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code format="html4strict" Unlocking Their Potential: A Suggested Reading List for Teens in the Youth Criminal Justice System

  

 Introduction and Reflections  Creating a Suggested Reading List  "Biography, Autobiography and Memoir" "Chick-lit</a>" <font face="Arial">"Coming of Age</a>" <font face="Arial">"Friends and Family Dynamics</a>" <font face="Arial">"Graphic Novels</a>" <font face="Arial">"Mystery, Adventure and Suspense</a>" <font face="Arial">"Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Speculative Fiction</a>" <font face="Arial">"Non-Fiction</a>" <font face="Arial">Complete Reading List</a>  <font face="Arial">Bibliography</a>  <td align=top align=center width="5%">

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<img src="book chains.jpg" align="right"> Introduction and Reflections

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The goal of this project was to create a suggested reading list for teens in the youth criminal justice system. In order to do this with any level of success, there were three things to determine first:

One - What are youth in the justice system reading? Two - Is their current reading based on wants or availability, and what would they like to read, given the choice? Three - At what grade level are most of these individuals reading?

I began reviewing information on youth within the justice system and their reading practices. I focused on three types of resources while researching this issue: academic articles written by educators and librarians, blogs written by prison librarians and young adult authors, and employees within the youth justice system. I searched for the voices of the youth themselves, but their voices seemed to be little heard or under-represented in this literature. Throughout my research, however, I found that one issue resonated over and over again: There is a great need for books for youth in the justice system, and there is little to no funding for this need. Teens in the justice system are not avoiding books, rather there is little availability, and the books that are offered often do not reflect their own abilities, interests and lifestyles.

I have always been an avid and passionate reader. However, my passion for young adult literature was rekindled while taking the incredible young adult courses taught by Margaret Mackey at the University of Alberta. One such course was LIS 515, in which we examined a plethora of materials for young adults of junior and high school age, their reading interests, as well as current trends and issues in young adults' literature. The final exercise for this course was a creative response to the materials we had been studying. As a result of my work with young women in the justice system within the Edmonton Institution for Women and previous work I had done with teens at risk in Calgary, I decided to create a suggested reading list for youth within the criminal justice system.

It is my belief that troubled youth or youth at risk (such as those who find themselves abandoned by families, friends and society and end up on the streets, in group homes or in the criminal justice systems) often have their educational and recreational needs overlooked by the greater part of society. When I worked in an organization in Calgary that catered to the needs of young women, often teens, trying to leave the street environment, I was confronted with deeply hurt and misguided women, but women who were also hungry: hungry to learn, hungry to read and hungry to take what they'd learned and form it into their own creative expressions of experience. I quickly realized that these women also needed to be understood. One of the most informative things we did for one another was to write about our experiences and read them aloud. In this way, we all learned the value of relating to each other, regardless of the differences of our experience.

It was with this experience in mind that I decided to create a suggested reading list for teens within the criminal justice system. The list that I created is intended to be a starting point for teens to learn, to relate to, to understand and to share with one another. It is also intended to encourage the sheer enjoyment of reading as a recreational activity, rather than to promote educational values alone. I am confident that the skills I acquired and the deeper understanding of the needs of youth that I attained during this project will serve me well as I move from SLIS and enter into the professional library community.

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This paper was originally written in December 2008 by Tabitha Nordby</a> for LIS 515: Materials for Young Adults. It has been converted to a web document to fulfill the requirements for LIS 600: Capping Exercise at the School of Library and Information Studies, University of Alberta. Last updated: March 2009.

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