking went out the window. In particular, the youth adaptation of Hope Jahren’s (2022) The Story of More very closely aligns with the original version, beautifully demonstrating how our individual decisions and values matter in the larger systems in play and vice versa. We Are the Weather Makers (2009), the youth adaptation of Tim Flannery’s book, has similar connections, although many of the added “Call to Action” chapters could be more explicit about those connections. The Omnivore’s Dilemma (2015) and Fashionopolis (2024) are less explicit still, offering specific advice to youth readers in terms of individual decisions in the final pages (e.g., “Eat real food,” “Buy real food,” “Eat real meals,” in The Ominvore’s Dilemma and “Launder your clothes less frequently,” “Skip the plastic bags,” “Repair and re-wear” in Fashionopolis). The risk here would be that individual actions become the main takeaway from these books and systems thinking is left at a distance, something to get to if we happen to have time, or maybe when the youth reader grows up.
 
On the one hand, of course,  it’s essential to implicate ourselves in the fight against global warming and make personal decisions in alignment with our values. On the other hand, we can’t downplay the role of the machinery behind the curtain, which pollutes at many, many, many orders of magnitude greater than any individual and in fact sets the parameters through which individuals make decisions in the first place. Hope Jahren makes this point in both the original and youth adapted versions of The Story of More (2020, 2022), observing individual choices to go green can be somewhat of an illusion when considering the larger system in play. Example: electric vehicles. If the energy grid is largely driven by fossil fuels, then “an electric vehicle emits its smog on the other side of town” (original, p. 123; adaptation, p. 116). Not only does this turn of phrase invite systems thinking into the conversation, it also demonstrates—because examples such as these are in original and youth adapted books on climate, especially The Story of More—that youth adaptations provide opportunities to read, think, and teach in that direction.  

The caveat is that across the original and youth adapted texts we’re reviewing here, a systems thinking approach is taken up in the original versions at length, and while that content tends to be still present in the youth adaptations to varying degrees, the overall vibe of youth adapted books is more about what you, as an individual, can do to curb your personal carbon emissions. This vibe is eerily similar to the “carbon footprint” discourse, a set of ideas pushed by the fossil fuel industry to shape public thinking about global warming (“How Big Oil Helped Push the Idea of a ‘carbon Footprint,’” 2023). The idea was that if people think about global warming in terms of their personal carbon footprint, then they’ll tend to conceptualize global warming as a matter of individual responsibility rather than the result of harmful energy systems running under the auspices of government support and corporate greed.

Suffice it to say, there is a certain irony if youth adaptations prioritize individual actions over systems thinking. The response of the YA publishing industry toward climate-related nonfiction is itself an artifact of youth activism, which is based in systems thinking through and through.
 
What does this mean? The youth adaptations we examined are still wonderful, complex texts. But we do think—from a conceptual standpoint, from a teaching standpoint, and from a standpoint of readers ourselves—we should be asking questions about nonfiction youth adaptations centered on climate change: 

If a youth adaptation seems a little light on systems thinking, that doesn’t imply we should forget about it. From our perspective, it simply means we should supplement the book with additional resources that encourage systems thinking. YA nonfiction books on climate already include systems thinking to some degree and are an invaluable resource for young readers—and everyone else—to learn about the climate and imagine better futures.
 
To that end, we’ll conclude this post with some resources we think set the conditions for systems thinking and could pair well with climate-related YA books. These resources, we believe, can highlight the systems thinking that is already present in these books, allowing us to set our imaginations beyond what we can do individually (still important!) to what we will need to do collectively. These resources involve questions, frameworks, simulations, facts, concepts, and teaching practices that put the content of the book into conversation with, as Beach, Share, and Webb (2017) put it, “the social, historical, ethical, and human realities that are critical to the problem” (p. 7).
 
We offer these resources as a window into our thinking, but at the same time, we know there are lots of great resources out there. We’d love to hear from you in the comments about what resources you find helpful – let’s keep the conversation going!

Batch, B., & Sulzer, M. A. (2023). Additional teaching resources for a unit on Fashionopolis by Dana Thomas. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TcxHbqf4UKA5KBSD5bDu4B1eC7igPhW9/edit
 
This document compiles a list of supplemental resources to be used in a unit based on Fashionopolis by Dana Thomas and includes various classroom activities, suggestions for a unit side quest (in which students would do individual exploration on a person, event, topic, or issue that interests them), additional readings on fast fashion and climate change, and videos on fast fashion and sustainable fashion. 
 
En-ROADS climate scenario. (n.d.). https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=24.5.0&p47=1.8
 
This interactive scenario allows users to adjust various factors, such as energy supply and transport, to see how these levels influence greenhouse gas net emissions and temperature increases.
 
Food Systems Dashboard. (n.d.). https://www.foodsystemsdashboard.org/
This dashboard allows users to explore how food systems work by adjusting various factors such as food system drivers and food environments, among others. The site also links to the food system profiles of specific countries as well as food-related policies and actions. 
 
Sea level rise and coastal flooding impacts. (n.d.). Sea Level Rise Viewer. https://coast.noaa.gov/slr/
This sea level rise viewer allows users to manipulate variables and see how these actions affect sea levels.
 
Toronto Outdoor Education Schools TDSB. (2020, April 23). Fast fashion & Sustainability. ArcGIS StoryMaps. https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/66ea7714178741b4aecbf53b44fb8710
 
This interactive site invites users to explore fast fashion and sustainability through thought-provoking questions, videos, maps, a real-time survey, activities, calls to action, and more. 

​References
 
Assessing the global climate in 2023. (2024, March 25). National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/global-climate-202312
Beach, R. (2023). Literacy research, systems thinking, and climate change. Research in the Teaching of English, 58(1), 105-122.
Beach, R., Share, J., & Webb, A. (2017). Teaching climate change to adolescents: Reading, writing, and making a difference. Routledge and the National Council of Teachers of English.
Bilefsky, D. (2023, June 28). What to Know About Canadian Wildfires and U.S. Air Quality. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/28/world/canada/canada-wildfires-smoke-us-air-quality.html
Castaldo, N. F. (2022). When the world runs dry: Earth’s water in crisis. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Young Readers.
Colman, P. (2007). A new way to look at literature: A visual model for analyzing fiction and nonfiction texts. Language Arts, 84(3), 257-268.
Ferguson, D. (2021, August 25). ‘Greta effect’ leads to boom in children’s environmental books. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/11/greta-thunberg-leads-to-boom-in-books-aimed-at-empowering-children-to-save-planet
Fleischer, J. (2021). A hot mess: How the climate crisis is changing our world. Minneapolis, MN: Zest Books.
How Big Oil helped push the idea of a “carbon footprint.” (2023, December 19). NPR Illinois. https://www.nprillinois.org/2023-12-18/how-big-oil-helped-push-the-idea-of-a-carbon-footprint
Janfaza, R. (2020, January 3). 9 Climate activists of color you should know. Teen Vogue. https://www.teenvogue.com/story/youth-climate-activists-of-color
Kiefer, B., & Wilson, M. I. (2011). Nonfiction literature for children: Old assumptions and new directions. In S. A. Wolf, K. Coats, P. Enciso, & C. A. Jenkins (Eds.), Handbook of research on children’s and young adult literature (pp. 302-313). New York, NY: Routledge.
Kolbert, E. (2014). The sixth extinction: An unnatural history. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Co.
Kolbert, E. (2024). H is for hope: Climate change from A to Z. Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press.
Lesko, N. (2012). Act your age!: A cultural construction of adolescence. New York, NY: Routledge.
Martinez, X., & Lukashevsky, A. (2020). Imaginary borders. New York, NY: Penguin Workshop.
Muhammad, N. I. (2019, October 11). The young activists of color who are leading the climate charge. Vox. https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/10/11/20904791/young-climate-activists-of-color
Nakate, V. (2021). A bigger picture: My fight to bring a new African voice to the climate crisis. Boston, MA: Mariner Books.
Rao, A. S. (2020). One earth: People of color protecting our planet. Ferndale, WA: Orca Book Publishers.
Ridge, Y., & Thebeault, D. (2023). Evolution under pressure: How we change nature and how nature changes us. Toronto, CA: Annick Press.
Rusch, E. (2023). The twenty-one: The true story of the youth who sued the U.S. government over climate change. New York, NY: Greenwillow Books.

​References about Youth Adaptations of Nonfiction Texts
 
Sulzer, M. A. (2020). Border crossing from literature to young adult literature: A critical comparative content analysis of Enrique’s Journey (original version) and Enrique’s Journey (adapted for youth). The ALAN Review, 47(2), 12-24.
Sulzer, M. A., Colley, L. M., Hellmann, M. C., & Lynch, T. L. (2021). Doctors, drugs, and danger: Disentangling discourses of adolescence/ts in Dreamland (original version) and Dreamland (young adult adaptation) with critical comparative content analysis. Study and Scrutiny: Research on Young Adult Literature 5(1), 1-39.
Sulzer, M. A., Thein, A. H., & Schmidt, R. R. (2018). What is adapted in youth adaptations?: A critical comparative content analysis of military memoirs repackaged as young adult literature. Journal of Language & Literacy Education, 14(1), 1-27.
Thein, A. H., Sulzer, M. A., & Schmidt, R. R. (2013). Evaluating the democratic merit of young adult literature: Lessons from two versions of Wes Moore’s Memoir. English Journal, 103(2), 57–64. 
Thein, A. H., Sulzer, M. A., & Schmidt, R. R. (2019). Critical comparative content analysis: Examining race, politics, and violence in two versions of I am Malala. In Ginsberg, R., & Glenn, W. (Eds.), Engaging critically with multicultural literature in the secondary classroom (pp. 153-161). New York, NY: Routledge.

​Original and Youth Adapted Books on Climate
 
Flannery, T. (2001). The weather makers: How man is changing the climate and what it means for life on Earth. New York, NY: Grove Press.
Flannery, T. (adapted by Sally M. Walker) (2009). We are the weather makers: The history of climate change. Somerville, MA: Candlewick. 
Jahren, H. (2020). The story of more: How we got to climate change and where to go from here. New York, NY: Vintage Books.
Jahren, H. (2022). The story of more (adapted for young adults): How we got to climate change and where to go from here. New York, NY: Delecorte Press.
Pollan, M. (2006). The omnivore's dilemma: A natural history of four meals. New York, NY: Penguin.
Pollan, M. (adapted by Richie Chevat). (2015). The omnivore’s dilemma: Young readers edition. New York, NY: Rocky Pond Books.
Thomas, D. (2020). Fashionopolis: Why what we wear matters. New York, NY: Penguin.
Thomas, D. (2024). Fashionopolis (young readers edition): The secrets behind the clothes we wear. New York, NY: Dial Books for Young Readers.