KRLemmons 28 Days Later Campaign, African American Authors, African American Young Adult Literature

The Brown Bookshelf 28 Days Later Campaign Day 24

Patrice Lawrence was born in Brighton, Sussex, and raised in an Italian-Trinadadian family. She has an MA in writing for film and TV. Her novel Orangeboy won The Bookseller’s YA Book Prize in 2017, The Watrstons Children’s Book Prize for Older Children 2017, and was shortlisted for the 2016 Costa Children’s Book award. I agree […]

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KRLemmons 28 Days Later Campaign, African American Authors, African American Young Adult Literature

The Brown Bookshelf 28 Days Later Campaign Day 20

When Liara Tamani says she follows her heart, she means it! She follows her heart when her favorite “jam” comes on, and she’s not ashamed to sing it out loud in public. She follows her heart by traveling the globe to places some only dream of visiting. She followed her heart by leaving Harvard Law […]

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KRLemmons 28 Days Later Campaign, African American Authors, African American Middle Grades Literature, African American Young Adult Literature

The Brown Bookshelf 28 Days Later Campaign Day 19

JAY COLES is a young adult and middle grade writer, a composer with ASCAP, and a professional musician residing in Indianapolis, Indiana. He is a graduate of Vincennes University and Ball State University and holds degrees in English and Liberal Arts. When he’s not writing diverse books, he’s advocating for them, teaching middle school students, […]

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KRLemmons 28 Days Later Campaign, African American Authors, African American Young Adult Literature

The Brown Bookshelf 28 Days Later Campaign Day 14

Last winter, Tiffany D. Jackson’s debut YA novel ALLEGEDLY had a lot of people talking with it’s emotionally charged story literally ripped from the courtroom. Kirkus called the novel “searing and true,” adding it “effectively joins Ava DuVernay’s documentary 13th and Michelle Alexander’s THE NEW JIM CROW (2010) to become another indictment of the penal system’s decimating […]

via Day 14: Tiffany D. Jackson —

KRLemmons 28 Days Later Campaign, African American Authors, African American Young Adult Literature

The Brown Bookshelf 28 Days Later Campaign Day 3

As I rejoin my Brown Bookshelf colleagues in the trenches of 28 Days Later, I’m elated with today’s YA authors. They’re vocal in a new way and their books reflect a time period where young people are witness to divisive political rhetoric that has remained at its height since President Obama took office a life […]

via Day 3: Nic Stone —

KRLemmons African American Young Adult Literature, Multicultural Nonfiction

Make Me a Match! Ten Love Connections Between YA Novels and Nonfiction Books by Oona Marie Abrams

CBethM's avatarNerdy Book Club

One of many takeaways from #NerdCampNJ was the “love connections” teachers and administrators were making between texts. For example, several teachers and administrators shared that they’re now designing units that include Tom Rinaldi’s The Red Bandanna, Gae Polisner’s The Memory of Things, or Nora Raleigh Baskin’s Nine, Ten. This got me thinking about other “love connections” that might be made between YA novels and nonfiction books. So here goes:

Love Connection #1:

In Case You Missed It by Sarah Darer Littman and American Girls by Nancy Jo Sales

What does privacy truly mean to us? Sammy, the main character in Littman’s novel, is the victim of an internet hack that exposes all of her family’s personal documents to the world. American Girls would make a great pairing with this novel because Sales takes a deeper dive into the cultural and social impact of technology on the adolescent…

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KRLemmons African American Fantasy Literature, African American Young Adult Literature, Book Reviews, Multicultural literature

Black Kids on Book Covers from The Brown Bookshelf

This is a wonderful time in children’s book publishing, where the faces of black girls and boys on covers is not an anomaly. When I was a kid, I almost never saw myself on the cover of a book, and certainly not ones as spectacular as those upcoming in the next few months. There was […]

via Black Kids on Covers —

KRLemmons African American Young Adult Literature, Book Reviews, Latin American Authors, Latin American Literature, Multicultural literature

Book Review: Even if the Sky Falls by Mia Garcia – Latinxs in Kid Lit

Review by Troi Genders DESCRIPTION FROM THE PUBLISHER: One midsummer night. Two strangers. Three rules: No real names. No baggage. No phones. A whirlwind twenty-four-hour romance about discovering what it means to feel alive in the face of one of life’s greatest dangers: love. Who would you be if you had one night to be […]

via Book Review: Even if the Sky Falls by Mia García — Latinxs in Kid Lit

KRLemmons African American Young Adult Literature, Intellectual freedom

Celebrate the Freedom to Read All Year Long!

Banned Books Week, held September 25-October 1, 2016 has officially ended.  However, the freedom to read continues.  The freedom to read is about choices to read a variety of books on a variety of subjects.  Books that can expand your mind, broaden your perspective, increase understanding, and bring awareness to a multiplicity and complexity of issues.

This year’s Banned Books Week focused on young adult literature, and books with diverse content.  These books are often challenged and/or banned in school classrooms and libraries.

For information and resources on the freedom to read, click on the links below:

http://bannedbooksweek.org/

http://www.ftrf.org/