DR. BICKMORE'S YA WEDNESDAY

Confessions of a YA Syllabus

2/4/2026

Meet our Contributor

Mandy Luszeck is an Assistant Professor of English Education at Utah Valley University. She primarily teaches courses in reading methods and Young Adult Literature. She loves that her work requires a current knowledge of the field—essentially giving her the perfect excuse to read as many YA books as she can. Please send suggestions her way: [email protected].

Confessions of a YA Syllabus by Mandy Luszeck

“Did you know…?”

“Dr. L… did you know…?”

The truth is, I didn’t. Not then.

My first semester teaching Young Adult Literature at Utah Valley University, my students were assigned twenty novels over the course of the term—four of which we read together as a class. Those shared texts anchored our discussions and aligned with course themes: youth voice and identity, belonging and acceptance, realism and “dark matter” in YA, creative nonfiction, multimodal texts, and representation.
That semester, we read Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli, Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds, All Thirteen by Christina Soontornvat, and American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang.

“Did you know that none of the books we read together have a female protagonist?”

I paused.

No. I hadn’t realized that.

How the Syllabus Happened (and Why It Felt Justified)

My process for selecting those books felt thoughtful—careful, even. I chose texts I enjoyed, ones that moved me, that were accessible in length, and that clearly illustrated the ideas we were unpacking in class. These were books I trusted. Books I had taught, loved, or returned to over time. Books that worked.

They offered a strong youth voice. They sparked discussion. They traveled well across themes. They were critically acclaimed, frequently taught, and familiar enough that I felt confident building a course around them.

What I didn’t do—what I failed to do—was step back and ask what their collective presence was saying.

“But Stargirl…” I began.

“Doesn’t count,” the student said.

And they were right.

Stargirl isn’t the protagonist. She isn’t the narrator. While the story revolves around her, it isn’t about her. It’s about Leo—his identity, his discomfort, his social risk, his growth. Stargirl functions as a catalyst more than a center.

We could argue about technical definitions of protagonist, and perhaps there’s value in that discussion. But the larger point held. When we looked closely at the syllabus—not at individual books, but at the pattern—a gap emerged.

There it was: my confession. The dirty little secret of my YA syllabus.

Revisions, Rotations, and the Persistent Gap

Since that first semester, I’ve changed the core texts we read together. We now read five shared novels instead of four— adding historical fiction (I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys). I’ve rotated the opening novel and the graphic novel several times. Currently, students read The Labors of Hercules Beal by Gary D. Schmidt and The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen.

And still.

I have yet to feature a core class novel with a female protagonist.

This isn’t due to a lack of options. My independent reading lists are overflowing with female-centered stories—arguably more than male-centered ones. Nor is this avoidance. I have actively searched. I am searching.

What I’m looking for is not just representation, but fit.

The “Safer” Book Myth I Refuse to Carry Forward

I remember, vaguely and uncomfortably, being told in my undergraduate YA literature course that male-protagonist books were “safer” classroom selections. Girls will read “boy books,” the logic went, but boys won’t read “girl books.” This belief—still circulating, still shaping curricula—is often framed as pragmatic rather than ideological (Munson‐Warnken, 2017).

Even then, I questioned it.

Now, I reject it outright.

Boys should read books written by, about, and from the perspectives of girls. They should sit with a new world-view. They should look through the window or walk through the glass door of a different lived experience. Not as an act of charity, but as a matter of literary necessity. Furthermore and fundamentally, stories narrated by and about girls are not “girl” stories—they are human stories.

If YA literature is meant to help young adults understand themselves and others, then avoiding female-centered narratives in shared classroom spaces is not neutral—it is instructional. An unsaid message is being whispered— the message that some stories matter more than others. Some voices are more accepted than others. This isn’t a message I wish to share, nor one I believe.

The Missing Literature Circle Book

One of the final projects in my course is called The Missing Literature Circle Book. Students are asked to propose the book we should have read—either in addition to or instead of one of our shared class texts. They must identify a gap in our conversations and argue for a book that would have “done it better.”

Over the years, many of these proposals have featured female protagonists.

Now, I am honest about the dirty little secret of my syllabus. I tell students I know there is a gap. I tell them it bothers me. I challenge them to find the book—the one that earns its place on the syllabus not because it is “important,” but because it is excellent and pedagogically necessary.

I keep an open mind. I want to be convinced.

Proposals have included A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle, Divergent by Veronica Roth, Cinder by Marissa Meyer, and others. These are great books. They matter. And yet, so far, none have fully persuaded me that they can do the specific work my current shared texts are doing.

What the Current Core Texts Do (and Why That Matters)

Each book we read together earns its place by carrying distinct instructional goals. Here is what I believe my current novel selection accomplishes:

Book 1: A clear introduction to a youth voice. Beautiful narration. It moves you. Themes of identity and belonging. Clear hallmarks of YA. (The Labors of Hercules Beal by Gary Schmidt)

Book 2: Realistic fiction. An authentic “own voices” story with a unique lens. It invites critique and discomfort. It asks hard questions—especially about what we deem “appropriate” for youth readers. (Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds)

Book 3: Creative nonfiction you can’t put down—it defies the “history book” reputation of nonfiction that lingers from high school.. A compelling narrative of survival and hope. Multiple perspectives. Meticulously researched. (All Thirteen by Christina Soontornvat)

Book 4: A multimodal/ sequential art narrative. Layered storytelling. Elements of speculative fiction or fantasy. Queer representation. Equally beautiful in image and language. (The Magic Fish Trung Le Nguyen)

Book 5: Historical fiction centered on an event rarely taught in Western classrooms. Deeply researched. Structured like a thriller—propulsive, wave-like, impossible to put down. (I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys)

This is the bar.

I am not looking for a token replacement. I am looking for a book that can do this work—or disrupt and expand it--with a female protagonist at the center.

Books I Love (and Why They’re Still on the Long List)

I’ve read incredible books recently centering female protagonists: Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley, Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson, This One Summer by Jillian and Mariko Tamaki.

These books are on my shelf and I talk about them frequently and bring them to class for opening “Book Talks”. They live securely on my long-list for students to choose from for their independent reading.

And still, they don’t feel quite right for our particular shared space and classroom goals.

That tension—the space between loving a book and needing it to do specific curricular work—is where this struggle lives.

A Syllabus is a Living Argument

A syllabus is never just a list of books. It is an argument about what matters. About whose stories anchor conversations. About which voices get the weight of collective attention and which are left to independent discovery.

My syllabus is better than it was. It is more intentional. More self-aware.

But it is not finished.

So here is my invitation—really, an earnest request:

What am I missing?

What is the book I need to read?

What is my Missing Literature Circle Book—the one that belongs at the center, not the margins, of a YA classroom?

I am not looking for a perfect replacement for a book I currently center, but for one that can carry the weight of a shared classroom conversation—one that challenges my students, disrupts assumptions, expands their reader identity, and reminds us that YA literature should not only be read, but felt.

Help.

Sincerely,

A YAL professor in constant revision

References

Munson‐Warnken, M. (2017). The high cost of “girl books” for young adolescent boys. The Reading Teacher, 70(5), 583-593.

Mystery as Mentor Text: Isle of Ever by Jen Calonita

1/28/2026

Meet our Contributor:

Dr. Melanie Hundley is a Professor in the Practice of English Education at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College; her research examines how AI, digital and multimodal composition informs the development of pre-service teachers’ writing pedagogy. Additionally, she explores the use of AI, digital and social media in young adult literature. She teaches writing methods courses that focus on AI, digital and multimodal composition and young adult literature courses that explore diversity, culture, and storytelling in young adult texts. She teaches AI and literacy courses including AI and Storytelling. Her current research focus has three strands: AI in writing, AI in Teacher Education, and Verse Novels in Young Adult Literature She is currently the Coordinator of the Secondary Education English Education program in the Department of Teaching and Learning at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College.

Mystery as Mentor Text: Isle of Ever by Jen Calonita by Melanie Hundley

The novel, Isle of Ever, opens with a snippet from a journal entry. It says,

The tide brought in many
things, but this was the
first time it brought a person… (Calonita, p. 1)

The opening line of a novel is an invitation and a promise; it creates the moment when a reader decides whether to step fully into a story’s world or to set the book aside. Opening lines create magic. A compelling first sentence doesn’t just introduce plot or character; it creates intrigue, establishes tone, and sparks that magical something that pulls a reader into a story. In that single line, an author can pose a question, hint at conflict, or offer a voice so vivid it demands to be followed, proving that the beginning of a story is often where a reader’s commitment is won. As teachers, we know those books that have those compelling first lines. We foreground those books in book talks, use those sentences as mentor texts, and highlight them as examples of powerful first lines.

Jen Calonita is one of those writers who create those first lines that pull a reader in—her stories are master classes in attention-grabbing hooks. The opening lines for Fairy Godmother, for example, sweep us into the world of Disney’s Cinderella by focusing on the blue dress:

Well, she’d done one thing right. Blue, it was clear, was the girl’s color.

To call the gown blue, however, was doing it a disservice. The color was more a cross between azure and cyan. Brighter than a clear summer day, the tone was practically luminescent, the exact shade of the girl’s eyes, which, Renee thought, getting misty, were the same shade as her mother’s. In fact, it was Ella’s mother’s gown she’d transformed that night. Was she watching this all from somewhere in the universe? (p. 1)

Calonita, Jen. (2024). Fairy Godmother. Disney Hyperion.

That hook reminds us of the Disney movie but then shifts our focus from the dress to the creator of the dress.

This past fall, I worked with a group of students who wanted to write their own mystery story. We used Isle of Ever as our mentor text. I explained that this was a book we were going to read two ways—as a reader and as a writer. They decided that a reader reads to enjoy, to feel, and to explore. A writer, they said, reads “kind of like a doctor” and looks for how a story works. A writer wants to see how “the bones and blood and guts” of a story come together.

Isle of Ever opens with a journal entry that grabs our attention as readers. Visually, we are aware that the lines are a snippet from something old. The lines are in a gray box that is centered on the page. As readers, we wonder, who wrote this? Who came in on the tide? What else does the tide bring in? Immediately, we are set up for a mystery. This novel is a fast-paced adventure that blends history, mystery, and high-stakes puzzles. Days after her twelfth birthday, Everly “Benny” Benedict learns she is the heir to a vast fortune left by a mysterious ancestor from the 1800s, but only if she can win a game built on centuries-old clues. Calonita’s rich language and carefully layered riddles guide readers through a shadowy mansion, diary entries, and legends of an island that vanished two hundred years ago and appears only once every two centuries. As Benny races against time, with just days to solve the clues, break an ancient curse, and save her and her mom from poverty, the tension mounts as hints of danger and the presence of others who will stop at nothing to claim the island’s secrets.

But, back to hooks and language that pulls us into a story. The prologue to Isle of Ever situates us as the reader in the past. It introduces a time period that will become important; it also introduces to Sparrow and her friends.

            “Race you to the island, Sparrow!” Gilbert Monroe shouted as he ran ahead of me down the wet path, sand and dirt kicking up behind him. Rain was still misting after the storm. “I’m going to beat you!”

            “No, you’re not!” I ran faster, thundering down the rocky path, laughing as the bucket I carried for shells banged against my bare legs. I could hear the others behind us—Aggy, Thomas, and Laurel, taking bets on who would be victorious in making it to our island first.

            It would be me. It is always me. (Calonita, pp.1-2)

As a teacher, what I love about this passage is how much we learn about the setting and characters from just a few sentences. This past fall, I worked with a group of middle school students on writing a story. One of their big struggles was how to introduce their characters. Mikey, one of the seventh graders, said, “I know we are supposed to do the whole show not tell thing, but I don’t actually know what that looks like.” We used this passage and I asked, What do you know about the characters? The students explained that they knew the names, that Sparrow was competitive and liked to run, that Gilbert liked to race, and that they lived somewhere with a beach. They highlighted the places where they learned these details and then tried some of those same structures in their own writing. One student said, “It started with an action sentence and a name.” Another student said, “One part had two short sentences on a single line. The big idea in the first sentence was repeated bigger in the second sentence.” While the students are not yet naming the rhetorical devices that they are noticing, they are beginning to read like writers and using the work of writers they like as mentors.

Chapter Two opens with the following passage:

Benny knew what an inheritance was—someone had left her money or a boat or a car (at least that’s how it worked on Lawyered Up), but the question was who? Nobody Benny knew had money, but her mom seemed excited to hear the details, and Sal had said, “Kid, your’re going to be rich.”

Benny wasn’t so sure. What did this lawyer mean by “a fortune”? Did it have to do with whoever her father was? Benny had more questions than answers as she climbed the stairs to their sweltering apartment.

Sal had given her mom a couple of hours off so that she and Benny could meet with Peter Stapleton of Fineman, Larken, and Burr to discuss this inheritance business in private. (Calonita, p. 19)

This passage gives us as readers insight into Benny’s home life, her worries, and the future mystery. As a mentor text passage, it offers students a way to show concerns and worries, a way to show a character’s internal concerns. In just a few lines, Calonita layers multiple craft elements that deepen characterization while quietly building tension and controlling pacing. Benny’s voice is established immediately through her comparison of real life to Lawyered Up, a detail that signals her age, humor, and reliance on pop culture to make sense of the world. Benny’s voice comes through immediately in her reference to Lawyered Up, a detail that grounds her age, sense of humor, and worldview while revealing how she tries to make sense of unfamiliar situations. The brief, direct questions, What did this lawyer mean by “a fortune”? Did it have to do with whoever her father was? slow the moment and invite readers into Benny’s internal worries, allowing tension to build without overt explanation.

At the same time, Calonita anchors those thoughts in physical movement, using Benny’s climb up the stairs to their “sweltering apartment” to reinforce the family’s financial stress and keep the scene moving forward. The inclusion of specific names and institutions—Mom, Sal, Peter Stapleton, Fineman, Larken, and Burr—adds authenticity and raises the stakes, signaling that this mystery is real, complicated, and potentially life-altering. As a mentor text, this passage models how writers can reveal character through voice and thought, build tension through unanswered questions, and manage pacing by balancing interior reflection with purposeful action.

Building tension and creating suspense is challenging for novice writers. Benny is suspicious of all that she is hearing. As the lawyer is explaining the inheritance to Benny and her mom, she has a moment of remembrance, of connection that pulls the reader into her childhood and into the potential excitement of the inheritance.

Benny felt a prickling on the back of her neck and suddenly remembered something her grandmother used to tell her. Someday, Benny, your ship is going to come in. You’re going to have a bigger adventure than all of us, Guppy. Just you wait. Benny didn’t understand what she meant by that, but now she wondered: Did Grams mean this moment? Did Grams know the prediction? Was it really possible their ancestor Evelyn Terry had been waiting for Benny to be born, play the game, and collect the inheritance? Her? (Calonita, p.25)

When the students talked about this passage, they noticed the use of italics, the multiple questions, and the use of a memory to move the plot forward. They also noticed how much pressure is suddenly on Benny. She is now responsible for figuring everything out so she can get the inheritance. As writers, they tried out adding italics and questions to their writing. The shift into Benny’s remembered words--Someday, Benny, your ship is going to come in—uses italics to signal a change in time and voice, visually cueing readers that the past is pressing into the present. That memory does more than reveal backstory; it reframes the inheritance as something foretold, raising both emotional and narrative stakes. The rapid-fire questions that follow mirror Benny’s spiraling thoughts and quicken the tension, inviting readers to share in her uncertainty and growing sense of responsibility. In just a few lines, Calonita moves the plot forward while placing new weight on Benny’s shoulders, transforming curiosity into pressure. As a mentor text, this passage shows students how suspense can be built through strategic formatting, purposeful questions, and meaningful memories that deepen character while propelling the story ahead.

Isle of Ever ends with a compelling hook as well.

“Welcome to the island, Everly Benedict,” Aggy said. “We’ve been waiting for you a very long time.” (Calonita, p. 324)

The last line of the novel reminds us of the opening line and sets up the sequel. Isle of Ever and its sequel The Curse Breaker are both exciting books to read and strong mentor texts for students.

Jen Calonita continues to be one of my favorite authors to use with novice writers. Passages from each chapter can serve as mentor texts for writers. Each entry point, whether it is a journal snippet, a prologue, riddles, or memories model different ways to hook a reader while quietly layering setting, conflict, and emotion. For novice writers, this offers concrete, accessible structures they can study and try out in their own writing: beginning with action, embedding character traits in movement, using short lines for emphasis, introducing mystery through unanswered questions, and revealing interiority through thought. In this way, Isle of Ever becomes more than a compelling novel; it becomes a living classroom text that teaches students how stories work, how language carries meaning, and how a single opening choice can shape a reader’s love of story.

Complexities and Intersectionalities of Rurality in The 2025 Whippoorwill Book Award

1/21/2026

Meet the Contributors:

Our Contributors are a team put together by Erika L. Bass

Erika Bass is assistant professor of English education at University of Northern Iowa. Her research is focused on preservice teacher education, rural education, and literacies; often those three areas intersect. She truly believes place and identity are deeply connected.

Erika has contributed to Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday in the past and is scheduled to do so again.

She is joined by:

Michael J. Young
Michael Young is an assistant professor of elementary literacy education at Illinois State University. He is a former elementary teacher, middle school instructional coach, and K-12 curriculum leader. Michael’s research examines pursuits of equity and justice in literacy teaching and learning by considering intersections of reading and writing development, critical literacy, education policy, identity, and antiracist pedagogies in schools and communities.

Erin Schulz
After growing up on a sheep and wheat farm in a town of 500 people, Erin Schulz taught Language Arts to middle school students in the Yakima Valley for 5 years. Although now living and teaching in the Twin Cities, Minnesota, rural stories and representation are always on Erin's mind.

Monica Roe
Monica Roe is a Whippoorwill Award-winning author, physical therapist, beekeeper, and researcher/advocate for the social model of disability and inclusive rural health. A first-generation graduate, Monica studies public health and disability-inclusive disaster preparedness at the University of Alaska and spent over a decade as a pediatric physical therapy consultant for remote, off-road communities in northwestern Alaska. She and her family divide their time between Alaska and their apiary in rural South Carolina.

Jacaueline Yahn

Jacqueline Yahn is associate professor of teacher education at Ohio University, a generational Appalachian, and a lifelong resident of the Ohio Valley. Her research focuses on rural school and community viability and and she teaches several classes in middle childhood education including language arts and social studies methods, children’s literature, and middle childhood literature.

Complexities and Intersectionalities of Rurality in The 2025 Whippoorwill Book Award

Michael J. Young, Erika L. Bass, Erin Schulz, Monica Roe, & Jacqueline Yahn

The complexities of rural life are diverse, nuanced, and ever-evolving. No one representation can capture these complexities. This is a core value guiding the evaluation of rural middle grades and young adult literature honored through the Whippoorwill Book Award. As the selection committee for the award, this is something we recognize and celebrate. Our commitment centers around advocacy for middle grades and young adult literature that portrays the complexities of rural living. This advocacy includes work to dispel stereotypes while also affirming the diverse identities, experiences, and stories shared among rural people.

As we take up this important work in the current moment, we do so in a time of intensified division, marginalization, and erasure across the vast spaces where we live our lives. This context impacts each of us, individually and collectively. The reading of middle grades and young adult literature in this current moment cannot be separated from the realities we continue to experience every day. This highlights the urgency for our commitment to advocacy for literature that can offer refuge, belonging, and exploration of the identities, experiences, and stories we share.

The Whippoorwill Award, now in its sixth year of honoring rural literature and second year of a revised award structure (see Bass et al., 2025), continues to recognize excellence in middle-grade and young adult literature in this current moment. In a continuous effort to select books that “portray the complexity of rural living by dispelling stereotypes and demonstrating diversity among rural people” (https://whippoorwillaward.weebly.com/), the committee engaged in reading and extensive discussion around the complexities of rural life in this current moment. This involved discussions navigating issues of race and racism, sexuality and gender, cis-heteronormativity and hate violence, immigration and refugee status, gender and indigeneity, religion and spirituality, class and poverty, grief and loss, addiction and healing, place and belonging. Across these discussions, tuning into the intersectional identities and experiences that continue to shape life in rural places became a key focus in our deliberations.

By tuning into the intersectionalities of identity and experience, we looked at the ways varying aspects of identity and experience overlap, providing further complexity and nuance to representing life in rural spaces. Shaped by Crenshaw’s (1989) positioning of intersectionality in discussions of discrimination, marginalization, and privilege, our deliberation of rural literature in the current moment evolved into ongoing conversations of character, story, and storytelling. These conversations looked to literature as a vehicle for truly offering refuge, belonging, and exploration of the identities, experiences, and stories we share. These conversations helped us identify books that work to capture the complexities of rural life in the current moment.

The 2025 Whippoorwill Award-winning book and eight honor books offer conversations for navigating the intersectional complexities of rural life in important ways. In this moment when division, marginalization, and erasure continue to impact our national (and global) story, we committed ourselves to selecting books that provide narratives offering a nuanced examination of the complex ways our identities and experiences intersect with rurality. This conversation recognizes that the winner and honor books offer opportunities for celebrating our stories, our struggles, and our unwavering commitment to living our rural lives with authenticity, love, and joy.

The 2025 Whippoorwill Award Books

2025 Award Winner:

John Cochran, Breaking into Sunlight, Little Brown

Cochran leads readers through Reese’s journey of friendship, the impact of addiction on his family, and learning how to support a loved one in active addiction. Careful not to make any character the villain, Cochran masterfully explores the nuances of rural identity (“townies” and “country folk”) and how that intersects with religious communities and the impact of addiction.

Honor Books (listed in alphabetical order by author last name):

**Tom Birdseye, There is No Map for This, Groundwood Books**

Author Tom Birdseye’s extensive backcountry wilderness experience is on full display—especially in some of the book's more gripping scenes—and the realities of working-class life in a hardscrabble rural community are portrayed with nuance and authenticity. The book’s ultimately hopeful ending feels well-deserved, leaving readers with an optimistic look into what the future holds for Ren, for Ellie, and for Levi’s legacy.

**K.A. Cobell, Looking for Smoke, Heartdrum**

When two teenage girls go missing on the Blackfeet reservation, four teenagers work to solve the murders of their friends. As they work to solve the crimes, each of their complicated histories and secrets rises to the surface. Exploring tensions between characters, Cobell’s story highlights important considerations about rurality, indigenous cultures, loss, betrayal, and the realities of the MMIWG movement.

**Mike Deas & Nancy Deas, Crystal Cave, Orca**

The fifth installment of the Sueño Bay Adventures graphic novel series follows tween-aged Ollie and his friends on a quest to discover a fabled crystal hidden on their quirky island home in hopes that it will heal his ailing grandfather. This story’s premise, while fun and fantastical in nature, explores some more serious aspects of rural life. The remote island location, lack of easy access to medical care, and Ollie's looming fear of having to leave Sueño Bay if his grandpa is unable to come home and live independently are all significant challenges that are familiar to those who live in rural and remote communities. The inclusion of elderly islanders as the secret protectors of the island adds a nicely intergenerational aspect to the storyline.

**Erin Hahn, Even if it Breaks Your Heart, Wednesday Books**

Case Michaels is a stand-out in the rodeo circuit and is dealing with the recent loss of his best friend, ace fellow bullrider, Walker. Winnie Sutton works as a ranch hand on Case’s family ranch, and she’s not sure Case even knows who she is.This story follows their slow-burning romance, as they both struggle with grief, loss, and figuring out their futures. Hahn’s story explores themes of grief, loss, self-discovery, and the courageous act of pursuing your dreams. This book opens conversations about the intersections of rurality, socioeconomic status, familial expectations, and carving your own path.

**Trina Rathgeber, Alina Pete, & Jillian Dolan, Lost at Windy River, Orca**

Author Trina Rathgeber guides this approach by focusing on placing back into the story what was lost in the original telling of the story in Mowat’s People of the Deer–her grandmother Ilse Schweder’s voice. Across the 88 pages of the story, through beautifully rendered images and snippets of Ilse’s memories, we learn how she survived getting lost in a snowstorm in 1944 at the age of thirteen while checking her family’s trapline in Northern Canada. The narrative is bookended with a preface, author’s note, and photographs that connect readers to Ilse and help them recognize how her knowledge of place and the love of her family gave her the tools to survive.

**Mason Stokes, All the Truth I Can Stand, Calkins Creek/Astra Books**

Set in Juniper, Wyoming, in the 1990s, this speculative fiction novel tells the story of a gay teenager who must deal with the violent loss that draws from the tragic murder of Matthew Shephard. The relationship that develops between Ash and Shane is exciting but complicated. When Shane is found brutally beaten and unconscious, Ash is shattered. The brutal attack grows into a rallying point for gay rights. Ash is forced to navigate the complexities of his and Shane’s story and what it becomes. The heartbreaking exploration of identity, grief, violence, and legacy in a rural place offers important conversations of story and storytelling, identities and histories, and the realities and perceptions that guide our lives.

**Jennifer Torres, Vega’s Piece of the Sky, Little Brown**

When a meteorite crashes in the nearby desert, Vega realizes the valuable stone could be her ticket to saving her way of life. With cousin Mila, sent to the desert to get her away from influences in the city, and traveling treasure-hunter Jasper, Vega sets off into the wilderness. The three of them are determined to find the fallen space rock before treasure hunters from all over the country beat them to it. Over the course of one night, the three work together to face the dangers of the wild: coyotes, flash flooding, and the vastness of the desert. The focus on desert communities, including their beauty, precarity, and a uniquely wonderful piece of the sky, makes this a stand-out read.

**Jenna Voris, Every Time You Hear That Song, Viking/Penguin**

When Decklee Cassel dies, she sends her fans on a scavenger hunt, and Darren is convinced it’s a time capsule with never-before-released Decklee Cassel songs. As a die-hard fan, Darren jumps on the opportunity to find these songs—she believes finding the time capsule will solve her family’s money problems and help her achieve her dream of leaving her town and going off to college. As Kendall and Darren follow Decklee’s clues, they both learn a lot about each other and how much they truly have in common. Kendall helps Darren appreciate her hometown, and Darren helps Kendall understand her desire to leave. Vorris’ story explores the intersections of rural identity, gender, socioeconomic status, and familial expectations.

*This article is a condensed version of the article published in The Rural Educator, which is an open-access journal, allowing for reproduction of works published in their journal.

The Page Turner Society: Building Community, Voice, and Empathy Through a High School-University Book Club

1/14/2026

Meet our Contributor

Leilya A. Pitre is an associate professor, English Education coordinator, and Director of Southeast Louisiana Writing Project at Southeastern Louisiana University where she teaches methods courses for preservice teachers, linguistics, advanced grammar, American and Young Adult Literature courses for undergraduate and graduate students. Her research interests include teacher preparation, secondary school teaching, teaching and research on Young Adult literature.

The Page Turner Society: Building Community, Voice, and Empathy
Through a High School-University Book Club by Leilya A. Pitre

What happens when future teachers and high school students come together around a powerful young adult novel—not as an assignment, but as a shared experience?

This question guided The Page Turner Society, a book club created through a Work-Based Learning Experience grant from the Louisiana Board of Regents, sponsored by the Strada Foundation. As part of this grant, my teacher candidates in the Secondary English Education program at Southeastern Louisiana University and I partnered with Hammond High Magnet School to bring a sustained, discussion-rich book club to life.

After advertising the book club across the school, we welcomed fifteen student volunteers, each an active, engaged reader eager to participate in discussion. The goal was simple yet ambitious: to build a space where students read deeply, speak honestly, listen generously, and connect literature to the world they inhabit.

Our Vision Rooted in Collaboration and Voice

From the beginning, The Page Turner Society was designed as more than a traditional book club. Our shared vision emphasized community, empathy, and student voice for the high school participants and preservice teachers. We wanted to model what literature-centered learning can look like when it moves beyond grade points and required writing toward meaning, dialogue, and care.

Equally important, this project offered authentic work-based learning for teacher candidates. They planned agendas, facilitated discussions, designed creative activities, and reflected on their roles. They were not lecturers, but co-readers and listeners.

Choosing All American Boys

For our first semester, students selected All American Boys (2015) by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely, a novel that invites readers to wrestle with race, identity, justice, and responsibility through two narrators, Rashad and Quinn.

Over three book club meetings, ninth- and tenth-grade students and university teacher candidates explored the novel together, returning again and again to a central question: What does it mean to be an “All American boy” in today’s society?

Meeting One: Entering the Story Together

Our opening meeting focused on building trust and curiosity. We ensured to create an atmosphere where each student felt safe to voice their opinion. Students created name tags representing who they are, not just what others see. We then introduced a “Story Impressions” activity, where students predicted the novel’s plot using ten carefully selected words, such as dilemma, officer, violence, protest, action, and rage, before reading a single page.

Pre-reading discussions invited students to share what they already knew, what they questioned, and why hearing multiple perspectives might matter. This foundation made it clear from the start: every voice in the room mattered.

Meeting Two: Wrestling with Perspective and Choice

As students moved deeper into the novel, our second meeting centered on character, voice, and moral tension. Small-group discussions explored Rashad’s vulnerability and Quinn’s internal conflict, supported by quote analysis and lightning-round discussions. Students chose the quotes that were meaningful to them, and together we discussed their significance.

One writing activity asked students to offer advice to a character trying to do the right thing. Their responses revealed empathy, nuance, and critical thinking:

“Two things can be true at the same time.”
“Even if the people who helped raise you are good to you, it doesn’t mean they are good people.”
“I suggest you speak up. I now it’s difficult, but you, yourself, are starting to realize that this wasn’t right, so, please, choose to be on the right side of history and speak up.”
“Use your voice because it matters.”

These reflections showed students grappling with complexity. They were not rushing to easy answers, but learning to deal with discomfort.

The Final Meeting: Creativity, Reflection, and Action

Our final meeting, held in the Hammond High Magnet School library, brought everything together in an 80-minute celebration of reading and voice.

We planned many engaging activities for students, which included:

Playlist creation, where students paired songs with themes from the novel
Blackout poetry, crafted directly from pages of the text
Protest T-shirt design, connecting the novel to real-world movements
Scenario cards, asking students what they would realistically do when facing injustice
Final discussion

The room was filled with conversation, laughter, thoughtful silence, and moments of deep recognition. Students shared, listened, and responded to one another—not to impress, but to understand.

The Poems

Poem # 1

Poem # 3

Poem # 2

Poem # 4

What Students Told Us

Student reflections affirmed what we hoped this experience would become. They described the book club as:

“A safe place where everyone felt equal and valued”
“Eye-opening”
“Not what you’d expect from a book club”
“A reminder of why I love reading”
“A great opportunity for anyone to deepen their love and understanding of books.”

Many highlighted the creative activities, especially blackout poetry and playlist creation, while others emphasized the importance of hearing different perspectives and feeling truly heard.

Students Working on Responses

Students Working on Story Impressions

Why This Work Is Essential

The Page Turner Society demonstrates what is possible when schools and universities collaborate with intention. For high school students, the book club created a space for agency, empathy, and meaningful engagement with literature. For teacher candidates, it provided real-world practice in facilitation, responsiveness, and reflective teaching—skills that cannot be fully learned from a textbook.

Supported by the Board of Regents and Strada Foundation, this project affirms the value of work-based learning experiences that are human-centered, community-rooted, and intellectually rigorous.

Most of all, this work reminds us that young people want and deserve—spaces where stories are valued, voices are honored, and reading becomes a shared act of understanding.

And yes, they enjoyed the snacks, too.

Let's Start the Year Reflecting

1/7/2026

Let's Start the Year Reflecting by Steve Bickmore

A new year begins.

Dr. Bickmore’s YA Wednesday enters its 13th year. Many of those years have been productive providing information to scholars, researchers, teacher, students and people who are just curioius about YA Lit. I rarely write Wednesday posts now, most of those are done by guest contributors.
As the year begins about 50% of our Wednesday slots are called for. This means there is still room for you, one of you students, or colleagues would like to contribute a post. Here is the link if you would like to reserve a place.

I have been reflecting on nearly two decades reading and thinking about Young Adult Literature academically. After retirement at the beginning of 2022 and spending a year in Rwanda I read very little YA literature. Nevertheless, people still talk to me about YA Literature as if I were an expert. In truth, after the last three years, even though I am still curating the blog and interviewing authors, I am becoming less informed and, as a result, less relevant.

This doesn't mean I don't have opinions. I have favorite authors, genres, and topics. I also still care deeply about what adolescents are reading and if they read at all.

For this blog I decided to very quickly think of 10 authors who stay with me. This, of course, means several things. Some of which are: 1. Whose books are still on my shelves after moving and seriously limiting my books to the available space. 2. Which writers do I recommend to others without reservation. 3. Whose books and influence do I frequently think about. 4. They also might include writers that I think are under read and neglected.

I made the list very quickly and without revising. I say that because as soon as I started to put the authors into this blog space, I realized how many more authors could have easily been on the list. With out belaboring the issue other authors I might have included are A. S. King, Sharon Draper, Kekla Magoon, Daniel Nayeri, Meg Medina, Brendan Kiely, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nic Stone, Jo Knowles, M. T Anderson, Andrew Smith and Traci Chee.

You see the task is hopeless. I left my list alone knowing that if interested readers started with these ten, they could be reading great books for awhile and would probably start running into the others authors I left off the list. Other knowlegable people might want to add a variety of other authors.

If fact, if you want to create your own list and put it on the blog space let me know. One rule, no more that two duplicates from my original list.

From now on this is a wordless post. I will link to the authors websites and link to where you can get their books.

Enjoy.

E. Lockhart

Chris Crutcher

Laurie Halse Anderson

Matt de la Pena

Padma Venkatraman

Jason Renyolds

Maria Padian

Jeff Zentner

Sharon G Flake

Ellen Hopkins

Empowering Multilingual Learners with YA Literature to Bridge Cultural Divides in Secondary Classrooms

12/10/2025

First check out the Summit - Proposal are due soon.

The 2026 Summit on the Research and Teaching of Young Adult Literature
Online
Thursday evening, February 26 & Friday, February 27, 2026
https://www.yalsummit.org/

Call for Proposals
Proposals Due by December 5, 2025
Proposal Form: https://forms.gle/NjeWp1kCubyFuF1R8

Meet our Contributor:

Victoria Tome is a TESOL teacher at Shelton High School in Shelton, Connecticut. She studied Sociology and Spanish at Cornell University before getting her Masters in TESOL from Fairfield University. This is her eighth school year with Shelton Public Schools. She is currently getting her Sixth Year Certificate in Bilingual Education from Fairfield University and is also a Connecticut Writing Project Teacher Fellow. When not teaching, you can find her exploring state parks and local libraries with her husband and two kids.

Empowering Multilingual Learners with YA Literature to Bridge Cultural Divides in Secondary Classrooms by Victoria Tome

As a TESOL teacher at Shelton High School in Connecticut, I have witnessed how difficult it can be to get students excited about reading, especially with the classical texts often taught in mainstream classrooms. I have 65 multilingual (ML) students on my caseload, ranging from American-born students who are close to meeting exit criteria on the LAS, an annual exam we give students to measure their English proficiency, and newcomers who don’t know much more than hello and goodbye. My students represent 11 languages and hail from Ecuador, The Dominican Republic, Peru, Honduras, Mexico, El Salvador, Haiti, Jamaica, Brazil, Portugal, Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Russia, Ukraine, Albania, Yemen, and China. Like others, there is much diversity in my classroom, yet it saddens me that the one commonality amongst students is that very few of them love reading (in English or in their native language).

I firmly believe, however, that reading expands students’ worlds, giving them access to people, places, and ideas beyond their immediate experience, and that for multilingual learners this freedom is especially powerful. Such freedom seems to be rarely felt, however, for my students. There are many reasons as to why this may be the case, as their attention is pulled in a thousand different directions and the era of instant gratification makes slogging through a classical novel seem less enjoyable than it was in previous generations. Unfortunately, teachers have no control over the effects of phone usage and social media that happens outside of school. What we do have control over is the books and stories we ask students to read. I feel we could do a much better job selecting the titles we use in our classrooms. When students see their own stories, languages, and struggles reflected in texts, reading can become not only an academic act but also an act of belonging. As educators, we must embrace diverse texts that give our students the chance to see their identity being valued.

The biggest challenge my students face is they attend classes taught by teachers who, the majority of the time, have no TESOL training. Although I have presented at faculty meetings, held professional learning events, and led a Professional Learning Community about ML issues in our school, many teachers do not do anything differently when they have MLs in class and fail to support language development. Students acquire language when the language input they are receiving is slightly above their current proficiency level, but the English being used in most secondary classrooms is far above the current proficiency level of my students. This lack of instructional adaptation limits MLs access to comprehensible input, which is essential for language development and understanding of classroom content (Krashen, 1982). Strategies I share with teachers are rarely enacted. Instead, most teachers will run class materials through Google translate and allow students to respond in their native language, before translating into English. When translation is not possible, teachers give my students the same assignments that their native English-speaking peers are receiving, without any modifications. Freeman and Freeman (2004) argue that MLs need engaging content and meaningful texts, with opportunities to connect to their lived experiences. When teachers fail to draw on MLs backgrounds and funds of knowledge, teachers limit opportunities for engagement. This creates a situation where students are not learning, and they are not developing their English skills in class.

In Just Read It: Unlocking the Magic of Independent Reading in Middle and High School Classrooms, Jarred Amato (2024) argues that helping students develop literacy skills is more important than having students read any one particular book. He writes, “I would argue that the ability to read and write proficiently, to think critically, and to communicate clearly is more important than an understanding or appreciation of any specific text, no matter how much you or I may love it or how long it’s been in the curriculum” (Amato 23). If educators are going to get kids to improve their literacy skills, we need to think outside the box and allow some flexibility into classrooms. This includes opportunities for them to choose what they are asked to read and write about.

Young Adult (YA) literature creates opportunities and connections students crave because it is more representative of their lived experiences than the traditional canon. These books give every student the opportunity to read stories that reflect their realities. Best practices in literacy instruction emphasizes that young people must be invited to bring their own home and neighborhood experience into school through both reading and writing (Crandall, Chandler-Olcott, & Lewis, 2022). When paired with TESOL-aligned practices such as activating background knowledge and developing cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP), YA literature can become a bridge between language development, democratic literacy, and joy. Books such as Born a Crime, They Call Me Güero, Walk Toward the Rising Sun, Learning America, When Stars Are Scattered, and Dragon Hoops offer diverse entry points for engaging MLs in the classroom. Such books have the potential to inspire collaboration between English teachers and TESOL faculty.

Providing Context for Immigrant- and Refugee-Background Youth

Learning America by Luma Mufleh, the founder of a school for refugee students, offers a vivid look at the experiences of refugee students and the efforts of an educator creating an inclusive school environment. For high school teachers, Mufleh provides an opportunity to critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of their own school’s programs and practices for immigrant and refugee students. Educators can consider questions such as: Are newcomer students receiving adequate linguistic, social, and emotional support? How is the curriculum accommodating diverse cultural backgrounds? Are students’ home languages being valued as assets in the classroom? I believe that we, as educators, do not know what we don’t know, and I know that many people I work with might not even be aware of what good programming for newcomer/refugee students looks like. Teachers could use Mufleh’s example to identify best practices, such as mentorship programs, culturally responsive instruction, or individualized academic supports, and reflect on areas for improvement.

One of Mufleh's biggest goals is for all students to actually learn in school, not just be passed from one grade to the next. For secondary level MLs, however, there tends to be one of two problems; teachers either offer MLs no support in class and they fail, having learned nothing, or teachers offer no support to MLs, and they pass with an A+, having learned nothing. In Learning America, she has a conversation with one of her players’ teachers.

“A lot of kids in his class can’t read.”

Shocked by her reaction, I stammered.

“Well, I mean, what should I do? That can’t be acceptable!"

“I’m not sure there’s anything you can do,” she gave me a smile meant to punctuate the conversation.

“So, I should just accept that he can’t read? That’s what you’re saying?”

“I”m saying Lewis is a really good kid. He’s kind; he doesn’t get in trouble. He’s better off than so many of them. He’ll be okay.” (Mufleh 47)

This problem of mainstreaming MLs before they are linguistically ready comes because teachers think it is impossible to teach them well or to give them the time necessary to catch up with linguistic and content skills they may be lacking.

Learning America shows that MLs can catch up with peers when they are held to high standards and consistently given language support and instruction by teachers who know how to meet them where they are. Discussing Mufleh’s book in professional learning communities or department meetings could encourage collaboration and school-wide reflection on equity and inclusion, especially with the reading opportunities young people are given.

Without a Home, But with Total Agency

Trevor Noah’s memoir, Born a Crime, is rich with linguistic and cultural code-switching, humor, and reflection, which makes it an excellent young adult text for advanced MLs. Many ML students navigate multiple cultures and languages every day, and have immigrant experiences that are reflected in Noah’s story. Noah writes about learning multiple languages as a tool to help him navigate social situations or difficult moments he encounters. He succeeds in getting a group of people to stop mugging him by speaking to them in their language.

They were ready to do me violent harm, until they felt we were a part of the same tribe, and then we were cool. That, and so many other smaller incidents in my life, made me realize that language, even more than color, defines who you are to people. I became a chameleon. My color didn’t change, but I could change your perception of my color. I didn’t look like you, but if I spoke like you, I was you. (Noah 54)

As a mixed person in South Africa, Noah was not perfectly at home in either the White community or Black community, and this feeling of being “other” could ring true for a lot of students in U.S. classrooms. Noah recounts navigating school, family expectations, and social hierarchies while constantly shifting between languages and cultural norms in his neighborhood, school, and home. Students who have moved between countries, like many of the MLs I serve, often balance home languages with English and experience cultural displacement. This helps them to identify with the struggles and triumphs shared by Trevor Noah, and fosters both engagement and motivation to read deeply.

From a TESOL perspective, Born a Crime supports the development of CALP because it exposes students to complex sentence structures, advanced vocabulary, idiomatic expressions, and figurative language within authentic context. Through guided reading, students can interpret nuanced language, including idioms, humor, and rhetorical devices. Students can also engage in academic discussions and writing tasks by summarizing chapters, making inferences about cultural norms, and comparing Noah’s experiences with their own. Born a Crime is a perfect text for collaboration between English and TESOL departments. Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocols (SIOP) that TESOL teachers use with MLs has many strategies to scaffold classroom tasks, such as pre-teaching key vocabulary (e.g., apartheid, segregation, discrimination), using graphic organizers to track relationships and events, and providing sentence frames for academic discussion. I believe teachers often struggle with choosing the right vocabulary for their MLs. In collaboration with English teachers, TESOL educators would highlight that this book provides a chance to have MLs write about or discuss their own bicultural identity and would encourage teachers to engage students emotionally while building their academic skills.

The Power of Verse Novels for MLs

They Call me Güero by David Bowles is written in verse, a genre that is an ideal text for MLs. It is concise, rhythmic, and emotionally rich within its structure. Bowles’ poems are short, highly accessible, and written in a style that mirrors natural speech while also incorporating Spanish words and cultural references. This makes the book a useful tool for reading comprehension and language development, as students can focus on understanding meaning, emotion, and form without being overwhelmed by long paragraphs or complex syntax.

For example, in the poem “Spanish Birds” Bowles writes,

Everyone I know

speaks a different Spanish:

the rural twang of border folk,

the big-city patter of immigrants,

the shifting of Tex-Mex. (Bowles 77)

The seven stanzas share the various dialects of Spanish speakers Güero knows, comparing them to “birds in flight” (a hummingbird, a swan, flamingos, and an ostrich) before he concludes how his “own tongue / is an aviary” of them all. MLs can see their own experiences reflected in the author’s story, especially as they grow up between cultures, navigate bilingual spaces like Güero, and negotiate identity within family and community. By reading and discussing such a text, students activate background knowledge (schema) about family traditions, cultural identity, and belonging, which allows them to connect the themes in the text to their own lives.

They Call Me Güero is also a natural springboard for student-created poetry. Using Bowles’ poems as mentor texts, MLs can experiment with form and structure in their own poetry. Students can write short, stanza-like poems or free verse, a type of poetry accessible to even newcomers that have basic vocabulary because it takes away the pressure to write in full sentences. Teachers can also show students they are allowed to incorporate their home languages in poetry by using words, phrases, or expressions from their native language. This would go a long way to promote cultural validation in a school building that is English focused, as well as show students that bilingualism is an asset in writing. When shared with English teachers, this book demonstrates that poetry can be both accessible and academically rigorous. It is a vehicle for students to explore voice, identity, and craft, showing how YA literature can bridge reading, writing, and personal expression in classrooms with MLs.

Further, They Call Me Güero can also be used in my own classroom to develop vocabulary and academic language. Through guided exercises, students can highlight descriptive words, idiomatic expressions, and emotionally charged terms from the poems, then use them in their own compositions. These poems are made easily visible, and it could be a great activity for students to draw images to represent their favorite poem. Students can also participate in poetry readings of their favorite poem, which supports oral language development and builds confidence.

Embracing Narrative & Personal Stories

Walk Toward the Rising Sun by Ger Duany tells the story of surviving displacement and rebuilding life after war. For MLs, the text provides a mirror for their own experiences, especially starting a new life in the United States. For Duany, adjusting to life in an American high school meant giving up a lot of the freedom he was accustomed to.

During my first year of high school, in the fall of 1994, I experienced extreme culture shock. I expected to be allowed to work and earn money to send back home, but since I was only sixteen, I had to learn to behave like an American adolescent. Being told what to do and when, and responding to the bell in school like an automation, made no sense to me. I had been walking the earth independently since I was twelve and had no idea how to become a child again. (Duany 174)

Many of my high school MLs too come from backgrounds where they were already working, driving, and treated as an adult in their countries. Secondary level students are often sent to the U.S. alone to live with extended family, and have already begun to think of themselves as adults. Students can connect prior knowledge about migration, family separation, or cultural adaptation to the text, which supports comprehension and schema activation. From a language development perspective, Walk Toward the Rising Sun is excellent for CALP. Its narrative includes complex sentence structures, sophisticated vocabulary (e.g., “resilience,” “displacement,” “perseverance”), and abstract concepts related to identity, education, and community.

Teachers of students who speak multiple languages can work with English departments to use this book as a springboard for ML students to write their own personal narratives or memoir excerpts, practicing chronological organization, transition words, and descriptive language in English. Students can answer the question: how did you come to America? By reading Walk Toward the Rising Sun they can see that everyone’s journey to this country is fraught with challenges and is not always a straightforward path to take. This book would be great to use with students to show them that everyone’s story is worth hearing, even if it is not as fascinating as Duany’s.

The Power of Visual Literacy in Graphic Novel

When Stars Are Scattered by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed, and Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang, are graphic novels that are great to use in a secondary class with MLs. They both use visuals to convey emotion and narrative, making it accessible for MLs of many levels, while introducing complex themes of displacement, family responsibility, and hope. Visual cues scaffold comprehension, allowing students to focus on higher-order thinking without struggling with dense text. These texts give students of a lower English proficiency the chance to read truly meaningful works that they can connect to. The authors of When Stars Are Scattered describe a refugee camp teacher talking to students about their refugee status.

Throughout your life, people may shout ugly words at you. Words like, “Go home, refugee! Or “You have no right to be here!” When you meet these people, tell them to look at the stars, and how they move across the sky. No one tells a star to go home. Tell them, “I am a star. I deserve to exist just the same as a star. How do I know? Because here I am. I am here. The proof is in the stars. (Jamieson and Mohamed 120)

Too often, beginner MLs are given only basic or decontextualized texts, yet they deserve literature that is rich, heartfelt, and reflective of their own journeys. Graphic novels allow them to experience the kind of emotionally compelling, identity-affirming literature that is often inaccessible through conventional English-class texts.

In ESOL classes, TESOL teachers can use these books with students to learn new vocabulary that corresponds to the graphic novel panels, write character analyses or personal reflections, and have students produce illustrated narratives of their own, combining images and text to tell personal or imagined stories. English teachers might use graphic novels such as these with MLs to practice summarization and inferences, and highlight visuals to support understanding of cause and effect, character motivation, and thematic elements. Teachers can pre-teach Tier 2 vocabulary (e.g., “refugee,” “resilience,” “perseverance”), then move students toward written reflection and essay responses.

In one comic panel in Dragon Hoops, a Sikh player’s pre-game basketball prayer ritual is illustrated and described:

As with all rituals, Jeevin calms his heart and allows him to focus. But for him, I expect there’s something more. He performs it so that in the heat of the game, regardless of what his opponents or the fans might say, he’ll remember that he belongs. (Yang 264)

Secondary teachers can use scenes like Jeevin’s pre-game ritual in Dragon Hoops to design multimodal writing activities, prompting MLs to create their own comic panels that depict personal rituals or moments of belonging, fostering emotional engagement, cultural reflection, and accessible self-expression.

High School English teachers should not fear that using graphic novels in class means they are not providing students with rigorous literary texts. These are not books that should be overlooked. They support comprehension and writing skills, just as well as traditional novels. The visual input reduces the barrier to entry for MLs, which makes them ideal for diverse classrooms.

A Final Thought

Overall, YA literature gives MLs the ability to imagine and belong through story. When educators combine the joy of reading with TESOL-informed instruction, we are nurturing readers and writers who can think critically about their worlds. These texts described above remind educators that it is through reading diverse, honest, and inclusive stories that students learn to trust their own voices and to honor the voices of others. Is it permissible for high school teachers to let go of classics like The Scarlet Letter and Romeo and Juliet to make room in the curriculum for books like these? Every book offers something unique and important for students to learn, and I am sure that many arguments could be made about what we lose when we take these classics off our class’s book lists. However, there is also a lot to be said about what we lose by not including diverse texts that reflect the lives of our students. I believe that securing a future generation of readers makes it worth the risk.

References

Amato, J. (2024) Just Read It: Unlocking the Magic of Independent Reading in Middle and High School Classrooms. Corwin

Crandall, B. R., Olcott, K. C., & Lewis, E. C. (2022). Creating and sustaining inclusive writing communities for adolescents. In K. Hinchman & H. K. Sheridan-Thomas (Eds.), Best Practices in Adolescent Literacy (3rd ed.). The Guilford Press.

Freeman, D., & Freeman, Y. (2004). Essential linguistics: What teachers need to know to teach ESL, reading, spelling, and grammar. Heinemann.

Krashen, S. D. (1982). Principles and practice in second language acquisition. Pergamon.

Young Adult Literature at the 2025 NCTE Annual Convention: A Reflection from Four New English Teachers

12/3/2025

Before we get started, checkout the upcoming YA Summit

Meet our Contributors:

Dr. Mark Lewis is professor of literacy education at James Madison University. His research interests include examining and critiquing representations of adolescence and youth in young adult and adult literature, defining the multifaceted literary competence of secondary students, and identifying effective ways to support multilingual learners. Prior to coming to JMU, he taught middle school English and English as a second language in Arizona and worked with Indigenous youth in Colorado. Dr. Lewis has over 35 publications, including multiple book chapters and in scholarly journals such as English Education, English Journal, The ALAN Review, Study & Scrutiny, Journal of Teacher Education, Middle Grades Research Journal, Journal of Literacy Research, and Reading Research Quarterly. He is also a co-author of Rethinking the "Adolescent" in Adolescent Literacy (2017, NCTE Press) and Reading the World through Sports and Young Adult Literature: Resources for the English Classroom (2024, NCTE Press).

Dr. Melanie Shoffner specializes in English language arts education. Her education courses include ELA methods, curriculum theory, and the student teaching internship; she also teaches an English course on resistance and power. Dr. Shoffner is the editor of English Education, a member of the International Federation for the Teaching of English (IFTE) Advisory Board, and a former Fulbright Scholar (Romania). Her research addresses the dispositional and reflective development of preservice teachers.

Young Adult Literature at the 2025 NCTE Annual Convention: A Reflection from Four New English Teachers by Mark Lewis, Melanie Shoffner and students.

Mark and Melanie

We have supported teacher candidates from James Madison University to attend the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Annual Convention for the last few years. For readers unfamiliar with the NCTE Annual Convention, it is arguably the premier conference for literacy educators from early childhood to college in the U.S. It is a space where like-minded folx from across the country gather to share teaching and research on a range of literacy topics, which makes it an ideal space for new teachers to enter the English language arts community (see, for example, DeWitt et al., 2025, for our teacher candidates’ reflections from the 2024 Convention). As our group prepared for the 2025 Convention, we asked the teacher candidates to intentionally notice how young adult (YA) literature was represented—in the conference program, in the exhibit hall, in the sessions—and how that representation might inform their future teaching. Two of the JMU teacher candidates, Ellie Fisher and Haley Smiley, were second-time attendees, and two of the JMU teacher candidates, Benjamin Kimble and Josie Fertig, were first-time attendees. Here are their thoughts:

Ellie: During my time at the NCTE Convention in Denver this year, I was surrounded—literally and figuratively—by young adult literature. YA texts appeared everywhere in the program, not as an afterthought but as presentations on and from diverse voices for implementing the genre in classrooms. One session that stood out to me was led by two current classroom teachers who described how they use Instagram to share YA recommendations with their students and followers. Their account, @KBLitAdventure, offers reviews, highlights new releases, and suggests engaging alternatives to trending (but not always classroom-friendly) books. They emphasized how creating recommendations not only built trust with students but also helped them intentionally choose texts that helped grow a love of independent reading, something we all know is increasingly difficult with reluctant readers.

YA literature was just as present in the Exhibit Hall. As a second-year attendee, I’ll admit that building my future classroom library is one of my favorite parts of the Convention, and the range of YA titles available did not disappoint. Publishers displayed books by reading level, genre, and theme—several featured collections centered on LGBTQ+ stories, authors of color, and books in verse. I took home everything from romantasy to contemporary fiction, and I appreciated the intentional showing of diverse voices. Still, I noticed there were some gaps in representation across cultural backgrounds, like Indigenous and Middle Eastern perspectives (despite growth on this front for other diverse groups!) and storytelling traditions—even a lack of graphic novels, an area I hope future Conventions continue to expand. Overall, the Convention reaffirmed how essential YA literature is to identity, belonging, and joyful reading in the classroom.

Haley: Zines, fascicles, and commonplace books offer powerful models for how I can deepen students’ engagement with young adult literature in my own classroom, especially as I reflect on how YA texts were represented at the 2025 NCTE Convention. Observing the presence of YA literature at the Convention highlighted how we can have our students engage with texts using different and multimodal means, specifically in ways that depart from the didactic and expected essay summative assessment. These creative formats help me push against the ubiquity of the summative essay in my teaching in order to provide my students many different opportunities to demonstrate their learning.

Incorporating zines or fascicles allows me to position YA literature differently. These mediums serve as a space for critical exploration, multimodal thinking, and personal connection. These formats validate the complexity of YA texts by encouraging students to interpret, remix, and respond to them with intention and creativity. Integrating zines, fascicles, and commonplace books helps me model a more expansive view, one that treats YA texts as literature deserving of rigorous yet artistic analysis. Through sessions at NCTE and my discussions with practicing teachers at this year’s Convention, it is clear there is a need and a draw to build assessments for students that emphasize this critical exploration, leading to the pairing of YA literature with summative assessments that value creativity and multimodality.

Reflecting on NCTE, YA literature, and the use of multimedia ultimately strengthens my commitment to creating a classroom where YA literature is not peripheral but central, and where students engage with it through practices that honor its depth, diversity, and creative potential.

Benjamin: At the 2025 NCTE Convention, one of the sessions I attended focused on using YA graphic novels in the classroom. I am passionate about this topic and was incredibly lucky to find myself in a room of people who were also passionate about this topic. Something I found interesting was the presentation of YA in comparison with classic literature. The presenters criticized texts, like The Great Gatsby and The Catcher in the Rye, while praising YA literature. The point they were trying to make is that there should be no difference between books that make you feel good and books for learning: What’s wrong with enjoying what you’re reading and teaching?

This wasn’t just the presenters’ view, though; the other teachers in the room agreed too. What was originally a presentation about YA graphic novels turned into a large roundtable discussion where everyone in the room talked about their experiences. Veteran and new teachers alike shared how using YA graphic novels has helped their students learn and helped them teach. People asked for recommendations, and everyone at the table had different things to share. It was heartening to hear so many teachers talk so enthusiastically about YA.

I’m not here to say that all of the classics are bad and should be avoided. I am saying that I saw a shift from my previous experiences in English education: These teachers were looking beyond the canon. Young adult literature is working its way into education in a way that I find to be inspiring.

Josie: During my time at the 2025 NCTE Convention, I observed and experienced young adult literature in countless meaningful and unique ways. From a multitude of daily sessions covering diverse topics and concerns in several subgenres of YA, to floating around the Exhibit Hall and soaking in hundreds of colorful book covers and acclaimed author-signings, to even having the privilege of hearing the beloved, award-winning writer and artist Jason Reynolds discuss his upcoming release of Soundtrack, the print version of his first original audiobook that came out this past summer, I came to know and love YA in ways I hadn't yet understood. Whereas before I had only known it in the context of pages and classroom discussions, I now know it for its ability to connect and unite people from across the country, including teachers, students, and the writers themselves.

I was in utter amazement to sit down in my first ever session with authors Angeline Boulley, Amber McBride, and Jasmine Paulino, and realize that they too knew and understood YA in the same way as everyone else in that room. They were no longer some far-removed, abstract names on book covers; they were real, breathing individuals who were passionate about and deeply connected to their works, and who spoke vulnerably, emotionally, and openly. From then on and throughout the Convention, I realized how the power of YA helps us as adults understand our own inner child, the children of our own, or the ones in our classroom, and helps the children we know and love understand themselves, their peers and friends, and what it even means to be a young adult. This all-encompassing, high-achieving genre is only capable to achieve such outcomes due to our own ability to love and connect with other humans, and I am eternally grateful that NCTE allowed me the opportunity to have this experience.

Mark and Melanie: In our own careers, the NCTE Annual Convention is a fixture on our fall calendars. It is our professional home and, in stressful and uncertain times, it is often a personal sanctuary. Introducing new English language arts teachers to this community has also become a sustaining practice as teacher educators. Additionally, both of us are avid readers of young adult literature and use these stories in our own teaching (see George et al., 2024, for a few of our pedagogical approaches employing YA literature), and view the NCTE Convention as another tool for showing new teachers how it can also be a cornerstone of their own professional lives—as Ellie, Haley, Benjamin, and Josie have gracefully expressed.

Historical Fiction as Inspiration

11/26/2025

Check out the 2026 Summit on

The Research and Teaching of Young Adult Literature

Meet our Contributor:

Meet our Contributor: Dr. Rebecca Chatham-Vazquez is an assistant professor and the director of English Education at North Dakota State University, where she is living her dream, teaching Methods courses and Young Adult Literature and mentoring preservice English teachers. She is in her 16th year of teaching and loves it just as much now as she did on day one. She has taught and worked with pre- and in-service teachers in Montana (very rural), Arkansas (urban), Arizona (urban and rural), and, now, North Dakota (urban and rural). She has been a member of NCTE since 2008, and is a strong supporter of professional organizations like NCTE, its state affiliates, and ALAN. Her research interests include teacher education, rural teacher support, YAL, and methods of teaching reading. She can be reached at [email protected].

Historical Fiction as Inspiration by Rebecca Chatham-Vazquez

Historical fiction as a genre has always been my favorite. Whether it was reading the Dear America diaries in middle school or the Philippa Gregory stories of the Tudors, I have always been in love with history and historical characters and using historical fiction to dive deeper into the reality of what really happened. I have loved using novels when I taught history. I love incorporating history when I teach novels, and I think that history and literature go together in a way that helps us much more deeply understand the past and how that past plays a role in our daily lives.

When I was planning my semester of Young Adult Literature, one of the things that I kept in mind was the feedback that I had received from previous students of the course, and one of the things they had said was they wanted more representation of LGBTQIA+ voices, so that was something I really focused on in recreating the syllabus for this year and in thinking of my choice book offerings. In addition, one of the other things I thought about was parts of history that I want students to be able to connect to that are much less known. One example of a text that I have used in each iteration of my YAL course is Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline. This is a novel about a very little-known time in American history when orphans, young people from the East Coast, particularly New York City, were put on trains and shipped to the rest of the country, generally the Midwest, so that they would live “good Christian lives” and grow up to be contributing members of society. Orphan Train follows the story of Niamh as she goes through various iterations of lives, and I say “iterations” very purposefully because she is a different person each time she changes homes. Niamh’s story parallels the story of a young girl named Molly, who is experiencing foster care in the modern world. Students often have no idea about this era of American history, and it spurs conversations about how America thinks of children, the ideas of childhood and orphanhood, the foster care system, adoption, and so much more. Thus, it is truly worthwhile to incorporate this text, and, when I thought about the ways that Orphan Train opened our minds to that era of American history, I thought about my choice books.

Every semester, we read four books as a whole class, and then we do two rounds of choice books. In each round, I have a theme. Last year, I chose novels in verse, and then let my ideas go from there. For the other round, the theme was young adult novels that represent various mental health issues. I used Kia Jane Richmond’s Mental Illness in Young Adult Literature: Exploring Real Struggles through Fictional Characters as a way to deepen students’ reading of their novels. This year, I kept the mental health focus for choice book one, but I changed choice book two’s theme to historical fiction, and I chose these five books:

Out of the Dust, by Karen Hesse (female main character, 1930s, Oklahoma),
Last Night at the Telegraph Club, by Melinda Lo (female main character who is a lesbian, 1950s, San Francisco),
Code Talker: A Novel about the Navajo Marines of World War Two, by Joseph Bruchac (male main character, 1940s, overseas),
Ashes of Roses, by Mary Jane Auch (female main character, early 1900s, New York City), and
Ground Zero, by Alan Gratz (male and female main characters, 2001 and 2019, New York City and Afghanistan).

In these choices, I worked to vary time periods and voices as you can see in the parentheses above.

When I introduced the books, I told students that I purposefully chose these novels because they introduce us to forgotten or lesser-known parts of American history. As I was planning the course, I wanted students to think more deeply about sacrifices of people in the past that give us the things that we have now. For example, when I was thinking of Ashes of Roses and the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, I wanted students to think about the plight of workers and the things that union organizers, and also just average people, have done to bring rights to workers in this country, and how it's important to fight for those rights even today. Workers, including our students – most of whom are working full time jobs alongside being full time students – deserve to be treated like human beings. And they deserve to know that there are people out there fighting for that.

As a former history teacher, I know that eras like the Gilded Age and the Great Depression can be glossed over in favor of what some might term more interesting history, such as World Wars I and II. I am certain I was guilty of doing this myself when I taught history because, at the same time, I was also teaching the same students in my ELA courses. So, if I glossed over the Gilded Age in junior history class, I could cover it in Junior English when we read The Great Gatsby, and I did. I was lucky to have two class periods with the same students to work with both the literature and history of different time periods. But not every history or English teacher is as lucky as I was to have that kind of time with the material.

Now, in today's world, I really want students to take a deep dive into the Gilded Age; I want students to take a deep dive into the Great Depression and begin to think about the political, social, and economic reasons behind those two eras. I want them to think about how those eras are interconnected and to spark their interest in the people who came before them. Novels like Ashes of Roses and Out of the Dust bring students into the lives of regular people who lived and worked in big cities in early America and rural areas in the 1930s.

For me, my grandparents lived through the Great Depression. My grandfather was a World War II veteran and a prisoner of war, but my students’ grandparents weren't; they're too young for that. According to Diana Paolitto, a Harvard psychologist, teenagers have a difficult time perceiving a “past unless they knew someone who had lived at that time,” so we may be able to assume that students in their teens and early 20s can conceive of a past as far back as the 1950s (Nilsen et al., 261). My students were born after 9/11, so my goal was to bring them into the spaces of people for whom, unlike me, they may have no reference.

One of the reasons I chose Ground Zero by Alan Gratz is that, for my students, their whole lives we've been at war, and it's become ubiquitous, and, thus, at the same time, quite forgettable. I was 15 when 9/11 happened, my school experienced a bomb threat the day afterwards, half the guys I graduated with, and the girls, too, joined the National Guard, or one of the various other branches of service. We were in a military town with an air force base just up the road, and it was very real for us, and it continues to be, as I watch my friends struggle with PTSD and things of that nature that stem from their deployments. The Middle East and the conflicts there were so present for people in my generation. For students now, though, this is something they have lived with their whole lives, and it has almost become background noise. A novel like Ground Zero turns up the volume and makes the actual people affected by these events present in the students’ lives.

I want students to connect with the people in these instances, and that is something that historical fiction does really well as a genre.

Historical fiction must be historically accurate and “steeped in time and place” (Nilson et al., 258). This genre can include mystery, suspense, romance, adventure, and more as long as it maintains historical accuracy. These novels provide readers with “a sense of history’s continuity” and the idea that each era of history is deeply connected to those that came before and those that come after (258). Historical Fiction generally presents readers with a nuanced view of the time and place the characters are in. Sometimes it might be easy to clearly define “good guys” and “bad guys” in these novels, but, often, these authors work to show the moral gray areas that people in past times experienced, just as we do now.

But its deeper purpose is to connect us with those in the past, to be able to put ourselves in situations and say, “Would I have done that? Would I have hidden someone? Would I have undermined an evil king? Would I have fought for workers’ rights? Would I have done any number of things?” Young people (and adults, too!) use novels to practice choices, and doing that in the novel is much safer than doing it in real life. Historical Fiction provides us with the opportunity to say, “If I had been there, what would I have done?” And I think that encourages us at the same time to say, “What should I be doing today, in this historical moment? What choices should I be making that will be remembered by people who come after me?”

Not just students, but teachers, too, are going about their daily lives because we're busy and we have things to do and families to raise, but we forget that just one person can have a huge effect on the world around them. The novel Orphan Train illustrates this truth completely, as do the other novels mentioned in this piece. A kindness from a coworker, some food from a stranger, a teacher who listens to and believes Niamh. Every single person has a role to play.

What made me think this deeply about this topic was reading Number the Stars by Lois Lowry this year. I know I read it at least 10 times when I was growing up, but I decided to reread it this year to prepare for a training provided by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum titled “Exploring Holocaust Literature in the Classroom.” Number the Stars is a short but powerful novel written for elementary to middle grade readers. It details the story of Annemarie, a young Danish girl who must become brave in the face of danger in order to save her best friend. In the background, we see how the entire country of Denmark came together to resist oppression in myriad ways. Lois Lowry has a way of bringing us in and helping us live the lives of the people that she is presenting. One of the key things for me as I reread this novel was Annemarie doesn't know. She only knows that something bigger than her is out there. She knows that her best friend needs her, and that maybe her parents are doing something bigger than themselves, and all she can do is help, fight through the fear, and do her absolute best.

And that absolutely struck me in 2025, because, each day, as we make our regular day-to-day choices and live our regular day-to-day lives, we also can make, perhaps, bigger choices. We can give in to despair; we give in to any number of things on a bad day, but we also can make the choice to do our best and to fight through the fear and to acknowledge that there are bigger things than us happening around us that we can be part of, even with the smallest of actions. We don't have to be the ones running the Danish Resistance, but we could be the person who provides a meal for one of them. We don't have to be the fisherman who's taking Jewish people from Denmark to Sweden, but we could be the person who runs the handkerchief. It is so important for us to remember that in these times and to be inspired.

When I was a young person, these Historical Fiction books helped me develop a sense of justice, a sense of being, a sense of identity. I constantly was thinking, “Who would I have been in those times? Who do I want to be in these times?” Rereading Number the Stars felt like such a key moment in my year, because it's a book that I have thought about many times in the past 30 years, but the actual physical act of rereading it reminded me of the ideals that I had as an eight or nine year old when I read it the first time, reminded me of the deep sense of justice that has guided me into being the type of person that I want to be.

That deep sense of justice, that feeling that, as Byron Graves says, “When you're a teen, everything is everything,” i.e. every small thing means the world, is important to remember because, sometimes, as an adult, everything is everything. Any small thing that we do could be everything to somebody else. We are so deeply interconnected, and the people who come after us are counting on us to remember that.

Number the Stars helped remind me of my place in this world and the type of person that I wanted to be, the type of person that I am, the type of person that I hope to be as I move forward, and Historical Fiction as a genre is inspiring in that way. So as we move into the holiday season and the time of year when we wish that there were peace on earth, when we think deeply about the ways we put others before ourselves, let's remember our sense of justice, the type of people that we wanted to be when we were reading books like Number the Stars growing up, and the type of people that we can still be now. And let’s remember that helping our neighbors doesn't take that much work. Annemarie performed a seemingly small act – carrying the handkerchief – but her work made all the difference.

Works Cited:
Auch, Mary Jane. Ashes of Roses. Henry Holt and Company, 2002, New York City.

Baker Kline, Christina. Orphan Train. William Morrow, 2013, New York City.

Bruchac, Joseph. Code Talker: A Novel about the Navajo Marines of World War Two. SPEAK, 2005, New York City.

Gratz, Alan. Ground Zero. Scholastic, Inc., 2021, New York City.

Hesse, Karen. Out of the Dust. Scholastic, Inc., 1997, New York City.

Lo, Melinda. Last Night at the Telegraph Club. Dutton Books, 2021, New York City.

Lowry, Lois. Number the Stars. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1989, New York City.

Nilsen, Alleen Pace, et al. Literature for Today’s Young Adults. 9th ed., Pearson, 2014, Boston.

Richmond, Kia Jane. Mental Illness in Young Adult Literature: Exploring Real Struggles through Fictional Characters. ABC – CLIO, LLC., 2019, Santa Barbara, CA.

Note** The Dear America diaries, which includes more than 40 books, were published by Scholastic, Inc. https://www.scholastic.com/teachdearamerica/published_allBooks.htm

What Preservice Teachings are Recommending

11/19/2025

First, check out the 2026 Summit on the Research and Teaching of Young Adult Literature

Meet the Contributor: Liz Pilon

Liz Pilon serves as the Instructor of English Education for her alma mater, Concordia College in Moorhead, MN. Housed in the English department, she teaches Communication Arts and Literature Methods, Young Adult Literature, and Reading and Writing Methods for Secondary Education among other English courses. One of her favorite parts of her job is having the opportunity to visit her preservice teachers during their clinical hours and watch them teach secondary students in local schools. Her research interests include YAL, trauma-informed instruction, and best practices in assessment. She is a member of NCTE, ELATE, and ALAN.

What English Education Students are Recommending by Liz Pilon

Meet Marisa: Marisa Ratliff is a college student studying Elementary Education at Concordia College in Moorhead, MN. She is passionate about using children's and young adult literature to promote empathy, cultural understanding, critical thinking, and social-emotional learning. Marissa believes that stories like A Wish in the Dark can inspire students to stand up for fairness and what they think is right vs. wrong, and to engage them in new genres of text.

A Wish In The Dark by Christina Soontornvat

Christina Soontornvat's A Wish in the Dark takes readers to a Thai-inspired island where the Governor controls all light. This story starts with the main protagonist, Pong, a boy born in prison who dreams of escaping and finding freedom, and Nok, the other protagonist, the warden's daughter at the same prison, who is set to capture Pong after his escape. As their journeys intertwine, both characters begin to question what justice really means. Throughout the reading, the book's detailed fantasy world-building with visual writing and storytelling explores themes of fairness, empathy, and moral courage, and reminds readers to be true to themselves.

As a college student studying elementary education, I was immediately drawn to how this story connects to fundamental classroom themes like social justice, empathy, and personal growth. The colorful, eye-catching cover also made me seek it out. A Wish in the Dark would be a meaningful read for upper elementary and middle-grade (grades 4-7).

The story encourages readers to question what fairness is, to think critically about the authority of power and privilege, and to reflect on the compassion between the characters that creates change. Pong's struggle to find acceptance in society and Nok's process of unlearning bias open the door for deep, whole-class discussions. Students can easily connect with these characters because their own conflicts, such as wanting to belong, making mistakes, learning what's right, and unlearning stereotypes and bias, are universal.

One teaching idea is a “Rules vs. Justice” discussion. To start, ask students, "Can a rule be unfair?" Have the students share examples from school or society and write them on the board. Then connect those examples to how the Governor uses his power in A Wish in the Dark. This activity can help students use critical thinking skills to discuss fairness and authority in a collaborative setting.

Reading A Wish in the Dark reminds me why young adult literature is a powerful teaching tool. This story blends adventure, emotion, and a moral lesson throughout, helping students grow into critical thinkers. Soontornvat's story shows that understanding others through key themes presented throughout the story highlights the understanding of those who are different from us.

Meet Murphy: Murphy Carey is a preservice teacher from Edmond, Oklahoma studying at Concordia College-Moorhead. His classroom goal is to create a space where students feel safe enough to learn, no matter who they are or where they come from. He keeps aquariums, knits, and writes poetry in his spare time.

El Deafo by Cece Bell

When ELA teachers pick literature for 5-8th grade classrooms, we need to consider the rapid change they are experiencing. We also need to remember how isolating middle school often felt, especially for those of us who grew up different. I remember feeling stuck in my own head. I felt powerless and self-conscious and weird. That is why I (will) purposefully pick literature for my middle school students that focuses on difference and self-assurance. One of my favorites, for many reasons, is Cece Bell’s El Deafo.

After recovering from childhood meningitis, Cece Bell discovers that she cannot hear. The doctors give her a big, clunky hearing aid to wear strapped to her chest: the Phonic Ear. At school, she gives her teachers a microphone (connected to her Phonic device) which broadcasts their voices directly into her ear. People treat her differently than the rest of her peers when they notice she’s wearing it. To cope with how isolated she feels, Cece creates a persona for herself: the superhero El Deafo! Something that makes her feel different and isolated ends up becoming one of her greatest strengths. This book is a graphic novel, an “equalizing” medium. It often goes beyond lexile; graphic novels do not have to forego complex themes to incorporate understandable language.

It would be topical, fun, and interactive for students to create a superhero based on themselves and their “powers.” I hesitate to tell students to create a superhero with powers based on their differences– that could lead to uncomfortable, exposed feelings about particular insecurities. Keeping the assignment broad will alleviate that burden. I suspect, however, that when this assignment is paired with El Deafo, students will naturally pick one of their differences to highlight in their hero. Then, students will create a 5-panel comic strip with a plot that demonstrates how their superpower could be used for good. This assignment relies on their ability to pick up contextual clues from both the words and the pictures in a graphic novel as well as their knowledge of character traits, plot structure, and dialogue.

Meet Emily: Emily Lubenow is a preservice English teacher at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota. She is passionate about helping students find their voice in their writing and connect to texts that help them understand themselves and their world. Emily hopes to teach middle school English when she graduates, and eagerly anticipates being a highly active member in the artistic spaces at her school, especially relating to music, dance, and performance. When she isn’t reading, Emily finds her sweetest moments in simple joys: good chocolate and time well spent with those she loves.

49 Days by Agnes Lee

In Buddhist tradition, a person must travel for forty-nine days after they die, before they can fully cross over. In Agnes Lee’s graphic novel 49 Days, readers travel with one Korean American girl, Kit, on her journey through her forty-nine days, while also spending time with her family and friends left behind. The novel includes the perspectives of Kit as she traverses through the afterlife, following a map leading her to an indeterminate final destination, Kit’s loved ones in the present, struggling to live in a world where she is gone, and their shared memories of past together, ranging from distant childhood memories to recent, all giving context to the relationships Kit had while living and the ways her family’s lives changed.

Students navigating questions of grief, remembrance, acceptance, or cultural belonging will find Kit’s journey meaningful. Because the novel uses sparse text and relies heavily on imagery to convey emotion, it can also engage visual learners and students developing confidence in literary analysis. Its accessible graphic format invites reluctant readers while still offering sophisticated thematic material for advanced students.

One learning activity a teacher may employ with this novel is research stations that build contextual awareness of the text, which can be especially useful if done prior to or during the process of reading the novel. Around the classroom, the teacher sets up three to four stations focusing on key topics: Buddhist beliefs about the afterlife, Korean mourning rituals, Korean American identity, and visual symbolism in storytelling. Each station includes short readings, photographs, brief videos, or infographics. Students rotate in small groups, spending 8–10 minutes per station while completing a “What? / So What? / How Might This Connect?” organizer. This structure encourages inquiry-based learning, requiring students to summarize information, interpret its significance, and anticipate how it may relate to the novel’s themes.

Meet Malik: Malik Smith is a preservice English teacher at Concordia College in Moorhead, MN. He is passionate about bringing diverse young adult literature into the classroom so that all of his future students can see themselves reflected in the books they read. After graduation, he hopes to teach high school English. When he isn’t reading, Malik enjoys spending time with friends and making the most of every moment.

Promise Boys by Nick Brooks

Promise Boys follows three students J.B., Trey, and Ramón at Urban Promise Prep, a strict school in Washington, D.C. When their principal is found dead, the trio quickly becomes the focus of suspicion. Each has a reason to be angry with him, but none want to be wrongfully accused of murder. Told through multiple perspectives including students, teachers, and social media posts, the novel reads like a fast-paced true-crime story. As readers follow the investigation, they are challenged to ask: if these students didn’t commit the crime, then who did? With suspense, relatable characters, and pressing social questions, this mystery pulls readers in from the first page.

This book is written from multiple points of view, short chapters, and interspersed “documents” like interviews or social media posts encourage students to analyze how bias shapes storytelling. Students can examine how each character’s perspective is interpreted differently and consider how societal and institutional structures affect the treatment of young people. These discussions support diverse learners by validating varied perspectives, promoting critical thinking, and encouraging empathy.

Additionally, Promise Boys connects to foundational ideas in the mystery genre, such as presenting a puzzle, inserting red herrings, and placing ordinary characters in extraordinary circumstances. Using these elements, students can explore literary devices, narrative structure, and suspense techniques while reflecting on social issues that are highly relevant today.

There are a lot of great ideas for teaching this book in a whole-class setting. Here are a few:
● Suspect Chart: Students track clues, motives, and alibis as they read. This visual organizer helps students see connections and evaluate evidence.
● Character Perspective Journals: Assign each small group one character (J.B., Ramón, or Trey) and ask them to journal how bias influences how others perceive their character. This activity encourages empathy and deeper understanding of perspective.
● Mock Trial: Students assume the roles of lawyers, witnesses, and jurors to argue the Promise Boys’ case. They must consider how bias and societal assumptions affect the investigation and verdict.

These activities not only reinforce reading comprehension and literary analysis but also connect the text to real-world issues, prompting students to think critically about justice, bias, and representation.

D[r]ive into Rez Ball: An Interview with Award-Winning Author Byron Graves

11/12/2025

Don't forget to check out the Summit

Meet out Contributor: Dr. Rebecca Chatham-Vazquez is an assistant professor and the director of English Education at North Dakota State University, where she is living her dream, teaching Methods courses and Young Adult Literature and mentoring preservice English teachers. She is in her 16th year of teaching and loves it just as much now as she did on day one. She has taught and worked with pre- and in-service teachers in Montana (very rural), Arkansas (urban), Arizona (urban and rural), and, now, North Dakota (urban and rural). She has been a member of NCTE since 2008, and is a strong supporter of professional organizations like NCTE, its state affiliates, and ALAN. Her research interests include teacher education, rural teacher support, YAL, and methods of teaching reading. She can be reached at [email protected].

D[r]ive into Rez Ball: An Interview with Award-Winning Author Byron Graves by Rebecca Chatham-Vazquez

Byron Graves, Ojibwe and Lakota, is from the Red Lake Nation in the state known as Minnesota. They played basketball there and have even been teaching themselves to skateboard for their latest book project.

Byron has contributed to two anthologies: one multicultural anthology, All Signs Point to Yes, and the other an Indigenous anthology, Legendary Frybread Drive-In, published this year. Their debut novel, Rez Ball, released in 2023, has won several awards, including YALSA’s William C. Morris Award for the best debut novel for young adults and the American Indian Youth Literature Award from the American Indian Library Association. In addition, Rez Ball was a finalist for the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award.

Of Rez Ball, the Morris Award chair said, “Rez Ball impressed us with its authentic voice, well-developed characters and exciting action scenes as it explored grief, prejudice, friendships, family and community.” I can attest to this statement, as I personally could not put this book down and am still so in love with the characters and with the writing. If you haven’t had the chance to dive into Byron’s writing yet, you have such a treat in store for you.

On October 24, 2025, the North Dakota Council of Teachers of English was privileged to welcome Byron Graves as the keynote speaker at our annual conference. They opened the day by telling us how they found their voice through writing. Byron shared that their time playing basketball provided them with the model of hard work that they needed in order to push through the tough writing times, but it also showed them that they needed to find the fun in writing just as they had in basketball. In between Byron’s opening keynote and after-lunch writing workshop, I was lucky enough to be able to interview them. In this interview, Byron and I dove into topics, such as the role community plays in our lives, the importance of personal expression, how Byron poignantly captures loss and healing in Tre’s story, and so much more. I hope you enjoy listening to and learning from Byron as much as I did!

Interview with Bryon Graves, the Author of the Award-Winning Novel, Rez Ball

**Note: for reading fluidity, I have not included the indications of active listening (yeahs, mmhmms, for sures) during both my longer questions and Byron’s longer answers.

Rebecca: So, Byron, thank you so much for agreeing to this interview. I really appreciate it.

Byron: Yeah, my pleasure.

Rebecca: I'm going to share it on Dr. Bickmore’s YA Wednesday blog in November

Byron: Okay, cool.

Rebecca: and I'm going to share Rez Ball on there as well.

Byron: Woohoo! Thank you.

Rebecca: Yeah! So for the uninitiated, can you describe what rez ball is and how it differs from basketball maybe people think of in their heads from their Friday night basketball games in school or what we might see on TV?

Byron: Yeah, I think it's a combination of street ball. I think it's a combination of like freestyle hip hop. I think it's a combination of kids who are coming from a place where anything and everything can happen at any moment, and there's that uncertainty, and you're constantly in a state of reaction. And basketball, and rez ball specifically, is that opportunity to be the one creating that beautiful madness. And so instead of having a set play where, once you watch a team a few times – other teams – you can say, ‘Hey, look, when they call this play, this guy runs over here, they stop, and then that guy runs over here,’ and you can start to see the pattern and the rhythm, where rez ball is completely uncertain. It's constantly being created, so nobody can just say, ‘Hey, I know what they're going to do,’ because you literally don't know what's coming. But I think that's part of necessity, and it's part of Indigenous survival is constantly figuring out how can we overcome this difference? Like when I was writing Rez Ball, I knew a huge part of that story that I wanted to tell, at least, that, I hope that I told correctly, was that, what's the difference between a Native American teenage athlete and then, say, a teenager in like, an affluent suburb, and what's their life like? What are their challenges like, and how do they differ? And I think when you're looking at a rez ball high school team, a lot of times you're going to have a lot of kids who are, like, 5’10”, and they might be going up against the city team with a bunch of guys who are 6’3”, 6’5”, 6’7”, so it's being able to adapt and be creative with like, ‘Okay, here's the challenge we're facing. But what can we do about that challenge?’

Rebecca: Mmm, yes. Yeah, I really like that because, in the book, I think the spirit of rez ball really comes through, especially when they're playing the other team and they decide to just go for it, and he calls out ‘Superboy,’ and they decide they're just gonna play rez ball. And there's actually joy to it because they're not playing within another set of rules. I really loved that.

So in your keynote, you talked about how, or I thought, you really demonstrated how any subject or activity can be intellectualized. The way that you talked about how you came to love and play and understand basketball, watching the tape and all that, which I think really contradicts with what people often think about young men who play sports or who play video games, right, is that it's completely non-intellectual pursuit, which is not at all true. And I think in the book, you really work against a lot of stereotypes, not just against Native Americans in general, but against young boys, male friendship, all those things. Were you thinking about that as you were writing? Were you thinking about how Tre and Nate and Wes would push back on these stereotypes as you were going through? Can you talk about your thought process?

Byron: It definitely was something that I came up with in later drafts and later versions. As you revisit that story, you're revisiting it (1) from, like, a storytelling perspective, of like, what's going to be interesting, what's going to be page turning, what's going to be entertaining, right? But then you're also asking yourself, ‘How is this going to be interpreted? What kind of impact can this make? How could say a teenage boy read this and be influenced by it?’ And so part of me was sharing my childhood friendship stories from my teenage time, but then part of me was also sharing my adult epiphanies and realizations of how you can break those gender norms or those gender stereotypes, and you can show young men a side of being just a human being and how you can interact with other guys, and that it doesn't always have to be macho or misogynistic or tough guy, and that it's okay to be open and vulnerable and kind and patient with your friends: guys, girls, whoever, non-binary people. That you just can share those adult realizations and stories with a younger reading audience but still make it completely organic and not feel forced, which is another challenge when you're trying to write something. When you're watching a movie and you're like, ‘Oh, that was the info dump’ or ‘Oh, that was them telling me the plot of the story’ – How can I do that in a way that comes across like normal dialogue? So it's a challenge, but it also pays off if you can execute it correctly.

Rebecca: Mmhmm. I definitely think that through loss, so like when my brother was in high school, they had a friend who passed away in a really tragic farming accident. And I think that in those moments, young men seemed to feel okay showing their grief, right? And they did bond as a team, and they still, you know, talk about that and are able to share that, but it seems like then it gets restricted. I had students who lost family members, and it was like, you're allowed to be sad about that, but now we're also not going to talk about the anger that you feel. We're not going to talk about the loneliness or the isolation or, like, how Tre sometimes thinks ‘Can't they just love me for me? Does it always have to be about Jaxon?’ and I felt that in my students, right? That ‘Oh, I'm allowed to be sad, but these other sets of emotions that come out…’ And I think your book really shows how they can actually deal with those emotions and be real people, right?
So that was really so cool.

You write these characters really lovingly; like I really felt that you loved them as I was reading. I wondered, after reading some of your other interviews, too, and how you talked about your relationship with your dad, if writing Tre in particular, in this way, was also a way of loving yourself at that time in your life?

Byron: It was very therapeutic as I went through each iteration of Rez Ball and each rewrite or addition, or, you know, revision, going into a deeper exploration of those dynamics of the family members, the friendships, the dynamics between anybody and everybody, and all the situations and emotions that Tre is going through. With each layer of that that I peeled back, I got deeper and deeper into the psychology behind a lot of it and had my own epiphanies and realizations of those dynamics with say, for example, specifically, like my own father and things that I didn't even know were challenges or obstacles that he and I had in deepening our relationship, or better understanding each other. And so telling this story was, in some way, me understanding what that was like having a father like I had who was very macho and sports-loving and Mr. Tough Guy, Mr. Never Cries, Mr. all of those things and how that can impact a teenager who wants to be themselves and is trying to find themselves and is trying to blossom into their own personality and their own understanding of the world, while also appeasing, you know, their father, mother, siblings, friends, whoever that is. So it definitely was deeper than I thought it was going to be, as far as how it would impact me. I had a lot of nights where I would be writing a specific scene and I would actually have a deeply emotional reaction to it. So in some ways, it was incredibly challenging, because I had to keep experiencing these emotions. But then, on the flip side of that same coin, it was therapeutic, because I was getting stuff out of me that I didn't even know was in there.

Rebecca: Yeah, definitely.
I know you've talked about how on the reservation, loss of friends or siblings or community members, especially in your high school years, can be really common. I think we experienced that in Montana as well. I think rural areas, especially with driving accidents, right? And it did make me wonder how you were able to write so poignantly about specifically the loss of a sibling, especially in your keynote this morning after hearing you say, ‘Oh, first it was a teammate, then it was a cousin, then it was a brother,’ and then the healing aspect of it, too, that really comes in bits and pieces, especially between Tre and his dad, like the scene with Jaxon’s shoes or the Sunday morning basketball court scene. How were you able to capture that?

Byron: I think it was revisiting my experience with losing my dad or my nephew or friends and going through the different moments, whether that's that initial loss, whether it's that grief and anger, whether it's later, when you're looking back and you're thinking nostalgically about this beautiful moment you had or something kind they did for you, and what that healing process can look like. But then I also was examining – because my sister was playing high school basketball, and she was the star point guard of our team when we lost our dad, and so I had to watch her still go to school a couple days later after the funeral, and then still play basketball, because it was mid-season, and the strength and the courage that I saw with her. And my niece, she lost her brother, my nephew, to cancer while she was in the middle of her basketball season her junior year, and she dedicated the rest of her high school basketball career to him, and she wore his number, and she was our first athlete to go play Division I basketball. And so watching the strength of those two young ladies also very directly informed that experience of that character, and what that would look like and sound like and feel like, and how it would not just be linear, but it would be kind of this back and forth, up and down, evolution of that experience.

Rebecca: I love that you used women as your example, because I think Tre comes across as, as a young man, as himself, but like you were saying, you can do kind of, not necessarily gender-bending, but like break gender expectations, especially because it was young girls who you used as an example. That's so cool.

So did your relationship with your dad, and your mom, too, really affect how you wrote about Tre and his parents?

Byron: Yeah, 100%. In the earlier drafts of Rez Ball, there was way more of my personal story of the backlash that I faced from my parents for, you know, painting my fingernails, coloring my hair, wearing clothes that weren't just typically ‘male.’ When I was trying to really find myself and express myself, they had a lot of issues with it. And my frustration with it was that I was a straight A student. I was kind to all my teachers. My teachers loved me. My classmates were kind to me and loved me, and I was a star athlete, and I was staying out of trouble. And where I'm from, if you're not drinking, if you're not on drugs, if you're not truant, you know, I felt like this, you know, anomaly of a student at that time in that place, and all I wanted to do was paint my fingernails and color my hair. And that was a problem. It was an extreme problem for my parents, and we had some of the worst fights we've ever had because of those things. So in my earlier drafts, I really dug into that and visited that a lot more and sat with that a lot more, and then later it just didn't make as much sense for that story or that character, so I pulled some of those things out. But I think anytime you have something that's that big or deep in a story, and you pull it out, the echoes of it still exist. So I think that permeated around the story, and you can still see it and hear it and feel it. You just don't know exactly what it is, but you know there's that difference, or this delta, between him and his parents and how they're all viewing each other. So I think it definitely left a mark on it, and I get to visit that now in future books that I'm working on now that that's more of the focus of the story, instead of more of the basketball and grieving portion that Rez Ball had.

Rebecca: I know. It's so hard when you write something and you just desperately need your own story in it, and then you have to take that part out, and it’s other people telling you to take it out, and so you are mad about it but you take it out anyway, and then you end up thinking, ‘All right, I guess it’s better now.’

Byron: For sure. 100%. And I trust – you know, I work with Cynthia Leitich Smith, and I work with Rosemary Brosnan, and I work with my wonderful agent, Terrie Wolf, and I just … I believe all of them, because they're such brilliant storytellers, and they have so much experience in this industry that I'm still trying to gather and learn from. So if they say ‘I really feel this way or that way about this aspect of a scene or about this chapter,’ I just believe them, and I do my best to then work with that feedback that they're giving me. Instantly I'm like, ‘Okay, well, if that's what Cynthia thinks…’ or ‘if that's what Rosemary thinks…’ then there's a reason they say that and let's figure out how to better tell this story and save that thing maybe for some other story.

Rebecca: Yeah, those relationships are so important, especially with mentors.

As I read the book, I thought about a student that I had had in my student teaching semester, actually, so 16 years ago. His name was Kris, and he was Blackfeet and a devoted basketball player. Of course. We used to play together after school sometimes because I was the only teacher willing to supervise after-school weightlifting, and as I was reading the book, I could just picture him absolutely whooping his way through, especially through the basketball scenes. And I just wondered, did you have young boys like that really in your mind? Like, did you picture an audience as you were writing this? Or were you more thinking about the message as you were writing? Or was it both?

Byron: Initially, it was for teenage Indigenous males who liked basketball. That was it; it was super specific. And sometimes you can kind of create challenges for yourself when you want to make art that's that specific. It's like, if you're going to make the heaviest death metal band of all time, people who like Taylor Swift might not like your band, right? But it's a decision you're making, and it's the art you want to make. But then as I got deeper and further along, I started to figure out that you could do both. I could tell a story that was for those kids who loved basketball, didn't like reading, wanted something fast paced and moving, but then I was like, but that's not just life. Like, even if you are a high schooler who's playing basketball, there's more than basketball, right? Like, ‘what else is happening in your life?’ And that's where the universal aspects of the story started to blossom in those later versions of the book, when I thought, ‘Well, what's his love life look like? What do his friendships look like? What’s school look like?’ And that's when I think it became something that anyone else could listen to. You know, we turned down those heavy guitars, and we turned down the sound of the snare a little bit, and we made it something that was a little more palpable and a little more digestible for anyone to pick up and read or listen to and say, ‘Oh, hey, I hear the message in this.’ And so it was really pulling back some of the strings and just letting the story kind of tell itself, and I think that's when it started to become more of a universal story, so I had my intention initially, and then I went to write a better story. It opened the story up to being something that I hope anybody could pick up and see something in that they understand or get.

Rebecca: I love that, because I think sometimes, especially in the English classroom, the argument for ‘Classics’ is that their themes are universal, and the pushback from teachers is ‘Okay, but universal for whom?’ Yes, some Charles Dickens is still applicable today. He's my favorite author. I will continue to read him. But Young Adult Literature can be universal as well, and I think more so, especially for young people. So, yeah, I love that.

Byron: I think with how fast the world is constantly changing and getting into different generations who are saying, you know, ‘skibidi rizz’ and ‘six-seven’ and the like, and then that's only a thing for like a flash in the pan, right? Like for just one week. So I think contemporary young adult literature is so important. I think if they can see social media or a video game or a smartphone in someone's hand – because this younger generation has never seen a world without social media. They've never seen a world without a smartphone or an iPad or YouTube or Minecraft or Fortnite. So how in the heck are they going to understand language that sounds different, from 100 years ago? It's hard to understand what someone's saying, just the way it's hard for us to understand when kids are saying what they're saying. You're like, ‘Wait, what?’ At least having the technology and the world that they're in, the contemporary setting, it's super important to getting kids into reading because our attention spans are shrinking down to like, seven seconds, because we're just used to these short bits of reels and TikToks. But then you're going to read a book that's so dense or so hard for them to understand, it's going to turn them off from reading, and they're going to go, ‘What is this? I don't even like this thing. I'm back to my iPad.’ If you can get them something where a kid's on his iPad watching a Minecraft video of a streamer, they’ll think, ‘I get that, you know, let me read the rest of this chapter.’ I think shifting towards contemporary is the only way we're going to salvage young readers. You can get them on the contemporary side. Then later you can say, ‘Here's Charles Dickens,’ or ‘Here's Shakespeare,’ or here's something now that they're like, ‘Oh, I like reading. I've trained my brain to sit and read for 15 minutes straight.’ Yeah, then you can show them the classics.

Rebecca: Yeah, I agree. I think it has to be a building of the reading muscle first and what they like because why would you try something that you couldn't even access if you've never even been able to read something you could access before. So, yeah, super important to get the Young Adult novels in there and build their build their love. Show them that there's books out there that are about them and that they can read without the teacher. I think it’s so important.

Byron: When I was reading Shakespeare in school, I needed the Cliff’s Notes, and I needed to watch the Leonardo DiCaprio movie. When I watched the movie, I thought, ‘Oh, that's what they're saying when they’re describing this or that’ or ‘Oh, this scene, I get it now.’ I needed those additional resources, the Cliff’s Notes and the movie, for me to understand a single line.

Rebecca: Mmhmm. I think half the teachers need the Cliff’s Notes and the movie, too! I always tell my students that I think Shakespeare, whom I refer to as Willie Shakes, would absolutely love today's generation. They are gender-bending. They're making up their own words. They're doing, I mean, they're so inventive. I think he would have absolutely dug it. He would have been so into it. And they always respond with, ‘What are you talking about?’ And I say, ‘Y'all, he did the literal same stuff. It was just 400 years ago, so we can’t understand it!’ So, yeah, I love that so much.

So I played basketball – never at the level that you did – I was far too small. And by the time I turned 14, I was like, ‘I just want to do homework.’ But my grandma played basketball, too, back when women still had to wear skirts to play and could only play half court, and she loved it so much. And when she got to watch me play, she was so excited, and I was reading some of the Goodreads reviews for Rez Ball, and there was a gal down in Oklahoma who said that ‘Rez Ball is a love letter to community.’ And that really struck me. And I was wondering if you could talk about the importance of community in your life, but also on the rez, in particular?

Byron: When I was playing basketball, I would go to, say, pick up the mail for my mom, and the lady working at the post office would say, ‘Oh my god, I watched your game last night. And when you dove on the floor and saved the ball…,’ or I would go to a community event, and our tribal chairman would come up and shake my hand and say, ‘Good luck in the playoffs.’ Anywhere I went and everywhere I went on our reservation, I could be at a powwow, and a young kid would come and, like, crawl onto my shoulders and like, tell me they were going to be better at basketball than me someday, kind of having that Indian Humor moment. And so anywhere I went and everywhere I went, being this, like, shy, introverted kid before basketball to then being completely welcomed and absorbed and championed in my community by anyone and everyone – kids, teenagers, elderly – I all of a sudden felt like my family had grown, and it wasn't just my mom and dad and my siblings, but literally anywhere I went, I would get a high five or, you know, someone would dap me up. And so I started to feel like I belonged, and, being someone who has lighter skin and not dressing like a lot of my peers, I had always felt, especially in a Native American community, like I didn't belong or I didn't fit in, and that a lot of the bullying was around that, so getting to feel welcomed and cheered on by everyone in my community because of basketball at that time was such a beautiful thing for me.

But I think community extends to whatever group that you're working in or cheering on or belonging to, right? Because now I belong to the literary community, and I get to go meet all different readers and different authors and people who work in the industry, and it all feels that same thing where it's like this family and I support all these other authors, and they support me, and we cheer each other on. So community can be whatever kind of thing you're working on or doing, but it can be beautiful. It can be helpful, you know? It can make you feel like you're welcome and belong, but I think it's also something that as we grow in that industry or field, or as we get that experience, we also have to make sure that we're then nurturing the people who are brand new, or stepping in that door for the first time, and paying it forward. And that's what continues to help grow and blossom and nurture it.

Rebecca: Yeah, I think, especially as I'm listening you talk about how there was still bullying, but once you did something that was in the spotlight that that kind of pulled back, I feel like you're also expanding the types of community members who get recognized, right? Because, yeah, you were a star basketball player, but now also you're writing. You do paint your fingernails, and you do dye your hair, so it's cool to do that now, right? Kids might think, ‘Oh, Byron does that. I could do it,’ and so you're making the community even better by being yourself.

Byron: Thank you. When I go to book events or I go to school visits, it's always at the very end where a couple of kids will come up who are wearing, like, a My Chemical Romance shirt, or a boy with his nails painted, or a boy who doesn't have his nails painted, they'll come up and they'll have a moment where they bond with me, and they're the ones who wait till everyone's gone because they don't want to talk next to or near anybody. They don't want to be within earshot. They wait until the very end, and then they come up and, for example, I had a teenage boy at a school visit recently, tell me, ‘I wish I could paint my fingernails. I think it looks so cool, but I'm afraid. I'm scared because we're in this really rural middle of nowhere Minnesota town.’ And I was like, ‘I totally get it,’ but it was cool being able to know that. It's still scary for me. Sometimes, depending on where I am, I'll notice I'll kind of curl my fingernails in depending on where I'm at or who I’m talking to. And I know, like the other day, I was complaining to my fiancé that I was in a mall food court, and it was busy. There was like 100 people there, and every single person – babies, kids, teenagers, older people, people my age, whatever – eventually I'd feel eyes on me, and I'd look up and someone was looking at me, and I was like, oh, well, you know, it feels awkward. I'm just trying to eat. But then I was like, I bring it on myself: I'm the one wearing a cheetah print hat with usually purple or pink hair and nails. Part of it is me bringing it on myself, but it is part of why I do what I do and part of why I dress the way I dress. Because sometimes it's like, it would be easier for me to not spend time doing my nails or my hair. I could just wear a white t-shirt and jeans, and my life would be a little easier. But one, I wouldn't feel like myself, and two, I would be thinking I know there's a kid out there or a person out there somewhere who needs to also see a version of themselves, and I've had that. Prince was that for me. David Bowie was that for me. Dennis Rodman was that for me. So there's been… I've had my own role models who were androgynous or just said, ‘Fuck the norm’ and were just like, ‘I'm just gonna be myself.’ And I always thought that was just the coolest thing.

Rebecca: I love that you brought up Dennis Rodman, because one year for Christmas, my brother bought our dad the Dennis Rodman book!

Byron: Oh Bad as I Wanna Be?

Rebecca: Yeah, and I was just thinking ‘this is amazing.’ Perfection. Also, Dennis Rodman, what a time we were living in, right? [we laughed a lot during this exchange!]

Also, though, I cannot wait to share your book with one of my absolute best friends that I met through our mom’s club. Her name is Sam, and she has a mohawk that she dyes all the colors of the rainbow, and she has three boys, and she's such a good mom. One of them has really long hair, doesn't dye it, but the middle one and the younger one love to have a mohawk just like their mom and dye it different colors. And they're six and ten, and I just love it so much. But I think she sometimes feels the way you do, like the mohawk maybe makes her stand out. But she said, even recently, people have actually been complimenting it instead of being weird about it. And so I think you're right: the more people are themselves, the more people can be themselves.

So I want to just switch over. I have a bonus question: were your Star Wars and Yoda references a nod to Eric Gansworth?

Byron: You know, that's funny. Um, he's one of my favorite authors. If I Ever Get Out of Here is one of my favorite books. So good. I've read it a couple times.

Yeah, it hadn't crossed my mind. I just grew up watching a lot of Star Wars, and when I was finishing up high school, the prequels started to come out, and I loved, I was like, one of the only people, I guess, at the time, who loved the prequels. I thought they were amazing, and so I just always loved Star Wars. My mom is a huge Star Wars fan. I think part of her world and spiritual views have been impacted by the idea of Star Wars and the Force and feeling the universe and feeling that God-like energy that's in all of us and how to use it for good. So I think a lot of her teachings came from stuff she probably heard from Yoda, and then she tells me, so I didn't realize it, but yeah. I even have an R2D2 tattoo.

Rebecca: Oh my gosh, yes, that’s amazing!

Byron: But, yeah, I hadn't even put two and two together. But, you know, sometimes I think about how much is subconsciously in my mind, like song lyrics, movies I've watched, books I've read, conversations I've had with people that when I'm writing a scene, maybe I don't realize that's like the scene that it stemmed from but I always wonder that all the time. I'm obsessed with music, so I probably have 1000s of albums worth of lyrics in my head, and sometimes I worry when I'm writing something, ‘Is this a lyric from a song? Am I ripping something off?’ Or is it just me being impacted and affected by it, but still creating something that's just influenced by it, and not just ripping something off?

Rebecca: Meh, all writing is intertextual, right?!

I knew, I knew you liked Eric Gansworth. I really love him as well, but I know he absolutely loves Yoda. I was not on the prequel bandwagon until I watched the Clone Wars series, and then you go back and watch it, and you're like, ‘Oh, these are actually great, but you just needed these seven seasons of information to get it, so…’

Byron: I think it's super hard when you think about now that we've seen so many TV series, and they're 10 episodes and 52 minutes for each episode, and that's telling a story – almost 10 hours’ worth of time, but back, like for so long until today, you're like, here's two hours to make this all interesting, for this all to make sense, for this all the matter. And that's really hard to do. And when a movie is two and a half hours, or two hours and 45 minutes, I always hear people complain, ‘Oh, that movie was so long.’ And I'm thinking, you just been binge-watched all of Breaking Bad, 500 hours, or whatever. That wasn't too long, right? But a movie, for some reason… Yeah, sometimes we wonder why we have a harder time getting into movies, but I'm thinking it's because we don't let them be as long as they need to be. Yeah so I think those prequels could have been better if they could have been a series.

Rebecca: Oh, for sure, yeah, I agree. So last question, kind of a mix: why was it important to do a collaborative piece like Legendary Frybread Drive-In, and then can you tell us about what the future is holding?

Byron: So I got to be included with so many of my all-time favorite authors, like Darcie Little Badger, who's a hero of mine, and Eric Gansworth, another hero of mine. So I always joke – we were talking about the Dream Team earlier – I feel like the Christian Laettner of the Dream Team, like everyone's thinking, ‘Why is he on the team? We got Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, … and Christian Leitner. One of these things is not like the others.’ But I also, being a huge comic book fan and loving the connected universes like the MCU or comic books, it was cool getting to work with the other authors and seeing, ‘What are you doing with yours? What am I doing with mine? How could we have some intermingling or crossover of characters?’ Some of the characters from the other stories are in the background of mine. You just see them. And if you read their story first, you would know, ‘Oh, hey, that's that other story that Jen Ferguson wrote, or something along those lines. I thought that was really fun to do. The interconnectedness, that's just how Indian Country is, and what it's like being on a reservation. For example, someone downstairs [at the conference] was telling us a story of how she was talking about Rez Ball in Bemidji, and someone said, ‘Oh, Byron's my cousin.’ And that's what you see the whole time in this anthology is how anyone and everyone can be connected. And I think that's definitely an Indigenous thing in story.

Rebecca: I loved that about Ancestor Approved. I haven’t started Legendary Frybread Drive-In yet, and so I was thinking, ‘Oh, I wonder if that's going to be the same?’

Byron: I went back and read that when I got asked to do the Legendary Frybread. I had read Ancestor Approved before, but I wanted to read it one more time as I was writing mine to be thinking, ‘How did they do this?’

For the future, I have Medicine Wheels, which is Rez Ball, but stripping away the community, and stripping away that family life, and making this character's journey a lot harder. Just like you do when you're writing a story, you're constantly making that main character's journey harder. For me, from book one to book two, it was like, well, everything that Tre had, what if we took that all away? And skateboarding, you don't have a gymnasium full of people cheering you on. And this kid is learning how to skateboard, kind of by himself, going through a really tough summer, and it becomes this beautiful distraction. And the message for kids is what do you love? What are you passionate about? Because your dark days, whether they're here or coming, will be part of your life. And what's going to be your escapism, what's going to be your coping mechanism? And so for me, that message is find it, embrace it, hold on to it, because you're going to need it. And that's what this kid learns in Medicine Wheels, and that'll be out this summer.

Rebecca: Oh, I love that so much. It sounds so good.

Byron: Yeah, I'm excited.

Rebecca: I can't wait. And the video game one that you talked about earlier, I think is going to be – that sounds like it's going to be amazing as well. And I already know so many people that I
would share it with.

Byron: Yeah, Moccasin Games came up as an idea for me as I was exploring my gender identity and my gender expression and knowing how I used video game avatars and characters to comfortably, more safely explore that side of myself first. Being able to be in that virtual world and being able to dress how I wanted and look how I wanted, and then I thought, ‘What if there's a younger teenager who is trying to find themselves, and they do it via a video game? And that was kind of the genesis of the idea, not the Sega Genesis. [We laughed hard at this excellent ‘90s joke]
That’s how I came up with the whole story of these kids who are gamers, who haven't even met in real life, and then the dynamics of the people who have a lot of money, who can pay for all the power ups and weapons and better things, and then the kids who don't have any money and just have to be crafty or sharper, smarter. So it's exploring those real-world dynamics of wealth division and different separations in communities and cities, rural areas, and how there can be an even playing field in different ways, and then just being able to explore that other side of yourself through a video game. So there's those two different storylines happening. It's definitely, again, very personal and things that I didn't get to explore in Rez Ball.

Rebecca: Oh my gosh, I love that, because the online community is a totally different version of community that people who are not a part of it, I think, think doesn't exist or is not as good as ‘real life’ community. But also I love it because books are a way for kids to explore different things, right? And video games are literature, and so treating them that way in the book, it's super meta.

Byron: Yeah!

Rebecca: Yeah, I love that. Well, we were here longer than I thought we would be, but you gave way amazing answers.

Byron: Thank you.

Rebecca: I appreciate it.

Byron: My pleasure.

Rebecca: Thank you so much, Byron.

Byron: Of course.

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Jenna Voris, Every Time You Hear That Song, Viking/Penguin

Meet our Contributor

The Page Turner Society: Building Community, Voice, and Empathy Through a High School-University Book Club by Leilya A. Pitre

Our Vision Rooted in Collaboration and Voice

Choosing All American Boys

Meeting One: Entering the Story Together

Meeting Two: Wrestling with Perspective and Choice

The Final Meeting: Creativity, Reflection, and Action

The Poems

What Students Told Us​

Why This Work Is Essential

Let's Start the Year Reflecting by Steve Bickmore

Matt de la Pena

First check out the Summit - Proposal are due soon.

Meet our Contributor:

Empowering Multilingual Learners with YA Literature to Bridge Cultural Divides in Secondary Classrooms by Victoria Tome

Providing Context for Immigrant- and Refugee-Background Youth ​

Without a Home, But with Total Agency

The Power of Verse Novels for MLs

Embracing Narrative & Personal Stories

The Power of Visual Literacy in Graphic Novel

A Final Thought

References

Before we get started, checkout the upcoming YA Summit

Meet our Contributors:

Young Adult Literature at the 2025 NCTE Annual Convention: A Reflection from Four New English Teachers by Mark Lewis, Melanie Shoffner and students.

Mark and Melanie

Check out the 2026 Summit on​ The Research and Teaching of Young Adult Literature

Meet our Contributor:

​Historical Fiction as Inspiration by Rebecca Chatham-Vazquez

First, check out the 2026 Summit on the Research and Teaching of Young Adult Literature

Meet the Contributor: Liz Pilon

What English Education Students are Recommending by Liz Pilon

A Wish In The Dark by Christina Soontornvat ​

El Deafo by Cece Bell

49 Days by Agnes Lee

Promise Boys by Nick Brooks

Don't forget to check out the Summit

D[r]ive into Rez Ball: An Interview with Award-Winning Author Byron Graves by Rebecca Chatham-Vazquez

Interview with Bryon Graves, the Author of the Award-Winning Novel, Rez Ball

Dr. Steve Bickmore​Creator and Curator

Bickmore's ​Co-Edited Books

Archives

Categories

Blogs to Follow

Complexities and Intersectionalities of Rurality in The 2025 Whippoorwill Book Award

Michael J. Young, Erika L. Bass, Erin Schulz, Monica Roe, & Jacqueline Yahn

**Tom Birdseye, There is No Map for This, Groundwood Books**

**K.A. Cobell, Looking for Smoke, Heartdrum**

**Mike Deas & Nancy Deas, Crystal Cave, Orca**

**Erin Hahn, Even if it Breaks Your Heart, Wednesday Books**

**Trina Rathgeber, Alina Pete, & Jillian Dolan, Lost at Windy River, Orca**

**Mason Stokes, All the Truth I Can Stand, Calkins Creek/Astra Books**

**Jennifer Torres, Vega’s Piece of the Sky, Little Brown**

**Jenna Voris, Every Time You Hear That Song, Viking/Penguin**

The Page Turner Society: Building Community, Voice, and Empathy
Through a High School-University Book Club by Leilya A. Pitre

What Students Told Us

Providing Context for Immigrant- and Refugee-Background Youth

Check out the 2026 Summit on

The Research and Teaching of Young Adult Literature

Historical Fiction as Inspiration by Rebecca Chatham-Vazquez

A Wish In The Dark by Christina Soontornvat

Dr. Steve Bickmore
Creator and Curator

Bickmore's
Co-Edited Books