October 2006

Dear Fellow Book Lovers:

Teen Read Week is an annual event sponsored by the Young Adult Library Services Association, a division of the American Library Association. This year the event will take place in schools and public libraries October 15-21, and the theme is Get Active @ Your Library. The purpose of this special week is to get teens into libraries, and to encourage them to use the many resources available to them. Appoint a teen library council and ask them to help in the following ways:

•   Plan programs for Teen Read Week
•   Brainstorm ways to get teens into the library
•   Design posters for Teen Read Week that best represent ongoing opportunities for teens at their library
•   Develop and distribute a survey that asks teens about their favorite books

One programming idea to suggest to the teen council is a Book Swap with a parent or adult. This is the way it works: the teen should read a book that the parent or adult read as a teenager, and the adult should read a book suggested by his/her teen. Then have an evening where they share the books that they read. What is the primary difference in what teens read today, and what their parents read as teenagers?

The teen council will certainly find various ways to interpret the Get Active @ Your Library theme. Their ideas may range from displaying books that address a physically active lifestyle, to engaging in competitive sports, or using sports to deal with a personal problem. Books from Random House that fit these three categories include: Fat Boy Swim (ages 12 up) by Catherine Forde, The Outside Shot and Hoops (ages 12 up) by Walter Dean Myers, Ultimate Sports (ages 12 up) by Donald R. Gallo, Losing is Not an Option (ages 10–14) by Rich Wallace, Ball Don’t Lie (ages 14 up) by Matt de la Peña, Knights of the Hill Country (ages 12 up) by Tim Tharp, Swollen (ages 12 up) by Melissa Lion, and The Perfect Distance (ages 12 up) by Kim Ablon Whitney. Be Healthy! It’s a Girl Thing: Food, Fitness, and Feeling Great (ages 10 up) by Mavis Jukes and Lilan Wai-Yin Cheung, and illustrated by Debra Ziss, is an excellent nonfiction work that discusses the many things teenage girls should do to stay healthy. Staying active mentally and physically are two things that are suggested.

Novels like Flush (ages 10 up) by Carl Hiaasen, A Brief Chapter in My Impossible Life (ages 12 up) by Dana Reinhardt, and Bucking the Sarge (ages 12 up) by Christopher Paul Curtis suggest staying active in the community—something that should be promoted to teens. Small Steps (ages 10 up) by Louis Sachar offers teens a protagonist that straightens out his life by setting goals and putting them into action. Crushed (ages 12 up) by Laura and Tom McNeal, Finding Grace (ages 12 up) by Alyssa Brugman, and Invisible Threads (ages 14 up) by Annie and Maria Dalton suggest a very different variation of the theme Get Active. Ask teens to read these novels and discuss how they are linked to the theme.

There are hundreds of books written specifically for teens—books waiting to be discovered by an active teen reader. Use this special week to celebrate both.

You may email me at pscales@bellsouth.net.