As teachers explore ways to add technology to their lessons, and librarians struggle with new technologies from MySpace to music downloading, there’s another area where technology can enhance the reading experience. The web has made it increasingly easy to make connections not just with books, but with actual authors.
A wonderful website that facilitates the author/reader connection is Readergirlz. The Readergirlz manifesta states their purpose:
- having serious fun while talking about books with authors and your friends!
- getting the inside scoop about why a novel was written, the tears and joys and real-world angst that the author has lived and layered into her story.
Each month, the Readergirlz focus on a book, include a playlist for listening while you read, hold a live chat with the author, suggest other books with a similar theme, and greatly enhance the reading experience. (This month, the book is Nikki Grimes’ Bronx Masquerade.)
Before the Web, getting to meet and talk to an author happened only at occasional author visits, and only if you lived in a metropolitan area. Now, sites like Readergirlz make this interaction available to anyone with internet access.
Readergirlz also has a MySpace page, and linking to their MySpace page unearths a treasure trove of Young Adult authors that teens can have as friends.
Readergirlz is just one website that teens (and those who work with them) can use to immerse themselves in a book they love—most authors and publishers have some kind of web presence, and Simon & Schuster is sponsoring a blogfest this spring, featuring 100 of their authors. What a wonderful event to get teens excited about their authors and books!