At the Raincoast Books website I learned about an exciting new magazine for kids called, Anorak, from our Canadian neighbors. Seems like stories and articles from Canada might be more meaningful for Alaskan kids.
And scrolling down the blog I discovered a couple reviews for some new fiction books that sounds like a fascinating blend of dystopian literature and classic fairy tales. Check out these reviews of Marissa Meyer's YA books Cinder and Scarlet. Can't wait to read them!          Katie

Have a minute to read what other in the profession are saying about children's literature?  Pick a blog or two from this list provided by the organizers of KidLitoshpere, a conference of The Society of Bloggers in Children’s and Young Adult Literature. Look them over and think about setting up one or two with an RSS feed to your email. Or if you find they're something you can recommend to the parents of your students or your staff, put one or two on your web page to share. The page says the specific blogs were "chosen both for authority and for variety of topic areas."

I'll be very surprised if you haven't seen this on one social media  source or another. But if not I'm happy to share it with you.

Words for teenagers
Northland College principal John Tapene has offered the following words from a judge who regularly deals with youth. “Always we hear the cry from teenagers, ‘what can we do, where can we go?’

“My answer is this: Go home, mow the lawn, wash the windows, learn to cook, build a raft, get a job, visit the sick, study your lessons and after you’ve finished, read a book. Your town does not owe you recreational facilities and your parents do not owe you fun.

“The world does not owe you a living, you owe the world something. You owe it your time, energy and talent so that no one will be at war, in sickness and lonely again. In other words grow up, stop being a cry baby, get out of your dream world and develop a backbone not a wishbone. Start behaving like a responsible person. You are important and you are needed. It’s too late to sit around and wait for somebody to do something someday. Someday is now and that somebody is you!”

I have a prize for the first person who can find the name of the judge!!!         Katie

I attended a session at ALA this summer, presented by Tiffany Pahman, Teen Librarian of the Oshawa Public Libraries, that while geared to a public library audience was jam-packed with ideas for programs to use with Tweens. Tiffany identified this group as 10 to 14 year olds though she also mentioned KAGOY, which I had not previously heard. This is the acronym for Kids Are Getting Older Younger, meaning in this case that many of the programs will work for patrons as young as 8 year olds. 

Tiffany generously shared access to their web page The Tween Scene, which has detailed information about each program, as well as the documentation to download for any print materials involved. She gave permission to all to adapt for their library programming purposes. 

I just wish you could have experienced her enthusiasm for developing and implementing these programs and some of the stories she told about her teen patrons. It is no surprise they have such a wonderful program and following. She certainly understands and enjoys the age group!!!                                                                                                       Katie

Young Adult Books - What We're Reading Now is the award winning blog of YA librarian Pamela Thompson. She writes reviews not only for the blog but for the El Paso Times and the website A Book and A Hug. She also does a regular give-away of multiple copies of some of the titles. All you have to do is post a comment on the review with your name, location and email address. A random drawing is done of those who submit. This time of year your odds may be better....who knows! If nothing else you find reviews for lots of new YA books!!     Check it out.                     Katie

I'm sure there are lots of these lists out there. In this list CommonSense provides their rating as to what age they consider the titles to be appropriate. This could be useful when talking to parents. My goal is to just get half of those on the list read! I can only vouch for City of Ember and Little Brother, both good reads. The latter I would recommend for your older readers, especially boys. Very thought provoking, even more so than the Hunger Games as it is much more realistic.
Katie

For those of you dealing with students reading YA materials, check  out SYNC YA Literature into Your Earphones, get the toolkit and share with your students for summer reading. They'll even text the kids a reminder when the program starts in June!! Now there's service.                                                                                                Katie