Bring the celebration of reading and literacy into your classroom, library, school, and home all year long.
This tool provides a fun and useful way to explore a variety of topics such as a character in a book, a person or place from history, or even a physical object. An excellent tool to for summarizing or as a prewriting exercise for original stories.
With each annual crop of new nonfiction, teens have the opportunity to discover and explore new disciplinary worlds. Tune in to hear about an array of recently-published nonfiction titles that will engage teens in learning about history, science, economics, and medicine. You'll hear about junk food and advertising, the atomic bomb and civil rights, bird watching and volcanoes – books written in a variety of formats for a variety of teen readers.
Tune in to hear about an array of nonfiction books on teen sexuality – some about the mechanics of sex, some about the media and body image, some written by teens themselves. You'll hear about books for older as well as younger readers, boys as well as girls, gay teens as well as those who are straight or questioning.
Books featuring teens as change agents call attention to young people who are lobbying for change in their schools, communities, and the larger world. Tune in to hear about teens who work for change by participating in political campaigns, defying social hierarchies, and even going to war.
Tune in to hear E. Lockhart talk about creating girl characters who try to ignite social change and challenge social hierarchies, the approach she takes to the writing process, and her thoughts on reader response to her books.
With a new movie version of The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins' story of a dystopian world where children are forced to fight to the death on live television is set to reach an even broader audience. Tune in to hear about the seeds for The Hunger Games story, themes that distinguish the series as an important work of literature, and what the books have to offer teen readers.
Tune in to hear how Coe Booth worked through the challenges of writing Bronxwood, how she makes sense of her characters' actions, and how her books challenge readers to develop critical social consciousness.
Tune in to hear insights on bullying from bullying expert CJ Bott, author of The Bully in the Book and the Classroom and More Bullies in More Books. You'll also hear about a variety of fiction and nonfiction books for teens that explore the problem of bullying.
Tune in to hear Sara Zarr discuss religious faith and some of the thinking behind her newest novel, Once Was Lost.
Even if they are few in number, diverse books do exist. Tune in to hear about recently-published YA titles that celebrate diversity in a range of genres. There's something for every reader here: comic book superheroes, Civil Rights history, love stories, humorous essays, poetry, artwork, and stories of suspense.
If there is anyone in the world of children's and young adult literature who could be described as a living legend, it's Walter Dean Myers. Tune in to hear how his own experiences as a reader have shaped his approach to storytelling, what he seeks to offer young people through his writing, and the thinking behind a select handful of his novels – books that incorporate concepts as varied as magical realism, the social contract, and oral histories with our nation's war veterans.
It's rare to find historical fiction that weaves rich period detail into the lives of memorable and endearing characters, but Rita Williams-Garcia's middle-grade novels One Crazy Summer and P.S. Be Eleven do just that. Tune in to hear Rita explain how she drew on personal and historical contexts to develop her characters and tell their story. You'll also hear about her great love for her work and her commitment to spending as long as it takes to get the story right.