#YAStandsFor Daily Social Challenge... Day 5!

In my final day of participating in the I Read YA Week celebration (you can keep partying, it goes on through Monday!), I found myself presented with a new challenge of: Create a graphic showcasing an inspirational YA quote.

I'm not super tech savvy and I've never created a graphic before. But with just a little Google searching and a download of an app, I was able to create this:

Thanks for joining me this week! I hope you all enjoyed it! Please follow or subscribe for notifications of new posts and reviews upcoming on the Bibliophile Support Group!

#YAStandsFor
@IReadYA

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#YAStandsFor Daily Social Challenge... Day 4!

During the ongoing annual Scholastic event I Read YA Week, they are presenting readers with Daily Social Challenges to get us thinking on what #YAStandsFor to each of us individually.

Today's is: Swap a YA book about the positive power of friendship with your bestie.

Slight problem, my bestie is not a bibliophile. I know. I know. 

But it's ok! Instead I will just spotlight a book I would share, if he was less bonkers and more bookish. 

My choice: Keeping the Moon by Sarah Dessen.

Unlike some of the initial books that ran through my mind in response to this challenge, this book shows the positive power of new friendships. It shows how friends can push you outside of your comfort zone, broadening your perspective on what opportunities are feasible to you... and in the case of Keeping the Moon, pursue a fresh start.

And without being disingenuous, I can honestly say finding the right friend(s) at the right time can be a life changer. This novel highlights that. Definitely a book that has a strong memory attached to it, it was impactful and inspiring to me. Easily meets today's challenge, in my opinion.

#YAStandsFor
@IReadYA
 

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#YAStandsFor Daily Social Challenge... Day 3!

In honor of the annual I Read YA, Scholastic's #YAStandsFor Daily Social Challenge is: Give a shout out to your favorite literary fictional hero.

OMG, can you ask anything more difficult from a bibliophile?!?

I think this is only a step below: What is your favorite book?

Seriously Scholastic, way to torture my poor, fragile, book loving mind!

There are far, far too many choices and far, far too many beloved characters for me to choose. So, I am picking a particular heroine that stands out to me from a more recent read.

Madeline, from Nicola Yoon's novel Everything, Everything is my choice.

I am aware this book has been made into a movie, I have not seen it. But the novel was... lovely.

My reason for choosing her: Madeline is a character whose Severe Combined Immunodeficiency disallows her from going outside the sanitized, safe world of her home and the company of her longtime nurse and single mother.

She is positive, cheerful and intelligent - a girl who has done everything and seen everything through all the novels she has read over the years. But she decides that life is something to be experienced, not just read. And she decides that the risk is worth the reward of truly living.

There is a quiet but pure courage to that. It was impactful to me and it was certainly a great book.

But, again, FAVORITE LITERARY FICTIONAL CHARACTER?

I call foul, Scholastic.

#YAStandsFOR
@IReadYA

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#YAStandsFor Daily Social Challenge... Day 2!

Today I continue the Scholastic I Read YA celebration with the second #YAStandsFor Daily Social Challenge to: Tell us about the YA book that helped you find your voice.

It's likely going to be a choice of many, but I have to choose the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling. Some people may call it a Children's series, but as he ages up to seventeen in the series, I think we can safely say it falls in the YA category safely also.

My reason for picking this series, is that Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is the book that truly cemented by love of reading. As a kid, I loved reading Babysitter's Club and Goosebumps, Nancy Drew and other great stories - so I was already a fledgling bibliophile. But when my 6th grade teacher started reading from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone to the class during the end of day free time, I fell truly, madly, deeply in love with stories.

Never before had I felt so entranced by a narration, by the world building and colorful characters and dialogue presented. It compelled me to find a copy of my own so I could read more than the bits I heard every day at school. It helped me to find my voice in that I began to identify as a Book Lover and a Proud Bibliophile.

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@IReadYA

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#YAStandsFor Daily Social Challenge... Day 1!

Howdy There, Bibliophiles!

As part of Scholastic's teen community annual I Read YA, Scholastic is encouraging book lovers to share in fun challenges that spotlight how awesome YA is as a genre, a genre that is honestly pigeon holed by the age of the protagonist instead of the content of the story inside. So, I am going to participate in a few of these to get my toes back into the waters of the wonderful world of YA once more. I'd love for y'all to join in and tell me What Does YA Stand For... for you?!?

For myself, YA stands for a genre that caused me some of  the best adventures in sci-fi, mystery and romance during my teenage years. I didn't stop reading YA when I entered my 20s, but my memories are vivid of when I identified with the characters that were placed in extraordinary situations. Whether the engrossing and wonderfully sarcastic heroines of some of Meg Cabot's early works when she wrote as Jenny Carroll - The Mediator series and 1-800-Where-R-U series specifically - or the lush, soapy, saucy historical series The Luxe by Anna Goldbersen, there were always fun characters to attach yourself to in order to immerse yourself in a world of intrigue and suspense. It helped to further nurture the hypnotic world of imagination that needed a new placed to go after all those years of playing with toys.

So many genres and literary styles are encompassed in the two letters "YA." And it holds a mass majority of my library in its clutches. How about you?

#YAStandsFor 

@IReadYA

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