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Tag Archives: young adult lit
I Wish Those Days
I think everyone has had at least one time in their life where they would like to have a wish granted. When I turned 40, I wanted a chance to stop “adulting” for a day. So that’s what we did. My (at the time) soon-to-be husband and I hopped on a train and headed into NYC. Our first stop was the NY Public Library’s main branch on Fifth Avenue—the branch with those iconic lions out front. Walking through the front doors always causes me to stop and take pause. It’s a building full of possibility. On this day, I had to pause and figure out how to get to the children’s room. Yep, I was taking this non-adulting thing seriously. Actually, I was on my way to see the original Winnie the Pooh (and the gang). We spent some time there looking at that “silly old bear;” I recounted my favorite Pooh tales and explained how one plays Pooh Sticks, and then we headed off down Fifth Avenue.
Posted in Words/Language
Tagged as: American Girl, As You Wish, families, Free to Be, Nanea Mitchell, Wishes, wishing, YA Lit, you and me, young adult lit
Preparing faces
“Sometimes people think they know you. They know a few facts about you, and they piece you together in a way that makes sense to them. And if you don’t know yourself very well, you might even believe that they are right.”
–This Song Will Save Your Life, Leila Sales
Full disclosure: I haven’t read This Song Will Save Your Life. I was merely looking for a quote about YA books, and of course, google gave me quotes from YA books, and a blog post from Barnes and Noble titled “12 YA Quotes that Perfectly Express the Teen Condition.” Now, I don’t know if the quotes do or not. It’s been a really long time since I was a teen. And while the biology of adolescence hasn’t changed, adolescent life today seems far more complicated than it was in the 80s.
Posted in Coming of Age, Mystery/Thriller
Tagged as: Before I Let Go, Identity, Nijkamp, YA Lit, YA Literature, young adult lit, young adult literature
Desire to Understand
mys·ter·y1
ˈmist(ə)rē/
noun
1.
something that is difficult or impossible to understand or explain.
“the mysteries of outer space”
synonyms: puzzle, enigma, conundrum, riddle, secret, problem, unsolved problem
“his death remains a mystery”
2.
a novel, play, or movie dealing with a puzzling crime, especially a murder.
synonyms: thriller, murder mystery, detective story/novel, murder story, crime novel;
informalwhodunit
“reading a classic mystery”
Posted in Mystery/Thriller
Tagged as: agatha christie, al capone, alane ferguson, ally carter, april henry, body finder, carl hiaasen, edward blood, el konigsburg, embassy row, forensic mystery, gallagher girls, gennifer choldenko, John Feinstein, john green, john grishom, judy blunder, katherine howe, kimberly darting, lauren oliver, laurie faria stolarz, mystery, Series, silent to the bone, theodore boone, thriller, trenton lee stewart, YA Lit, YA Literature, young adult lit, young adult literature
Baked in a Beautiful Pie
“But people forgive each other. It’s like a dance.”
“I wish I knew how to do that dance,” Adri said.
“Oh,” Lily shook her head. “I don’t think it’s that you can’t do it. I think you’re thinking the whole thing is a lose-lose. Like, what if someone actually likes you? That causes all sorts of problems. Then each time you see them, you have to try and keep them. And then even if you manage that, you lose. You end up losing. Even if you go through all the work of accepting someone and occasionally looking like a fool in front of them and then figuring out if they can accept you and you can forgive each other for everything you screw up, you lose them eventually.”
Life in the Now
Let’s face it, middle school is hard. Not necessarily academically—although for some kids that is true. But it’s hard because of the place it is: the middle. Students aren’t little kids even though things like recess and stickers and “potty humor” still tickle them. They aren’t true teenagers focused on college and careers. They are literally stuck in the middle. Socially, they’re trying to figure out who to be. Physically, I might have a 6’4” boy sitting next to a 4’9” boy. Some of my girls may look like they’re nine and others 19. Middle school is hard for my students. When I tell most adults what I do, they take a step back and say how awful middle school is, usually because they’re reflecting on their time in that space.