One Foot on Each Side of the Line

Which line? I'm talking about that line dividing kids and teenagers from grown-up, students from those of us who work full-time (and then some) for a living. It's murky territory for me - technically, I belong to the latter group, but it's not for nothing that I teach high school. Sometimes, like today, I wish I were still a part of the former group. Of course, then I remember how much high school can suck, and how other than my family, most of the people I care about and hang out with are friends I met during college, and I reconsider. Besides only with the wisdom of my years did I come to embrace my literary dorkiness for how wonderful it is.

But if I were still a teenager, still in high school, I wouldn't have to go to a Teen Book Bash, complete with awesome author readings and bad high school a cappella, undercover. (By the way, I LOVE a cappella...which is why I know bad a cappella when I hear it.) It was an awesome Saturday afternoon. It was gorgeously sunny out, so the event was pretty well attended. I got to hear about 2 dozen popular YA fiction writers read from their own work. Some of these authors were people whose work I've followed for years (including one amazing lady whose historical fiction I first picked up in middle school and who is probably my grandmother's age and I didn't even think was still writing), others were people I've heard students talk about or whose books I've seen in the library and bookstores and wanted to read, and some were a completely new experience. I wished I were not as broke as I currently am, so that I could support their work and our local public library's work by buying the books they had for sale. I eventually caved and bought a couple paperbacks - money well-spent - but man, I could have gone for several times as many!

I hope someday, sooner rather than later, I will be able to use my newfound expertise of CURRENT young adult fiction to change at least one student's attitude towards reading. And if it takes longer, so be it. At least now I've witnessed that there is hope for us all: there are still adolescents of all stripes who read for the pleasure getting lost in someone else's world and enthusiastic adults of all stripes working hard to keep them, our target demographic, engrossed in a good story. Since Hiro hasn't shared his ability to fold space and time with me, I'll take the side of the line I'm stuck on. But I'll gleefully toe the boundaries and indulge my inner adolescent by taking those books I picked up for a test run.

Until next time :)