Lit Lit: Fresh Books Students Want to Read

The story is everywhere: North Americans are reading less — much less, at least of book-length fiction and nonfiction, if not of social media posts. Yet for some twenty years, North American English readers have been living through a golden age in YA publishing. If we look critically at the literature being taught in many classrooms, we discover that many texts with great teaching potential and great student appeal are not represented there. This session aims to change that situation. It’s hardly bold to claim that some of the best writing out there today is being published for readers thirteen to seventeen. But what remains a bold claim, for complex reasons, is that you might use these books in your ELA classroom. This session will introduce you to a bonanza of YA novels, graphic novels, crossover books, and books with film/TV tie-ins that students will want to read and that will also support your curricular outcomes and learning expectations. Your students can also use these texts for expository, personal, and creative writing and representing. You’ll leave this session with a list of books you can recommend to readers with confidence, options far better than what they’ll find on TikTok, plus some outstanding Canadian titles that you’ll enjoy as much as your students will.