Hello Lovers of YA!
Last year I finally convinced Andye to do the Little Black Dress Project with me--a fundraiser and personal challenge to be intentional about ending modern day slavery (A.K.A., human trafficking). You can go back to all her posts on Reading Teen from March 2015 and see how awesome she is yourself. Or maybe you are the amazing ones, as you guys started donating a lot of money to help trafficking victims both around the globe and in our local backyard (because trafficking happens in Northern Virginia too!). If you want to read what Andye really thought of the project, though, I really think you should check out this interview I just did with her about the LBD Project. (I consider her a BFF and I didn't even know these things!)
In the meantime, I took these not-so-spectacular pics last year for you, yes, you Reading Teen peoples, in my little black dress while holding some YA books that had something to do with slavery.
Slavery in YA
Wait--slavery in YA? It might surprise us that there are so many books out there in YA that talk about human trafficking and slavery. Often I'll find slavery in high fantasy, and it is common to find it in dystopian too! Even in contemporary romance, I will sometimes read stories that have "grooming" in them, a tactic traffickers intentionally use to make a teen fall-in-love with them until they are attached by an unhealthy bond, like Stockholm syndrome. Once you become aware of it in books it becomes obvious. Then again, once you become aware of it within our world as a real thing, you start noticing how it could be or even is happening around us:- That magazine salesman was actually being labor trafficked?
- That boy is actually grooming her via Facebook?
- My clothing and tomatoes come from slaves?
- Sex is sold at that local hotel? That metro station? That rest-stop?
- Those normal looking teens are sold after school until 6pm?
- That nail salon also sells sex?
- That spa doesn't pay its workers and withholds their passports?
Pictures Of Elisa With YA Books
Without further ado, here was one week of me holding one of these YA books:

Sold by Patricia McCormick

Trafficked by Sophia Hayes

Trafficked by Kim Purcell

The Winner's Curse by Marie Rutkoski

Wither by Lauren DeStephano

Assassins by Sarah Maas

Hidden by Donna Jo Napoli


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