I have long been an advocate for reluctant readers. I’ve spoken at the Illinois Reading Council and the American Library Association on the subject. I believe that anything that makes a student want to read is a good book, no matter the subject matter. A fourteen year old who started A Banned Book Club at […]
Libraries are for everyone Read More »
I’m an outlier, a black female who swims. There are a few of us, you know. I grew up on the south side of Chicago. There were no public pools back then, but out school found a way. We were required to take swimming, and being on your period was an excuse that went only
Sharing or Things that should be learned in kindergarten Read More »
I volunteer at my town’s Senior Citizen’s center a few times a week, working in the computer lab associated with our public library. There I perform crowd control when things get busy, and answer questions about using the computer, printing, and various websites. I get paid with a free cup of coffee (when I remember
Earlier today fellow author Gabrielle Luthy asked me a question about a post showing a bunch of women at a Trump rally wearing t-shirts saying – Make America White Again. This turned out to be a bigger question than I first realized, so it’s getting a bigger answer. Sorry, but I decided to get on
Removing The Masks Read More »
Easy reading is damn hard writing – Nathaniel Hawthorne B. A. Binns, author of multicultural young adult fiction about Real Boys Growing Into Real Men…and the people who love them B A is the author of three young adult novels, Pull (Westside Books, 2010) a YALSA Quick Picks For Young Adult Readers book; Being God
Today is National Book Giving Day. I am donating four copies of each of my books to kids in a juvenile detention center. Downloadable poster IBGD – Can you find kid in need of books today?
Our book club used the holiday to invite members of our local library\’s Teen Advisary Board to attend a meeting and discuss The Hunger Games. Besides the pizza, which was awesome, we all discussed what we did, and didn\’t like about the book. We were divided on whether or not we would have children in such
Intergenerational book club meeting Read More »
Today I visited two classes in a local middle school, where the 7/8th grade humanities teacher and I are working to enhance the summer reading program for the kids entering 8th grade next year. The program is simple–the teacher forms the conduit over the summer. She gets the books first, looks them over, and decides which
Summer Reading Program Read More »
One of the things I\’m most proud of with my YA novel PULL is the way it brings different generations together. At a recent meeting with a Mt. Prospect United Methodist Mens\’ Club, one of the listeners bought a copy and had me autograph it to give to his grandson for his eighteenth birthday. A week later
The Atlantic Wire has a series they call YA for Grownups. In April, 2012 they published an article called The Greatest Girl Characters of Young Adult Literature. Never mind that this is one person\’s opinion. Never mind that many of the heroines in the list were actually from children\’s or middle grade fiction. Never mind
What Is The Color Of Heroism? Read More »