Young Adult

I am a huge fan of Sir Ken Robinson’s creativity revolution, and I have absorbed a number of wonderfully creative efforts like Scalin’s challenge to pick a theme and create daily projects around that theme for a year. Every teacher and parent should grab a copy.

Students will love this, and wise teachers will read it themselves, as this awesome book is FILLED with great transition activities that are sure to keep students awake in between test drivel.

I found this book at the checkout stand at Kinko’s. Can you believe it? It was filled with large print, fun fonts and lots of doodles, so I had to buy it. It will take you an hour to read and months to implement. Another great way to encourage creativity.

Lots of stuff going on in this book. Great for the “middle child” in any family. Reminded me of the Outlander books my wife has me reading, as it deals with a young girl’s time travel adventures. Sure to be popular with upper elementary and middle school girls.

Based largely on the research of scientist James Lovelock, this book is sure to spark interesting classroom discussions about global warming. Great way to teach students how to be respectful of one another’s divergent views.

One of the best ways I know to entice reluctant boy readers to read is to offer them plenty of comics. Better yet – find one related to a recent hit movie. Get multiple copies of this paperback, as it will fly off the shelves.

I am not a Yankees fan at all, but even I will be bummed to see Derek Jeter leave. A class act baseball player for 20 years, I am thrilled to see him writing books geared toward upper elementary and middle school boys. They’ll devour this book.

I read a lot of books and often fail to mention some of today’s best authors because I enjoy everything they write. Gary Soto is one of today’s best young adult authors, and every parent needs to be aware that his books are extremely popular with reluctant boy readers. Take your pick of Soto’s work. I enjoy this tale of two Mexican-American boys who struggle to earn enough money to replace a gangster’s disc player that they broke. This is actually a sequel to The Pool Party, and I like both books because of Soto’s sense of humor and mastery of young adult dialogue sprinkled with Spanglish.

I teach a lot of African-American teenage girls who complain that there are not a lot of good things out there to read, so they challenged me to read a lot more African-American literature. I guess the great thing about discussing books is that I stumble upon sweet pieces I probably would have never discovered on my own. This wonderful second novel by Whittenberg is a very quick read that reminds me of an African-American version of Dead Poet’s Society (but I enjoy this book a lot more than I enjoyed that movie, and you can email me if you want to know why I am not a fan of that flick).

My kids adore Miyazaki’s movies, and I think this book should be in every classroom library to encourage kids to try their hands at illustrating in an education system that has become test-crazy.

Every student I have ever given this book to has gotten a kick out of it. This is Eager’s most popular tale as it follows the time-travel escapades of four children who encounter magical coins. The only problem is, you guessed it: the coins are only “half” magic, which leads to a series of funny, strange occurrences.

I have spoken at three school districts in the last month and a half that are discouraging students from reading this book. What “book banners” do not seem to comprehend is that banning books is precisely the way to make a book a bestseller. In fact, I pray that some day I may author a book that causes protests and boycotts. Why anyone would want to ban this book is beyond me. Boys love it, and – frankly – I rejoice whenever I can find a book that boys like that does not include graphic language or images. Kinney is hilarious, and this book should find its way off banned reading lists and on to recommended summer reading. I highly recommend this book (and its recently released sequel).

This book falls in the upper elementary category, but it is a tale that is loved by all. The author was a WWII pilot who died a year after the book’s release, and I discovered in the Lindbergh biography that Anne Morrow Lindbergh had a crush on Antoine. Incidentally, this is the best-selling non-religious book of the 20th century (worldwide).

This book is for all of my friends in Texas. Beautiful art and poetry that just might entice you to pay the Lone Star state a visit. As the book’s description says, “the state of mind has no borders…and the 140 Texans in this book…show you why.” Nice way to infuse a little bit of geography into a roomful of reluctant teenage readers.