November 17, 2012 – YA Chit Chat

I stopped by Katy Upperman’s blog this morning and read a great post about what we would all like to tell our teen selves if we could turn back time. It seems a group of YA authors got together and did just that…they compiled letters to their teen selves and those letters are now published in a book titled, DEAR TEEN ME.

Dear Teen Me: Authors Write Letters to Their Teen Selves From Goodreads: DEAR TEEN ME includes advice from over 70 YA authors (Lauren Oliver, Ellen Hopkins, and Nancy Holder, to name a few) to their teenage selves. The letters cover a wide range of topics, including physical abuse, body issues, bullying, friendship, love, and enough insecurities to fill an auditorium. So pick a page, and find out which of your favorite authors had a really bad first kiss? Who found true love at 18? Who wishes he’d had more fun in high school instead of studying so hard? Some authors write diary entries, some write letters, and a few graphic novelists turn their stories into visual art. And whether you hang out with the theater kids, the band geeks, the bad boys, the loners, the class presidents, the delinquents, the jocks, or the nerds, you’ll find friends—and a lot of familiar faces—in the course of Dear Teen Me.

Y.A. Author E. L. Schneider put together a video staring a few people who contributed letters to their teen selves. She also shared a wonderful “Dear Teen Me” letter that had me smiling, remembering and relating. You should check it out here.

What six words would I tell my teen self?

“Don’t believe them. Believe in you.”

What six words would you tell your teen self?