As a paraprofessional in my early 20s these two authors wrote the books my teens were passionate about. She talked on a panel with writer Rob Thomas and was a magical moment for me to behold personally. Last year I was the f angirl in the elevator at Austin Teen Book Festival apologizing to Sarah Dessen but asking her to pretty, pretty please let me take a pic with her. Just Listen also spoke to my deep passion for music and how I would use it to escape for just a little bit each day to find my center. How bold they were in making us think about things that we really didn’t want to talk about, but needed to. Years later as I found a way to do the #SVYALit Project, I would recall how powerful and moving these two titles were. Just Listen just moved me with its beautiful writing and, together with Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, got me really thinking about the issue of sexual violence. And for me, Sarah Dessen is part of the reason that we are now having these very important conversations. It made me want to really change the world by talking openly about issues that I didn’t realize we needed to be talking about. So Dreamland was the first book that really opened my eyes to a lot of the very important teen and women’s issues that I am so passionate about today.
And this was still a topic we didn’t talk a lot or very openly about. I had never known anyone who was in an abusive relationship. And then I read Dreamland and I realized that books could do more then frighten or entertain, they could really help you understand important issues (if only grown up me had remembered the importance of reading Deenie by Judy Blume in middle school). So when I became a YA librarian, I was like Oooh books. Occasionally I would steal – I mean borrow – my mom’s Mary Higgins Clark books. But I tended to mostly read horror, lots of Stephen King, Dean Koontz and John Saul. Dreamland is also the first book that made me realize that books could inform and educate while entertaining. I have been a huge fan of Sarah Dessen’s books for a really long time and they have had a tremendous impact on me as a reader and as a YA librarian.ĭreamland was the first book I ever read that dealt with the issue of relationship violence. But I never doubted that I wanted to do the letter D and that we needed to discuss Sarah Dessen.
There may have been tears (and swears) (okay, not really).
We had HUGE discussions behind the scenes between the 4 of us.
The thing about doing this YA A to Z project, is it’s actually hard to just discuss one author for certain letters (Christa Desir! Eric Devine! Trish Doller! Matt da le Pena!).
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