Voya's Five-Foot Bookshelf: Essential Books for Professionals Who Serve Teens, 2000 to 2012

VOYA's Five-Foot Bookshelf: Essential Books for Professionals Who Serve Teens, 2000 through 2012 represents the best resources for young adult librarianship in the twenty-first century. These titles impressed VOYA' s reviewers, and most became essential professional resources for VOYA readers. They are presented in this compilation with the full original reviews. Included are professional books for both public and school librarians addressing policy issues, evaluation, public relations, advocacy, intellectual freedom, youth participation, programming, new research findings, education, literacy, technology, and similar topics. Also included are books from other disciplines on adolescent development; current youth issues; racial, ethnic, and gender issues; teen culture; and youth development (including such topics as mentoring, dropout prevention, and delinquency prevention). The intent of this professional reading list is to "identify books that increase our understanding of teenagers and how to serve them, serve as an inspiration to youth workers, and/or add to our knowledge of the field." (VOYA October 1997, p. 225) These books are so essential that it would be difficult to serve teens without having read them. Useful for new or experienced young adult librarians, this compilation is what you need to build an excellent professional collection for practical application or research.