This morning, 27 Feb 2026, in a few minutes, I’ll be zooming off to speak about “Creating Place Conscious Pathways: Identity and Belonging Across Borders in YA Literature” along with Maggie Tregre-Richoux, Rene Saldaña Jr. and Leilya Pitre at #YALSummit2026, organized by Gretchen Rumor and Michelle Falter.
Here are some of the resources I will be sharing during the talk. I hope you’ll find these interesting even if you aren’t at the Summit.
I’ll start with a list of my favorite YA anthologies, including JUST YA (edited by Sarah J Donovan). Each of these anthologies explores different themes, and includes voices from various places and with different identities and ideas of belonging. It is also a marvelous and totally FREE resource that can be downloaded via the following links: https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/1842 ; https://www.ethicalela.com/product/ebook-just-ya-short-poems-fiction-essays-for-grades-7-12/ ; https://open.library.okstate.edu/justya/.
Here’s a list of articles that address aspects of inclusion, some of which I referenced in my talk today (with links below, where available, and quotes that give a sense of what the article is about) :
- Personal Stories and Broad Coalitions: What We Learned Fighting for the Rhode Island Freedom to Read Act. Book Riot, Fall 2025: “The work to protect freedom of speech is not a sprint… it is a relay race…None of us can succeed in this work alone…we must pass the baton.”
- Reflecting on identity: A Personal Journey. The ALAN Review, v. 48 no. 2, Winter 2021. An article based on the Opening Keynote Address that I presented at the NCTE/ALAN conference in Fall 2019: “…we must consider not only when to step in but also when to step back…the fewer hierarchies we create, and the most voices we celebrate, the most diverse we become.”
- “American Constellation.” Mosaic Radio Hour (Invited audio essay). National Public Radio. 2021: “I repeat… what my mother would say to me in India, when I was growing up. I don’t criticize strangers because I don’t truly care about them. Acknowledging misdirection is necessary if we pledge ourselves… to deliver the promise of justice and liberty for all.”
- “Golden Silence, Gilded Words”. Cynsations. 2019. An article on “microagressions”.
- “Weeding Out Racism’s Invisible Roots: Rethinking Children’s Classics.” School Library Journal, Jul 2020. Highlighted as one of the most widely read articles of the year: “standards of excellence in reading and writing can be achieved using newer books—as work by educators like Donalyn Miller and Julia Torres suggests.”
- “Quarantine Stories.” Publishers Weekly, June 2020.
- “No Problem with Problem Books.” YA Wednesday, Spring 2019: “don’t refer to females as victims, refer to them as survivors… all books deal with problems, so let’s stop labeling some books ‘girl problem books’… ” and other suggestions on giving female authors equal weight in YA classrooms
- “Accept, Don’t Just Tolerate: Religious Diversity (or lack thereof) in Children’s and Young Adult Literature.” Kirkus Reviews, 2017: “To eradicate religious stereotypes, we must break the silence surrounding them. Our nation is secular, but our culture is uncomfortable with public religious discourse.”
- “Compassion, as well as Correctness.” Horn Book, March 2020. “If we’re always trying to be careful, we won’t dare write or recommend a potentially controversial book.. We’ll lose sight of what’s most important: our readers… If a reader enters one of my books and, for a short while, understands the world from my protagonist’s perspective, the reader is engaging in empathy — and thus has the potential to increase compassion in the world…
- A list of Children’s Book Awards that Celebrate Diversity, School Library Journal.
Finally, I include a few more links of interest, which deal with identity and place and liminality. Hope to see some of you March 7th 1 p.m. at LitArts RI!
