Avi’s 2025 Summer Blog Series
Karen Cushman
From Avi: As I have for the last three summers, (summer of 2024, summer of 2023, summer of 2022) I’ve invited 13 admired authors to write for my blog for the next three months. I hope you’ll tune in each Tuesday to see who answered this year’s question, which we hope provides you with inspiration. And by the end of the summer, you’ll have new authors to follow!
What’s your favorite strategy for encouraging young people to read?
Sure, we can visit classrooms, chat online, and answer fan mail, but I think the most important thing we writers can do to encourage young people to read is write the best books we can, books that entertain and amuse young readers, comfort them, support them, challenge them, and help them see beyond the borders of their own experience. We can give them books worth reading.
Particulars
Karen’s recent book
Karen Cushman is the author of The Midwife’s Apprentice (winner of the 1996 Newbery Medal), Catherine, Called Birdy (a Newbery Honor book), The Ballad of Lucy Whipple (winner of the John and Patricia Beatty Award), and several other prize-winning novels published by Clarion Books. Her newest book is When Sally O’Malley Discovered the Sea, set in Oregon. Karen lives and writes on Vashon Island in Washington state.