Friday Finds – June 19, 2015

What Happened in Charleston

Look, I know that this is usually just a place where readers come to find a roundup of the week’s posts and some links to current events in the YA world, and those will follow. But I also know that, in working with young people, we have an almost unparalleled opportunity to affect change in both individual lives and group cultural understanding of our population on a larger scale. What happened in Charleston, South Carolina, is the direct result of our continued struggle with racism that on one hand we refuse to acknowledge while on the other hand an entire political movement uses the rhetoric of white victimization to draw people to its cause through thinly veiled racist statements about ‘taking back our country.’ We have the opportunity to help educate our young people and change the future of our culture and how we deal with the racism that is behind so much of the damage we cause each other.

In light of that, here are some resources you may find useful:

Understanding the terminology and claim of domestic terrorism

Why it’s important to talk about it

The long history of the fight for equality in Charleston

The Confederate Flag as a symbol of South Carolina’s entrenched commitment to racism – here is the relevant code of law

And the call to take it down

It’s important to celebrate the lives of those we lost – these were real people.

Racism in the terminology applied to these situations by the media

Where do we go from here?

Further reading

This Week at TLT

Notice: The Male Survivors of Sexual Assault #SVYALit Chat with authors Eric Devine, Barry Lyga and Carl Deuker is NEXT WEDNESDAY 6/24/2015 at 12 Noon Eastern

Sunday Reflections: Rethinking Summer Reading

Middle Grade Monday – Ratscalibur by Josh Lieb

The Bloomsbury BOLDLY BOOKISH panel at Barnes and Noble (6/12/2015), Storified

Book Review: More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera

You Are Now Approved to Read, Economic Hardship in More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera

Storify: Tweets about YA Book Club and Teen Advisory Board

Meeting Teens Where They’re At: An Experiment (and an introduction to Wattpad) – a guest post by author Heather Demetrios

They Still Break Girls, Don’t They: A Reflection on THE SACRED LIES OF MINNOW BLY for #FSYALit

Book Review: Proof of Forever by Lexa Hillyer

DEVOTED: Religion, Feminism, and the Case for Compassion , a #FSYALit guest post by author Corey Ann Haydu

Around the Web

For those who have been following the latest controversy regarding celebrity culture and young adult authors, here is a nuanced view of the situation. As well, this is an important read from Ellen Oh.

From Book Riot, an Ode to School Librarians. Backed up by research and numbers.

Crafton Hills College Stands By Graphic Novel Course

The USDA has a really useful tool in its Summer Meal Site Finder.

Karen visited the Cincinatti PL MakerSpace and you can see pictures of that visit here, here and here.

10 New and Debut Asian American Authors

Orange is the New Black has a funeral for books

YA Interrobang has new YA releases for the week of June 16th

Life lessons from Harriet the Spy

YA novel Shatter Me is optioned for TV, with author Tahereh Mafi enlisted as a consulting producer.

Another YA novel gets a big screen release date!

Filed under: Friday Finds News Roundup