Wildhood by Natterson-Horowitz and Bowers

WILDHOOD by Barbara Natterson-Horowitz and Kathryn Bowers is subtitled “The Epic Journey from Adolescence to Adulthood in Humans and Other Animals.” And what an intriguing read it is!  Readers can explore peer-pressure in salmon (who knew?) and courtship behavior in humpback whales, plus many more examples from the animal kingdom. The authors (Natterson-Horowitz is a visiting professor in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard and Bowers is a science journalist) previously collaborated on the New York Times bestseller Zoobiquity. In WILDHOOD, they use chapters divided into four parts representing key life skills (Safety, Status, Sex, and Self-reliance) in order to discuss parallels with our own species. Natterson-Horowitz and Bowers write about impulsivity and the “teenage brain” as well as social hierarchies and “association with high status animals.” Truly fascinating, their writing is scientific, but accessible and of interest across disciplines like Psych, Science, and Kinetic Wellness classes. The authors also raise issues that some Junior Theme students are already exploring, too, like the impact for humans of having to learn these life skills both in a real world and a virtual one. Natterson-Horowitz and Bowers recently published an essay, called “Adolescents Go Wild – And Not Just Humans” in The Wall Street Journal (available online at school) which gives a brief overview of their research.

The text itself includes a glossary of terms, almost fifty pages of detailed notes and a helpful index. WILDHOOD received starred reviews from Booklist (“Teens might like reading about their counterparts in the animal kingdom”) and Publishers Weekly. Find it on our shelves soon!

The Penguin Book of Migration Literature

THE PENGUIN BOOK OF MIGRATION LITERATURE by Dohra Ahmad, a professor of English at St. John’s University, is split into four sections: Departures, Arrivals, Generations, and Returns, plus a foreword by award-winning author Edwidge Danticat. Honestly, I have been very excited about this book and have several teachers who may consider using it with their classes. The selections here are varied – in terms of genre (poetry, essay, memoir, story); in terms of geography (to/from countries in North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia) and in terms of time (ranging from colonial times to the 21st century). As a result, there is plenty of choice for sparking student interest and adding to the curriculum. Many of the authors (e.g., Mohsin Hamid, Julie Otsuka, Salman Rushdie and Marjane Satrapi to name just a few) will be ones students already know and read or ones to whom they should be introduced. Booklist says, “Recommended for teens: The diversity of viewpoints and genres makes for an invaluable introduction to the personal dimensions of global immigration.” I am truly looking forward to working with teachers and to developing projects related to these readings which deal with issues like the motivations for migrating, the reality (and sometimes disappointment) of reaching a destination, the different experiences for children and parents, and the multi-directional nature of movement.  Thank you to Penguin and to Dohra Ahmad for compiling the much needed collection (accompanied by almost twenty pages of suggestions for further reading and viewing) in THE PENGUIN BOOK OF MIGRATION LITERATURE.

Reading, Reading, Reading!!

Happy Labor Day – here are a couple of great resources to help with the "work" of developing a love of reading! 

 

HOW TO RAISE A READER by Pamela Paul (My Life with Bob) and Maria Russo is a fabulous resource from the editors of The New York Times Book Review.  In this very helpful text geared to parents, Paul and Russo use four sections (Born to Read, Growing a Reader, Your Middle Grade Reader, and A Reader for Life) to offer ideas and titles for young people from babies to teenagers. As a high school librarian, I was most interested in the fourth section where the authors point out that “literature can provide powerful company” and “many lifelong readers remember adolescence as a time of intense immersion in books, a period in which you read to help figure out who you were, what you believed in, and where you stood in the world.” They define a Young Adult (YA) book as one which “plunges the reader directly into the experience of being a teenager – that confusing, exhilarating, hormone-fueled, high stakes time when you really don’t know what the future will hold for you or what adulthood is really like.” In addition, they mention several sites like Book Riot, The YA Bookshelf, and Girl Plus Book, which help readers stay informed about new YA titles. Paul and Russo also offer a lengthy lists of themed books (dealing with fear and bravery, kindness and empathy, family stories, etc.) for ALL ages. The choices are informed and varied – we plan to check the YA recommendations against our high school collection, but a quick review says we have many they recommend on our shelves already. Please stop by if you would like to discuss HOW TO RAISE A READER with any of our librarians.

 

JIM TRELEASE'S READ-ALOUD HANDBOOK is now available in its 8th edition, revised and updated by Jim Trelease and Cyndi Giorgis.  This title is truly a “classic” work worth consulting by anyone with children younger than 8^th grade. Trelease has spent decades advising on children’s literature.  In 2010, Penguin named THE READ-ALOUD HANDBOOK as one of the 75 most important books it had published in its history. This new edition has chapters about the Importance of Dads and on the Impact of Electronic Media on Reading. Giorgis is currently a professor at Arizona State University where she, too, promotes the importance of reading aloud, especially to younger children. 

 

Another 2019 title worth considering is Meghan Cox Gurdon’s The Enchanted Hour; this first book from the Wall Street Journal’s children’s book reviewer received a starred review from Library Journal.  

Girls Write Now

GIRLS WRITE NOW is a beautiful collection of essays which would make a fabulous holiday or graduation gift.  It is subtitled “two decades of true stories from young female voices” and these short writings feature typical teen concerns (first kiss, bullying and belonging, work and school pressures) as well as lifelong issues associated with gender, poverty and opportunity. Due to the non profit's location, many of the inspirational young writers are from the New York area, but several other states and countries are represented and the surnames reflect the breadth of ethnic experiences which are included. Well-known, established writers (e.g., Alice Walker, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Francine Prose), have provided brief reflections on writing, such as:

“Everyone has a voice. It’s just a question of finding the courage to use it, and the first step in finding the courage is knowing that no matter who you are or how quiet you think your voice is, your voice matters. You are never going to please everyone with what you say, but you don’t have to worry about that….” ~Roxane Gay

“To write is to bring an inner voice into the outer world, to believe that our thoughts are worth entering the thinking of others and to make real what has never existed in quite the same way before. What could be a better path to self-value than that?” ~Gloria Steinem

GIRLS WRITE NOW is full of emotion and will elicit even more from readers; this title received a starred review from Booklist. Get this text as an advisory/homeroom read and pair it with other readings like The New York Times feature – “This is 18.”  In fact, many of the essays in GIRLS WRITE NOW would be appropriate to share with middle school students (School Library Journal suggests grades 7 and up) which makes this collection a great book for parent-student reading.  That, in turn, offers the possibility of complementing this text with the NEW Frontline Dispatch Podcast on the refugee crisis which has been designed specifically for parents to share with tweens and teens.