Professor Emma Teaches How to Be a Spy

Not sure how qualified I am to teach this class (although that information could be classified, haha), but I've got a good set of books to guide this class.

1. Gallagher Girls series by Ally Carter

OBVIOUSLY.

2. The Fixer by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

3. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

4. Fallout by Gwenda Bond

5. Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers

6. The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

What books would you include if you taught this class?

Professor Emma Teaches YA Heroines in History...Again

The second class I'm teaching this semester is one of my favorites. This should come as no surprise, because every so often, I mention how much I love historical fiction, particularly when the protagonist is a girl.

The recommended reading list has grown quite a bit since last time I taught the class (spring 2016), and I changed up the required reading list a teeny bit, but let's get started, shall we?

Required Reading:

• Maid of Secrets by Jennifer McGowan
• Under a Painted Sky by Stacey Lee
• Rebel Mechanics by Shanna Swendson
• A Madness So Discreet by Mindy McGinnis
• Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein
• A Tyranny of Petticoats by various authors

Recommended Reading:

~Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers

~Deception's Princess by Esther M. Friesner

~Walk on Earth a Stranger by Rae Carson

~Vengeance Road by Erin Bowman

~Cinder & Sapphires by Leila Rasheed

~Prisoner of Night and Fog by Anne Blankman

~Girl in the Blue Coat by Monica Hesse

~The Girl from Everywhere by Heidi Heilig

~Wait for Me by Caroline Leech

~These Vicious Masks by Tarun Shanker and Kelly Zekas

~I'm Glad I Did by Cynthia Weil

~The Notorious Pagan Jones by Nina Berry

~Velvet Undercover by Teri Brown

~Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin

~The Steep and Thorny Way by Cat Winters

~Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys

~Outrun the Moon by Stacey Lee

~The Forbidden Orchid by Sharon Biggs Waller

~Traitor Angels by Anne Blankman

~Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

So go forth and read, my students, about the fictional women who made history in these books...and then go study up on the real women who have shaped history.

Professor Emma Teaches Cooking Through YA Novels

I'm teaching two classes at the Bibliophile University this fall, and here's the reading list for the first!

I love baking so much and I'm getting better at cooking, so I thought it was time to highlight my favorite YA (and one MG) books that feature cooking/baking. While there would be reading and discussion, there would also be plenty of practical lessons in the kitchen - probably featuring recipes from my From the Bookshelf to the Kitchen series.

Reading list:

• All Four Stars by Tara Dairman
• Taste Test by Kelly Fiore Stultz
• Pizza, Love, and Other Stuff That Made Me Famous by Kathryn Williams
• Heartless by Marissa Meyer
• To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han

If you were teaching this class, what books would you include? Any classes you think the Bibliophile University should offer?

Professor Emma Teaches High School English

Recently, I was thinking about what YA books would make good editions to a high school English class's curriculum. Then I started thinking about the classes I've "taught" and was like, "Why don't I make up a list?" I did that...then realized I had too many books for one school year.

So I made up lists for both junior and senior years. So, if I were to teach high school English with zero restrictions, these are the books my students would read. Note: I perused lists of books normally read in high school (since my literature education was a bit abnormal as a homeschooler). I cannot vouch for the quality of every book, but from what I know of them, they fit well with other books I was planning to teach.

JUNIOR YEAR

• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
• 1984 by George Orwell
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
• The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
• The Poetry of Emily Dickinson
• Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
• Written in the Stars by Aisha Saeed
• The Names They Gave Us by Emery Lord

SENIOR YEAR

• Just One Day by Gayle Forman
• The Scarlet Pimpernel by Emmuska Orczy
• Hamlet by William Shakespeare
• Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin
• 12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup
• Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
• Paradise by Toni Morrison
• The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
• Outrun the Moon by Stacey Lee
• Dubliners by James Joyce

If you taught high school English, what books would you teach?

Professor Emma Teaches The Theory of Time Travel and Parallel Universes

Another semester, two more classes I'm teaching at the Bibliophile University! This semester, I'm actually teaching science-y stuff, which is so not my usual thing. But I've found that the science fiction books I love most usually involve time travel or parallel universes, so obviously I wanted to teach classes on the theories of those and how different authors shape the theories for their uses.

First up, the reading list for Time Travel Theories.

• The Girl from Everywhere by Heidi Heilig
• Passenger by Alexandra Bracken
• Time Between Us by Tamara Ireland Stone
• All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill

Of course there are several other good YA time travel stories, but these seem to be the most solid to me. I also hope other authors will keep writing time travel books.

Now the reading list for Parallel Universes/Alternate Universes. I had a much harder time narrowing down this list because obviously I didn't want to assign too much reading. That's why I also have a couple recommended reading suggestions.

• Parallel by Lauren Miller
• Pivot Point by Kasie West (not exactly parallel worlds, but it's close enough and too darn good to not include)
• A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray
• Ask Again Later by Liz Czukas
• Dissonance by Erica O'Rourke

Recommended Reading:

• Everything That Makes You by Moriah McStay
• Two Summers by Aimee Friedman
• Into the Dim by Janet B. Taylor

What books would you teach if you taught a more science-y class at the Bibliophile University? (And are there any other classes you'd love to see me put together a reading list for?)

Top Ten Tuesday: The Syllabus of ENG 313 (Literary YA)

Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

I had so much fun with creating the reading list for a class for a Top Ten Tuesday last year that I knew I had to do it again this year for the back-to-school freebie.

I couldn't pick just a few books, so I guess I'll have to use little bits of each book; otherwise, my students will resent how much reading I gave them, haha. Anyways, I really like the idea of teaching a literary YA fiction class because most of what I read for my English classes at college is literary fiction...but not YA, and I think we can learn a lot from literary YA fiction as well as literary adult fiction.

1. Like No Other by Una LaMarche

2. The Weight of Feathers by Anna-Marie McLemore

3. Just One Day by Gayle Forman

4. Out of the Easy by Ruta Septys

5. Breakfast Served Anytime by Sarah Combs

6. Outrun the Moon by Stacey Lee

7. Devoted by Jennifer Mathieu

8. Written in the Stars by Aisha Saeed

9. Falling into Place by Amy Zhang

10. Every Last Word by Tamara Stone

What type of book-inspired class would you want to teach at a university? And what did you do for your Top Ten Tuesday this week?

Professor Emma Teaches How to Kill Your Readers

It's been a while since I did one of these posts, but it's time for a new school semester, so I figured I'd announce the classes I'm teaching at the Bibliophile University. The creative writing class is all about writing twists and endings and plots that will cause your readers to use this GIF:

How to Kill Your Readers

Obviously there would be a lot of writing and plotting, but I also think I'd make the following books part of the syllabus.

Required Reading:

• All Fall Down by Ally Carter
• The Winner's Curse and The Winner's Crime by Marie Rutkoski
• The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh

I can't decide what to put on the recommended reading list, mostly because several books I wanted to include were sequels, but the first books in the series weren't as shocking. So what books would you want to see as recommended reading for this course? 

(Also I'd love to hear what other classes you'd love to see taught at the Bibliophile University. And stay tuned in the next couple weeks for the other class I'm teaching!)

Professor Emma Teaches Classics Anew

So I don't know about y'all but there are some classics I like and others that are just so dry and dull that I can't imagine how they ever become renowned. But there's this trend of retelling classics, particularly in the YA world, and it's one I can definitely get behind. (Heck, I want to write a Hamlet retelling someday.) So the final class I'm teaching this spring at the Bibliophile University is...

 Classics Anew.

It would be all about retelling classic books, plays, fairytales, and legends, and I'd love to discuss with the students what elements from the original are needed to call it a retelling and not just "inspired by," and talk about what makes a good retelling (we'd definitely have to watch clips from Clueless and The Lizzie Bennet Diaries). 

Scratch that. Before I start rambling too much, here are the five books I'd assign for my students.

Required Reading

• Across a Star-Swept Sea by Diana Peterfreund (The Scarlet Pimpernel by Emmuska Orczy)
• Still Star-Crossed by Melinda Taub (Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare)
• The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh (A Thousand and One Nights)
• The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale (The Goose Girl)
• This Monstrous Thing by Mackenzi Lee (Frankenstein by Mary Shelley)

Recommended Reading

• The Espressologist by Kristina Springer (Emma by Jane Austen)
• Scarlet by A.C. Gaughen (Robin Hood)
• The Merchant's Daughter by Melanie Dickerson (Beauty and the Beast)
• Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George (12 Dancing Princesses)
• Splintered by A.G. Howard (Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll)
• Lock & Mori by Heather W. Petty (Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle)

Are there any other retellings you'd teach? (There's a few upcoming ones I'm very interested in, but I obviously couldn't include them.) And would you want to take this class?

Professor Emma Teaches Worldbuilding

It's time to announce another of the classes I'll be teaching in the spring at the Bibliophile University:

Worldbuilding Through Science Fiction and Fantasy

I really wanted to teach this as two separate courses, but the university wanted it to be one. So I had the impossible task of narrowing my book choices down to four my students will actually read, and then the ones we'll read excerpts from, and then what's left will be recommended reading. I think this class is more aimed at writers than readers because I would have my students practice worldbuilding themselves after reading the books and excerpts.

Required Reading:

• A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray
• Cinder by Marissa Meyer
• Snow Like Ashes by Sara Raasch
• Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

Excerpt Reading:

• Nil and Nil Unlocked by Lynne Matson
• The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson
• Princess Academy by Shannon Hale
• The Young Elites by Marie Lu
• Dissonance by Erica O'Rourke

Recommended Reading:

• Ten Thousand Skies Above You by Claudia Gray (sequel to A Thousand Pieces)
• the rest of The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer
• Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas
• The Winner's Curse by Marie Rutkoski
• These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner
• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
• Pivot Point by Kasie West

So is this a class you'd be interested in? What books would you have liked to see on the syllabus? (And also, I'm still interested in what classes you'd like to see taught at Bibliophile University.)

Professor Emma Teaches YA Heroines in History

I had so much fun putting together the reading list and syllabus for Saving the World 101 (see this post) that I decided I wanted to do it for more classes. So that's what this post is all about. Except I didn't make a syllabus because I am a sophomore in college whose life is insane right now, and who has time for making syllabi? (Except for professors, whose jobs include writing syllabi.)

*puts on professor glasses* 

This is a description of the class:

This course provides you with an understanding of how young women have shaped history—both in reality and in fiction. All of the books we will read this semester focus on strong, realistic female characters. In addition, we will study real heroines in conjunction with the fictional ones. My goal is for you to leave this class with a better understanding of how women have shaped history and how history has treated them.

And here are the required texts:

• Scarlet by A.C. Gaughen
• Maid of Secrets by Jennifer McGowan
• Under a Painted Sky by Stacey Lee
• A Madness So Discreet by Mindy McGinnis
• Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein

And the recommended reading:

• Deception's Princess by Esther Friesner
• Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers
• Walk on Earth a Stranger by Rae Carson
• Vengeance Road by Erin Bowman
• Rebel Mechanics by Shanna Swendson
• Cinders & Sapphires by Leila Rasheed
• Prisoner of Night and Fog by Anne Blankman
• Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley

Now get thee to the registrar's office at the Bibliophile University, and sign up for my class!

(Also, psst, what other classes would you like to see me teach at our made-up university? Conversely, what classes would you want to teach?)

Top Ten Tuesday: The Syllabus of Saving the World 101

Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

I was so excited about this week's topic that I actually made a literal syllabus. Yeah. I'm geeky that way. So if you're interested in seeing it, here's the Google Doc link. Otherwise, here are the ten books that would be required reading for Saving the World 101!

1. Illusive by Emily Lloyd-Jones

2. Lois Lane: Fallout by Gwenda Bond

3. Sidekicked by John David Anderson

4. Cinder by Marissa Meyer

5. The Archived by Victoria Schwab

6. Deep Blue by Jennifer Donnelly

7. Snow Like Ashes by Sara Raasch

8. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

9. The Nightmare Affair by Mindee Arnett

10. Across a Star-Swept Sea by Diana Peterfreund

So what class are you teaching at our fictional university? What books are on the syllabus for it? Can't wait to read everyone else's posts!