PROVIDENCE, RI — “With popular goths and scary short stories, these books are way better than your English teacher's summer reading list,” the editors of LA Youth, a newspaper by and about teens, write in the June issue. They offer a collection of summer reads, chosen and reviewed by their peers.
The picks include Coming Up for Air by George Orwell, Ishmael Beah’s heartbreaking A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier and Lorrie Moore’s dark and humorous stories, Birds of America—any of which could make it onto an innovative English teacher’s summer reading list.
But these LA youth are right: some of their selections might not win their teachers’ favor—which, for some, makes them all the more appealing.
Sixteen-year-old Destiny Jackson singles out Oh My Goth by Gena Schowalter.
In this MTV-published book is a world where virtual reality becomes actual reality for Jade Leigh, a fiercely nonconformist goth girl, whose life is flipped upside-down when she wakes up to find that everyone who is popular has gone goth and everyone who is goth has become popular. I totally recommend this book for people who still don’t believe the “you never know a person until you take a walk in their shoes” philosophy. Trust me. This book will change your mind, and still keep you laughing. Oh My Goth, this book is good.
Destiny also gives a shout out for Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan.
So you’ve heard the standard romantic plot—boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl. Well, get that out of your mind. In this new world where homosexuality and bisexuality are accepted, there’s a new plot—boy meets boy, boy loses boy, boy gets boy. The book focuses on a boy named Paul, who falls in love with a new boy at school named Noah. I recommend this book to all people who are open minded and love to laugh. It’s a cute romantic book for all to enjoy.
A long tradition
“I don't like reading in the summer mostly because I don't like the books that they assign to us. It would be a lot better if schools let the students pick the book that we want to read and then write a reflection on the book. We get told what to read and what assignments to read all year and the summer is our time to do what we want” (Oleander)
For more than a century, teachers and librarians have pushed to keep teenagers reading during the summer—or to convince teens who hate to read, regardless of the season, to give reading a try. In 1895, the Cleveland Library League launched the first-ever summer program for young readers, and the idea stuck: a 2004 federal survey found that 95 percent of public libraries nationwide offer summer reading programs for kids. The pitch typically invokes pleasure: reading is fun, perhaps an escape, maybe even transforming.
For teachers, getting students to read over the summer translates, more often than not, into an academic imperative.. “One of the things I dreaded most about returning to school after summer vacation,” says one high school senior “was staring at the summer reading list, which hadn’t moved from where I left it in June. I’d think: ‘Oh my god, I have two days to pick a book, read it, and write a book report. I’ll never make it!’ I felt behind before school even started.”
Recently, the campaign for summer reading has taken on new importance, as the summer reading gap between low and higher-income students gathers like a thunderstorm. No doubt, the gap has always existed, a testimony to how access to books, despite public libraries, varies tremendously with socioeconomic class.
“It’s not that poor teens can’t or don’t read,” one Bronx 15-year-old told us, “we just have a lot harder time getting our hands on books worth reading. It’s just one more way poor kids get left behind.”
A 2007 study reveals the toll of “summer learning loss” on low-income students—who during the school year typically attend schools that also come up short when it comes to books. Researchers found that the achievement gap between high and low–socioeconomic students at ninth grade traces back to the loss in reading proficiency that occurs over the summer months throughout the elementary grades. A study conducted with elementary–age students found that reading four to five books during the summer was potentially enough to prevent a decline in reading achievement from spring to fall.
Teen tastes and choices
Access and poverty notwithstanding, the high school editors at LA Outlook aren’t the first to draw a line between teens’ motivation to read and books that tap their adolescent hunger for the unusual, imaginary worlds, humor, suspense, or identity conflicts.
For eight years, the YALSA (Youth Adult Library Services Association) has organized a summer reading contest that asks young people across the country to pick that year’s top ten books for teens, the “Teens Top Ten.” The last week of August and first weeks of September, readers between ages 12 and 18 vote online for their favorite titles, choosing from a list of 25 nominations offered and reviewed by teen book groups nationwide. Examples from the 2011 nomination list include:
Zombies vs. Unicorns by Holly Back and Justine Larbalestier
Are you Team Unicorn or Team Zombie? In this anthology of twelve fast-paced stories, popular teen authors make strong arguments for both sides in the long and gruesome debate concerning the awesomeness of zombies versus unicorns
Lies: A Gone Novel by Michael Grant
Lies continues the story that began in Gone and Hunger. Is death the only answer? Life is getting harder for the under 15s who survived. Food is running out, the beach is burning, and things are getting tense. The situation is getting worse for the survivors and everyone has their own battles to face.
Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver
Popular, rich, and attractive Sam Kingston never worried about how her behavior affected other people. After dying in a car crash, Sam is forced to relive the last day of her life for seven days. She progressively becomes a better person as she realizes the ripple effect of her actions and uses the second chance to fix her most dire mistakes.
The winners for YALSA’s “Teens Top Ten” are announced during Teen Read Week in October. Last summer, over 8,000 teens voted online for their favorite books for the year.
Graphic novels have yet to make their way onto lists of summer reads for teens, but YALSA keeps track of each year’s best, too. In less than ten years, graphic novels have become an essential component of library collections for both children and teenagers.
A golden age for teen literature
In an age of texting and tweeting, reading a book in bed, at the kitchen table, in the back seat of a car, on the bus, daresay at the beach, seems like a dying pursuit. Certainly the national data consistently suggest that Americans are reading less and for shorter amounts of time.
But teens may be an exception. As teen literature has become more popular—some say it is in its Golden Age—teens remain regular library users. A poll conducted for ALA by Harris Interactive in 2007 found more than 78 percent of surveyed teens borrowed books and other materials for personal use from public libraries, while 60 percent sought out materials for personal use from their school library.
“Teens just need to get their hands on the right materials,” says former YALSA President Sarah Cornish Debraski, “and reading now encompasses many forms: magazines, newspapers, blogs, audio books and graphic novels. It’s important to provide teens with a wide variety of reading material and allow them to make their own selections.”
We couldn’t agree more.
RELATED LINKS Book reviews by and for teen readers: A teen-to-teen reading club and writing: site: Highlights of research on the effects of summer reading on student achievement: |
Check out WKCD’s acclaimed anthology of nonfiction writing from American teenagers. |
