Reading across Media

Now I am the first to admit that I have not read Harry Potter, Twilight, or Scott Pilgrim, but I do have respect for the fact that the franchises encourage literacy for young adults. I will use this opportunity again to emphasize the growing trend of fan fiction. It is a really popular medium among young adults, and a great way to encourage young readers to work on their creative writing. On Fanfiction.net, Twilight alone has 122,298 PAGES (25 stories per page) of fanfiction. Harry Potter has 404,141 pages (as of today). Here are the links to some of the pages:

Twilight: http://www.fanfiction.net/book/Twilight/

Harry Potter: http://www.fanfiction.net/book/Harry_Potter/

Scott Pilgrim: http://www.fanfiction.net/comic/Scott_Pilgrim

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

"Life is a constant struggle between being an individual and being a member of the community" (p. 132)

Although I may not classify this book under the Getting the Laughs category, I really enjoyed this book – my favourite to date from the class readings. I found Junior, the main character, very relatable in many ways. Sherman Alexie is able to fully develop a character yet give him a universal feeling that allows the reader to easily relate to him. This is a rare skill that he has mastered in this book.

Better Book Titles

I recently came across this website which never fails to make me laugh. It re-writes the titles of well-known books with added humour. It contains both YA and adult literature titles.

My favourite is Bush's My Bad.