Summer Reading List via the 2016 Teen Book Festival

A couple weeks ago I had the opportunity to chaperone the teen group that I helped start at my previous job on a trip the 2016 Teen Book Festival.  For those of you who don’t live in Upstate New York, and by Upstate I mean anywhere north of Binghamton, the  Teen Book Festival is an annual event held at Nazareth College in Fairport, NY.  This was the Festival’s 11th year and is an awesome opportunity for public and school librarians to demonstrate the value of teens in the literary community.  The festival is free and open to all though seating preference is given to those 18 and under.  The unfortunate part of my day was that with over 1000 teens in attendance I wasn’t able to get much face time with any of the authors.  All is well though as this event is meant to connect teens with the authors who write for them and I was glad to have the chance to participate.

When I say authors I’m not talking about local self-published folks but well-known, popular, and award winning authors who traveled miles to attend.  The event opened with a thrilling game of Truth or Talent where each author was asked to either share something about themselves with the crowd that they would not learn anywhere else or show a talent.  Loosely defined talents included talking like Donald Duck and singing that “State Song”.  The day continued with individual sessions.  The hardest part was deciding which author to see.  All in all it was a great day and gave me inspiration for my Summer Reading List.

All through the year I write titles of books down on all sorts of scrap pieces of paper only to lose them in the wash or throw them out.  The strength of a Summer Reading List lies in a variety of content which the books from these authors offer.  This list has romance, fantasy, sci-fi, and more.  Plus, most of the authors on my list have won an award or two.  So have a look and maybe find a title to suggest to a student or to add to your own list so your recommendations to students will be varied when September comes.

Enjoy!

[slideshow_deploy id=’1143′]