Emmy And Oliver: Smooth Sailing Over A Rough Sea
Emmy and Oliver, written by Robin Benway, dives headfirst into choppy waters. Emmy and Oliver are best friends until they are seven years old, when Oliver disappears, kidnapped by his father. Cut to ten years later. Emmy’s life is restricted by her parents’ fear and she has never stopped...
Saint Anything: Good, But Lacking Miracles
In Sarah Dessen’s new novel, we find the same thing we always find: a teenaged girl going through a big change. Sydney is used to living in her brother Peyton’s shadow. When Peyton goes to jail for paralyzing a boy while driving drunk, Sydney is left to pick up...
The Last Leaves Falling
The Last Leaves Falling is the story of Abe Sora, a Japanese seventeen-year-old diagnosed with ALS. Over time, the disease causes Sora to lose basic motor functions, such as the use of his legs and arms. Eventually, it will kill him. Sora turns to both the past and the...
Do Kids Need to Like What They’re Reading to Progress?
Written by: Ryan Spencer, Clinical Teaching Specialist; Lecturer in Literacy Education, University of Canberra. When we think of reading for our children, we are often misled into thinking that we need to focus on one type of book, such as picture books or novels in order to practice specific, reading-related...
Librarian Bans Blameless Book for Social Experiment
Last weekend marked the end of Banned Books Week, the annual book readers’ celebration of drawing attention to the dangerous history of literary censorship. In 2014, the American Library Association (ALA) Office of Intellectual Freedom received 311 challenges. When an individual finds a book unacceptable for any reason, they...
What Batman, Swearing, and Cigarettes Can Teach Us About Reading
The Batman movie came out in 1989 when I was eight-and-a-half-years old. I didn’t know who Batman was, but I saw the commercial and knew it was very important I see it. My parents were unsympathetic. It’s rated PG-13 for a reason, they said, and I cried in the...