This is a guest post from Stephanie Schlangen, Instructional Coach – Technology Integration at Sauk Rapids – Rice High School. Need a Mini Grant to purchase materials or try an interesting new program at your library? Apply today!
Thanks to CMLE, Sauk Rapids-Rice, Upsala, and Rogers students were able to attend the Teen Lit Conference, an annual event held at Henry Sibley High School. At this fantastic event, we were able to meet several different authors writing for young adults. All of the authors talked about how they worked to bring new perspectives to the forefront of young adult literature.
Lamar Giles talked about his #weneeddiversebooks movement. A pivotal point for him was when he was a young adult and went to his local librarian to ask her for a book featuring an African-American protagonist, and the only books she could lead him to were Roots and the Autobiography of Malcolm X. When he showed the following image, it became very clear that this sort of experience is common for many.
Tomi Adeyemi, the author of Children of Blood and Bone, also emphasized the need for literature to feature characters with diverse perspectives. She said one of her main goals was to make people fall in love with a character that was different than them.
Becky Albertalli, author of Simon vs. The Homosapien Agenda, and What If It’s Us? spoke about how she drew from life experience in her writing, including difficult situations with her father and with current political events.
Likewise, author of Hey Kiddo, Jarrett Krosoczka, in his graphic memoir, also drew from painful memories in order to write this book. He likened the writing experience to Harry Potter writing with the blood quill, where it hurt a lot to go through the memories of growing up with a mother addicted to heroin. However, after he finished he felt a great burden was lifted off of him. It was also very interesting to hear him speak about how the choices he made with the illustrations in his book were intentional down to the specific colors he chose, and the fact that he made them with ink rather than digitally.
All of these authors offered new perspectives to our students and reinforced the idea that, in a library, we need to provide windows and mirrors for all of our students.
I began to do a little research and found that empathy can and should be taught. As I thought about adding one more thing to the plates of our teachers, it was clear that a great way to teach these topics with an attentive audience was through books. Through a classroom mini-grant from CMLE I have been able to purchase some beautiful books that emulate these topics in an entertaining and engaging way. I purchased, “UnSelfie: Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in Our All-About-Me World” by Michele Borba as a professional read for staff to help them help students take on the skills of empathy and kindness. For student discussion I purchased 35 fabulous titles, some which come with great discussion questions to help facilitate conversations with kids. 