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Steven Bickmore, Melanie Hundley, & Jacqualine Bach, C0-editors of The ALAN Review, have released the themes for the Summer 2010 and Winter 2011 issues.  If you would like to submit a manuscript in response to one of these prompts, please refer to the submission guidelines posted here.

2010 Summer Theme:  Interplay: Influence of Film, New Media, Digital Technology, and Image on YA Literature

The lines between various forms of media are frequently blurred for young adult readers; young adult novels increasingly have some combination of web sites, blogs, fan fiction, and video games to accompany them. The theme of this issue asks us to consider the influences of film, new media, digital technology and image on young adult novels.  What does the interplay between digital media and young adult literature look like?  How is young adult literature being influenced by digital media?  What roles do film and image play in young adult literature? What are the reading experiences of young adults who “read” books in multiple media?  Which novels and novel media help readers to question or critique society and the world?  This theme is meant to be open to interpretation, and we welcome manuscripts addressing pedagogy as well as theoretical concerns. General submissions are also welcome. Submission deadline: February 15, 2010

Winter 2011 Theme: Looking for the Real Me: The Search for Self in Young Adult Literature

An oft-cited reason for including YAL in the middle and high school curriculum is that YAL is literature in which young adult readers can see themselves.  The theme of this issue asks us to consider questions of identity and self in young adult literature.  How does this YAL literature address or not address the young adult reader’s search for his or her own identity, for familiar issues and concerns, and for answers to questions about life and choices?  How is young adult literature answering the call to be more inclusive?  What role does YAL play in helping young adults shape and/or question their identities?  Which novels, old and new, help young adults ask questions and challenge assumptions about their own identities?  This theme is meant to be open to interpretation, and we welcome manuscripts addressing pedagogy as well as theoretical concerns. General submissions are also welcome. Submission deadline: July 1, 2010

Amelia Elizabeth Walden Book Award Winner Announced

The Assembly on Literature for Adolescents (ALAN) of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) is pleased and proud to announce the winner of the inaugural Amelia Elizabeth Walden Book Award for Young Adult Fiction. Established in 2008 to honor the wishes of young adult author, Amelia Elizabeth Walden, the award allows for the sum of $5,000 to be presented annually to the author of a young adult title selected by the ALAN Amelia Elizabeth Walden Book Award Committee as demonstrating a positive approach to life, widespread teen appeal, and literary merit.

The winner of the 2009 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award is:

My Most Excellent Year: A Novel of Love, Mary Poppins & Fenway Park

by Steve Kluger (Dial)

2009 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award finalists are:

After Tupac and D Foster by Jacqueline Woodson (Putnam)

Graceling by Kristin Cashore (Harcourt)

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins)

Me, The Missing, and the Dead by Jenny Valentine (HarperCollins)

[Read more →]

ALAN’s Picks is a monthly book review column edited and compiled by Dr. Pam Cole of Kennesaw State University.  Be sure to check the site regularly for the a preview of the latest titles in YA Lit.

Reviewed this Month:
Angry Management by Chris Crutcher
Dragon Spear by Jessica Day George
Fairy Tale by Cyn Balog
Forget Me Not by Coleen Murtagh Paratore
Gone by Michael Grant
Girl to the Core by Stacey Goldblatt
The Princess Plot by Kirsten Boie
The Midnight Charter by David Whitley
Temple of the Sun by Moyra Caldecott
[Read more →]

Dr. James Blasingame, President of ALAN, has announced the theme for the 2010 ALAN Workshop, which is to be held in beautiful Orlando, FL.  The theme for the workshop is, Looking for the Real Me: The Search for Self in Young Adult Literature.

If you would like to present a breakout session during the workshop, please download the proposal form, linked below, and refer to the submission guidelines printed at the bottom of the form.

All proposals must be received by January 4, 2010.

Click here to download: Proposal Form for ALAN 2010

Beginning with only a few brief words of welcome from Dr. Sissi Carroll, the President of ALAN, the 2009 conference was immediately set into motion this morning with a keynote address by author Gregory Maguire.  Now, with arms full of new books and endless possibilities, the ALAN community has settled in for the first of two days of literature, laughter and light.