What R U Reading?

Do you ever find yourself in a reading slump? I like to ask kids
what they are reading.  I also liek to check in with colleagues to pick up titles. I don't always bother people to see what they are reading, I like to to stay abreast of new titles reads by doing the following things...

3. Downloading two free books weekly during the summer from the Audiobooks YA Sync summer program. Beginning Thursday, April 25th, two audiobooks that have been paired thematically will be released and available for download for exactly one week. The next Thursday, two more books are released.  Titles are yours to keep once you have downloaded them by using the Overdrive app, but they are only available to download for a seven day period.  This is one way to build a library of audiobooks to listen to during the summer and beyond.  I am really looking forward to this year's titles.

2. Membership and yearly attendance at the ALAN conference in November.  Officially know as the is Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of the NCTE, ALAN is my teacher splurge each year. The membership fee is part of the workshop fee so renewal feels easy. It's not cheaper than free like YA Sync, but its the best bargain in town.  Each quarter, the ALAN journal comes full of titles to check out and use.  Weekly on the Facebook page, book titles are shared.  My favorite part is the conference where you leave with a box of books and many many new titles that have been shared by the panels that have been put together with new and known authors.  Then there is also the company that you keep, you will become part of a sharing community which is accessible on Twitter and Facebook to help feed you titles.

1.  The New York Time Book Review. I subscribe to the New York Times and one of the benefits is Sunday's weekly NYT Book Review.  Sometimes you will find a young adult author reviewing other titles and that is always fun to share with students, but I like the lists and the review found their each week.  I also like the titles that are features from all genres and all readers as you will encounter the range of readers in your classroom.

What do you do to stay current with hot reads?