One night two summers ago, I had just finished a book (I can’t remember which) and was trying to think of another one to read when it came to me: there should be a space where teenagers like me could share their book recommendations as well as gain access to book reviews online. 

Now normally I would have just congratulated myself for coming up with this idea and then would have done absolutely nothing about it.  However, since I was really bored and wasn’t too eager to go out into the 105 degree Texas heat, I had a lot of time on my hands. I created a website and called it Teen Book Lover.  At the time, I pictured a site where there would be book reviews contributed by any interested teenagers.  My goal was to create a dynamic collection of book reviews that teens could access if they wanted a recommendation for their next read.  To simplify the process, I created a template so that people wouldn’t spend too long on the writing of the review while still including key information such as the reviewer’s favorite character, three adjectives to describe this character, favorite quote, and why people should read the book.  Now all a reviewer would have to do was look at the template and fill in the required information based on the reviewer’s perspective. 

Over the past two years, Teen Book Lover has evolved and expanded from merely being a space online where book reviews were posted to an organization that provides enriching reading and writing experiences for teens as well as for young kids.  Soon after I launched the Teen Book Lover site, I began the process of recruiting a team of avid readers and writers from my school as well as from summer camp and other connections. The first event that we organized was an author reading and discussion at the Wild Detectives, a local independent bookstore.  Local young adult author Samantha Mabry came out and read from her new book, A Fierce and Subtle Poison.  Other events we have organized include a Holiday book drive for underprivileged kids (in which we raised over 500 books) and, having been inspired by a creative writing class that I took over the summer, a creative writing workshop that was held at the Kessler School of Dallas as well as at Interabang Books for third and fourth graders.  We plan to hold more events in the future, specifically more of the writing workshops because we very much enjoy the whole process – designing the workshop, interacting with the kids, and hearing their stories.  In these workshops, I usually have the kids do some warm up exercises just to get their creativity juices flowing, and then go into longer exercises such as coming up with your own character with a well-rounded personality, his/her strengths and weaknesses, and then writing a short story about them in which I give them their character’s final goal, and they have to incorporate their character’s personalities to get there.  The main goal of these workshops is to have the kids think outside of the box, not to be scared of any judgment, and to practice getting their ideas down on paper.

After two years of working on Teen Book Lover the question has to be asked: what is its purpose?  Or, how can Teen Book Lover impact the community?  My answer is this:  I want Teen Book Lover to influence kids and teens to be passionate about reading and writing, two areas that have somewhat been diminished in the age of technology.  Reading requires a good deal of mental activity: appreciating a story for its plot, its elements, its connections to other books or one’s own experiences not only helps to develop the mind, but also develops language skills that are essential in our society today.  As for creative writing, being able to put yourself out there and write as your imagination dictates takes guts.  In our workshops, we make sure to have time for the workshop participants to share their ideas and stories because it builds confidence.

Another goal I have for TBL’s future is to spread it outside of my community, to create a TBL network.  Interested teens in any part of the country (or world) could hold writing workshops, community events, and/or book drives based upon the work that we are doing locally here in Dallas.  I invite all teenagers who read this to reach out to me.  You could start a local TBL site by simply getting a few friends together who love reading.  Imagine teens organizing workshops, book drives, and community book readings all over the country!