Welcome back to our summer reading series! This week, we spoke to one of our staff members here at Pitts: Reserves and Stacks Specialist Jenny Vitti! If you’re a member of the Candler community, you will know that Jenny is responsible for making sure all your course readings are available, both online and at the circulation desk. As such, she has a front row seat to the new materials suggested by Candler faculty. This summer, she has chosen to read some of the novels that were assigned in courses this spring!

Jenny found two fascinating novels among the assignments for Dr. Gregory Ellison II’s most recent course, “Pastoral Care of Adolescents” (PC 630). The first, “Perfect Peace” by Daniel Black, was assigned for a class discussion about counseling youth on sexuality, with a specific focus on caring for GLBTQII adolescents. This novel, one of six by Dr. Black, explores the story of a mother’s decision to raise her seventh son as a daughter.  Dr. Ellison also assigned “Good Enough,” by Paula Yoo, which follows a Korean-American teenager as she applies for college and navigates the maze of societal and familial expectations for her success.

Jenny also hopes to read “Home of the Brave” by Katherine Applegate, which Dr. Jehu Hanciles and Site Supervisor Jennifer Green included in their Friends of Refugees Contextual Education I course. This novel is written from the perspective of a young Sudanese refugee in Minnesota, whose thoughts are relayed in stanzas—an innovative novel in poetic format!

Additionally, Jenny’s summer reading will “focus on new literature (published at some point in 2017) written by women of color,” using a list provided in this Electric Literature blog post as a guide. Jenny is “thrilled about basically everything on the list” and has already started reading one of the suggestions: “Tell Me Everything You Don’t Remember” by Christine Hyung-Oak Lee. This short story collection is comprised of journal entries written by Lee after she suffered a stroke in 2006. The stories move between the past and the present as Lee attempts to rediscover her identity in the wake of memory loss.

Thanks for all these wonderful suggestions, Jenny– and readers, stay tuned for more exciting summer reading suggestions from Dr. Ed Phillips next week!