Celebration is always a good thing, for little or big events alike. It’s why Christina Tosi’s Dessert Can Save the World spoke to me; the takeaway is that we should all spend time enjoying life and if there’s dessert it is even better.

So it’s with this post that I’m celebrating the start of a new semester teaching graduate students about young adult literature (with a cup of masala chai): not only because I love the topic (it’s my favorite part of being a school librarian) but because it’s a chance to update and adapt both to changes in young adult literature and to previous students’ experiences in the course and my own learning about online learning for a new crop of would-be librarians. Not all of them will end up working with teens but if I can instill a love of the depth and breadth that young adult literature has to offer, I’ve done my job.

We start off talking about their own reading lives before transitioning to understanding how that affects how we encourage teens in their own reading journey. The video reflection has the benefit of feeling confessional, for better and worse, around what preconceived notions they have about YA lit but also how much time they spend reading for pleasure themselves. This is used to get to know them but also guide the discussions moving forward.

The only thing that makes me nervous going into the fall semester? I have not cleared any of my TBR piles which means my already deep stack of books to be read will only get deeper. As my students read and evaluate books I haven’t read (but now I want to!), I borrow them almost instantaneously thus making my stacks larger.

Here’s just a few in my currently reading pile: Fractured Path (A Mirror novel) by J.C. Cervantes, The Feeling of Falling in Love by Mason Deaver, and A Duet for Home by Karina Yan Glaser. Though there’s plenty more where those came from.