Two Girls Staring at the Ceiling

Two Girls Staring at the Ceiling
Author: Lucy Frank
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade
Total Pages: 372
Release: 2014-08-05
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 0307979768

This novel-in-verse—at once literary and emotionally gripping—follows the unfolding friendship between two very different teenage girls who share a hospital room and an illness. Chess, the narrator, is sick, but with what exactly, she isn’t sure. And to make matters worse, she must share a hospital room with Shannon, her polar opposite. Where Chess is polite, Shannon is rude. Where Chess tolerates pain silently, Shannon screams bloody murder. Where Chess seems to be getting slowly better, Shannon seems to be getting worse. How these teenagers become friends, helping each other come to terms with their illness, makes for a dramatic and deeply moving read. "An emotional and innovative novel.... There is so much pathos and humor in these two hospital beds." —E. Lockhart, author of We Were Liars "A story told with the utmost economy of language—intense, compelling, and satisfying." —Susan Patron, author of the Newbery Medal winner The Higher Power of Lucky "Riveting, humanizing and real." —Kirkus Reviews, Starred "A raw, unsentimental perspective on the fight to keep an illness from overpowering one's identity." —Publishers Weekly From the Hardcover edition.

Novels in Verse for Teens

Novels in Verse for Teens
Author: Lisa Krok
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 191
Release: 2020-02-24
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN:

This valuable guide advises teachers and librarians how to use novels in verse in functional, hands-on ways with teens, including reluctant readers. Novels in verse are popular and have recently won some important awards. They are of great value to teachers and librarians as a way of reaching all teens, including marginalized teens and those who may be struggling or reluctant readers. This guide shows readers how to pair books with teens based on their needs, interests, and specific situations. After teens are paired with books, this guide suggests activities to further engage them with the poetry. Activities are tied to Common Core and AASL standards for ease of lesson planning for teachers. Verse novels address a widely diverse demographic and a variety of topics, including various cultures, religions, racism, LGBTQ+ themes, mental illness, poverty, homelessness, sexual assault, self-harm/suicide, domestic violence, family dynamics, disabilities, refugees, English language learners, and more. Novels in verse provide a more modern, practical alternative to some older classics that may not appeal to many teens or that may intimidate them by their sheer number of words per page. This book provides a one-stop resource for choosing and using novels in verse with teen readers.

The Verse Novel in Young Adult Literature

The Verse Novel in Young Adult Literature
Author: Brenna Friesner
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 235
Release: 2016-11-16
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1442272457

Throughout history, the verse novel has persisted as a modest but noteworthy literary subgenre, from classic works like Eugene Onegin to contemporary volumes by Vikram Seth, Dorothy Porter, and Derek Walcott. In particular, the verse novel has emerged as a popular form for young adult readers, such as the Newbery Medal winner Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse. As this unique form continues to flourish, it merits closer examination. In The Verse Novel in Young Adult Literature, Brenna Friesner explores both the history and current use of the verse novel in teen fiction. Examining more than 220 titles written over the last few decades, Friesner discusses the verse novel’s evolution, analyzes key works, and considers how these novels can grapple with content that distinguishes them from traditional fiction. Though this study includes volumes written throughout history, its focus on contemporary novels further demonstrates the form’s relevance for today’s teens. By explaining its current popularity, this book acknowledges the verse novel’s potential to provide accessible, authentic stories for young adults to enjoy. The Verse Novel in Young Adult Literature will be of interest to librarians and teachers, as well as anyone wanting to learn more about this burgeoning aspect of young adult literature.

Body Talk

Body Talk
Author: Kelly Jensen
Publisher: Algonquin Young Readers
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2020-08-18
Genre: Young Adult Nonfiction
ISBN: 1643751190

A School Library Journal Best Book of 2020 It’s time to bare it all about bodies! We all experience the world in a body, but we don’t usually take the time to explore what it really means to have and live within one. Just as every person has a unique personality, every person has a unique body, and every body tells its own story. In Body Talk, thirty-seven writers, models, actors, musicians, and artists share essays, lists, comics, and illustrations—about everything from size and shape to scoliosis, from eating disorders to cancer, from sexuality and gender identity to the use of makeup as armor. Together, they contribute a broad variety of perspectives on what it’s like to live in their particular bodies—and how their bodies have helped to inform who they are and how they move through the world. Come on in, turn the pages, and join the celebration of our diverse, miraculous, beautiful bodies!

Digital Citizenship in Twenty-First-Century Young Adult Literature

Digital Citizenship in Twenty-First-Century Young Adult Literature
Author: Megan L. Musgrave
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2016-10-11
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1137581735

This book is a study of the evolving relationships between literature, cyberspace, and young adults in the twenty-first century. Megan L. Musgrave explores the ways that young adult fiction is becoming a platform for a public conversation about the great benefits and terrible risks of our increasing dependence upon technology in public and private life. Drawing from theories of digital citizenship and posthuman theory, Digital Citizenship in Twenty-First Century Young Adult Literature considers how the imaginary forms of activism depicted in literature can prompt young people to shape their identities and choices as citizens in a digital culture

The Big Journal for Anxious People

The Big Journal for Anxious People
Author: Jordan Reid
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 129
Release: 2022-11-01
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 0593539508

Journal your way to inner peace—or at least to feeling a little less alone in your stress, anxiety, and 3:00 a.m. doomscrolling—with this hilarious, relatable, interactive journal. The human body is 80 percent water, so we are basically cucumbers with anxiety (#themoreyouknow). Next time you feel a freak-out emerging, set your phone to the side—or, even better, turn it off—and reach for this journal instead. Jordan Reid and Erin Williams want you to remember that you’re in good company: Anxious people are some of the funniest and most interesting and creative humans on the planet. (They know, because they are two of them.) So if you’ve got 99 problems and 86 of them are completely made-up scenarios in your head, write them down and let them go. With hilarious prompts, brilliant quotes, mental health facts, straight-talking advice, and plenty of space to draw, The Big Journal for Anxious People is a must-have for anyone who needs a little less overthinking and a little more chill.

Kindred Souls

Kindred Souls
Author: Stephanie Ford
Publisher: Upper Room Books
Total Pages: 95
Release: 2017-05-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0835817474

Many of us go through our busy lives with many acquaintances but few true close friends. Most of our daily conversations focus on the mundane, or we barely scratch the surface of what's going on in our friends' lives as we try to catch up on the run. We weren't meant to travel alone. Yet many of us are afraid to reveal our innermost thoughts, of being too nosy or not "religious enough" to commit to spiritual kinships. Using the story of Ruth and Naomi as an example, Stephanie Ford describes how to overcome the risk and fear of sharing and explains how to be a faithful listener. She offers new insights that will empower you to build and nurture soul friendships. Through this book you will discover what spiritual friendship is and how it differs from other forms find practical ways to develop and nurture spiritual friendships meet spiritual companions from biblical and Christian history explore the most profound friendship of all — friendship with God — and learn how it can transform your life Kindred Souls is for individuals, prayer partners, or small groups who want to deepen the friendships they already have and open themselves to new possibilities God offers. Let this book guide you as you seek kindred companions to encourage and challenge you on the spiritual journey.

Blue Collar, Blue Scrubs

Blue Collar, Blue Scrubs
Author: Dr. Michael J. Collins
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2010-05-25
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1429923504

It looked for a while like Michael Collins would spend his life breaking concrete and throwing rocks for the Vittorio Scalese Construction Company. He liked the work and he liked the pay. But a chance remark by one of his coworkers made him realize that he wanted to involve himself in something bigger, something more meaningful than crushing rocks and drinking beer. In his acclaimed first memoir, Hot Lights, Cold Steel, Collins wrote passionately about his four-year surgical residency at the prestigious Mayo Clinic. Blue Collar, Blue Scrubs turns back the clock, taking readers from his days as a construction worker to his entry into medical school, expertly infusing his journey to become a doctor with humanity, compassion and humor. From the first time he delivers a baby to being surrounded by death and pain on a daily basis, Collins compellingly writes about how medicine makes him confront, in a very deep and personal way, the nature of God and suffering—and how delicate life can be.

Katy's New World

Katy's New World
Author: Kim Vogel Sawyer
Publisher: Zonderkidz
Total Pages: 210
Release: 2010-04-27
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 0310416663

Katy has always enjoyed life in her small Mennonite community, but she longs to learn more than her school can offer. After getting approval from her elders, Katy starts her sophomore year at the public high school in town, where she meets new friends and encounters perspectives much different than her own. But as Katy begins to find her way in the outside world, her relationships at home become restrained. Can she find a balance between her two worlds?

The Missing Italian Girl

The Missing Italian Girl
Author: Barbara Corrado Pope
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2021-11-15
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1639361081

In the third crime novel in the critically acclaimed Bernard Martin mystery series, young immigrant girls are disappearing into the depths of turn-of-the-century Paris. On a sultry night in June 1897, Pyotr Ivanovich Balenov, a young Russian, and two young women transport a dead man through the narrow streets of a working-class neighborhood in northeastern Paris. They throw the body into the canal and the girls flee to the Latin Quarter to hide with one of the Russian’s anarchist “comrades.” They do not realize they, too, are being watched. Their subsequent disappearance and the violent acts that follow will set Clarie Martin, a teacher, and mother of a toddler, and her husband, magistrate Bernard Martin (last seen in Cezanne's Quarry and The Blood of Lorraine) on a dangerous quest to rescue them from a vicious killer.