The ultimate YA summer reading guide - Centre for Youth Literature - ABC Splash -
Splash has enlisted the expertise of the wonderful people at the Centre for Youth Literature to bring you the ultimate reading list for the summer holidays and the new year. The following recommendations of young adult books, graphic novels and books for junior reader have something for everyone – whether you're looking for humour, coming of age stories, new worlds, emotional journeys or simply an engaging read. Check them out and share your own recommendations and reviews in the comments below!
Neil Gaiman on Why We Read and What Books Do for the Human Experience
The question of why we read and what books actually do for us is as old as the written word itself, and as attractive. Galileo saw reading as a way of having superhuman powers. For Kafka, books were “the axe for the frozen sea within us”; Carl Sagan held them as “proof that humans are capable of working magic”; James Baldwin found in them a way to change one’s destiny; for Polish Nobel laureate Wisława Szymborska, they stood as our ultimate frontier of freedom.
A Toolkit for Digital Civics
The toolkit — which is free — is designed for high school students, but its creators say that it can be adapted for younger students, as well. It’s made up of five modules, organized as follows: Participate.
About - Literacy Matters!
The Literacy Matters! portal is for teachers, librarians and researchers to use advocacy and research purposes on the importance of literacy and reading.It has been developed to support the Literacy Matters! campaign, devised and launched by the Literacy and Reading Section, the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA). The campaign is part of the United Nations 2030 Agenda: Sustainable Development Goals to support the development of literacy for all peoples across all nations.Literacy is a foundational skill required to participate in education and knowledge acquisition and development for the advancement of all peoples.
I Don’t Read
“I don’t read” has been a refrain heard loudly in our classroom for the last three weeks. Several students have informed me that reading is not something they do. Not something we can get them to do. And they have been right. For the past three weeks, these few kids have stood by their words, proven them to be true and we have pondered what the solution may be.
Colorado millennials booking it to public libraries
When 23-year-old Curt Baker had two buddies visiting from Arkansas over to his new Denver digs last week, he knew there was one spot everyone had to check out: the Denver Central Library. “I’ve only lived here about a month, but I love the connections and public resources available here at the library,” Baker said Friday afternoon at the public library’s downtown location. “We all really like libraries, so I thought I’d show my friends while we explore the city.” Baker has joined social events at the Denver Central Library that encourage conversations over coffee and donuts, and is using the downtown location’s printers and free Wi-Fi as he applies for jobs. Research confirms Baker and his twentysomething pals aren’t outliers in their reverence for public libraries. A message popularized by every ’90s kid’s favorite cartoon aardvark has seeped into the collective millennial brain, according to a Pew Research study: “Having fun isn’t hard when you’ve got a library card.”
Eight Australian picture books that celebrate family diversity
The official label used by the Australian government to define a traditional family (a two parent family with biological or adopted children only) is “intact”: Not damaged or impaired in any way. Complete. Whole. Unbroken. This is problematic when we think about all the other possible ways to live in a family: blended, step, single parent, foster, or any other family that diverges from we might call the “traditional” family model. In Australian picture books, family representation has been overwhelmingly traditional; not just “intact”, but specifically white, middle class, with a mum, dad, and a (frequently blonde) male child protagonist.
There Are Two Ways to Read - One Is Useless
Reading is telepathy, and a book is the most powerful technology invented. Homer, Shakespeare, Voltaire, Flaubert, Tolstoy, Woolf, Hemingway — these are names without a living body. We can’t talk to them, nor touch them, but their thoughts are immortalized through the written word. Aristotle’s logic, Kepler’s astronomy, Newton’s physics, Darwin’s biology, Wittgenstein's philosophy — these are memes without living originators.
These tiny 'flipback' books are 1/4 the size of a paperback and can fit in your pocket
A new line of books from Penguin Random House is re-thinking — and shrinking — the size of popular fiction paperbacks. Penguin Minis are about a quarter the size of regular paperback books, with text printed horizontally. The books forgoe a regular spine for a hinged one that allows for easy flipping between pages, and ensures a more compact footprint when reading on the go. "They really are an answer to a question, I think, a lot of print readers have in terms of the portability that we're used to in our lifestyle, but with the luxury of print that so many of our readers we know prefer," Julie Strauss-Gabel, president and publisher of Dutton, a young-adult focused imprint of Penguin, told As It Happens host Carol Off. The books are printed horizontally on super-thin paper, with a special hinged spine making them easy to read on the go.
Six things you can do to get boys reading more
The OECD consistently finds girls perform significantly better than boys in reading. This gap can also be observed across the Australian NAPLAN reading data. Research suggests reading more can improve literacy outcomes across a range of indicators. But girls typically read more frequently than boys, and have a more positive attitude toward reading. Read more: Research shows the importance of parents reading with children – even after children can read
How to Create Great Summer Reading Experiences
I know many of us educators (and those at home) have been working hard all year to try to cultivate or protect a love of reading in our learners. Now with warmer temperatures and summer beckoning for the Northern Hemisphere comes the real test; will kids keep reading over the summer? Is what we did enough? Did we lay enough of a foundation, get them excited, get them hooked so that the next few weeks or months will not put them in a reading drought?
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20 Indispensable High School Reads
The specter of World War II, with its themes of totalitarianism, social fragmentation, mass surveillance, and the decline of individual freedom, looms over many of the novels. Dystopian novels form a major category: Orwell’s Animal Farm, William Golding’s allegory The Lord of the Flies, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, Kurt Vonnegut’s absurdist comedy Slaughterhouse-Five, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, and McCarthy’s The Road join Nineteen Eighty-Four here. Thinking back on my days as a high school English teacher, it feels like I missed an opportunity to teach dystopia as a theme.
Why Reading Books Should Be Your Priority
Reading fiction can help you be more open-minded and creative According to research conducted at the University of Toronto, study participants who read short-story fiction experienced far less need for "cognitive closure" compared with counterparts who read nonfiction essays. Essentially, they tested as more open-minded, compared with the readers of essays. "Although nonfiction reading allows students to learn the subject matter, it may not always help them in thinking about it," the authors write.
