Reaching Reluctant Young Adult Readers » (1st Edition)

A complete handbook for librarians and teachers to confront and overcome aliteracy in young adults.

Lynn Evarts - VOYA

Reluctant young adult readers continue to plague librarians and teachers everywhere, especially now that there is such a wide variety of quality literature available to them. Sullivan tackles this problem in a slim volume that covers aliteracy and strategies and resources for reaching the reluctant teen reader. Included in the resources are fiction, comics and graphic novels, nonfiction, picture books, magazines, and audiobooks. There is also a very complete index listing professional resources for each chapter. The stated purpose of this book is to discuss "what strategies you can use to entice aliterates to read." Each chapter provides the librarian or teacher with lists of books to consult, books to suggest to the students, and publishers who market the books. The suggestions for purchases and tactics to reach the students seem sound and relatively easy to implement. Sullivan does much to disabuse the notion that reluctant readers are poor readers. His suggestions, which might still make some of the more diehard classics fans cringe, offer materials for a range of reading and interest levels. Adults unfamiliar with the comic book or graphic novel arena will find this chapter particularly helpful in putting together an initial collection. Much of the time, hooking a teen's interest is the hardest part, and Sullivan's suggestions can help the librarian or teacher do just that. Index. Further Reading. Appendix. 2002, Scarecrow Press, 128p. PLB