Bluford High can impact students.

I have often felt like books could be a way to reach even those students that many have written off as too far gone. When I discovered the Bluford High books a few years ago in Lit Lab, I was surprised and excited. Although there are no ethnic groups in our school, many of the students still deal with the same fears, temptations and struggles as the characters in the stories do. I was amazed to see how quickly these books were passed around. It only took one student in the class to read one of them, tell the others how great they were and there they went. I really like that some are from a girls perspective and others from a boys perspective. It really brought around good discussion between the two groups. When I stumbled across the article (http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6655502.html?industryid=47070) sharing a librarians experience of a book club using Bluford High I thought it was a great idea. She even created the article itself in a graphic format....really neat! I love how she points out that a librarian can impact students fluency and their desire to read other books can start through a project like this. Too often educators are willing to write off a student once they hit upper middle school. There are ways to reach, influence, and even impact these students; it just takes a little creativity and desire to figure out how.