Breakpoint’s Youth Reads with Sherry Early

Last week, Janie had the privilege of sharing radio waves with Chris Fabry on his national radio show.  You can find out more about the radio program and find a link to listen in Janie on Chris Fabry Live!.)  The other featured guest of the program was Gina Dalfonzo, who is greatly responsible for Breakpoint’s new webpage, Youth Reads.   After getting to know the folks there a bit, Janie and I think they are a great complement to our blog.  Thus, we thought we’d like to give you an official introduction to their work.  And happily, Sherry Early–who is involved in Youth Reads as well as a successful Christian blogger in her own right–agreed to tell us a little about their enterprise.

Here’s what Sherry wrote last week in response to my questions:

Back in January of this year, Gina Dalfonzo, who is editor of Chuck Colson’s BreakPoint blog and a writer for BreakPoint Radio, asked me to write an article for Breakpoint about my favorite young adult novels from the previous year, 2010. I was excited to be able to share my favorite books from a genre/age group that doesn’t include me (I’m 53) but does interest me. I have two teenagers and a twelve year old at home and four young adults in various stages of growing up outside my home, and as a parent and a reader, I enjoy the best in Young Adult literature. Because of the response to my article and others like it during Breakpoint’s Teen Fiction week, the folks at BreakPoint decided to start something new at their website: a Youth Reads page that would publish reviews and articles specifically related to preteens and young adults reading from a Christian perspective.

I’m a homemaker, homeschooler, blogger and former librarian. I read a lot. And I enjoy sharing my love of books with others. So I was tickled pink to be asked to write reviews for Youth Reads. So far I’ve written two reviews of YA books that are currently popular: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs and Divergent by Veronica Roth. Other books that have been discussed already at the new Youth Reads site are The Windfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson, The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins, Twilight and Harry Potter,  In Front of God and Everybody: Confessions of April Grace by KD McCrite, and No Place Like Holmes by Jason Lethcoe. The reviews and articles at Youth Reads will be covering books from both Christian and secular publishers, and we’ll be writing about the popular books and about the hidden gems that you might have missed. We want to provide lots of information and perspective so that parents and children will be able to find the books that fit their family values, reading interests, and Christian worldview.

Ms. Dalfonzo has a great crew of reviewers and writers signed up to write at Youth Reads, and they may be adding more in the future. Some of those who have been or will be writing for Youth Reads are:

• Esther Archer is a writer and seminary student in Tennessee. She has a new blog at HerStory Musings.

• La Shawn Barber writes about faith, politics, culture and books at her blog, LaShawn Barber’s Corner.

• Gina Dalfonzo writes for BreakPoint and edits the Youth Reads page, but the first thing that endeared her to me was her blog dedicated to all things Dickensian: Dickensblog. Gina reads lots of other books besides those written by The Inimitable Boz, and her insights are always guaranteed to lead to thoughtful reflection.

• Marissa Krmpotich is a writer and student in Northern Virginia.

• Kim Moreland serves as project manager and research associate for the Wilberforce Forum.

• G. Shane Morris spent his formative years building sandcastles, listening to Adventures in Odyssey, and learning everything there was to know about dinosaurs. After such an engaging start to life, he was surprised to find primary education just as enjoyable, and studied as a homeschooler through graduation. He writes for BreakPoint radio.

• Annie Provencher is a writer living in Virginia.

• Jay Sappington is a hymn-singing, piano-playing, song-writing, bird-watching music and English teacher on furlough from Dakar Academy in Senegal.

• Diane Singer is a wife, mother, and grandmother who has been teaching English at the University of Alabama in Huntsville since 1987. She has a passion for short-term missions, having made multiple trips to Russia, Belarus, Nicaragua, Senegal, and Guinea.

So now that you know WHAT the Youth Reads website is all about and WHO some of the writers and reviewers are, it’s time to visit and see what is available for your (Christian young adult) reading instruction and pleasure: Youth Reads at BreakPoint. We hope to help youth and parents to enjoy worshipping the Lord through reading and engaging the mind in thinking about all that He has made.

Here is a quick link to Youth Reads.  You can read Sherry’s personal blog at www.semicolonblog.com.  Or if you’d like to see how our reviews differ in a complementary way, check out Janie’s recent review of Revolver in God-Haunted or Emily’s writing about Anne Frank’s diary.

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