ALAN Picks: New YA Books To Add To Your Classroom Library
Looking for some inspiration to refresh your classroom library or curriculum this year? Check out the books featured in this month’s column. Our first book recommendation comes from several current and former leaders of the ALAN organization! They reviewed What We Did to Survive by Megan Lally, a YA thriller that explores friendship during a crisis event. This month also features several reviews of young adult books. The Epic Story of Every Living Thing by Deb Caletti is a YA novel that follows a character who is trying to balance perfectionism with her true self. In his final book in his memoir trilogy, Road Home by Rex Ogle, Ogle tells the story of his homelessness in the midst of searching for identity. A Catalog of Burnt Objects by Shana Youngdahl also deals with survival amidst wildfire that interrupts the college plans of the young protagonist.
Looking For Teen Reviewers: If you know students who are interested in writing book reviews of recently published young adult and middle grade books, let them know they can write for ALAN Picks too!
ALAN Picks Book Selections: ALAN Picks accepts reviews of books published from spring 2020 to present-day, including soon-to-be-released books. This gives ALAN members who are interested in reviewing books more great titles to choose from, as well as accommodate some great books released during the beginning of the pandemic that still deserve highlighting. If you have some books in mind that you would like to review, please reach out to me!
Let Us Know How You Use ALAN Picks! If you read an ALAN Picks review and end up using the book with your students, let us know! We want to hear all of your great stories and engaging ways you are using young adult and middle grades literature in your classrooms. Remember, ALAN Picks are book reviews by educators for educators! Click on the archives to see previous editions.
Submit a Review: Would you like to submit a review? Check out ALAN Picks for submission guidelines and email ALAN Picks Editor, Richetta Tooley at richetta.tooley@gmail.com with the book title you are interested in reviewing. Rolling deadline.
– Richetta Tooley, ALAN Picks Editor
A Thriller That Explores Friendship, Trust & Morality
What We Did to Survive by Megan Lally
Book Details
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Publication Date: March 31, 2026
Page Count: 288
ISBN: 978-1-7282-7017-3
Genre: Young Adult, Thriller, Survival
Synopsis: While on vacation to Mexico, four teens decide to take a sailing trip together, despite forecasted stormy weather. When the storm hits, the teens quickly realize that they have to make a plan and work together if they want to survive. The harsh conditions test their friendships, trust in each other, morality, and resilience.
Review:
Megan Lally’s What We Did to Survive is a gripping, page-turning thriller that explores friendship, trust, and the difficult choices people make in moments of crisis. When a group of teens becomes stranded at sea during a storm, the situation quickly shifts from an exciting adventure to a fight for survival. Lally’s suspenseful writing and fast-moving plot make the novel easy to fall into and keep readers engaged as tensions rise and secrets surface. The story also offers meaningful entry points for classroom discussion and invites students to consider questions about morality, responsibility, and how fear and pressure shape human behavior.
Suggestions for Curriculum & Classroom Use
Thematic Connections and Analysis
- Moral Quandaries
- Response to Trauma
- Agency and Choice
- Toxic Relationships
- Self-Defense
- Post-Secondary Pathways
These themes can support interdisciplinary connections with psychology and ethics while encouraging students to examine emotional responses to trauma, the role of trust and power in relationships, and how individuals make difficult decisions about responsibility, personal safety, and survival in moments of crisis.
Literary and Writing Prompts:
- Analyze how the author builds suspense throughout the novel. Identify specific moments where tension increases and explain how pacing, chapter endings, or shifting information keep readers engaged.
- What makes writing engaging for readers? Why are certain thriller and suspense tropes successful in storytelling, and how can writers thoughtfully use or adapt tropes in their own work?
- Identify a moment in your life that challenged your sense of right and wrong. How did you respond? Then, select one character from the book and compare your response to the character’s response. What choices were available to you and the character in that moment? How did the character’s response overlap and diverge from your own?
- Examine how a traumatic moment or series of traumatic moments shapes the characters’ actions throughout the story. Write a reflective response exploring how different characters respond to fear, stress, and survival pressure, and consider how those responses influence the decisions they make.
- Spoiler alert! The two surviving characters choose very different paths after the events of the novel. One distances herself from the experience, while the other publicly shares the story and uses it to shape her future. Write a response exploring how survivors reclaim agency after trauma. What are the potential benefits and challenges of each approach?
Essential Questions:
- Who do we become when we fight for our own survival?
- How do fear and extreme circumstances change the way people make decisions?
- Which morals hold when our survival is threatened?
- When does self-defense become morally complicated?
- What makes a story that utilizes tropes successful?
Formative/Summative Assessments
Formative:
- Exploration of moral dilemmas: Students examine well-known, complex ethical dilemmas and discuss how people make decisions when faced with competing moral responsibilities.
- Research examples of helpers in moments of crisis: Students investigate individuals or groups who provided aid during disasters, conflicts, or emergencies and reflect on the different roles people play during traumatic events.
- Suspense builder log: As they read, students identify moments where the author builds tension or suspense. They briefly note the technique used, such as pacing, cliffhangers, or withheld information, and explain how it keeps readers engaged.
Summative:
- Global Survival Narratives: Students investigate survival stories from different cultural contexts through memoirs, journalism, documentaries, and/or oral histories. In a written analysis or presentation, students examine how survival is framed within different communities or societies. Students should consider how factors such as cultural values, community responsibility, individualism, collective care, and social expectations shape the ways survival stories are told. Students then compare their findings with What We Did to Survive, reflecting on how cultural context may influence the way characters respond to crisis.
- Imagined Companions in Survival Narratives: Explore the “imagined helper” survival trope in another medium. Students examine a film, documentary, survivor account, or piece of literature in which a character relies on a companion or guiding presence during a survival situation. This phenomenon is sometimes described in survival psychology as the “Third Man Factor,” in which individuals under extreme stress or isolation report sensing the presence of a supportive guide. In a written analysis or presentation, students compare how this idea functions in another story and how it operates in What We Did to Survive. Students should consider how this phenomenon appears in constructed and real survival accounts and what it reveals about trauma, isolation, and the ways people cope during moments of crisis.
- Ethics of Survival: Students write an analytical essay or create a presentation examining the moral dilemmas faced by the characters in What We Did to Survive. Using specific moments from the novel, students analyze how survival pressures complicate traditional ideas of right and wrong. Students should consider how fear, trauma, group dynamics, and self-preservation influence the characters’ choices and evaluate whether those actions can be justified.
What We Did to Survive provides a gripping and accessible survival narrative that invites thoughtful discussion about morality, trauma, and decision making under pressure. While the fast-paced plot draws readers in, the novel also raises complex questions about responsibility, self-defense, and the ways people respond to fear and crisis. Through discussion, writing, and research-based activities, students can analyze the ethical dilemmas within the story and the broader ways survival narratives are shaped by culture, psychology, and storytelling.
Reviewed by: Jewel Davis, Ricki Ginsberg, Naitnaphit Limlamai, Kellee Moye
Social Media Perfectionism Versus the Real You
The Epic Story of Every Living Thing by Deb Caletti
Book Details
Publisher: Labyrinth Road
Publish Date: September 13, 2022
Page Count: 405
ISBN: 9780593485521
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Synopsis: The Epic Story of Every Living Thing, by Deb Caletti, follows seventeen-year-old Harper Proulx as she navigates the realities of being a donor child. Online, she’s carefully constructed the perfect image, flawless body, ideal relationship, and a loveable sense of adventure. So totally perfect, but nothing like the real her. In reality, she is tormented by her mother’s rigid expectations and the growing void that is her father. She is shrouded in a storm of anxiety and uncertainty until she discovers a half-sibling that leads her to forty more. With the help of her siblings and her growing rebellious streak, she finally gets the chance to meet the mystery man who makes fifty percent of her. Harper is struggling to balance the real her, her online persona, the aftereffects of the pandemic, and this trip pushes her to the edge. However, she soon realizes that she’s fond of jumping off edges.
Review:
Deb Calletti’s The Epic Story of Every Living Thing explores relevant themes such as identity, mental health, family, connection, and the implications of constant exposure to technology. This story’s main character is Harper, who desperately wants to be perfect but is anything but. She has very little control over her life, with a helicopter mother, and seeks to regain that control through an unhealthy use of social media. After the discovery of her half-siblings and her sperm donor, Harper must embark on a journey of self-discovery as she learns more about what shapes her personhood. As Calleti develops Harper’s story, her prose poses questions about the role of guardians, what makes a family, and how much of ourselves is influenced by others. Her writing is straightforward and accessible, carefully maintaining a balance between relatability, humor, and the more serious and emotional moments.
Suggestions for Curriculum & Classroom Use
Thematic Connections and Essential Questions:
Calleti explores both the internal and external worlds of her characters, and thus the most prominent themes are:
| Identity and belongingSelf-discoveryMental health | FamilyConnectionImplications of constant exposure to technology |
Some essential questions that could be raised are:
- Nature vs Nature: How much of us is shaped by our DNA and how much is shaped by our environment? How much choice do we have in determining who we become?
- What is family? What’s the role of biology?
- How has technology impacted connection? Is it for better or for worse?
- How much parental guidance is needed? How much is too much or not enough?
Teaching Strategies:
- A Socratic seminar discussing some of the proposed essential questions to generate active conversation.
- Students can analyze Harper’s character and determine how much of her was influenced by her parents’ DNA and how much was her environment.
- Students can pretend they are one of the unnamed half-siblings and write journal entries about how they would react if they faced Harper’s predicament.
- Analyze how technology gives Harper a sense of control, versus how it limits her growth.
Formative and Summative Assessments
Formative:
- Journaling: Responses to prompts influenced by the texts. Allows the students a space to reflect on their thoughts on the reading.
- Think-Pair-Share: Warm-ups or class activities to motivate students’ discussion and deeper level thinking.
- Character Maps: Students can choose a main character and use a character map to track their evolution throughout the novel.
Summative:
- Essay: Students can be given a prompt about character evolution, the development of a specific theme, analysis of a literary element, etc.
- Research Essay: Students can research and write about some of the main concepts of the text, such as the ethics of artificial insemination or the role of biology in identity.
- Self-identity project: Students may create a presentation or character map of their own identities in relation to the themes of the book.
Review by: Anie Lubin, Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, MA, undergraduate preservice teacher
Navigating the Dark Turns of Life
Road Home by Rex Ogle
Book Details
Publication Date: May 14, 2024
Publisher: Norton Young Readers
Page Count: 272
ISBN: 978-1324019923
Genre: Autobiography, Young Adult Nonfiction
Synopsis: After being kicked out of his house due to his sexuality, Rex travels to New Orleans to be with a man he met at the beach. After breaking it off with the man he met, Rex is left homeless with no support systems. As he navigates life in his new environment he meets many people in similar situations as him and grapples with his own biases of people in his current situation. This third book in his memoir trilogy follows Rex as he struggles with homelessness and finding his place in the world.
Review:
I thought this book was incredibly well written. I think the perspectives Rex provides are some that students are rarely exposed to and are important for students to see. My only concern would be that some of the content could be construed as “too dark” for students as this book deals with sexual assault. I think this book would work incredibly well in a 10th or 11th grade classroom as long as you ensure you approach the topics carefully. This book would give students a good example of narrative nonfiction and expose them the biases unhoused people face every day.
Suggestions for Curriculum and Classroom Use:
Thematic Connections:
- Sexual Identity
- Homelessness
- The search for belonging
Essential Questions:
- What does Rex’s internal struggle reveal about the themes of sexual identity and the search for belonging?
- How does Rex’s struggle with homelessness shape his interactions with others?
- How does Rex use his nonfiction narrative format to illustrate the themes he his trying to convey?
Teaching Strategies and Activities:
- Host group discussions in which we talk about where we have seen the themes show up in different parts of the book.
- Have students annotate the book to highlight moments where the themes are prevalent and easily spotted.
- Have students research the homelessness statistics of the district or area they live in.
Formative/Summative Assessments:
- Have students draft, then write their own narrative essay about a problem they faced and how they solved it
- Example: A narrative essay about struggling to pass a class.
- As we read, students fill out chapter summaries either through writing a paragraph or by making mini posters to show the key things that happened in each chapter.
Reviewed by Grace Brown, University of South Florida
Love in a Season of Survival
A Catalog of Burnt Objects by Shana Youngdahl
Book Details
Publisher: Dial Books
Date Published: 3/18/2025
Page Count: 368
ISBN: 978-0593405512
Genre: Disaster/ Romance/
Synopsis: Caprice, a 17 year old girl living in Sierra, California (a fictional reconstruction of Paradise, California), struggles to reconnect with her problematic older brother who has returned to their family after years of estrangement. Caprice finds love for the first time when her brother introduces them to River, a fellow senior at Caprice’s high school. Caprice then goes on to develop an app that can land her the scholarship and future she wants, but wildfire strikes her town, causing her to have to remain strong with her family.
Review:
The book starts off somewhat slow, but it is integral to the overarching story. Although it may be slow, it is still an enjoyable read with great characterization as Caprice’s whole family is given time to show the audience that they have distinguishable traits that make them more memorable than just mere background characters. Her brother, Beckett, provides a great contrast to her character whilst trying to improve upon himself so that he can be the brother he never was for her. This book is great for those who find themselves to have a strong sense of family ties, or even for those who wish to. Despite everything that happens to the town in this book, everyone shows that helping through a disaster such as a wildfire can be all that’s needed for everyone to survive and remain positive.
Suggestions for Curriculum and Classroom Use:
Themes:
- Family bonding
- Reconnection
- Survival against the odds
- Love at first sight
- Sibling Rivalry
Essential Questions:
- How far will one go to forgive family?
- How can a town stick together during times of crisis?
- How can siblings shape who you are?
Student Engagement Activity: Disaster Relation
Students will write a 2-3 paragraph explanation of a natural disaster they’ve faced or that others who they know have faced. This will be done separately to the story, prior to reading it. The main focus of the content they will be writing about is how they or who they are writing about got through it rather than the disaster itself, as this will relate to the story even if the situations vary.
Formative/Summative Assessments
Formative: As the students progress through the book, they will note down comparisons between what they wrote for the disaster relation activity and what is happening within the story. Once they have finished the story, they will compile the notes into a similar 2-3 paragraph form such as the first activity to fully explain the story’s relation to their own.
Summative: Now that the students are aware of the impact the wildfire had within the story by relating it to themselves or those they know, they will research and write a 4-5 paragraph essay regarding the Paradise wildfires that the story is based off of while relating it to the story and using sources to show what they have learned.
Reviewed by Aidan Spinella, University of South Florida
