FAMILY OUTING
A zine for teens dealing with the pandemic
The teen experience will be of particular interest when future generations read about the impacts of the COVID-19 health crisis, says Houston Public Library’s Rebecca Denham.
The library’s youth-services coordinator is helping to spearhead the new QuaranTeen Zine Project, an opportunity for kids age 13 to 18 to contribute to a collective zine that will become part of the library’s permanent collection.
A zine is a short, independent, homemade magazine.
Kids can use their four- to 10page zine to express feelings, observations, stories and reflections about the pandemic and isolation through art, poetry, prose, stream of consciousness and other styles — “any of that is acceptable in a zine format,” Denham says.
“It’s important to have this documentation of what is hopefully a once-in-a-generation experience,” continues Denham. “I want to have that first-person account from a teen’s perspective.”
“Teens are uniquely suited to really capture this moment,” Denham says. “They’re not quite adults that we hear from all the time, and everyone worries about the kids and how they’re being impacted, but teens as an age group are often kind of forgotten about.”
The library’s website offers zine tutorials for first-timers. Entries will be scanned and shared on the library’s social-media accounts.
Eventually, all zines will be compiled into one publication. Branches remain closed, but the final project will become a permanent part of the reference collection in the central library’s Teen Room so guests can flip through to see a collective experience.
In June, the library kicks off its annual comic-book-creation contest with prizes by age. Both projects encourage youth “to think about writing beyond just words on a page and, by doing that, also think about reading being more than words on a page,” Denham says.
Teens are reading more than adults think, she says. “Reading is an experience, and that experience can include art … or on a screen or on a page or on a wall.”
For more information, go to houstonlibrary.org.
Voracious readers also might find interest in the teen advisory board at Blue Willow Bookshop, which is accepting applications.
Volunteer members get access to young-adult titles before they are released to the public, and the independent bookseller’s staff relies on the members to select which titles to carry and market to its YA audience.
As part of the online application, due April 26, candidates age 13 to 17 submit a sample book review.
Those selected get access to notyet-published titles and meet monthly with peers to discuss the books and vote for their favorites.
They’re also invited to meetups with authors. All meetings are currently being held virtually.
Members submit book reviews to the store’s internal staff blog, which is good practice of a specific writing style, store owner Valerie Koehler says.
In the inaugural year of the program, members have been “very open and honest” about which books resonated and which did not, she says, providing valuable insight for her staff.
Gabriella Taverna, 18, a senior at Heights High School, sits on the teen advisory board. The pandemic has given her time to read outside of her comfort zone, she says.
“I was already a very avid Amazon reviewer,” says Taverna, who takes notes while reading so she can compile her reviews, a process she finds “very fulfilling.”
Her reviews illustrate themes, writing styles and plot development, “hopefully inspiring someone to pick up the book,” she says.
“Some book summaries from publishers are very one sided, and you don’t fully understand the depth of the book until you read a review (from an actual reader),” she says.
In her board experience, she discovered new genres. “Our interest was a heavy part of what they would sell,” she says, observing that the board’s picks were promoted in store and online.
“It was so fun to talk to other readers my age,” she says.
The virtual author meetups allowed her to ask questions in an intimate setting. “I really enjoy hearing the process,” she says. “Being able to talk to these authors and hear where their ideas come from truly inspired me in my writing, writing reviews and reading.”
For more information, go to bluewillowbookshop.com/teen -advisory-board.