Young adult literature continues to be fertile ground for an amazing range of books covering almost every subject imaginable. Below are quick reviews of the best eleven books that I read in the past year. These books are appropriate for middle school and/or high school readers. Not all these books were published in 2019, but […]
Young Adult (YA) literature is exploding. A broad range of stories is coming out right now in the unprecedented numbers of books for young adults. On the one hand, this has meant some incredibly powerful stories that can connect deeply with our students in terms of both the brokenness of our world and also the […]
This year I read a lot of young adult fiction, and I was struck by how much these books engaged social justice issues in a complex and nuanced way. Fair warning, though: when teenage protagonists struggle with issues of equity and difficult moral decisions, they sometimes use vulgar language. While such language is quite common […]
This year I read many excellent adolescent and young adult books. Many of these books have a common theme: they take readers on a journey alongside someone very different from themselves—a good theme for students to engage in. I organized these books in order of how much I enjoyed reading them (from the ones I […]
Two summers ago, my amazing wife, Amy, and I traveled to Poland for a literacy research conference. To be honest, Poland wasn’t really on my list of must-see destinations. But we both like going to new places, and so we went. The conference was in a town which is spelled Wroclaw but pronounced more like […]
Editors are a lot like theatrical lighting designers—when they are really good at what they do, you don’t notice them. Gary Van Arragon has guided the Christian Educators Journal for just shy of a decade, and, because he is excellent at what he does, most of the time readers didn’t notice the good work he […]
What Middle School Students Think I say to the middle school students, “So, what does the Bible say about language use?” “Don’t swear,” they say. “Where does it say that in the Bible?” “In the ten commandments.” “What is swearing?” I ask. “Using bad words.” “Hmm. What are bad words? Can you give me some […]
This year as I looked over the books that I have read in the past year and I tried to figure out whether to do a list of the best graphic novels, picture books, or young adult novels, it occurred to me that it might be best to do a series of short lists. So […]
10. Zusak, Markus. The Book Thief. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005. If you haven’t read it yet, do so now. Actually, that is my whole review. But if you want don’t like being commanded to buy a book and want some reasons, here they are: The voice of the storyteller is masterful; the story is […]
Every now and then I run into someone who, upon finding out that I am a literacy researcher, patiently explains to me that with computers and the Internet, books will soon be things of the past and teaching reading will be about as valuable as teaching cursive. One of the Christian high schools in my […]