DR. BICKMORE'S YA WEDNESDAY

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:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter Two opens with the following passage:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Isle of Ever ends with a compelling hook as well.

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

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

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

Complexities and Intersectionalities of Rurality in The 2025 Whippoorwill Book Award

1/21/2026

Meet the Contributors:

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

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

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

She is joined by:

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

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

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

Jacaueline Yahn

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

Complexities and Intersectionalities of Rurality in The 2025 Whippoorwill Book Award

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

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

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

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

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

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

The 2025 Whippoorwill Award Books

2025 Award Winner:

John Cochran, Breaking into Sunlight, Little Brown

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1/14/2026

Meet our Contributor

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

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

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

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

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

Our Vision Rooted in Collaboration and Voice

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

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

Choosing All American Boys

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

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

Meeting One: Entering the Story Together

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

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

Meeting Two: Wrestling with Perspective and Choice

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

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

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

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

The Final Meeting: Creativity, Reflection, and Action

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

We planned many engaging activities for students, which included:

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

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

The Poems

Poem # 1

Poem # 3

Poem # 2

Poem # 4

What Students Told Us

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

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

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

Students Working on Responses

Students Working on Story Impressions

Why This Work Is Essential

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

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

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

And yes, they enjoyed the snacks, too.

Let's Start the Year Reflecting

1/7/2026

Let's Start the Year Reflecting by Steve Bickmore

A new year begins.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Enjoy.

E. Lockhart

Chris Crutcher

Laurie Halse Anderson

Matt de la Pena

Padma Venkatraman

Jason Renyolds

Maria Padian

Jeff Zentner

Sharon G Flake

Ellen Hopkins

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

12/10/2025

First check out the Summit - Proposal are due soon.

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

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

Meet our Contributor:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Providing Context for Immigrant- and Refugee-Background Youth

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

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

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

Shocked by her reaction, I stammered.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Without a Home, But with Total Agency

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

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

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

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

The Power of Verse Novels for MLs

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

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

Everyone I know

speaks a different Spanish:

the rural twang of border folk,

the big-city patter of immigrants,

the shifting of Tex-Mex. (Bowles 77)

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

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

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

Embracing Narrative & Personal Stories

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

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

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

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

The Power of Visual Literacy in Graphic Novel

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Final Thought

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

References

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

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

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

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

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

12/3/2025

Before we get started, checkout the upcoming YA Summit

Meet our Contributors:

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

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

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

Mark and Melanie

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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

Let's Start the Year Reflecting by Steve Bickmore

Matt de la Pena

First check out the Summit - Proposal are due soon.

Meet our Contributor:

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

Providing Context for Immigrant- and Refugee-Background Youth ​

Without a Home, But with Total Agency

The Power of Verse Novels for MLs

Embracing Narrative & Personal Stories

The Power of Visual Literacy in Graphic Novel

A Final Thought

References

Before we get started, checkout the upcoming YA Summit

Meet our Contributors:

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

Mark and Melanie

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

Providing Context for Immigrant- and Refugee-Background Youth

Dr. Steve Bickmore
Creator and Curator

Bickmore's
Co-Edited Books