Author: Serena Datta | BHSc Student at Queen’s | TNO Community Ambassador
A reader lives a thousand lives, played out in both familiar and foreign places: from apartments, schools, or homes where people navigate tensions we’ve seen before to cities fractured by war, in futures imagined by someone else. Books can be maps sometimes to ourselves between these pages, learning what it is to be someone else for a while. This summer, we spoke with local youth about the stories that have resonated with them. Some confront heartache, loneliness, or identity head-on, while others make space for joy, imagination, and the freedom to be soft in a world that often demands toughness.
Youth Reflections
One participant, a young girl herself, shared Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. “It felt private and brave. I liked that she wrote even when nobody was listening.” A 16-year-old shared Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng. “I felt like it showed what happens when people love each other, but still get it wrong. And that hit home.” A 12-year-old boy recommended The Giver by Lois Lowry. “It made me think about memory and choice. I never thought about how important memory is.” A 14-year-old picked The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini: “It didn’t make anyone a perfect hero. That’s what made it real.” For youth growing up between languages, homes, and histories, books offer more than just an escape. It’s exposure. To other griefs, other kinds of strengths, other possibilities. They let young readers test-drive versions of themselves. A reader can live a thousand lives – because one is never enough, and never the whole story.
The Back-to-School Reading List
These are the twenty books that changed how local youth understand the world, and how they understand themselves.
