The SSR Podcast

New Reads November is back! The first title we’re discussing in this very special, very fun series is David Yoon’s YA debut Frankly in Love , which quickly became a bestseller when it was published in September 2019. In it, we meet high school senior Frank Li, who is experiencing the “normal” growing pains of your average American teen along with the unique challenges of being the child of Korean...

Published in 2002, Gingerbread is the story of Cyd Charisse, a teen who makes her way from a posh New England boarding school to her home in San Francisco and then to the larger-than-life streets of New York City, where she hopes to bond with the biological father she’s idealized for over a decade. In the book, author Rachel Cohn explores the ideas of blended families, chosen families, unhealthy r...

There’s nothing quite like a simple, solid friendship story to really bring you back to what it felt like to be a kid, and that’s exactly what you get in Judy Blume’s Just as Long as We’re Together . On Episode 68, author Caroline Moss joins Alli to discuss this title (which just so happens to be one of her childhood favorites!), as well as what it says to kid readers about friendship, family, wei...

Dudes abound in the world of science fiction and fantasy, and author Anne McCaffrey was a true trailblazer… just like the protagonist in her 1976 YA novel Dragonsong . The book is a celebration of fighting the patriarchy and any other institution that keeps you from pursuing your passions and talents. On Episode 67, author Tui Sutherland joins Alli to discuss her lifelong passion for McCaffrey’s w...

Alli and guest Jaime Elsey — who you may know better as bookstagram’s @absorbedinpages  — are getting real on Episode 66 as they discuss the heartbreaking twenty-sixth book in Ann M. Martin’s beloved Baby-Sitters Club series, Claudia and the Sad Goodbye . Tune in to hear them compare Claudia’s experience with the loss of a loved one to their own, and to hear them discuss the amazing ways in w...

October is here… and we’re kicking off the spookiest month of the year with Alvin Schwartz’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark , the first book in a series of the same name, published in 1981. Alli’s not the biggest fan of being scared, but in Episode 65, she learns to appreciate the history of these stories and the research that went into curating them. She and guest Gale Galligan talk about whic...

Think you know all there is to know about the land of Oz? It’s more than just The Wonderful Wizard of Oz ! In Episode 64, guest Heather Boaz joins to share a meaningful story from her own childhood, the third book in L. Frank Baum’s series, Ozma of Oz . Tune in to hear us discuss our favorite elements of the Oz world and the lessons this story has to teach about the dangers of judging based on app...

If you feel like every episode of The SSR Podcast is basically just a lovefest about whatever book we happen to be discussing (and you’re sick and tired of it!), then you should definitely check out Episode 63. Our feelings about Cynthia Voigt’s Homecoming are A LOT more complicated. Let’s just say it’s a love/hate thing. On this episode, Alli and guest Kelly Jensen try to look at this 1981 novel...

Ever since its publication in 1960, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird has been earning accolades and showing up on school required reading lists. In more recent years, the conversation around this book — more specifically, around what it has to say about race and racial injustice — has become more complicated. On Episode 62, Alli and guest Amy Jo Bunselmeyer take a good, hard look at this classic...

On Episode 61 of SSR, we’re taking to the Canadian wilderness — but unlike thirteen-year-old Brian in Gary Paulsen’s 1987 Newbery Honor-winning novel Hatchet , we’re not going alone. It’s a team effort to journey through the many conversations that come with this book! Tune in to hear us talk about the way Hatchet busted the “boy/girl book dichotomy” when we were kids, Paulsen’s presentation of tr...

It’s finally happening… we’re talking about Harry Potter on the podcast! More specifically, Episode 60 of SSR is all about the book that started it all: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone . In this episode, we talk about why the books have been challenged by conservative communities, obsess over the amazing world of Hogwarts and beyond, and chat about what we would have liked to see more of fro...

In Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game , we meet Ender Wiggin, a six-year-old boy who has been identified as a high-potential child soldier in a future human society readying for war with an alien species known as “the Buggers.” To prepare him for life as a military leader, high-ranking officials send him to Battle School, where they put him through a series of war games and simulations while isolatin...

Originally billed as the real life diary of an anonymous teen drug addict, Go Ask Alice offers plenty of food for conversational thought — not only because of its graphic content, but because of the many questions of authorship that have emerged around it since the book was published in 1971. In Episode 58, Read It Forward ’s Abbe Wright joins Alli to consider how much these questions of authorshi...

Alli’s called a lot of SSR books her favorite… and this one is no exception! On Episode 57, she’s joined by writer and debut author Rebecca Fishbein to discuss Margaret Peterson Haddix’s 1995 thriller Running Out of Time , in which we meet a thirteen-year-old who thinks she lives in 1840s Indiana but is actually part of a weird tourist attraction plopped right in the middle of 1996. It’s up to her...

As a high schooler, Alli missed the boat on reading S.E. Hinton’s iconic 1967 novel The Outsiders , but all that changed for Episode 56 of SSR! Along with guest Esther Zuckerman — a senior entertainment writer at Thrillist — she discovers the original context of “Stay gold, Ponyboy,” discusses the book’s unique portrayal of masculinity, and considers the ways in which its representation of margina...

With the help of a cult fan base and a 2012 movie adaptation, Stephen Chbosky’s 1999 epistolary novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower has become a beloved piece of YA history for people of all ages. Chbosky’s beautiful writing has made the book iconic, and the way he presents sensitive subjects (sexual abuse, abortion, dating violence, suicide, drug abuse, and more) to teen audiences has made Perk...

SSR is back for year TWO , and we’re kicking things off with a conversation about the first book in Francine Pascal’s beloved Sweet Valley High series, Double Love . In this episode, we (sadly) reveal a lot of problematic messages in the book about sexuality, class, privilege, and relationships. We also dive into the emphasis that these characters place on physical appearances and on the lack of f...

It’s round two of SSQ Q+A! Tune in to hear Alli talk about mental health, favorite music, podcast behind the scenes, favorite movies, body image… and for plenty of book talk, too. Thanks so much for all of your support in the first year of the podcast! Follow Alli on Instagram ( @ahoffkosik) and Twitter ( @ahoffkosik ). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sharon Creech’s Walk Two Moons was published in 1994 and went on to win the celebrated Newbery Medal in 1995. It’s the story of thirteen-year-old Sal’s journey — both literally and metaphorically — to learn (and accept) the truth of her mother’s recent disappearance, to empathize with the struggles that her peers are going through, and to find her own identity in the chaos of life. Walk Two Moons...

Among the Harriets and Nancys of the mystery world, Sammy Keyes has always been a breath of fresh, relatable air for kid readers. The first book in her eponymous series — Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief — was published in 1998, and author Wendelin Van Draanen went on to expand Sammy’s world with a whopping seventeen more titles! In Episode 51 of SSR, we take a closer look at the first book, remini...

Katherine Paterson’s beloved Bridge to Terabithia is the perfect subject for SSR’s milestone FIFTIETH episode! The winner of the 1978 Newbery Medal, this novel is perhaps best known for its truly heartbreaking ending and the way it introduces young readers to grief. Drawing on her own experience watching her young son lose a best friend to a tragic accident, Paterson touches on themes of imaginati...

Published in 1989, Francesca Lia Block’s Weetzie Bat is the story of an LA native named Weetzie Bat who finds and creates family on her own terms, alongside her best friend Dirk and their partners Duck and Secret Agent Lover Man (these names!). The book explores themes of identity, sexuality, addiction, and suicide, and is ultimately a celebration of transcendent love, acceptance, and inclusivity....

Quite possibly the darkest and most unique book we’ve read to date on SSR, The Brothers Lionheart is the story of brothers Jonathan and Rusky, both of whom die tragically in the first two chapters (!!!!) and find themselves in a seemingly idyllic afterlife called Nangijala. Once there, they get involved in a resistance movement against the evil Tengil. Written by Swedish author Astrid Lindgren in...

In celebration of Mother’s Day and special ladies everywhere, Alli welcomes her own mom Deb Cummins Stellato to Episode 47, in which they discuss a book they loved reading together years ago: Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White. Tune in to hear them discuss childhood reading rituals, the importance of listening, the value of friendship, and loss. They also share about their love of animals and take a cl...

Unless you can get yourself a time machine, there are few better ways to go back to childhood than to read a middle grade book — and Lois Lowry’s Anastasia Krupnik is written from such an amazing kid perspective that you’ll feel like an elementary schooler all over again when you pick it up. The first in a series of nine books, Anastasia Krupnik isn’t a fantastical journey or magical quest. It’s t...