Don't Like Reading Or Tired Of The Same Old Plot? Try Something New!

Week 8 Blog Entry:

A Phoenix First Must Burn: Sixteen Stories of Black Girl Magic, Resistance, and Hope edited by Patrice Caldwell

Award-winning authors, including Elizabeth Acevedo, Justina Ireland, L.L. McKinney and Ibi Zoboi, share magical tales that delve into the Black experience and create a space where readers can rejoice together in an inspiring community of fantasy and science fiction literature.

This book was found in the Young Adult room in the Southborough Library after researching the catalog and selected to address the idea that not all dystopian stories must include hopelessness. This also appealed to me as this week's choice especially because it is important that not all stories with characters of color deal only in trauma but instead provide readers with a sense of fun and play. This book also got me thinking about another book we ordered for our adult collection about race in this genre called The Dark Fantastic: Race and the Imagination from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games by Ebony Elizabeth Thomas. It is a fantastic nonfiction that should be added to all libraries.

Girls Playing with Sharp Sticks by Suzanne Young

This science fiction story follows Mena, a girl who attends Innovations Academy where obedience and beauty are prized above all else but where all is not what it seems when the students begin to uncover the school's dark secrets and start to fight back.

This book was chosen after I spoke with a teen library page where I work about this week's reading: reluctant readers and reading trauma, dystopian fiction that can feel less hopeful and other topics. I asked if she would recommend any books that got to the heart of these issues and she immediately shared this title because she said different readers could all take away something from this novel- it offers elements of a good thriller, science fiction as well as an empowering theme where the characters unite against systemic oppression and silence. I was happy to find that the library had this book in its collection and have put this on my list of books to read based!

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Winner of the 2009 Newbery Medal, this middle grade fantasy graphic novel is about an orphaned boy who is cared for by and grows up with spirits living in the graveyard where he is found after his family is murdered. 

I found this in our YA graphic novel section but it can also be cataloged by other libraries as a children's graphic novel for middle school students (it looked about split when I was looking at the C/W MARS system) and decided to feature this title for the week after reading about reluctant readers for two reasons: I don't see a lot of teen males in our Teen Room checking out books and thought this would appeal to this audience and I also wanted to highlight that graphic novels count as reading. I see so much hesitancy around this kind of format from parents so it is important that these titles are recommended and that this audience is reached and engaged through amazing storytelling like this!