State and national education initiatives provide American students with opportunities to engage in close readings of complex texts from diverse perspectives as they actively construct complicated understandings as they explore complex texts. Opportunities for interdisciplinary units emerge as the role of non-fiction in English/language arts and…

Some of the world's best children's book artists got together to help Amnesty International celebrate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights' 60th anniversary in "We Are All Born Free," one of the 42 titles recommended by the fourth annual United States Board on Books for Young People's (USBBY) Outstanding International Books…

"Number the Stars" by Lois Lowry is a popular historical novel for adolescent readers about the Nazi occupation of Copenhagen, Denmark during World War II and the efforts of Danish resisters who successfully rescued 98% of that nation's Jewish population. While this 1998 book is considered to be a fictional account, most of the events in…

Christine Garbe, a professor at the Institute for German Language and Literature Education at Leuphana University in Lueneburg, Germany, initially focused her research on youth's socialization as readers. Her professional textbooks in this area are innovative. International comparisons of youth's reading achievement drew her attention to…

Service to young adults in German public libraries expanded under the Nazis because of their idealization of youth. The elaborate structure created to propagate Nazi views determined the types of books and services available. Progress resulted from the accommodation to a totalitarian creed that was essentially evil. (EM)

The articles in this journal issue focus on adolescent literature. Topics covered in the articles include: (1) teaching adolescent literature about minorities to majority group students, (2) death in adolescent literature, (3) trends in German youth literature, and (4) female identity in the young adult novel. In addition, the journal issue…

Surveys show that literature is virtually absent from secondary level second language (SL) programs; at the same time it is often asserted that literature used to dominate these programs. The thoughts of authorities and educators in Ontario, Great Britain, the United States, the Canadian province of Ontario, and Germany over the period of 100…

Read-alouds boost listening and reading comprehension skills and bring subjects to life in a way that textbooks cannot. This article presents three literature-based social studies units, which offer some fresh choices to invigorate lessons. For each unit, a recently published novel is highlighted as a read-aloud or group reading selection and…

After summary presentation of development of German children's and young-adult literature since middle of the century, this article proposes use of such literature in foreign-language classrooms and reports on two projects using children's literature in intermediate- and advanced-level classes. First project examines cultural differences by means…

Presents an annotated bibliography of 21 books about the Holocaust for school libraries. Includes both fiction and nonfiction books. Categorizes the books into primary, junior, intermediate, and senior grade levels. (CFR)

The "ISSS Annual Conference Proceedings" is a peer-reviewed professional publication published once a year following the annual conference. (Individual papers contain references.) [For the 2009 proceedings, see ED504973.]