I have been keeping this blog every week since September of 2015.  There have been a couple of weeks that slipped by without post, but not many. I enjoy doing the work. It forces me to think about YA literature all of the time which keeps me reading, and reading, and reading some more. 

It also keeps me writing. I am unquestionably a reluctant writer. I am a horrible speller and what I call an elliptical writer. By that I mean, I sometimes times find that my hand--or fingers now-- can't keep up with my mind. As a result, I will read what I have written to find to out that I have left our a few words or sentence and jumped a head to the current thought. I have known that I do this since middle school. It can make reading my ideas a guessing game. Thank heavens, for computers and easier editing. In college, before the invention of the personal computer mind you, I wrote on paper skipping every other line, because I knew I would be editing and rewriting before I moved to the typewriter.

Yes, sometimes I still do it. Writing and editing for this blog has boosted my confidence, my fluency, and my willingness to share my writing with others. I am happy that a few people read it. I willing put my ideas out there knowing that there might be errors and/or that some of it might need to be fixed. I am okay with all of that. My mantra to pre service English teachers about writing instruction is: "There is not such thing as writing only rewriting." 

The real joy, however, has come from working with the guest contributors (The count is well over 100 now, are you interested?). I always learn something. I realize I can't read everything nor can I be an expert in every genre. I now know some one that I can go to for poetry, horror, romance, sci fi, or other categories I don't have the time to master. Some of these contributors have become dear friends and others have become writing partners. Four edited books have come about directly as a result of a blog post. Two were a result of a post by the wonderful Michelle Falter. She wrote about grief in a post connected with the Netflix premier of 13 Reasons Why (Focusing on the Wrong Things – A Defense of Jay Asher’s/Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why. We quickly moved forward with a book that became two.

The Third book was the direct response to a post I wrote about the horrible Parkland shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018.  As most of you know, I live in Las Vegas and direct connects with several people who experience the concert shooting on Oct. 1, 2017.  I was anxious and tired of responding to gun violence. (One of those is among my selections below.) I worried about the tone. I took Mr. Rodgers' advice and looked for the helpers. I asked Gretchen Rumohr and Shelly Shaffer to take a look at it before I posted. Columbine, Sandy Hook, Aurora Colorado, Orlando, Las Vegas, and now Parkland. They gave good advice. A day later we collaborated through a video chat. A month later we had a book contract and, through the hard work of chapter authors, we had a published book by the end of the year.  

1.  Holden, Dear Holden; Your Influence Stretches On and On and Readers of YA Literature Thank You.

4. Blood Brother: An introduction to Jonathan Daniels 

6. Rereading the past and excavating the foundation: Cormier, Hamilton, Zindel, and Myers.

7. ​Remembering Julius Lester  Here we are at the fourth book. I have been interested in African American Young Adult Literature for the beginning of my career. I am especially interested in how these authors have been underrepresented. I know we are in a bit of growth spurt right now, but that wasn't always the case. You and look at one of the ways I have dealt with topic here. Shanetia Clark and I joined forces and started three book series that treats the impact of African American authors in three distinct periods--the late 60s to the early 1980s, then the 1980 up to 2000, then from the 2000 until right now. The first book, On the Shoulders of Giants, explores the work of the four stalwarts of the period. Two were mentioned above, Walter Dean Myers and Virgina Hamilton. Then here, Julius Lester, and the one not covered in these blog posts, MIldred Taylor. 

8. Makes Me Wanna Shut Up: Reconsidering how I used African-American Authors in My Classroom

9. ​​Nothing Gold Can Stay: Ness, Hinton, Frost, Shakespeare, and Yeats

11. Slow and Steady Wins the Race: Lonesome George Reminds about Science, Children’s Books, and the Classroom

Until next time.

Two of my great friends and colleagues at Vanderbilt University have a robust set of young adult resources for their pre-service and in-service teachers in their area on their own website. One of the great things about resources that we put out into the web is that they are available to everyone, not just the people who initially inspired us to build them. 

I put out a call to ask colleagues how they were doing and how they were coping with social distancing. One of the people who respond quickly was Emily Pendergrass. She mentioned that Melanie had just finished a list of YA books on Pandemic and Epidemic in real and dystopian contexts. 

I asked for permission to share it on Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday.

First--here is a link to their webpage: https://my.vanderbilt.edu/yabooklists/topics/pandemic-epidemic/

​Second, I love what they have done.

Below is the body of the text with a new introduction, a slide show of covers, and links to all of the books:

The words “pandemic” and “epidemic” are a scary part of our current reality.  A pandemic is a disease that is present across a country or the world.  An epidemic is the outbreak of a disease that spreads rapidly and hits a lot of people at once.  Long before our current pandemic of Covid-19, there were epidemics that effectives countries and continents—think of plagues and large scale flu outbreaks.
 
Young adult authors have written a lot of novels about epidemics that actually happened and imagined epidemics and pandemics in different time periods, societies, and planets.  Here are just a few of the ones that we have found.  Please let us know if you have others!   Contact us at e.pendergrass@vanderbilt.edu
​

A Death-Struck Year Makiia Lucier
The Eleventh Plague Jeff Hirsch
Fever, 1793 Laurie Halse Anderson
The Last Dog on Earth Daniel Ehrenhaft
Plague Michael Grant
At the Sign of the Sugared Plum Mary Hooper
The Way We Fall Megan Crewe
Chasing Secrets Gennifer Choldenko
Deadly Julie Chibbaro
The Plague Joanne Dahme
The Goodbye Season Marian Hale
Agnes at the End of the World Kelly McWilliams
The Treatment Suzanne Young
Pandemic Yvonne Ventresca
A Matter of Days Amber Kizer
The Program Suzanne Young
Conversion Katherine Howe
Love is the Drug Alaya Dawn Johnson
The Fear Charlie Higson
The Sacrifice Charlie Higson
Plague 99 Jean Ure
Virals Kathy Reichs
Peeps  Scott Westerfield
Seizure  Kathy Reichs
Fever Year: The Killer Flue of 1918 Don Brown
Breath Donna Jo Napoli
The Plague Tales Anne Benson
The House on Hound Hill Maggie Prince
Hero of Lesser Causes Julie Johnston
The Heaven Shop Deborah Ellis
Footprints at the Window Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
The Cure Sonia Levitin
Masque of the Red Death Bethany Griffin
Dance of the Red Death Bethany Griffin
I Am Rembrandts’ Daughter Lynn Cullen
The Sunbird Elizabeth E. Wein
All Fall Down Susan Geason
Suicide Notes from Dead Girls  Lynn Weingarten
Survive the Night Danielle Vega

intro

March is Women’s History month in the United States, a month when we commemorate and encourage the study, observance, and celebration of the vital role of women in American history. Given this, it seems only fitting to reflect on the ways female protagonists in middle grade and young adult literature shed light on women’s historical experiences across time and place.

​The Cambridge English Dictionary defines “herstory” as history written from the point of view of women, and giving importance to their experiences and activities. Reading fictionalized stories about historical women from their point of view can give readers different understandings of the factors, perspectives, and contexts that contributed to cultural and societal time periods and events. Reading stories about fictionalized women from different time periods can do the same.

In my own reading, particularly that within the mother-daughter book club* I’ve been a member of for the past seven years, there have been many books that have prompted me (and my teenage daughter) to study and celebrate the roles and experiences of women across time and space. Collectively, these books help helped me unpack the historical ways women have been positioned and that femininity has been constructed (and challenged). In our book club, our reading of these books served as a springboard for many rich discussions about the issues surrounding women both past and present. Because of these discussions, we’ve been prompted, as mothers, daughters, readers, and critical thinkers, to advocate for women’s voices and issues locally and globally.

​Of the over 60 books that we’ve read together in our book club, here are six books that invite readers, female AND male, into the worlds of their female protagonists. In these worlds, readers learn about particularities of certain time periods and cultures, the similarities of female experiences across historical contexts, and the capacity of women to show resilience and strength as they lament, speak out against, and work towards changing the gender constructions placed on them. Some of these books tell the stories of specific women and girls in history (nonfiction and fictionalized accounts) whereas others tell the stories of representative girls and women to a particular time period or social movement in history.
 
In the paragraphs that follow, I briefly summarize each book and share discussion questions that could guide a “Women’s History Month” reading of them.

These six books are just a sampling of the many amazing middle grade and young adult books that help commemorate and encourage the study, observance, and celebration of the role of women in history. In the comment section below, please list your favorite herstory books!​

*For the past seven years, our mother-daughter book club has gathered bi-monthly to discuss books, eat book-related food, and participate in book-inspired activities. I have written more about our book club with Gretchen Rumohr and Erica Hamilton here: Why Book Clubs Matter;  Reading and Challenging Constructions Together: Implications of a Mother-Daughter Book Club for Classroom Practice. 

Until next time.

From Steve: I still love my discovery of Berries Goodman by the Newbery Medal winning author Emily Cheney Neville. What? you don’t know this book? No time like the present to take a look. In middle school I fell in love with Louis L’Amour novels. The Sackett Brand is still fun to read, but reading these pulp westerns lead me to the works of A. B. Guthrie his novel of the mountain men--The Big Sky. I was a voracious reader and started checking out Moby Dick from the bookmobile when I was in middle school. Gregory Peck was Captain Ahab for me and not Atticus Finch, but it wasn’t until my early twenties that I got past the first few chapters. Today, it remains one of my favorite books. I had a similar experience with One Hundred Years of Solitude.  ​

As I think ahead to reading during the pandemic, here is what I plan to read:  Jumping off Swings, Educated, How to Make Friends with the Dark, Barely Missing Everything, The Walls Around us, Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All, and Blood, Water, Paint.  Is this list realistic?  Will it change as I get more recommendations or find that I can’t keep up with my administrative work and doorknob-disinfecting schedule?  Perhaps. But when you fall in love with reading, you always dream about your next date with a book.  ​

Can this period of time be an opportunity for “authentic” reading instead of a march through endless worksheets in an attempt to meet a set of standards? What if, as Antero Garcia suggests, we just spend some time healing? We understand that not every child or adolescent we work with will be carbon copies of who we are. They might not relish the time to read that they have been given. However, if the notion of school becomes even more artificial, more routinized--a mandated march through the standards, then haven’t we lost an opportunity to do something different? Something better?  Something that recognizes our common humanity and builds empathy?

Friends, this is an opportunity to model a CHANGE during this new normal. What would happen if we set aside the worksheets, the curriculum, the constant checking of social media, the noise, and simply buried ourselves in books?  What would happen if we encouraged students to do the same, in all subject areas? What would happen if we took Louise Rosenblatt to heart and decided that now was the time to frontload life events through literature?  I can see the emails now: ​

So--now we want to hear from you.  Help us generate a list of “must reads” during this time of isolation.  Please share your top three books in each category: Children’s Books, Middle Grade Books, Young Adult Books, and Screen Adaptations of Literary Works.  ​

Click here and share your choices:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeVEdPgUcMeMuDY4EGqCD-yHEEMY1j7H6kJbYfXi9fvwNMCuw/viewform?usp=sf_link 

When you finish, share the link widely. We will leave it open for a week and then share the results as quickly as possible.

​Until next time.

Most of us that work at universities are trying figure out how to teach online in ways that honor what we do. We care about our students, our programs, and our subject matter. In reality, most of us love books and slipping into imaginary worlds (even if they are dystopian settings slightly suggestive of our own current situations). 

Most of all, we are considering how to keep community. 

Here are a few questions to consider.

1. How do we do this if all assignments are asynchronous?
2. How long do we hold classes if we do synchronous meetings? Is it appropriate to maintain classes for the same length of time? Some of us have smaller graduate classes where we might imagine trying to do this. 
3. How can we continue to promote reading while social distancing?
4. Is it now time to teach our students about OVERDRIVE and LIBBY so they can access books if libraries close?
5. Do we acknowledge and deal with internet deserts?
6. Can students in YA classes do more projects and self-selected reading around certain topics?
7. Is it a time to reinvent book clubs in virtual spaces?
8. Can we catch up with our reading by reading books from award lists that we missed in the past?
9. What about starting a book club with your children--those at home or those who have moved away?

This morning I read a short piece by Antero Garcia. I have known for awhile that he is smart than I am. He gave voice to some of the concerns I have with more clarity.  You should check it out. Perhaps, instead of just canceling school, we should cancel instruction, tests, and the short sighted perceived goals.

My university has spring break from March 16 through the 22nd. We are to be prepared for online instruction of some kind on the 23rd. (Some flexibility to forego Monday and Tuesday classes). I emailed my faculty senator, my deans, and our college faculty chair. I suggested that they are implying that we work and forget our spring break. I asked if there had been any consideration for having students take two weeks while faculty take one week to care for ourselves and our families during this time social unrest. Then, let us have a week to prepare our course work. No, that hadn't been considered that they indicated. Essentially, they agree, but implied that we soldier on, that we do our best, that we think about our students. 

Well, I think my suggestion does that. In fact, as educators we should stand up for correct pedagogy and for stepping back instead of rushing forward. 

My labor union instincts what to rise up. Those who manage teachers always want us to do what they deem to be correct even when we might think otherwise.  Let's remind ourselves how much testing schools have slipped into and how we use it to measure the quality of schools instead of considering "real" growth of students.  For example. students might be behind at the beginning of the school year by several grade levels in reading. Then the teacher makes several levels of progress, but doesn't quite reach grade level. Has the teacher been successful? Of course, but by the results of the tests, the school and the teacher will still indicate a failure and receive an inadequate rating. Thus while the student, the teacher, and the school have experienced success the report will indicated that they have not. 

Are we in danger of trying to maintain a false educational experience to keep things normal, especially when they clearly are not?

I offer the following ten past posts from contributors to Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday. Perhaps, they will help answer some of the questions I have posed and perhaps others that you have been asking as well.

1. My first  selection is a post by Michael Macaluso. Michael and his wife Katie are a pair of young scholars worth listening to at almost every opportunity.  In this post, Michael discusses diverse literature. 
​
Reading Word and World… with Diverse YA Literature

2. Next, I turn to one of my colleagues and valued writing partners, Gretchen Rumohr. Alas, I should have spend last Friday presenting with her at the MCTE. Gretchen channels Penny Kittle and Book Love as inspiration for a YA Methods course.

Beyond How We Were Taught: Using "Book Love" to teach YA Literature Methods

3. This post is one of the older ones from 2016 when I hadn't quite figured out how to label everything in a consistent way. This post is by Angela Insenga.  Angela is an expert at mingling popular culture and YA. I believe this is the first post she wrote for the blog.  
​
Between the Bookends:  YA and Critical Collaboration

4.  My own children loved doing mutligenre projects associated with their reading and their popular culture interests. They worked with topic stimulated by The Giver and by the blockbuster movie the Titanic. I jumped at the chance to host how my good friend, Mary Warner, approached this with her students in a YA course.

Discovering (Rediscovering) Karen Hesse’s Witness and Its Multi-genre Potential

5. I constantly find myself thinking about cross curricular activities. This is quite easy to do with the Social Studies. One of the first to write a post addressing this connection was Paul Binford. In this post he suggest activities associated with Out of the Dust.
Before the Dust Settles!

6. ​In one of the questions above, I put forth the suggestion of reading past award winners or books from the short lists that you may have missed in the past. Lisa Scherff has been a member and a chair of the Walden Award committee.  Here she writes about her experience and provides some valuable insight.  

​Lisa Scherff Explains the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award

7. I am just guessing, but I am assuming that some of us are reconsider our summer travel plans. I know that is happening for us. We had hoped to visit my daughter and her family--hurrah for grand kids!-- in Scotland. That seems to be off the table.  In this post, Katie Dredger talks about teaching YA on a study abroad program. Katie has some great ideas and maybe we can take a vicarious YA reading trip.
​
Current Young Adult British Literature: Student Choice and Engagements

8. One of my YA heroes is Marshall George. I have been reading his work long before I meet him. Since meeting him, I have never been disappointed by a conversation. In fact, during this social distancing, I should probably give a call.  Marshall reminds us that YA comes in a variety of genres. While your children and adolescents are at home taking on their own studies, parents and other care givers need not worry about reading that might be narrow. Every genre is available and Marshall provides some direction.
 
​The Sometimes-Forgotten Genres in Literature Written for Adolescents and Young Adults: Short Stories, Essays, and Poetry

9.  One of the most prolific contributors to Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday is Lesley Roessing. I hope some of you are sitting around with some prolific readers. Following on the heels of Marshall's suggestions, I hope you will look at Lesley's post on MG and YA verse novels.  

​30+ MG/YA Verse Novels for National Poetry Month: Engaging Reluctant Readers, Enriching Enthusiastic Readers, and Appreciating Story, Form, & Language by Lesley Roessing

10. One final post from Lesley. Again, I love YA literature that connects us to History.  Among these ten po sts are several that connect to history. I hope that some of your readers will love the books connecting to an historical event. After reading, I hope they are prompted to do some research and make some connections that will lead them to other books and other topics. I would argue that the best learning comes when adolescents are engaged in something that interest them for more than a few minutes. 

 Learning History through Story by Lesley Roessing

Above are ten excellent post from among over 200 post. If these post don't meet your particular need check out the contributor's page and find one that does. When you do, share the post with others.  As educators we are in this endeavor together. Let's keep discovering and sharing together.

Until next time.

This week we have a newcomer to Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday, Brady Nash. He is going to discuss audio books. I have been using audio book a lot more lately. My doctor's says I need to exercise, but I have bad knees --so swimming or bike riding seem to the options. I try to ride the stationary bike between 45 to 60 minutes a day. Perfect time for an audio book. 

Brady starts with T. S. Eliot and the Wasteland. It reminded me of when I was new to Milton and went into the stairwell at the university library so I could read it aloud in an attempt to focus and pay attention. Later, I was in an intense Shakespeare class. We were reading about 12 to 15 plays over the semester. I discovered recordings by the BBC that had the Royal Shakespeare company reading the parts. Headphones and three or four hours helped Shakespeare plays that were new to me come completely alive. 

As Teri Lesesne is found of suggesting--it is time to value reading with our ears.
​
Thanks Brady. Take it away. 

To understand and inhabit the world of a text, readers need to be able to simulate a sensory world from the text (Gee, 2001); they need to see and hear the world indicated by the words. And as part of this, readers hear the words and sentences represented by texts, particularly when reading in an alphabetic language like English in which words and sounds are so closely linked. Listening to the text happens first externally, as readers listen to parents, teachers, or other more advanced readers, and later, internally, as readers listen to the internalized cadence of sentences or simulate the sounds of a novel in their minds. Listening is one form of envisioning text, a habit of mind practiced by readers, and a strategy that can be taught (Bomer, 2006). We can get better at listening through practicing and through hearing models of texts enacted by readers in person or through recordings.

Audiobooks, performed versions of printed texts such as novels, can be used as tools to support and extend reading practices. As readers listen to audiobooks, they gain models not only for the sounds of words and being portrayed, but also how they might be performed or enacted. As students hear more readings, they add to the available cache of ways they can imagine a text sounding as they internally simulate the cadence of sentences and the sounds that make up the worlds of texts. This can help students build reading fluency and improve comprehension, particularly when students move between printed texts and audiobooks (Johnson, 2014).
​
In my own English classroom, I have used segments from audiobooks as a regular part of classes. They serve not only as bits of text in themselves, but as mentors to students as they hear the language of books in their heads. And they can lead us to discuss the sentences or, when there is some musical embellishment or added sound effect, we can discuss the ways in which the world of the text sounds. I’ve also used audiobooks to introduce the idea that students reading together in groups can be creative in their performances or discuss the sounds they heard internally. Often, I would hear them negotiating over sounds in the text, discussing how one student or another heard it. As they had these discussions, students were building rich virtual worlds around text as they practiced imagining it one way or another. Sometimes, during book talks, students would produce little segments on their own, adding a bit of digital audio composition to their work together. 

Below, I discuss several young adult audiobooks that have brought their source texts to life by explicitly taking advantage of the audiobook format, using the affordances of sound to add to the original texts. They do so in different ways, and there is, of course, no one way in which sound might augment or support a reading experience. Below, I highlight 4-5 young adult audiobooks that have stood out to me in the past several years. I focus my discussion of each on the ways in which the producers and narrators have brought to life the text. This list is by no means complete. It does serve as a starting point for thinking about the particular affordances of audiobooks and providing a few examples that teachers might explore for use in their own classroom.

In addition to adding dimensions for understanding or discussing individual texts, inviting audiobooks into the classroom allows for broader discussions about the nature of meaning, communication, text, and story in today’s media saturated society. Stories told using sound are nothing new, coexisting with and perhaps predating written stories by thousands of years. They are, however, gaining additional prominence and attention as digital platforms meld the mediums and modes that have existed separately for the last several decades (Kress, 2003). Teachers looking to invite critical thinking about new literacies can support their own and the students’ exploration of multimodal texts through audiobooks. And any of us, student, teacher, or just interested listener, may find one more avenue by which we can enjoy stories, just because we love stories.​

Until next time.

A couple of years ago I was introduced to Briana through another colleague. Briana was interested in writing for the blog. We talked a bit and she was on the schedule. I have always enjoyed her topics. In fact, after reading the draft of her first post, I was struck with how much it reminded me of my own experience working on a farmer. She was writing about the US and Mexico border and how it connects with immigrant experiences and how they are represented in YA literature. You can read it here. Last year she wrote about Manga as classroom counterculture. She was writing well beyond my expertise. Take a couple of minutes to check it out here.

Once again, she taken on a topic that is beyond my expertise.  She has connected current events with Queer YA Literature and the #MeToo movement. I love the books she mentions, but she does a better job than I could have with the analysis and connections she makes. Thanks Briana.

This past week, the public finally received a verdict in what has come to be known as the case that sparked the #MeToo movement. Harvey Weinstein was taken out of the courtroom in handcuffs, facing up to 29 years in prison. Even though Weinstein was acquitted of some of the most serious charges, many considered Weinstein’s conviction a victory; as a powerful Hollywood mogul, there was no doubt that Weinstein had been evading accountability for decades, and like so many others, had been quite successful at doing so. And for the first time, a high-profile predator was held responsible despite the very real “messiness” of the cases: the complications that often destroy otherwise strong sexual assault cases—victims’ complex personal histories, difficulty in reconstructing details of their trauma, and continued contact with the assailant even after the abuse—were not enough to distract jurors from the facts central to the case.
 
Post-verdict, a rash of news articles with headlines like, What Now? and What have we Learned? surfaced in popular publications like the New York Times and Washington Post. I find myself slightly annoyed by society’s tendency to collapse decades and more than 80 public accusations (in the Weinstein case) into this type of headline. The testimonies of the survivors were so complex, and I like so many other women know that #MeToo will not end with one verdict, one case, or one conviction. As actress Mira Sorvino notes, “Together we have and will continue to make change in the laws as a culture, as this is just a drop in a wave of justice to come for predators and survivors everywhere." But, it’s more than that. It’s about lives; families and individuals struggling to heal from trauma. 

​Like many women, I have spent lots of time listening to #MeToo survivors on the radio, on TV, and in both fiction and nonfiction. I read perhaps the most talked about #MeToo novel, Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson. I followed it up with The Nowhere Girls by Amy Reed so I will not discuss them here, other than to say that these books have contributed greatly to the conversation. The stories I heard from survivors in all these forms of media not only helped me to feel validated in my own experience; they also pushed me to think about the varied ways people experience assault. I also learned that when it happens to LGBTQ people, it does not necessarily count as assault under the law in many parts of the world. I realized that within the LBGTQ community, sexual assault, and assault in general is underreported. Poverty, race, and other factors, of course, can also play a significant role. 

Tarana Burke, the activist and founder of #MeToo, once noted, “...I think it will be a disservice to people if we couch this conversation in about what happens in Hollywood or what happens in even political offices.” The #MeToo movement was founded on marginalized voices (those of black women, specifically), and marginalized voices continue to be important for shaping the contours of debate about sexual assault prevention both nationally and internationally. As teachers, it’s important to highlight all voices, and especially marginalized voices when we consider the true impact and future of #MeToo. 

​There is a lot to talk about in this novel, especially in terms of the intersections of race and gender identity. There are also issues of addiction and grief. Konigsberg does a beautiful job weaving these throughout the novel without these vital topics becoming too overwhelming or seeming stereotypical. When Max is raped during his first homosexual experience, he does not realize that it was rape (by definition) until nearly 150 pages later when he is in a healthy relationship with Jordan and having flashbacks. As readers, we are guided through the process of Max coming to his realization. For high school readers, I think his journey is a particularly valuable part of the text, as Max has to face his trauma head-on, and it is treated realistically. Victims of sexual trauma often experience just such a delay in processing their experiences.

Both novels have scenes that are difficult to read, because of violence, trauma, and sexual content. Some students may find these parts difficult, depending on their own experiences or sensitivity to these issues. More importantly, these scenes need to be contextualized by the teacher, noting that while there is sexual violence, this is actually not the focus of either book. In the end, both are love stories, with characters that are your average high-schoolers in so many ways, living lives centered on what you would expect at that age: relationships, friends, and hobbies.
 
It’s also important to explore the very different ways in which the victims confront their abusers. In The Music of What Happens, Max actually confronts his rapist more than once after the incident. He talks to both of his parents who are, for the most part, supportive and offer to find him help. His partner stays with him through it all, and it seems as if their relationship will stay on-track. On the other hand, in Kaleidoscope Song, Neo’s experience affects nearly all areas of her life, and eventually causes her to lose almost everything. Neo’s environment, inclusive of her conservative parents and her community's view of LBGTQ people shape her experience. It is clear that it would be impossible for her to directly confront her rapist, let alone take him to court, though she does confront him in other ways that are powerful.  

These books elicit a range of powerful questions as well, some of which are answered by the text and others which are more ambiguous. In my own classroom (now at the college level), I am a fan of high-order thinking questions, and I have my students answer some of mine and think of their own. Some that would fit well in discussions of these texts include: 

​These types of questions are not only meant to give the reader a much broader view of #MeToo (beyond the headlines), they are also meant to elicit empathy, to see the life surrounding the victim, something not always present in court transcripts and testimony. The stories told by Max and Neo make the reader think about the many variables surrounding rape and sexual assault, moving beyond simple, fixed definitions and easy solutions. This varied range of thoughtful representations alone is extremely important, adding complexity to the often black-and-white (or victims-and-villains) approach to issues of sexual violence that we encounter in the media and in popular culture. 

Until next time.

 Sharon Kane has been one most frequent contributors to Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday. It is great to have her posting again. Before you dive into her current post it is worth the effort to visit some of her earlier posts. They cover a range of topics and they can be found here (a post about waiting for award winners), here (YA about Ada Lovelace), here (about revisiting awards),  here (about space and time in YA literature), and one more about how her students respond to A. S. King's wonderful novel, I Crawl Through It.

In addition, Sharon will be one of the presenters at this year's UNLV Summit on the Research and Teaching of Young Adult Literature. She was one of the presenters in the first group to visit UNLV in 2018. We hope you are making plans to visit us this year. See the flier below.

Thanks Sharon

Any student in my YA Literature class would tell you that I’m wild about literary awards, not only because so many authors are so deserving of acclaim, and not only because they draw attention to wonderful literature I might not have found on my own, but also because of their pedagogical potential.  I teach YA Lit in the fall, so I look forward each year to introducing my students to the National Book Award process, beginning in mid-September with the announcement of the 10 books chosen for the Longlist in the Young People’s Literature category. We watch book trailers; I gather copies from local public and school libraries; and I invite students to join me in my quest to read as many as I can by the time the list is halved in mid-October when the finalists are announced. We discuss books as we finish them, and we continue following the hype online, in anticipation of the live author readings on the eve of the ceremony where the winners are announced (also live) in mid-November. 

We also follow School Library Journal’s “Pondering Printz” blog, noting the intersection of some of the titles discussed there with those honored by the National Book Foundation, perhaps wondering why some of our own clear favorites are missing. Students commit to checking out the American Library Association’s Youth Media Awards when they are announced during the ALA’s Midwinter convention, even though our class will be over.

The requirements of my course include reading one YA text and one article from The ALAN Review and/or the weekly post on Dr. Bickmore’s YAWednesday blog each week. Students join ALAN, and the culminating assignment is to write a manuscript appropriate for The ALAN Review. (One former student, Derrick Smith, submitted his; “Bringing Fantasy and Science Fiction into the Classroom” was published in Winter, 2012.) In the fall of 2019, I collected drafts right before flying to Baltimore for NCTE, and sent students my “Editor’s Suggestions” during Thanksgiving break. So, when they came in for the last class on December 4 with their final manuscript in hand, they might have thought the course was pretty much finished.
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Not quite.  I introduced them to the inaugural “ENGLISH 384 Literary Award,” and welcomed them as newly chosen committee members. Their job?  To write the titles of the 13 books they read for our course, rank ordered according to how worthy to win the gold medal they considered them to be. Since there was some choice during our middle weeks, individual lists contained different titles, making our job tricky. But students had at least heard others talking about all the books, so we did the best we could.  I emphasized that I was not asking them to rank the books according to extent they liked them, but rather according to literary merit (which I left undefined). Here are the books, or categories, we played with during the semester:

​Week 1.  The Nest, by Kenneth Oppel

Week 2. Goodbye Stranger, by Rebecca Stead

Week 3.  We Were Liars, by E. Lockhart 

Week 4. Jason Reynolds author study. Choices included the NBA finalist, Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks.        

Week 5.  WW II—Resistance theme. Nonfiction choices, including Phillip Hoose’s The Boys who Challenged Hitler and Patricia McCormick’s The Plot to Kill Hitler: Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Spy, Unlikely Hero, were popular, as was the graphic novel treatment of Bonhoeffer in Faithful Spy, by John Hendrix. The historical novel in verse White Rose, by Kip Wilson, was offered.          

Week 6. National Book Award Choice (selected from this year’s Longlist and a number of previous winners and finalists)    

​Week 7.  WW II—Escape theme. Choices included Deborah Heiligman’s Torpedoed: The True Story of the WW II Sinking of “The Children’s Ship,” Gavriel Savit’s Anna and the Swallow Man, and Ruth Sepetys’s Salt to the Sea, among others.          

​Week 8.  Neal Shusterman author study. The discovery of Scythe was a high point in the course; one student, Kaitlyn, came in with a scythe she had made from cardboard and foil as her response.  

​Week 9.  Ability/Disability/Difference theme. Readers could choose to read about characters facing physical challenges, in books such as Padma Venkatraman’s A Time to Dance, or emotional challenges in texts such as Nina LaCour’s We Are Okay and Laurie Halse Anderson’s The Impossible Knife of Memory and Shout. (Of course, all the books show the complexities that break down that artificial and misleading physical/mental dichotomy.)             

Week 10.  Romance theme—Students found love around the world as they read choices including When Dimple Met Rishi, by Sandhya Menon, and S.K. Ali’s Love from A to Z. They read about hardship, obstacles, and pain if they chose Sara Farizan’s If You Could be Mine, or Daniel Handler’s Why We Broke Up. And what could Walt Whitman be doing in a contemporary romance? We Contain Multitudes, by Sarah Henstra, supplied the answer.   

Week 11. Experimental Fiction. Before I gave book talks for A.S. King’s I Crawl through It, Andrew Smith’s Grasshopper Jungle, and Laura Ruby’s Bone Gap, I showed a visual of Andrew Smith wearing a t-shirt reading “Keep YA Weird.” Pet, a 2019 NBA finalist by Akwaeki Emezi, was chosen by some readers.             

Week 12.  New Adult Literature. Choices in this category targeting older teens and twenty-somethings included Elizabeth Acevedo’s With the Fire on High, where high school senior Emoni  juggles aspirations for a career as a chef with her responsibilities as a parent of a toddler. Cath, the college freshman featured in Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl, is a character several students said would stay with them for a long time.  

​Week 13.  All the Crooked Saints, by Maggie Stiefvater.       

After students finished working silently to rank their books, I asked them to write a rationale for their top choice. My final prompt was, “Which character you met this semester has had the strongest impact on you, or will stay with you the longest?”
​
I divided the class into 2 groups so that we could work as committees of about 10 members, since a whole class committee would be unwieldy. One committee, with Michaela as the newly appointed chair, went out to the hall to deliberate.  They were told to come back when they had a Gold Medal winner and 2 or 3 finalists. I gave little direction in terms of how to proceed or what criteria to use. They would decide whether to work through discussion toward consensus, or to vote, or to find a unique formula.  I stayed in our classroom with the rest. 

Our group, Committee One, began by listening to everyone giving their top choice, along with a rationale. Here’s an example from Anna:

​Some students chose a book because the topic was timely and important; others talked about a book’s structure or style or language or characters. We noted how hard it was to compare middle grade books to those targeting older teens. Everyone listened respectfully to their fellow committee members; no one tried to pressure others into changing positions. Quite naturally, it seemed, some books that readers could agree on rose to the top, and our group was satisfied with this outcome:

Gold: E. Lockhart's We Were Liars

Silver: Jason Reynold’s Ghost; Kenneth Oppel’s The Nest; and Neal Shusterman’s Unwind

​In walked Committee Two.  They announced their decision: 

The Gold: Neal Schusterman's Unwind.

Silver: Awarded to The Nest by Kenneth Oppel and We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

So close! But my students have learned that there’s no such thing as a tie when it comes to literary awards. (This is not universally true, but did apply to all the awards we had studied.)  We could have, we would have, somehow eliminated one of our Golden choices, except………………………

The college clock struck seven.  Our class, as well as our course, was over. It was time for my wonderful, gold medal-deserving group of YA literature enthusiasts to disband.  I think they may have been relieved that the competition ended before any hearts were crushed with disappointment. We left the room, feeling like winners.
​
Special thanks to these passionate reviewers and award committee members: Alyssa, Michaela, Megan, Anna, Kaitlyn, Kim, Trent, Lizzy, Victoria, Matthew, Natalie, Alli, Jenna, Rasheed, Liz, Ethan, Sierra, David, Stephanie, Erin, and Marlana. 

Until next time.

Another week and another new contributor to Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday. I meet Kate Kedley a few years ago. I was immediately impressed by Kate's energy and complete engagement in activities that are important to their research. Kate spent several years in Honduras and is fluent in Spanish. This week Kate asks us to engage more directly in YA Literature that accurately address the immigrant experience.  Now, it is Kate's turn.

Last November, I acquired an advance copy of the now infamous novel American Dirt (Cummins, 2020) at NCTE in Baltimore; it was handed to me as I weaved my way through the hoard of teachers in the exhibition hall. I hadn’t heard of the book, and it soon sat on my campus bookshelf along with the other couple of dozen or so books I brought home. My students claimed some of the books, and thumbed through others, but American Dirt remained.  In December, I read a critique of American Dirt by author Myiram Gurba (@lesbrains) entitled Pendeja You Ain't Steinbeck, and then followed the ensuing controversy on social media.
 
The post-Gurba discussion can be with engaged with on NPR Latino USA, (and Vulture and The Guardian), and these sites are thorough in ways I won’t elaborate on here. Briefly, American Dirt is about a migrant fleeing Mexico and heading towards the US on top of La Bestia, the freight trains migrants ride on their way north through Mexico. Cummins was critiqued for her lack of research for the book, her naivete about Mexican Spanish and culture, and her glorification of violence in the main character’s journey, with some calling it "trauma porn." The conversation has called for more diversity in publishing, more solidarity with #OwnVoices authors, and more responsibility for (white, cisgender, heterosexual) authors in terms of researching and respecting marginalized characters or communities before writing them into books. Furthermore, the hashtag #DignidadLiteraria was used to call for more representation of Latino authors in the publishing industry.

Central American-Americans (@DichosdeunBicho) on social media brought up the very obvious, but nearly entirely ignored fact that it is Central Americans who travel on the dangerous train La Bestia ,and not typically Mexican migrants. Why is this so, and why is it so obvious?  Because Central Americans are undocumented in Mexico, and thus, are not allowed to travel there without prior permission; this is why the La Bestia exists – so Central American migrants can avoid the Mexican immigration enforcement for a two-thousand mile journey in Mexico, BEFORE they reach the US-Mexico border, where they then must avoid US immigration enforcement. 

How does this anecdote, coupled with the American Dirt controversy, relate to young adult literature?  I wouldn’t categorize American Dirt as young adult literature, except it was handed to me at the NCTE annual meeting, and it was labeled a “Grapes of Wrath for our time…” Thus, this text will be in secondary classrooms and in the hands of youth. At the end of this essay, I offer five alternative young adult texts that represent the realities of immigration written by authors in communities who migrate.

Through young adult literature, readers are exposed to #OwnVoices and other diverse texts and authors. With a book about immigration, young adults are reading a narrative to set alongside public discourses about migrant caravans and border walls. Are we, as teachers, educators, and readers of young adult literature, doing enough to ensure that youth are ALSO engaging with the way our government’s policies and social conversations impact real people on individual and personal levels? We can exchange American Dirt for a young adult title with a better representation of migration to the US.  We can curate diverse books for our classrooms, ask critical questions of our students, and challenge youth and ourselves to think deeply about immigration. This is all essential work by academics, educators, teachers, and students. What I would like to add to this conversation is how we can – as citizens of the world – broaden our applications of praxis through reading young adult literature. 

​Two weeks ago, I spent a Sunday afternoon with a family of twelve immigrants who live near me.  I have been close with their family for fifteen years, both those who live in Central America (I lived in Honduras for four years), and those who live in the US. Three of them rode on La Bestia. Five of them have no paperwork and are undocumented. Two have standing deportation orders, and work very hard at staying in the shadows. One of them had la migra (ICE) looking for them in January, and has been hiding in an alternative location since. None of them had heard of the #OwnVoices movement in young adult literature. Zero had read American Dirt or knew of the controversy about its publication. 

Our government officials and our institutions act boldly and decisively in order to deter, oppress, and marginalize immigrants and immigrant communities. As teachers of young adult literature, we should be offering diverse selections of young adult books, asking hard questions, engaging in difficult discussions.  But we also need to model praxis, or informed consciousness and collective action against social injustices, and should move beyond the four walls of a classroom, a careful selection of diverse books, or thoughtful questions. Young adult literature – as a political text in the classroom – should build a critical consciousness that is actively alive. We must engage and advocate in socially just ways with the people in our communities, especially those we read about in order to fulfill needs for a diverse curriculum. Our students, and readers of young adult literature, must learn that collective action is an essential part of a critical consciousness and an integral part of their identity-construction as a reader. ​

As long as there are Central American migrants tear-gassed on our border by our law enforcement, it isn’t enough to just read their stories. Class discussions and literature circles are a good start, but we also have a moral imperative to speak out boldly and act upon such injustices as ICE arresting hundreds of people last week in New Jersey, or an ICE agent shooting an immigrant in the face last week in New York.
 
How can we foster praxis through young adult literature? Ideally, readers would decide what praxis looks like for them in each setting, through a process of collective and responsible critical conscious-building.  Perhaps, after reading a book about immigrant experiences, readers might investigate school policies that could make the space unwelcoming to immigrant families, or plan a meeting with lawmakers about federal immigration law and advocate for sanctuary spaces. After engaging with LGBTQ young adult literature, perhaps readers will see and act upon a lack of gender neutral bathrooms in city buildings or in the school.
 
We must commit to making a connection between young adult literature and direct action upon social injustices. Our students’ identity as a reader must include a critical consciousness component, where reading prompts a critical understanding of a topic. This allows readers to build an active critical consciousness that works for and engages with the humanity of our communities.
 
Gracias al poeta Omar, mis hermanos Guato y G.L., y mi prima Grecia por la plactica sobre el tema

Until next time.
* Neither Kate nor I think American Dirt deserves any more undue attention when there are so many other, authentic options.

Dr. Kate Kedley can be reached at: ​kedley@rowan.edu

​En noviembre pasado, adquirí una copia de la novela que ahora tiene un nivel de infame, American Dirt (Cummins, 2020) en una conferencia de pedagogía y literatura; me la entregaron mientras caminaba entre profesores en la sala de exposiciones. No había escuchado del libro, y pronto se quedo en mi escritorio junto con las otras dos docenas de libros que traje a casa. Mis alumnos recogieron algunos de los libros, pero American Dirt quedo. En diciembre, leí una crítica quejada de American Dirt del autor Myiram Gurba (@lesbrains) titulada Pendeja No Eres Steinbeck, y luego busque la controversia que siguió en las redes sociales.
 
La discusión después lo de Gurba puede estar encontrado en NPR Latino USA (y Vulture y The Guardian), y estos sitios son exhaustivos en formas que no podría detallar aquí. Brevemente, American Dirt se trata de un migrante que huye de México y se camina hacia los Estados Unidos en la cima de La Bestia, los trenes que cargan los migrantes Centroamericanos en su camino hacia el norte. Cummins fue criticada por su falta de investigación para el libro, su ingenuidad sobre el español mexicano y la cultura, y su glorificación de la violencia en México. Algunos lo llamaron su libro "porno traumático". La conversación ha resultado en una llamada por más diversidad en las casas de publicación, más solidaridad con los autores de #OwnVoices, y más responsabilidad para los autores (blancos, cisgéneros, heterosexuales) en términos de investigación y respeto de personajes o comunidades marginadas antes de escribirlos en los libros. Además, el hashtag #DignidadLiteraria se usó para pedir una mayor representación de autores latinos en la industria editorial.
 
Los centroamericanos-estadounidenses (@DichosdeunBicho) en las redes sociales mencionaron un hecho muy obvio, pero casi completamente ignorado. Son los centroamericanos quienes viajan en el peligroso tren La Bestia, y no típicamente los migrantes mexicanos. ¿Por qué es así y por qué es tan obvio? Debido a que los centroamericanos son indocumentados en México y, por lo tanto, no son permitidos a viajar en México sin permiso; Esta es la razón por la existencia de La Bestia, para que los migrantes centroamericanos puedan evitar la aplicación de la ley de inmigración mexicana para un viaje de dos mil millas en México, ANTES de llegar a la frontera entre Estados Unidos y México, donde deben evitar la aplicación de la ley de inmigración estadounidense.
 
¿Cómo se relaciona esta anécdota, junto con la controversia de American Dirt, con la literatura para adolescentes? No clasificaría American Dirt como literatura para adolescentes, excepto que me dieron en reunión anual de NCTE, y fue etiquetada como "Las Uvas de Ira para nuestro tiempo ..." Por lo tanto, este texto estará en las aulas de secundaria y en los manos de la juventud. Al final de este ensayo, ofrezco cinco textos alternativos para adolescentes a leer que representan las realidades de la inmigración escritos por autores en comunidades que migran.


Con literatura para adolescentes, los lectores están expuestos a #OwnVoices y otros textos y autores diversos. Con un libro sobre inmigración, los adolescentes leen una narrativa para poner junto a discursos públicos sobre caravanas de migrantes y muros fronterizos. ¿Estamos, como maestros, educadores y lectores de literatura para adolescentes, haciendo suficiente para asegurar que los jóvenes TAMBIÉN se comprometan con la forma en que las políticas y las conversaciones sociales de nuestro gobierno impactan a las personas reales a nivel individual y personal? Podemos cambiar American Dirt por un título con una mejor representación de la migración a los Estados Unidos. Podemos seleccionar diversos libros para nuestras aulas, hacer preguntas críticas a nuestros estudiantes, y desafiar a los jóvenes y a nosotros mismos a pensar profundamente sobre la inmigración. Todo este es un trabajo esencial de académicos, educadores, maestros, y estudiantes. Lo que me gustaría agregar a esta conversación es cómo podemos, como ciudadanos del mundo, ampliar nuestras aplicaciones de praxis usando como herramienta la lectura de literatura para adolescentes.
 
Hace dos semanas, pasé un domingo por la tarde con una familia de doce inmigrantes que viven cerca de mí. He estado cerca de su familia durante quince años, los que viven en América Central (viví en Honduras por cuatro años) como los que viven en los Estados Unidos. Tres de ellos viajaron encima de La Bestia. Cinco de ellos no tienen papeles y son indocumentados. Dos tienen órdenes de deportación y trabajan muy duro para quedar en las sombras. Uno de ellos tenía a la migra (ICE) buscándolos en enero, y desde entonces se ha estado escondiendo en un lugar alternativo. Ninguno de ellos había oído hablar del movimiento #OwnVoices en la literatura para adolescentes. Cero había leído American Dirt o sabía de la controversia sobre su publicación.
 
Nuestros funcionarios gubernamentales y nuestras instituciones actúan con audacia y decisión para disuadir, oprimir y marginar a los inmigrantes y las comunidades de inmigrantes. Como profesores de literatura para adolescentes, deberíamos ofrecer diversas selecciones de libros para adolescentes, hacer preguntas difíciles y participar en debates difíciles. Pero también necesitamos modelar la praxis o la conciencia critica y la acción colectiva y directa contra las injusticias sociales. Debemos ir más allá de las cuatro paredes de un aula, y mas allá de una selección de diversos libros o preguntas reflexivas. La literatura para adolescentes, como texto político en el aula, debe construir una conciencia crítica que esté activamente activa. Debemos involucrarnos en una manera socialmente justa con las personas de nuestras comunidades, especialmente aquellas sobre las que leemos para satisfacer las necesidades de un currículum diverso. Nuestros estudiantes y lectores de literatura deben aprender que la acción colectiva es una parte esencial de una conciencia crítica y una parte integral de su construcción de identidad como lector.
 
Mientras haya migrantes centroamericanos atacado con gases lacrimógenos en nuestra frontera por nuestra policía, no es suficiente de solo leer sus historias. Las discusiones en clase y los círculos literarios son un buen comienzo, pero también tenemos un imperativo moral para hablar valientemente y actuar sobre injusticias como la migra que detuvieron a cientos de personas la semana pasada en Nueva Jersey, o un agente de la migra que le disparó en la cara a un inmigrante la semana pasada en Nueva York.
 
¿Cómo podemos hacer la formación de la praxis a través de la literatura juvenil? Idealmente, los lectores decidirían cómo es la praxis para ellos, a través de un proceso de construcción de conciencia crítica colectiva y responsable. Quizás, después de leer un libro sobre experiencias de inmigrantes, los lectores podrían investigar las reglas y normas escolares que podrían hacer que el espacio no sea amistoso para las familias inmigrantes, o planear una reunión con legisladores sobre la ley federal de inmigración y abogar por espacios de santuario. Después de comprometerse con la literatura LGBTQ para adultos jóvenes, quizás los lectores verán y actuarán ante la falta de baños de género neutral en los edificios de la ciudad o en la escuela.
 
Debemos comprometernos a hacer una conexión entre la literatura para adolescentes con la acción directa contra las injusticias sociales. La identidad de nuestros estudiantes como lectores debe incluir un componente de conciencia crítica, donde la lectura impulsa una comprensión crítica de un tema. Esto permite a los lectores construir una conciencia crítica activa que trabaja y se involucra con la humanidad de nuestras comunidades.

​Yes. Registration is open for the 2020 UNLV Summit on the Research and Teaching of Young Literature.

​We are in our third year of a partnership with the Clark County School District and with scholars across the country. Many of those scholars will be coming for their third year in a row. Others attended the first year and have submitted proposals for this year. We are reviewing them now. The list of presenters will be revealed in two weeks. Stay tuned. 

You can check out who presented in 2018 at this link. (Some of them will be presenting again.) We did a slightly different format in 2019 that focused less on researching and more on teaching. You can check out that format at this link.

​The Summit has been fortunate to have a series of great Keynote authors. If you haven’t read the authors in the images below, click on the picture and pick a book right away. 

 Each year we grow and add new dimensions. Each year we have had a number of elementary teachers attended the summit. This year, in order to meet their needs and interests more directly, we are adding shadow events on Thursday, the research day, that highlights Children's literature. Teacher's can attend this day as a single event (see the registration options), but in reality don't you want to hear all of the authors?

Check out the 2020 Keynotes below:

This year for the first time there is a special price for current UNLV undergraduate and graduate students!
Email Dr. Bickmore (Steven.Bickmore@unlv.edu) for the special code.

For more information, bookmark and visit the 2020 UNLV Summit page often. In addition, you can always revisit this page!

​Until next time!