I recently started sharing book recommendations and reviews with my students on Goodreads. They are required to keep a reading list through out the year and I thought this would be a fun way to take it on-line and give them access to each other’s lists. If you don’t have experience with goodreads, it’s basically social networking for book nerds. You can add and review as many books as you want and when you “friend” people you can see what they’re reading and check out their reviews.
I thought about creating a separate account when I started sharing with my students but due to time constraints and laziness, I just use my personal account. It’s not like I’ve reviewed Anais Nin on there or anything. Besides, most of them are too busy messaging each other to care what I’m reading. I had no idea there was even a messaging feature until my students found it within 4 minutes of being introduced to the site.
This is a long introduction to the idea of older versus younger YA. Often on book review sites books for young adults will be described as 15 and up. I teach 12-14 year-olds with varying levels of life and literary experience. Sometimes I will get really excited about a book and describe it to my students only to realize that it’s probably not a book they should read without parental approval. Oops.
My most recent YA read The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Gothgirl is one of those books. I read it and would recommend it highly…but only if you’re 15 and up.
Ideas In Things 