My students come to alternative education for a variety of reasons. Some of them struggle in large classrooms with 30 or more students and only one teacher. They get lost in the shuffle, and fall behind. They appreciate our school for the smaller class sizes and increased attention from the teacher. This particular story is a common one, and the students who live it often do well with us. They find a lot of success in our school, and they generally like to read and learn, or at least they don’t mind it.

There are other stories, though, that are true for just a few of our students. There are students who are homeless or living in poverty. They have run away from home, or been kicked out by their parents. There are those who have been to jail or juvenile detention, and many who are on probation. They struggle with drug addiction, or are recovering from it. These students still want to learn, and they understand how important it is to graduate from high school, and that’s why they come to us.

At the same, many of them continue to have a hard time in school. They have trouble connecting to the curriculum, which can seem irrelevant to their harsh realities, and the challenges they face outside of school can make it difficult to focus.

When it comes to reading, the kids from these backgrounds don’t see much of themselves in the characters we read about. They are marginalized in popular literature for teens, and in the traditional high school canon.

In one of my classes, the students have an independent reading project coming up. I’d like to give them the chance to see themselves in the books they read. The In the Margins Book Award is going to help me do that. It is a top ten list released by the Library Services for Youth in Custody, and it aims to recognize the stories of young people in poverty, on the streets, or in custody, both in fiction and nonfiction.

I made this bulletin board to introduce my students to the award:

I don’t have all of these books in my classroom library at this time. However, if my students express an interest, I will check them out of the local library for them. I might even order some of them off of Amazon if possible, or ask my friends and family for them as Christmas gifts.

I want my students to be able to relate to what they read. I want them to see that their stories matter, that they are being recognized in a public way. I want them to have high-interest reading materials that they can relate to. I even want to inspire them to tell their own stories. The In the Margins Book Award is a good place to start.