Hi All,
It looks like we'll be reading against the grain which is fine. Soto (and other YA authors) are typically adults (although not always) writing about teens. They draw heavily on their own experiences and Gary Soto's roots are in Fresno's agricultural, rural landscape. I worked a lot with schools in that area in the 1980's (e.g. Delano High School). I would agree though, that in many ways, times have changed and communication is much more wide-ranging now. In any case, we'll look at lots of other YA novels when we get into that topic a bit later. Shoot, now I have to finish this novel to really participate in our blog.

The podcast idea is super. Garage Band and a host of other Mac based vehicles allow for doing podcasts (e.g. Keynote, Profcast etc.). We have one that Elizabeth Moje is doing for a future issue of JAAL and, of course, there are tons on iTunes. Now, if I can only find the time and get myself off the addiction to YouTube videos......
cheers,
Tom