DR. BICKMORE'S YA WEDNESDAY

Turning the Page Against Patriarchy: Young Adult Literature as a Catalyst for Female Agency

3/11/2026

I love highlighting the work of students. A few months ago Bryan Ripley Crandall send me an email to brag a bit about the work of his students on their final projects. As teacher educators we have been on both sides of looking at student projects. Some time their work is so good we want to shout from the roof tops about their accomplishments. Other times we look at projects and ask ourselves: What was I thinking with that assignment? What was I expecting my students would produce? Frankly, we often need better ideas and often those better ideas come from the work our students produce. From time to time our students creatively interpret the assignments ( both good ones and boring ones.) we give them and we she the world with new eyes, new possibilities.

In this case, Bryan sent me a sample of a student's final project. I was thoughly engaged with what Kathleen Morris turned into to Bryan. I quickly decided it was something I want to share with others through the blog. Katheem agreed to let us post her final project (see the product at the bottom of the post) and write a explanation of how she went about producing her project.

Meet our Contributor

Kathleen Morris studies Communication and Digital Journalism at Fairfield University. She serves as the Editor-in-Chief of The Fairfield Mirror, a role that allows her to hone her skills as a multimedia journalist and highlight the untold stories of her community. Beyond the newsroom, she is an In-Arena Host for NCAA Division I men’s and women’s basketball games, where she has the privilege of engaging crowds through live announcements and interactive segments. A native New Englander, Kathleen spends her summers behind the counter of a centuries-old country store, an experience that further fuels her passion for the local narratives that connect us all. https://www.kathleenrosemorris.com/

Turning the Page Against Patriarchy: Young Adult Literature as a Catalyst for Female Agency by Kathleen Morris

As a child, I was gifted a journal. Its cover was a glossy pink, adorned with a sequined purple “K” and fastened together with a tiny locking mechanism. It lived in my bedside table, finding a home alongside an eclectic array of trinkets and a stack of dog-eared novels.

When I received it, Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid series was fully integrated into the rotation of novels I curled up with each night. I’d clip on my extendable reading light and pore over the pages, captivated by Greg’s youthful narration and fascinated by the idea of documenting daily life through the written word.

I began to incorporate journaling into my nightly routine. With each scribbled story, I captured my elementary school antics and began to develop my own voice as a writer.

This past summer, I moved out of my childhood home. In the process of packing, I was reintroduced to this relic of self-reflection. I began to trace patterns in each entry, noting an evolution as I began to embrace my budding femininity.

The challenges I faced differed from Greg’s and Rowley’s. I was not threatened by the infamous “cheese touch” or a rock-and-roll older brother. Instead, my musings were rooted in the rawness of girlhood. I felt the crush of adolescence, from actual crushes (High School Musical’s Troy Bolton earned several mentions) to the social stings of faltering female friendships.

To navigate the complexity of coming-of-age, I dove deeper into the genre of YA. I met Hermione Granger, who reminded me to be steadfast in my academic pursuits and unashamed of my zest for learning. Jo March found a seat at our table – a proud voice who empowered me to be brave and bold. I was struck by the story of Malala Yousafzai, whose story of perseverance expanded my worldview and pushed me to be a fierce advocate for women’s rights.

From Sequined Journals to Multimedia Journalism

Today, I am a senior at Fairfield University. My fondness for glitter has yet to waver, and I still utilize writing as an outlet for self-expression and introspection. However, I have traded my journal for a laptop. My words are no longer hidden within a nightstand drawer, but published weekly in our student newspaper, The Fairfield Mirror. My passion for storytelling pushed me to embrace digital tools in my creative process, identifying the unique power of graphic design to represent the inner workings of my mind with a distinct dynamism.

My interactive webpage, Turning the Page Against Patriarchy: Young Adult Literature as a Catalyst for Female Agency, encapsulates this journey – reimagining a beloved childhood medium as a digital call-to-action for women of all ages.

This project stemmed from an assignment in my Literature for Young Adults course, taught by Bryan Ripley Crandall, Ph.D. Our exploration of diverse YA texts allowed me to develop a nuanced understanding of the representation of women in this genre. I recognized the necessity of amplifying women’s voices across realms, noting how this amplification has the potential to inspire confidence within girls that will carry them through adulthood and guide them as they navigate a patriarchal society.

In the webpage’s opening letter, I share the following wish: “It is my sincere hope that this multimedia project will reawaken a spark within you – a spark that will remind you to be fearlessly feminine and unabashedly yourself.”

As you explore my project, I encourage you to reconnect with what lit a fire in the soul of your younger self and consider how your personal passions could be translated into this format. To help rekindle that creative spirit and unlock your digital voice, I have included a few techniques below to set you in the right direction:

Leverage Canva’s Webpage Capabilities

To build my webpage, I utilized Canva. I find the platform to be incredibly user-friendly and accessible, as it provides a seamless canvas where I can maintain my distinct visual identity without needing a background in computer programming. While you can access the design software for free, I’ve found that Canva Pro is a worthy investment for the extra creative freedom it offers.

Commit to a Color Scheme

I selected orange as the primary color for my design, as it traditionally symbolizes optimism and aligns with my mission of lighting a fire within young women. To maintain visual cohesion, I relied on one of my favorite tools: Duotone. This feature is available to Canva Pro users and allows you to manipulate the hues of any graphic or image to create a sophisticated, monochromatic look. It was essential to ensure that every visual element fit seamlessly within my curated palette.

Incorporate Multimedia Elements

I added a handful of videos throughout the project – ranging from Taylor Swift’s The Man music video to Emma Watson’s powerful HeForShe campaign speech. Canva allows you to link and embed YouTube videos that can be watched directly from the page, keeping your viewer engaged without ever having to leave the site.

Additionally, I integrated an original video I filmed on my iPhone and edited in DaVinci Resolve, featuring five testimonials from fellow students. I deeply valued their insights and felt it was essential to add their voices to the project, turning a digital space into a communal dialogue.

Look to the Experts

If you are new to the platform, I’d highly recommend diving into tutorials on YouTube and Instagram. I recently discovered Roger Cole’s videos (@mysocialdesigner on Instagram) and find his tips to be incredibly helpful for mastering design tricks.

The Next Chapter…

To conclude, I invite you to explore one final avenue of inspiration: the Westport Library’s Research Guide, “Zine Activism: No-Filter Feminism.” This resource provides vital historical context on the Riot Grrrl movement of the 1990s – a pivotal era that empowered young women to bypass gatekeepers and reclaim their narratives through independent cultural production.

Turning the Page Against Patriarchy: Young Adult Literature as a Catalyst for Female Agency serves as a modern equivalent to these underground publications. It is a vessel for female fierceness and a living invitation for women of all ages to pick up their own pens, turn the page on the patriarchy and author a future defined by their own agency

Graphic Novels–The Hidden Treasures of Teaching:Humanity, Worldview, Understanding, and Connection inEugene Yelchin’s I Wish I Didn’t Have to Tell You

3/4/2026

Meet the Contributor: Susan James

Dr. Susan Densmore-James is a professor of literacy at the University of West Florida (UWF) and the Founder and Director of the Emerald Coast National Writing Project at UWF. Before her professorship, she was a reading specialist for secondary students, where she was “gifted” the name of “The Book Dealer”. She now teaches pre-service teachers at UWF and works with middle and Young Adult (YA) authors. Her true joy is in connecting young readers with life-changing books.

Graphic Novels–The Hidden Treasures of Teaching:Humanity, Worldview, Understanding, and Connection inEugene Yelchin’s I Wish I Didn’t Have to Tell You by Susan James -- The Book Dealer

The Admission

It has taken me an entire career to give graphic novels their due. I deeply apologize for not doing so sooner, as quite honestly, these gems are among the most powerful of all teaching tools and represent one of the biggest omissions from my curriculum during my first 15 years of teaching. I have since made up for this in spades.

My first experience with a graphic novel was in my master’s program in 2005 when I was assigned to read Maus (1992) by Art Spiegelman. I distinctly remember my annoyance at completing the required assignment, struggling to juggle both the text and the artwork. I was an English minor, but goodness sakes–not a comic book lover. I completed the assignment and moved on without much thought, even though I am an avid reader of historical works and firmly believe in stories providing us a moral compass for how we live our lives. I feel ashamed by this reaction to Spiegelman’s groundbreaking work of art (which I have read over and over again since) and continue to share the error of my ways in order to help educators and parents avoid making my same mistakes.

The Epiphany

The gravity of my mistake hit in 2009 when I began teaching struggling high school readers. These readers had lost all confidence in themselves, and I spent a great deal of time planning how to teach them to be active readers. I had to discover ways to explicitly teach metacognitive skills in reading and had a particularly difficult time teaching inferencing, a skill that many of my students were far from mastering. I can recall my desperation when I used picture books like Tight Times by Hazen (1983) to prompt juniors and seniors to consider the illustrations without reading the text. My instruction was scaffolding on steroids. First, I encouraged the teens to deeply examine facial expressions, body language, and minute details to consider what was not explicitly stated in the text. As a community, we discussed their predictions based on only images and drew conclusions. The illustrations supported students in making these connections more concrete.

I then had the biggest epiphany of all: these students lacked background knowledge. Tough Times is a book based on a family struggling due to a nation’s economic downturn, which many had not discussed or read about before. Most had spent years dodging reading due to their lack of success with it. I knew I needed to give them a sense of success, and I also knew that as they were exposed to a wider array of topics, their interest in new content would be piqued. This is when I was reminded of graphic novels and started to see their power for students.

As we slowly made progress, I knew the next challenge would be how to move from actual illustrations to just words. Again, I had to explicitly teach how words, just like the illustrations we discussed at length, can imply information not explicitly stated in text.

Graphic novels offered my secondary students a powerful tool: first, and probably most importantly, these books gave my reluctant readers the opportunity to feel successful (many for the first time ever). They were more willing to determine the meaning of words, as they learned vocabulary in authentic contexts (actually reading). Watching them engage in discussion provided evidence of higher-order thinking through deep analysis. Honestly, this approach was the wind beneath their wings. Suddenly, students were wanting to learn more about economics throughout the nation's history, and they were eager to utilize their new skills with other books on various interesting topics.

Luckily, graphic novels have rightfully been given a prominent place in literacy instruction (and not just in my classroom). Truly, they are a teaching tool treasure that so many teachers have been given. These nuggets of wisdom were the magic in my classroom that inspired my students to see reading as a communal activity that allowed for meaningful conversations. These books changed everything for my students.

The Power of Using Graphic Novels with Pre-Service Teachers

This experience with young adults was the driving force behind furthering my education as a researcher and professor of literacy in a School of Education. As many of our readers know, many teacher education programs are waning at universities across the nation. Just over the past few years, what used to be a robust cadre of students in our School of Education programs has become what feels like a crime scene of dwindling enrollment. Whereas once I taught a full section of English Education students, now I am combining social studies education with my English pre-service teachers into one very small class.

It has been a unique experience, and my first thought was how I would entice two groups of students to read and discuss books that would be beneficial to students in today’s world and assist them in providing instruction that centers around literacy and their specific disciplines.

The first day, I had students sit in their respective groups, gave them chart paper, and had them define their two disciplines. Once finished, I had them tape their definitions to the front of the room. We then methodically circled all the words the two disciplines had in common. The result? English and social sciences connect based on four words: Humanity, Worldview, Understanding, and Connection. This is a insightful and powerful epihany from young pre-service teachers.

The Experiment

I have had many conversations with my academic colleagues across Florida, and we have shared various strategies for navigating the tough terrain of engaging with books in the classroom. As a secondary educator for seventeen years, I always was a proponent of involving parents and guardians in the education of their young people, even creating a letter I shared with each parent, inviting them into the decision process and giving students and parents choice in reading. It was always a way to build a larger community and ensure students were reading books that were right for their family.

Several of my social science students came armed with graphic novels, which I had given as an option. All the English Education students brought in traditional narrative fiction. The graphic novels were the hit.

One young man brought in the book by author Eugene Yelchin. This book literally took our collective breath away. As Troy shared several parts to the book, we learned about the story of the young Yevgeny living in Leningrad in the 1980s. It is the only book out of the 14 books brought to class by my students that every single student bought for their personal collection. I have always used “anchor text” that every student would read to ground us in common conversations, but by allowing the students to share their choice books, I Wish I Didn’t Have to Tell You became that anchor naturally by student choice. For this semester, I did the same. I invited the English Education and social science students to visit a library and bring in one middle grades or YA book they wanted to read and share with the class. We focused our Essential Questions on our core words (humanity, worldview, understanding, and connection), and that is when the magic began.

Eugene Yelchin

The Magic

Yelchin’s graphic novel tells the truth behind life as a young adult living in Leningrad in the ‘80s. This young man named Yevgeny tries to realize his dream of being an artist while having to operate in an underground art scene to safely create and share the art that he loves. His fears range from the constant surveillance of the KGB to his worry about being forced to fight in Afghanistan. He feels the push/pull stress from his best friend who begs him to leave to safety and his mother and grandmother who have accepted their fate as Russians.

During this time, he falls in love with an American activist named Libby, and their relationship is at first awkward (like all young love), but it blooms into a love that could possibly even mean survival for Yevgeny. Over the course of the book, Yevgeny’s journey gives him a true, uncensored insight into the operations of his government, and as he knows he will be drafted into the war, he ends up working in Siberia in the theatre before being institutionalized. The art and prose work to expose the bleak absurdities of life in Cold War Russia, but it’s the deeply human moments that keep the reader reading and also keeps the reader hoping.

When I asked students to reflect on why this book was “the one” (as they called it) for them this semester, the conversations continued for many class periods. I frantically scribbled down as many of their thoughts about our experiment. Students commented on how Yelchin’s work was an “artistic masterpiece that was dark, but at the same time it was filled with the humor that the mother and grandmother brought to the story, and the love and joy of the relationship between Libby and Yevgeny.”

Troy, the young man who brought us the book, said he loved how it allows him to see that Yevgeny is no different than the students in the class. “He has hopes and dreams and finds love. But it also teaches us the dangers of living without freedoms.” My students spoke about the generational divide between Yevgeny and his mother and grandmother. Two exchange students, one from Germany and one from South Korea, brought in books that were being read by youth in their countries (one being the amazing graphic memoir entitled Feeding Ghosts by Tessa Hulls), and suddenly, the magic of them “dealing books” to one another was a sight to behold.

On the last day of class, we had Booksgiving (a lovely idea I learned from rockstar English Educator Brooke Eisenbach from Lesley University). I collected books from my book closet from years of attending the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) to gift to the students. There were tears as we said goodbye, but trust me, these students are very much still part of my life, as they constantly send me book titles to read.

As they were making their final selections, one of the English Education students from the class read her comment from the course review survey. She thanked the social studies student for sharing I Wish I Didn’t Have to Tell You This that I will forever remember. “This book started it all for us. We all found a book we loved and could discuss. Without reading the stories of others, we have a set belief about how other people are based on seeing images and viewing media that might not be true. This book was that jumping off point for us to read about histories of others around the globe. We were able to compare how another country has been governed and think about what we want for our own country. The art assisted in making these connections even more heart wrenching and impactful. Dr. James, do you realize this ties back to what we said about our disciplines on day one? It is all about humanity, having a worldview, understanding each other, and through this understanding, connecting. It is more important than ever that we are reading these stories. Especially from cultures we do not know much about. It is the only way we will understand and connect.”

I have never ended a fifteen-week-course feeling my work had been fully done. This semester, I felt closer to that reality. But was it really me who worked this magic? I have to say the class was successfully led by an amazing group of pre-service teachers who realized the power of graphic novels to make their world a little bigger, to humanize cultures different from their own, to create their own, new understandings about the world, and to connect as a true community of readers.

References

Hazen, B. S., & Hyman, T. S. (1983). Tight times. New York, NY: Puffin Books.

Hills, T. (2024). Feeding ghosts: A graphic memoir. New York: Farar, Straus, Giroux.

Spiegelman, A. (1996). The complete maus: A survivor's tale. Pantheon.

Yelchin, E. (2025). I wish I didn’t have to tell you this. Somerville, Massachusetts: Candlewick

The Story of My Anger, The Poetry of Car Mechanics, and Frankenstein

2/25/2026

Before we get started, I have to say that Melanie is one of the great ones. When I landed at The University of Georgia to work on my PhD I ended up having Melanie as an office mate. She was brilliant and kind. I also thought I was a big reader, but quickly found out that Melanie read two or three books for every one I read.

When Jackie Bach and I were considering applying to be editors for The Alan Review, the most inportant contribution I made was suggesting that we include Melanie.. We did and it was a great move.

Over the last twenty years I have learned to trust Melanie. Her work is fantastic and every time I work with her or read something she has done I learn something new.

Thanks Melanie.

Meet our Contributor: Melanie Hundley

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.

The Story of My Anger, The Poetry of Car Mechanics, and Frankenstein by Melanie Hundley

Across genres and centuries, writers have used powerful imagery and emotional intensity to explore what it means to feel broken, misunderstood, and determined to survive. For those of you who share my love of verse novels, I have two amazing works to introduce: The Story of My Anger by Jasminne Mendez and The Poetry of Car Mechanics by Heidi E. Y. Stemple. Both novels offer rich, beautiful poetry and deeply relatable narrators. What I find especially powerful about these works is their language; each layers vivid imagery, precise diction, and emotionally charged metaphors to capture the experience of feeling fractured while still reaching toward healing. Through sensory detail and striking figurative language, the speakers transform anger and grief into expression, allowing readers to witness not only their suffering but also their resilience that carries them forward.

Currently, I am working with teachers who are teaching Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. As I working and creating materials for the two verse novels, I am noticing powerful connections among the three texts. All three works reveal the painful struggle of being defined by the perceptions and expectations of others. In The Story of My Anger, Yuli resists cultural stereotypes and silencing forces that attempt to shape her voice and identity, transforming anger into self-definition rather than submission. In The Poetry of Car Mechanics, Dylan finds peace in poetry, car mechanics, and bird watching; he finds challenges in family and expectations. In Frankenstein: A Modern Prometheus, Mary Shelley crafts a creature whose appearance dictates how others treat him, forcing him into a monstrous role he did not choose. Together, these texts illustrate how identity can be imposed from the outside and how individuals must struggle to reclaim the right to define themselves.

The connection to Frankenstein lies in the shared exploration of alienation, identity, and the longing to be understood. In The Story of My Anger and The Poetry of Car Mechanics, the speakers use poetic language to express feelings of being misunderstood, judged, or defined by others. Similarly, the Creature in Frankenstein struggles with rejection and isolation, shaped by society’s fear and cruelty rather than his own intentions. All three works reveal how being labeled or rejected can fracture one’s sense of self, while also showing the human desire for connection, recognition, and dignity.

Additionally, imagery plays a crucial role in each text. Shelley uses stark descriptions of light, darkness, and deformity to mirror the Creature’s emotional suffering, while Méndez and Stemple employ lyrical imagery and metaphor to give voice to inner turmoil. Together, these works demonstrate how language and imagery can transform pain into expression and challenge readers to reconsider who is truly “monstrous” — the outcast, or the society that refuses to see their humanity.

Frankenstein: A Modern Prometheus may seem to be a distant text for many of our students, these verse novels can help provide insight and connection. In Sit and Simmer (a poem from The Story of My Anger), Juli describes how her anger builds, how it develops, and how she tries to control it. Like the Creature, anger is something that builds and builds.

Sit and Simmer

In The Story of My Anger, Yulieta Lopez, the main character, talks about her anger not as a sudden explosion, but as an emotion shaped by silence, pressure, and the expectation to remain controlled. In the poem “Sit and Simmer,” anger is described through vivid physical and elemental metaphors—a fire, smoke, an internal force that grows more dangerous the longer it is contained.

This understanding of anger closely connects to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, particularly to the Creature’s experience of rejection and isolation. Like Lopez’s speaker, the Creature does not begin with rage; his anger develops as he is denied voice, recognition, and belonging. Together, these texts invite readers to consider anger not as an inherent flaw, but as a response to being unseen, unheard, and misunderstood.

Read the following poem. What do you notice? What words and phrases stand out to you?

Sit and Simmer

My name is Yulieta Lopez
and this is the story of my anger,
and how it became
a five-alarm fire I tried
to smother silent
but it spun into an asteroid
that slammed around inside me
and begged to be let out--
I didn’t want to play the part
of the angry Black girl
so I tried to keep the fire
constrained in my belly
but it slithered out and snaked
itself around my throat--
a rope of smoke
that caused friction
in the folds of my body
and the longer I let it sit and simmer
the harder it became to just breathe. (Mendez, 2025, p. 4)

What emotions stand out to you when you read or hear “Sit and Simmer”?
How does the title itself set the tone for the poem? What does it mean to “sit” with something? To “simmer”?
What is happening in the poem literally — and what’s happening emotionally or symbolically?
Identify one or two key images that describe anger. How does Mendez visualize or embody the feeling?
How does her choice of verbs (for example, words like boil, simmer, stew, burn, swallow) shape how we experience anger in the poem?
How does Mendez use cooking language as metaphor? What does that suggest about where anger comes from or how it’s contained?
What does the speaker’s use of sound (repetition, rhythm, pauses) reveal about control or release?
How does the speaker describe anger as something that lives inside the body rather than something expressed outwardly?
How is this similar to the Creature’s experience with anger in Frankenstein?
- What causes the Creature’s anger?
- What happens when he is ignored, rejected, mistreated, or silenced?
At what moments in the novel does the Creature’s anger “sit and simmer,” and when does it finally erupt?

Language and the deliberate choices poets and authors use to create an image or idea for a reader are part of the focus of this next poem. The poem, The Poetry of Car Mechanics, highlights the preciseness of language and description. Dylan’s search for order and meaning mirrors the Creature’s search for meaning and understanding. Both figures attempt to interpret the world around them and define their place within it, suggesting that language and interpretation are essential tools for constructing identity and finding purpose.

The Poetry of Car Mechanic

“The Poetry of Car Mechanics” is the opening poem in the verse novel The Poetry of Car Mechanics by Heidi E. Y. Stemple. The poem introduces the main character Dylan and his search for order, belonging, and self-understanding through the world of car engines. “The Poetry of Car Mechanics” connects to Frankenstein, A Modern Prometheus through a shared focus on humanity’s desire to create order out of chaos using both art and science. In the poem, the speaker finds clarity inside an engine, a world of logic and repair, unlike the confusing “real world.” Similarly, Victor Frankenstein turns to science to make sense of life and death, believing knowledge can control disorder. Both texts suggest, however, that science alone is not enough. Just as car mechanics requires intuition and creativity, Dr. Frankenstein’s work relies on imagination as much as method, revealing that human creation carries emotional and moral consequences beyond control.

Read the poem below. What specific details do you notice? Underline the words or phrases that stand out to you.

The Poetry of Car Mechanics

There is a certain poetry
in car mechanics.
Part art,
part meter and math,
part discovery.
Lifting the hood reveals
a world I know--
not like the real world
with its
mixed messages
and verbal
land mines.
Missing pieces
and ones that don’t quite fit--

like me.

When I’m inside an engine,
everything makes sense.
The motor sings.
I can tune the sour notes,
fix the broken parts.
Less doctor
than partner.
I wish the world around me--
with its broken parts,
with my broken parts--
was more like a car engine. (p. 13)

Directions: You are going to use “The Poetry of Car Mechanics” as a template for writing your own poem about one of the characters or events in the novel Frankenstein. This type of writing is called dependent authorship; it means you are using the structure, shape, line breaks, and formatting of one writer’s work to create one of your own. Writers have use this type of writing for centuries to learn the craft of writing, in homage, in parody, and to honor other artists.

Choose one key character from the novel (Dr. Frankenstein, the Creature, etc.)
Use the dependent authorship template below for your version of the poem
Write in first person
Your poem should include
- at least one metaphor or extended comparison
- sensory imagery(sound, touch, taste, sight, etc.)
- words and phrases that reflect/show the emotional state of the character

Brainstorming:

Place the characters name in the center of a brainstorming cirlcle. Then radinating five lines spaced evenly anser the following five questions.

1. What does your character understand deeply? What do your character understand better than other people?

2. What does he/she use to bring order and control to their world?

3. Where does your character feel safe? Where does your character feel powerful?

4. What parts of the world confuse, threaten, or reject your character?

5. What does he/she feel comfortable or in control doing?

Use the structure, line movement, and craft of "The Poetry of Car Mechanics" as a model. Keep the poem’s skeleton (line breaks, comparisons, shifts), but replace the ideas with your own experience and subject.

The Poetry of __________________
Based on the poem The Poetry of Car Mechanics by Heidi E. Y. Stemple

There is a certain poetry
in ____________________.
Part ____________________,
part ____________________and ____________________,
part ____________________.
____________________ reveals
a world I know--
not like the real world
with its

and ____________________
____________________.

and ones that ____________________--
like ____________________.
When I’m inside ____________________,
everything makes sense.
The ____________________ ____________________.
I can ____________________,
____________________.
Less __________________
than __________________.
I wish the world around me--
with its _____________________,
with my ____________________--
was more like ____________________.

By ____________________

Preservice teachers’ YA favorites and instructional ideas

2/18/2026

Meet our 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.

Preservice teachers’ YA favorites and instructional ideas by Liz Pilon and Students

As part of my young adult literature course, preservice teachers were required to expand their YAL horizons and read texts and genres different from what they would typically pick up to read themselves. They created a book log for each book with information about the text, research supporting their evaluation, and teaching tips. I then asked students to revise their work for their favorite text and share their ideas with the blog! What follows is part two of a two part series (with part one was posted in November here is the link.) Why? I simply couldn’t pick my favorites to share! I hope you enjoy the perspectives of these preservice teachers as much as I do.

Meet Reese Hauck

Reese Hauck is an English Education student at Concordia College in Moorhead, MN. She loves to read and looks forward to igniting a similar passion in her students. Her favorite past times include thrifting, buying a latte from a local coffee shop, and spending time with her friends.

Every Day, by David Levithan, illustrated by Dion MBD

In the graphic novel by David Levithan, Every day, A wakes up and finds themselves in a new body. Forced to live out someone else’s day, doomed to wake up someone else the next morning. They’ve come to terms with their lonely life, unable to form lasting friendships, have a pet, or know the strength and comfort of a parent’s guiding hand. One day, however, A wakes up in Justin’s body, it starts out like any other, but soon A meets Rhiannon, Justin’s girlfriend. They spend the day on a whirlwind date, leaving A unable to forget her no matter how much they try. They decide to bear all to Rhiannon, and the two develop an unsteady connection amidst the chaos that is their lives. As their story progresses, A finds themselves each day wanting more and more to live in the same body forever, and Rhiannon must decide if she can love someone who is no one at all.

Graphic novels, while fun, are a bit trickier to categorize reader recommendations for than a traditional narrative novel because the considerations teachers must take are not only related to the difficulty and quality of the writing but also depends on the illustrations to decipher. I had a tough time deciding where this novel belonged in relation to defining it within an age group, but I feel I’ve settled on the range between grades 10-12. I initially felt that maybe it would work best for 8-10, but there is a scene that is a bit more suggestive than I would recommend for an 8th grader. I think this would be a really good novel to use for a whole-class novel, and I think it explores a lot of pertinent themes that upper-high school students will feel are relevant to them. Some of such themes I noted were, identity, gender identity, loneliness, friendship and autonomy. Pairing this novel with one where students are writing narratively is something I would lean into, as I think that reading a graphic novel will help students connect imagery to written description.

Creating a unit, or even just a lesson around a graphic novel is a fun experience, especially because they are out of the norm of what students have come to expect they will be reading in class. Because of this, it’s important for us as teachers to lean into that and use it to our advantage. A few quick ideas for integrating this novel into a classroom setting are as follows; have students take a scene from the graphic novel and rewrite it in narrative form, this will test their ability to decipher meaning from the illustrations and their ability to connect those meanings to the actual text. Another idea is having students create their own scene for this novel. The main character is a new person every day, so students could create a “day” for A, complete with the illustrations, and write a short paper to describe the story they were telling in their graphics. My last idea I will mention is having students in groups pick a scene from the novel and act it out as though they are the ones inside the illustrations. Through this activity, students will display their ability to look deeply enough into the novel to understand characters’ tone and emotions within their given scene.

Meet Sarah Schroeder

Sarah Schroeder is a preservice English teacher at Concordia College in Moorhead, MN. After graduating, she hopes to teach in a high school classroom. She has a primary interest in speculative and dystopian fiction and hopes to incorporate the genres in her future curriculum. In her free time, she enjoys reading, spending time with her pets, and listening to music.

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

The year is 2575, and the planet Karenza is under attack. In the midst of a war between two mega corporations, a post-breakup Kady and Ezra are evacuated onto separate spacecraft. Though they appear to be in the clear at first, they soon face another unexpected challenge. After the AI for the fleet takes an unexpectedly deadly action, communications are cut, and questions begin to arise. With the clock ticking as an enemy ship approaches the fleet, Kady and Ezra must look into the cause of the AI’s action, leading to a discovery darker than they ever expected. With thousands of lives on the line, they must put aside their past and work together to get their fleet to safety.

This book is structured as if it were made up of uncovered files, which are placed in chronological order to deliver the story. It involved multiple points of view, including some first and third person accounts. The author also has creative text formatting for different battle scenes throughout the book. Some take the form of artwork, while others involve slowly rotating the page to read the text. It provides a great opportunity for students to explore works outside of the more “traditional” book format.

This book would appeal most to students ranging from 10th to 12th grade. Since there is a similarity in age between the main characters and students in these grades, there are many situations and interactions throughout the book that students may relate to. Its unique structure might also be appealing to more reluctant readers. It also discusses AI and the ethics surrounding it, which is very topical at the moment.

This book has a large focus on ethical decision-making and how censorship is harmful. It also covers a lot of topics such as war, grief, and love. Due to this, there are a few content sensitivities to keep in mind. Early on, there are portrayals of mass killings, terror attacks, violence, and loss of loved ones. It also includes a lot of implied profane language, which is established to be “censored” purposefully at the very beginning of the book.

Given the format of this text, there are many activities that can be incorporated when teaching it. Here are some that I have come up with:

Since Illuminae has a unique layout, familiarizing students with it early on is beneficial for their reading experience. Once the book has been handed out to the students, give them a few minutes to flip through the book. You can also list some specific pages for them to look at so they can see the full span of different text formats within the book. Afterwards, have the students flip to the first page of the book and take a moment to read it. This page provides context for the book’s format and provides a good example of the tone of the book.

Illuminae also provides a great opportunity to discuss author decisions when writing a text, and how those decisions influence the storytelling. Have students work together to create a Venn diagram that compares and contrasts Illuminae with traditional formats of books. Students can then discuss why they think the author decided to structure Illuminae in such a specific way, how the format might impact their reading experience, and how the book might reinforce some general themes within the book.

Since Illuminae is structured as a case file, it does a great job of portraying how evidence helps support a point. Since the format of the novel is such a focal element of the book, providing students a chance to create a project themselves in a similar format is a great way for them to continue exploring the decisions authors make when writing. Have students create a “case file” about a theme present throughout the book. The first page included in this file will be where they list their thesis related to their theme. As students read the book, whenever they find a passage or page that supports their thesis, they will scan it and print it out. Then they will annotate on the page, explaining how its content supports their thesis.

This activity can also be adapted to analyze characteristics of different characters. In this version, students will pick a character from the text and create a “profile” for them. The first page in their folder will include a drawing of the character based on the book, words that they think describe the character, and why the character is important to the story. Students will then utilize the annotated pages to support what they included in the character profile.

Meet Peyton Moench

Peyton Moench is a preservice English teacher at Concordia College in Moorhead, MN. She is a passionate advocate for diversity in young adult literature and is dedicated to creating empathy through textual engagement. Peyton loves reading and solving puzzles and hopes to teach high school English when she graduates.

All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson

In a series of personal essays, journalist and activist George M. Johnson recounts his journey growing up as a Black queer man in New Jersey and Virginia. Throughout the book, Johnson discusses his experiences with bullying, gender, masculinity, sexuality, family, and finding ways to embrace his identity amidst societal challenges. Blending his personal narrative with social commentary, Johnson invites Black queer boys to find guidance and representation in his experiences and encourages all teens to consider how race, gender, and sexuality intersect with systems of oppression. All Boys Aren’t Blue challenges readers to see the necessity of representation and the power of storytelling to evoke change.

Johnson’s memoir is best suited for mature adolescent readers, particularly those in grades 11 and 12, due to its discussion of heavy topics. Because the book addresses sexuality, trauma, racial and homophobic slurs, and sexual assault, teachers should ensure the classroom environment is conducive to having safe and supportive discussions. Before or while introducing this book, it would be helpful to establish a classroom code of conduct so that the teacher and students all have the same understanding of what behavior and speech is acceptable and unacceptable during conversations. Creating a community agreement at the start of the unit will help ensure a safe and respectful classroom environment.

All Boys Aren’t Blue provides great opportunities for inclusive discussions about diversity and representation, systemic racism, microaggressions, and gender roles and expectations. Johnson’s narrative inspires conversations about how literature can validate people’s lived experiences and amplify the perspectives of those who have been historically underrepresented. For queer students and students of color who identify with Johnson’s struggles, All Boys Aren’t Blue serves as a source for reassurance, affirmation, and inspiration. For other readers, Johnson’s essays evoke empathy, foster an understanding of marginalized people’s struggles, and motivate the audience to become activists for both systemic and personal change.

To explore the topics of intersectionality and identity while reading All Boys Aren’t Blue, students could create visual personal identity maps, in which they highlight different parts of who they are (e.g. personality, environment, gender, race, etc.) to get them thinking about how the intersectionality of one’s identity can shape their experiences. It would also be helpful to have students create character/theme journals as they read. In these personal journals, students can track how Johnson explores the topics of masculinity, Blackness, queerness, and family and connect these topics to their own identities and experiences or to broader societal conversations. With this activity/project, students will be both analyzing Johnson’s writing while also using it as a model for their own, drawing on his ideas as inspiration for their own personal writing.

After finishing the book or towards the end of the reading journey, students could engage in a full class discussion, facilitated by the teacher. This conversation might center on the heavy topics discussed in All Boys Aren’t Blue and why the book is often challenged in schools, which could lead to a broader discussion about book banning, representation, and censorship in general. The class discussion could also focus on the power of storytelling to foster empathy. These activities and conversation topics will invite students to think critically about both literature and lived experiences by reflecting on their own identities and recognizing how personal stories can shape understanding and inspire change.

YA Lit as a Place of Rest During Unsettling Times

2/11/2026

Meet the Contributors:

Laurel Taylor and Beth Ebenstein Mulch are librarians at Alexandria City High School's King Street campus. Both authors are adjuncts at local universities, teaching young adult literature.

Laurel Taylor is a high school librarian and adjunct professor at George Mason University. She began her career in education as a high school English teacher before deciding she wanted to spend even more time with books. She earned her MLIS from Old Dominion University in 2020 and has been working in the Alexandria City High School library ever since. When she is not advocating for young adult readers, you can find her throwing a ball for her dog in one hand with a book in the other.

Beth Ebenstein Mulch is a high school librarian and adjunct professor at The Catholic University of America. She began her career in publishing before earning her MLIS degree from Catholic University. She has been an instrumental leader in keeping the Alexandria City High School library current and accessible to students while also maintaining resources to support all academic programs throughout the school. Beth is a determined advocate for her library making sure to always center access and equity in the decision-making about her library.

YA Lit as a Place of Rest During Unsettling Times by Laurel Taylor and Beth Mulch

Books are often described as an escape. Even under normal circumstances, reading is a way to pause whatever is going on in life and live in another world for a while. But in times like these, when everything seems to be unsteady and every day seems to have a new report of something unprecedented happening, young adult readers can benefit from reading as a way to rest from the chaos going on around them. Below are several ways that young adult literature can be a place of rest for young adult readers of all ages.

We are librarians in a large, diverse high school outside of Washington, DC, so you can imagine what the last year has been like. As we work to support our students, we realize that teaching them about news literacy and research skills is a vital part of our jobs, but we also realize that helping them find books that meet their needs is equally important. While we often are helping our students find books for a history project or their English class’s independent reading project, we also take seriously the task of helping students become lifelong readers who find reading a comfort. When a student comes in looking for a book, common questions we ask are, “What are you in the mood for?” and “Do you want a happy book, an intense book, something that has twists?”

As the outside world around our school has become more unsettling and confusing and unpredictable, we have embraced our role in helping students find books that allow them to take a break from the current events around them and rest. While that might seem like we are just checking out sweet love stories to every student who walks in the door, that’s not what rest and comfort and escape looks like to every young adult reader. Below we will discuss several of the ways young adult literature can function as rest in these unsettling times.

A Place that Feels Familiar

We recently came back from six snow days. I (Laurel) saw two of our frequent library visitors, and asked if they had gotten some good reading in while away. One of them lit up saying she had re-read the first Percy Jackson book and it had been such a comfort read. Then she said she started reading the second book in the series and loved it. From the look on her face, I could tell that re-reading a favorite from middle school had been just what she needed. Sometimes when readers find themselves in unfamiliar territory in the real world, going back to a book world they know and love can be comforting. Going back to a story that they are familiar with and that doesn’t hold surprises can be the rest their minds need. Books like Percy Jackson and Diary of a Wimpy Kid or Raina Telgemeier’s Guts and Sisters can be a gift.

A Genre That Feels Predictable

As much as young adult readers might love a twist they didn’t see coming, when the daily news has become a thriller, turning to genres with predictable outcomes can be comforting and restful. Years ago I (Laurel) was discussing my love of Jane Austen with a colleague. He said that he didn’t really like reading her books because the ending was predictable. I told him that was exactly what I loved about her books. In a world where sometimes the bad guys get away with their evil deeds and the good guy doesn’t always win, I loved a book in which I knew at the end that the noble characters would end up happy and the schemers would get what they had coming.

The same is true for certain genres of young adult literature. Knowing that a YA romance book will have a happy ending or that the end of a dystopian novel will lead to the hero overthrowing a corrupt system can be just what is needed in these moments of uncertainty. While the path to the resolution can be intense, nerve-racking and suspenseful, knowing that everything will work out in the end can make reading an important escape from the uncertainty young adult readers are facing around them. Reading a book like Better Than the Movies not only provides some levity and joy, but since it follows the classic rom-com requirements of a happy ending, readers can feel safe knowing that things will work out in the end no matter how messy the relationship gets in the third act.

A Place That Feels Like Home

For young adult readers whose life experiences can feel unique and isolating, reading can be a way to feel at home. Books like Other Words for Home and House on Mango Street can allow YA readers who see their communities being attacked in the news and on the streets to find a place that feels familiar and reminds them that they are not alone. Even in the university course I (Laurel) teach about YA literature, my college readers mention how comforting it is to see their own experiences reflected in the novels we read and to have a character who is going through what they have experienced. There is something so important about knowing it’s not just you. And there is something so validating about seeing your experiences in print.

Sometimes the comfort comes from young adult literature characters that are able to express something you’ve thought but couldn’t put into words. Sometimes it’s healing to see a character go through your experience and have others, either in the book or in discussions about the book, empathize with what you have experienced. If nothing else, for readers who live in communities in which the majority of people do not share their culture or experiences, seeing a character discuss food your family eats or traditions your family observes is a comfort and a reassurance.

An escape into another world

It can seem like a curiosity that young adult readers would be drawn to intense, scary, or thrilling books at times when everything around them feels intense and scary, but even these books can be a place of rest. Why do our students come in looking for dystopian books like Scythe or fantasy books like The Children of Blood and Bone when they are already living in such unsettling times? We’ve decided that maybe escaping into another world, even if it is scary, is helpful when this world is too much. Fantasy and dystopia are genres that allow the reader to become fully immersed in another world and someone else’s struggle. They allow the reader to channel their energy and feelings into some other place outside of their reality. Maybe it’s a place to expend that anxiety or energy when it feels like you’ve done everything you can in the world you actually live in. Or maybe it’s because experiencing a character overcoming challenges and danger gives hope in a time that can feel hopeless.

Maybe you can’t find a way to stop the cruelty you see on the streets of a major US city, but after doing what you can, maybe seeing a hero in a fantasy novel save their community from cruelty is the comfort needed in these days.

Maybe as a teen, readers feel like their voices don’t have much weight, but reading Hunger Games empowers them and makes them believe that they are strong and capable of affecting change.

Conclusion

While reading is always a good idea, and as librarians we will always encourage young adult readers to take time to read, in moments like we find ourselves in, reading can be a rest, an escape and a comfort, and the typical arc of young adult literature makes it a particularly restful place. Young adult characters typically learn lessons, overcome their struggles, and grow into better versions of themselves. Even when the situations and circumstances around them don’t resolve, they often end the book with a better sense of how to navigate their world and relationships. And they often find an inner peace and/or strength that we all need to be reminded of. All things all of us are looking for as we find ourselves weary from our current historical moment.

Welcome to the 2026 YA Summit

2/10/2026

Welcome to the current summit!

It is just around the corner: Feb. 26 and 27, 2026

All of the work beind the scenes.

Putting on a Summit involes quite a bit more work than just selecting a date and sending out a few emails. Of course, you have to find a date that doesn't have too many conflicts, You need to find a University that will host the event whether it is an online or face to face event. There needs to be a group of people who decide on a theme, write the call for proposals, advertise the event, recieve the proposals, and evaluate the proposals. After that the program needs to be built and presenters notified, advertising need to continue and then the entire group has to hope and pray that people decide to attend the event.

Each one of these steps is quite a bit of work, nevertheless most of the people that get involved in these projects find them rewarding when they finally begin. In my own experience, I have always found the events to be stimulating and rejuvenating. I always left the event ready to finish a lagging project or excited to start a new one. The inspiration does come from the authors who presented at the summit, but more often the inspiration comes from those scholars, teachers, librarians, and graduate students who are sharing their projects. It is comforting to find out who is do what and for what reasons.

I know for a fact that many projects resulting in articles, books, and presentations began as a conversation at one of the various summits that have been held since that first summit in 2014 at Louisiana State University. Maybe your next collaborative project will begin after listening to a presentation or having conversation with someone at the 2026 YA Summit.

You can find out more about the summit at this link.

You can also find out about the breakout sessions as well as more information about those people behind the scenes.

In the meantime check some of the things the people on the committee are anticipating as they await the summit..

Before you go to far, registar for the summit at this link.

Meet those behind the Summit.

Michelle Falter

I am looking forward to the YAL Summit because I am at a small institution in which I am the only person who is interested in teaching and learning about young adult literature. I am craving conversation about YA literature with other teachers and scholars! In a time when young adult literature is so contested in our contemporary political climate, I cannot think of something more important than talking about the value of books and the diverse stories and identities highlighted within them for adolescents with my peers!

Amy Piotrowski

The YA Summit is a great opportunity to hear from authors and learn about what exciting work is being done in the teaching and research of YA literature. This event brings together people from different backgrounds and from different geographic locations to learn with each other. The discussions at the Summit with reinvigorate your teaching, connect researchers, and provide community around books that we and our students can enjoy.

Brady Nash

I'm excited to join the 2026 Young Adult Literature Summit because it gives me the chance to connect with YA scholars, teachers, and authors all in one day. Without having to travel or spend a whole lot of money, I get to learn new teaching strategies, discover new books to add to my list, and even meet authors whose work I love. It's an easy and fun way to continue learning and exploring in the field of YA scholarship and teaching.

Gretchen Rumohr

I'm looking forward to reconnecting with some of my favorite colleagues, meeting new YA friends, and celebrating all things YA with some stellar authors!

Leilya Pitre

I am looking forward to the 2026 Young Adult Literature Summit because it offers a unique opportunity to learn from authors, teachers, and fellow YA scholars about the latest research in the field, to engage in exploring new YA titles, and to share practical, adaptable strategies for including YAL into the secondary and college classrooms.

Jinan El Sabbagh

I always look forward to the YAL Summit because it is a wonderful opportunity to connect, learn, and joyfully experience YA Lit. Its virtual setting allows my students and me to access the latest in teaching, researching, and discussing YAL lit. We meet and hear from so many amazing folks who we would not have otherwise. From authors, middle and high school students, scholars, educators, and librarians, so many new and well-known voices, all speak to the power of words and stories. I always leave energized, with quite a few more book recommendations to add to my list!

Jessica Wiley

I am looking forward to the community and connection from all participants. I enjoy this space where we can be engaged, vulnerable, and present without judgment. I am always looking for new ideas, creativity, and the joy of YA Lit!

Melanie Hundley

I am looking forward to the upcoming YAL Summit because it is a conference that celebrates all things young adult literature. I enjoy how it the Summit brings together scholars, teachers, and authors to learn from each other; it is such a vibrant community centered on books and stories and the people who love them!

Sidra Zaheer

I’m really looking forward to the YAL Summit because it brings together the people who care deeply about young adult literature; teachers, scholars, authors, and readers, in one shared space. YAL matters because it helps young people make sense of identity, belonging, and the world around them, and this Summit takes that work seriously. I’m especially excited about the conversations that push us to think more critically, compassionately, and creatively about the texts we teach. It’s an honor to be part of a committee committed to thoughtful dialogue, diverse voices, and meaningful engagement.

Here is the link to the Summit and Registration

Keynote Author E. Lockhart

E. Lockhart has been one of the most succesful and influencial Young Adult authors over the last couple of decades. She has been publishing YA fiction since 2005. Her first book was the first in the Ruby Oliver series, The Boy Friend List.

In 2008 her novel, The Dispeputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks was on the short list for the National Book Award for Young People Literature.

In 2014 she made a big impact with the publication of We Were Liars. The hard cover book was on the New York Times seller list for over 40 weeks and the paper back version stayed on the bestseller list for over three years.

This novel was followed by two more novels, Family of Liars and We Fell Apart forming a trio of books within the Sinclair universe and leading into a Prime televsion series.

The quality of these books is sufficient to establish Lockhart as a commanding force in the YA world. However she has a variety of standalone novels and several novels written with co-authors that all deserve attention.

As if that isn't enough to keep her busy she has a host of children's book written under her real name, Emily Jenkins.

Here is the link to the Summit and Registration

Other Attending Authors throughout the Program

Photos are linked to the authors website or a website about the author where you can find out more about there work.

I don't believe we have ever had such a wide range of authors attending and presenting.

Padma Venkatraman

Jen Calonita

Deborah Heiligman

H. G. Edgmon photo credit: Westley Vega

Craig Kofi Farmer

Suzanne Morgan Williams

René Saldaña Jr

Katherine Higgs-Coulthard

Patricia Park

Kerry O'Malley Cerra photo credit: Bachi Frost

Nita Tyndall

Ryan Estrada

Ben Kahn

Jeff Whitley

Here is the link to the Summit and Registration

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:

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.

<<Previous

Meet our Contributor

Turning the Page Against Patriarchy: Young Adult Literature as a Catalyst for Female Agency by Kathleen Morris

From Sequined Journals to Multimedia Journalism

Leverage Canva’s Webpage Capabilities

Commit to a Color Scheme

Incorporate Multimedia Elements

Look to the Experts

The Next Chapter…

Meet the Contributor: Susan James

Graphic Novels–The Hidden Treasures of Teaching:Humanity, Worldview, Understanding, and Connection inEugene Yelchin’s I Wish I Didn’t Have to Tell You by Susan James -- The Book Dealer

The Admission

The Epiphany

The Power of Using Graphic Novels with Pre-Service Teachers

The Experiment

The Magic

Meet our Contributor: Melanie Hundley

The Story of My Anger, The Poetry of Car Mechanics, and Frankenstein by Melanie Hundley

Sit and Simmer

The Poetry of Car Mechanic

Meet our Contributor: Liz Pilon

Preservice teachers’ YA favorites and instructional ideas by Liz Pilon and Students

Meet Reese Hauck

Meet Sarah Schroeder

Meet Peyton Moench

Meet the Contributors:

YA Lit as a Place of Rest During Unsettling Times by Laurel Taylor and Beth Mulch

A Place that Feels Familiar

A Genre That Feels Predictable

A Place That Feels Like Home

An escape into another world

Conclusion

Welcome to the current summit!It is just around the corner: Feb. 26 and 27, 2026

All of the work beind the scenes.

Before you go to far, registar for the summit at this link.

Meet those behind the Summit.

Here is the link to the Summit and Registration

Keynote Author E. Lockhart

Here is the link to the Summit and Registration

Other Attending Authors throughout the Program

Here is the link to the Summit and Registration

Meet our Contributor

Confessions of a YA Syllabus by Mandy Luszeck

“Did you know…?”

How the Syllabus Happened (and Why It Felt Justified)

Revisions, Rotations, and the Persistent Gap

The “Safer” Book Myth I Refuse to Carry Forward

The Missing Literature Circle Book

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

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

A Syllabus is a Living Argument

Meet our Contributor:

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

Meet the Contributors:

Complexities and Intersectionalities of Rurality in The 2025 Whippoorwill Book Award​Michael J. Young, Erika L. Bass, Erin Schulz, Monica Roe, & Jacqueline Yahn

The 2025 Whippoorwill Award Books

2025 Award Winner:

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

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

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

Dr. Steve Bickmore​Creator and Curator

Bickmore's ​Co-Edited Books

Archives

Categories

Blogs to Follow

Welcome to the current summit!

It is just around the corner: Feb. 26 and 27, 2026

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

Dr. Steve Bickmore
Creator and Curator

Bickmore's
Co-Edited Books