YA Books Get Second Life

To rub shoulders with authors—even virtual ones—is a thrill for young readers. That was the impetus behind “A Festival of Authors,” a new kind of literary happening, held February 2 in the virtual environment Teen Second Life (TSL). Highlighting the event were appearances by several young adult writers—or rather, their avatars, virtual representations of themselves—including Barry Lyga, author of The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl (Houghton, 2006) and Marc Aronson (pictured above).

“It’s not that likely that these authors could come to your school and you’d be able to meet them,” says Lisa Perez, an area library coordinator with the Department of Library and Information Services, Chicago Public Schools, which cosponsored the event with the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County (PLCMC) in North Carolina and TeachingBooks.net. Perez helped organize the four-hour online fest, which included book chats and author signings. “Of course you could go to [the author’s] Web site,” she says, “but being able to interact with them is pretty powerful.”

Teens not only attended the festival, they helped build it—designing the venue for author presentations. Virtual easels featured video programming, podcasts, and other multimedia content from TeachingBooks.net, a Madison, WI-based educational site.

Members of Teen Read NC, a youth group from North Carolina, discussed their mock Printz Award competition, their version of the Young Adult Library Services Association’s annual prize for young adult literature. The teens explained to their peers how they nominate books, and how students can launch their own award committee. A drawing for autographed books capped the afternoon.

“A Festival of Authors” is just one of the events held on the Eye4You Alliance island in TSL. Eye4You, a virtual library outpost for teens run by PLCMC since 2007, has watched its audience grow as young adults increasingly gravitate toward virtual spaces. “I’ve heard people say [virtual reality] is negative, that it’s addicting,” says Kelly Czarnecki, technology education librarian with PLCMC. “But you set boundaries. And to me, having a conversation on the grid is a lot more immersive than one on the phone.”

TSL is a spin-off of the popular online world Second Life. Users on the teen side are limited to young adults ages 13 to 17, and only those adults who are pre-authorized. Students can build avatars to their individual specs, meet, and interact with others.

“I believe the virtual reality environment is the future of the Internet,” says Perez. “More and more organizations are creating virtual spaces.” Czarnecki reports that Eye4You is drawing students into the physical library, but she’s more excited about how students are learning to work collaboratively.

“Research might mean collaborating with the author and their peers to share knowledge,” she says. “I think creating knowledge through collaboration is a stronger point than whether or not the teens pick up a book at the library based on an author’s visit to Second Life. They are representing what they know of the author’s ideas and telling the story in a new way.”