In the last week, I’ve paid more attention to the topic of seasonal reading. One of our high school teachers who teaches specialized reading was looking to work in some holiday-themed reading for the month of December and it got my colleague and I working swiftly to identify just what she needed for her groups of teens who read well-below grade level.

When someone talks about seasonal reading, only a book like Pumpkinheads by Rowell (a very fall book) pops into my head. But in general I don’t necessarily track books by their celebrations or seasons though I do have a shelf in Goodreads for religion which tends to encompass many celebrations, but obviously not all of them. Well, now I have a seasons and holidays shelf because I’m finding more students requesting books under these cyclical topics. Plus I want to be able to quickly help teachers with similar requests.

Like I said, we went into high-gear to canvass just what she had envisioned which led to two weekend short story collection reads: Stephanie Perkins’ My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories and the combined efforts of Maureen Johnson, Lauren Myracle, and John Green in Let It Snow to see if they might work.

Both had strengths in their setting, planting them firmly as seasonal reads both in title and topic with star power to the writers who contributed.