Pelfrey wins YALSA’s MAE Award for Best Literature Program for Teens

CHICAGO — The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) awarded Kristen Pelfrey, a teacher at Foothill Technology High School, Ventura, Calif., the 2013 MAE Award for Best Literature Program for Teens. The MAE Award provides $500 to the recipient and $500 to the recipient’s library and is sponsored by the Margaret A. Edwards Trust.

Pelfrey created a program allowing her students to unplug from their digital lives and engage their imagination using the worlds found in books.  The program, titled “The Best Fiction (about) Young Adults Revolution” has a simple goal asking students to  read a book from YALSA’s Best Fiction for Young Adults list. Once teens finished their books, they wrote a thank you to the authors for the stories, experiences and worlds.

Students then went on to create posters for the books they read, using the graphic editing program Fireworks. They created text, incorporated imagery and addressed visual design standards. Their final project was to storyboard and create a book trailer for their book using Movie Maker. The students will work in cooperation with the film class, and possibly with the local television station, to promote their trailers. They will also be posted on YouTube and be made available via other student- and school-appropriate channels. This program truly brought together teens’ love for literature and technology.

 “I believe that 'unplugging' is an essential twenty-first century skill,” explained Pelfrey in her winning application. “My goal is to have a school culture in which the norm is for all students and teachers to have a book for pleasure reading in hand at all times.”

The 2012 YALSA MAE Award Jury members are Mary Haas, chair, George Fox Middle School, Pasadena, Md.; Dawn Abron, Zion-Benton (Ill.) Public Library; Sarah Amazing, Warren-Trumbull County Public Library, Ohio; Laurie Amster-Burton, Seattle World School, Wash.; Priscille Dando, Fairfax County Public Schools, Springfield, Va.; and Chelsea Estes, Springfield-Greene (Mo.) County Library.

For more than 50 years, YALSA has worked to build the capacity of libraries and librarians to engage, serve and empower teens.  For more information about YALSA or to access national guidelines and other resources go to www.ala.org/yalsa, or contact the YALSA office by phone, (800) 545-2433, ext. 4390, or e-mail, yalsa@ala.org.