I don’t know about you, but whenever I’m dealing with a challenge or situation where I feel I need more support, my first step is always to turn to a book. I believe in the power of stories to help readers better understand difficult issues, get insight into how to face them, and most of all, realize that they’re not alone. It’s that belief that led me to create the Louder Than Words series of teen-authored memoirs dealing with serious issues.

In this same vein, The Inspire USA Foundation, which created the youth mental health site ReachOut.com, has just released a list of recommended YA fiction dealing with the serious issues that many teens today face. Their goal? To promote positive mental health and build awareness of ReachOut.com as a resource for teen and young adult readers of popular YA fiction.

And for teens wanting to virtually connect with others struggling with the same challenges, Inspire USA is hosting a series of live author chats on Ustream through May (Mental Health Awareness Month), hosted by the fabulous YA author and Readergirlz Diva Melissa Walker.

And without further ado…here is the list of recommended reads, organized by topic!

• Bullying: Some Girls Are by Courtney Summers (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2010)
• Depression: It’s Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini (Hyperion, 2006)
• Eating Disorders: Skin by Adrienne Maria Vrettos (Simon & Schuster, 2006)
• Helping A Friend: Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes by Chris Crutcher (HarperTeen, 2003)
• Manic Depression/Bipolar Disorder: Nobel Genes by Rune Michaels (Atheneum, 2010)
• Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: Ball Don’t Lie by Matt de la Pena (Delacorte, 2005)
• Schizophrenia: A Blue So Dark by Holly Schindler (Flux, 2010)
• Self Harm: Cut by Patricia McCormick (Front Street, 2000)
• Suicide: Hold Still by Nina LaCour (Dutton, 2009)
• Abuse: The Rules of Survival by Nancy Werlin (Penguin Group USA/Dial, 2006)

I was excited to find out that actress and comedienne Amy Poehler was named as one of Time Magazine’s top 25 pop culture icons. And that’s not just because I think she is one funny lady with great comedic timing. I got to hang out with Amy and a bunch of other inspirational women last summer for a conversation about how those working on behalf of empowering women and girls could use the media to create more positive change. Amy’s passion for empowering young girls and supporting others doing work with similar goals makes her one of my mentors for sure.

Here’s another reason I love Amy: Smart Girls at the Party! Smart Girls at the Party is an online community created by Amy and her fellow Smart Girls, Meredith Walker and Amy Miles, with a goal of empowering girls to change the world by being themselves. The site includes a bunch of online webisodes where Amy, Meredith, and Amy interview real girls doing extraordinary things. The current episode features a profile of a 12-year-old robot builder, Rachel (you can watch it here).

Congratulations, Amy! Keep on inspiring smart girls everywhere!

Happy Earth Day! This year’s theme is A Billion Acts of Green, which speaks to an initiative aimed at inspiring and rewarding simple individual acts and larger organizational initiatives that further the goal of reducing carbon emissions and supporting sustainability. The goal? To register 1 billion actions between now and the global Earth Summit in Rio next year!

Check out the Billion Acts of Green website and you’ll see that more than 102 million people and organizations have already pledged to take action! For example, singer Brandi Carlisle has pledged to buy carbon offsets for her tour; actress Kelly Preston has pledged to work with Earth Organization; race care driver Leilani Munter has pledged to adopt an acre of rainforest for every race she drives in.

But it’s not just high profile celebs getting involved. On the site, you can choose an issue you want to focus on – from schools, sustainability, and food t0 recycling and conservation – and join others around the world pledging to do their part.

The most biggest trends right now on the pledge page are for people pledging to:

• Eat more local food
• Bring reusable bags to the grocery store
• Raise awareness about Earth Day 2011
• Eat a sustainable vegan diet
• Turn off the tap while brushing teeth
• Take shorter showers
• Turn off the lights when not using them
• Wash clothes in cold water

So what changes are YOU willing to pledge to in order to join this worldwide initiative to green our planet?

Love reading teen literature? Today is for you! It’s Support Teen Lit Day, an annual celebration aimed at raising awareness among the general public that young adult literature is a vibrant, growing genre with much to offer today’s teens.

And this year, Readergirlz is joining forces with Figment to ROCK THE DROP in honor of the big day. As part of the Drop, teens and YA authors everywhere are being asked to leave a book in a teen gathering spot in their community where the book will be found, taken, read, and enjoyed.

Want to get involved? Here’s what you can do right now:

• Snag the banner above, created by the uber-talented David Ostow (who blogs hilarious cartoons here), and add it to your website, linking back to this post to share the love, and proclaiming that you will indeed ROCK THE DROP!
• Print a copy of the bookplate below and insert it into a book (or 10!) that you’ll drop today. Drop a book in a public spot (park bench, bus seat, restaurant counter?) and you’re done. Lucky finders will see that the book is part of ROCK THE DROP!
• Snap a photo of your drop and email with the pic — we’ll be posting lots of pictures of drops happening all over the world at the readergirlz blog, and our friends at Figment will also be featuring the event!

I’ll be Rocking the Drop today by dropping some books off at a bench outside my local Boys & Girls Club. How about you?

I Rock The Drop from crissachappell on Vimeo.

Have you seen this? More than 1,000 students at Harrison High School got together on a Saturday to film this ten-plus minute music / lip dub video aimed at reminding teens that they’re not alone in their feelings of loneliness or depression.

According to the , the first part of the video was shot backwards, and all singers had to learn to sing their lyrics backwards phonetically. The second part of the video was shot forwards. The entire video was planned, produced, directed, filmed, and edited by Harrison Broadcast/Video Production students.

LOVE it! Check out the whole video here:

What do YOU see when you look in your personal “Inner Beauty Mirror?” That’s what New Moon Girls wants to know. The magazine’s Inner Beauty Mirror Uncontest is aimed at challenging girls to stop focusing on what they notice about their outward appearance when they look in a regular mirror, and instead celebrate what makes them beautiful on the inside.

To participate, visit the New Moon Girl uncontest page online and write down seven statements about your inner beauty strengths, pride, and talents. Oh, and like any good “uncontest,” it isn’t actually a competition because no on is going to be judged. New Moon is most interested in hearing all kinds of different Inner Beauty statements from all kinds of girls!

Here are all the official deets straight from New Moon:

What do you see in your Inner Beauty Mirror?

When we look in a regular mirror we just see our outward appearance –it isn’t anywhere near all of who we are as people. In the Inner Beauty Mirror Uncontest we challenge you to create a different mirror, the Inner Beauty Mirror. This mirror reminds you who you are and shows all the things you care about, all the things you are proud of, and all the things you do.  Isabel Rasmussen invented the Beauty Mirror for Girls iPhone app.  And then she asked NMG to work with her on this Uncontest!

It’s an uncontest because no one is going to be judged and there will be no votes to determine a winner.  We are all uniquely beautiful and we each win when we are able to see our own beauty and enjoy it without comparing ourselves to someone else.   All complete entries will be  will be entered into a prize drawing, names will be randomly chosen, and prizes given.

Follow these 5 steps to enter the uncontest (also watch Phoebe’s video about how to enter here) :

Step 1:  Write 7 Short Inner Beauty Mirror statements about You: The statements are about all your inner strengths that make you uniquely beautiful.  What are you proud of about yourself? Sometimes it’s hard to think of nice things to say about ourselves.  If you’re stumped, think about a friend’s inner beauty. Then see which statements are true about you.and  A way to start can be to write things about your friends like “Eva is a good listener and is a good friend because she always includes me.”  Is that statement true about you too?  Could you change Eva’s name to yours?

Step 2: Make a video of you saying your 7 statements. Or make a poster with your statements on it and take a photo of you and your poster.

Step 3: Read aloud and/or watch the video of your Inner Beauty Mirror every day for 10 days in a row

Step 4: Write a short story about your Inner Beauty Mirror and your feelings about it. Minimum is 250 words and maximum is 500 words.

Step 5: Enter the Uncontest: Go here and complete the form there before midnight central time April 30, 2011.  That’s all you need to do.  All complete entries will be entered in a random drawing on May 19, Turn Beauty Inside Out Day.

Did we mention you can win an iPod Touch with the Beauty Mirror For Girls App, a 1 year membership to New Moon Girls, and other cool prizes?

And Remember, You Are Beautiful!!!!

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Smart Girls Know is an affiliate of New Moon Magazine and is offering a $10 discount off the price of a year subscription, which includes 12-month unlimited access to New Moon’s informative site. To take advantage of this special offer, click here.

I just read an interesting article by Susan Engel in the New York Times about a unique project eight students undertook in their Massachusetts high school. In response to what many are calling a broken education system, these students designed The Independent Project, whereby they created their own “school within a school.” With the help of their guidance counselor, this small group of students, which included two who were considering dropping out of school altogether, designed their own curriculum for math, English, and science in order to see if an alternative approach to learning would yield better results…not just academically, but socially and personally.

From September 2010 to January 2011, these students developed their own inquiry-based approach to science, selected eight novels to read and discuss (more than the school’s AP program reads in a year), took on an “individual endeavor” (such as learning to cook or play the piano), and participated in a “collective endeavor” (making a film about how other students could start and run their own schools).

The results of this unique experiment were nothing less than amazing! According to Susan’s article:

“An Independence Project student who had once considered dropping out of school found he couldn’t bear to stop focusing on his current history question but didn’t want to miss out on exploring a new one. When he asked the group if it would be O.K. to pursue both, another student answered, “Yeah, I think that’s what they call learning.”

One student who had failed all of his previous math courses spent three weeks teaching the others about probability. Another said: “I did well before. But I had forgotten what I actually like doing.” They have all returned to the conventional curriculum and are doing well. Two of the seniors are applying to highly selective liberal arts colleges.”

I would love to see the film these students made and consider how their experiment might be replicated in other schools. I think the reason The Independent Project was so successful is that it took the focus off of achievement and test scores (there were no grades given on any of the work) and instead focused on making learning relevant, exciting, and fulfilling – a great reminder that any solutions for the current educational crisis be developed with the students’ needs, interests, and well-being at their very heart.

What changes would you make in your school’s curriculum if you could launch your own Independent Project at your school?

There’s a lot of buzz these days about the importance of creativity, and the fact that many studies suggest schools are actually sucking the creativity out of students by focusing on achievement and standardized test scores instead of creative pursuits. (This is a key point made in the documentary Race to Nowhere which is currently screening around the country and generating passionate discussions in the process. If you have a chance to see it, it’s definitely worth a watch!)

I believe wholeheartedly that today’s teens need to not only retain the creativity they had as kids, but that schools have a responsibility to help foster this creativity throughout middle school and high school. Teens don’t need to memorize a bunch of facts…they need to connect with their abilities to see things differently, be open to input from others, and come up with unique solutions to problems, big and small.

So loved reading this article in Fast Company about a group of eighth graders at the School of Columbia in NYC who got to tap into their inner creative design gurus and flex their creative muscles through a unique opportunity. Rinat Aruh, of the New York industrial design studio Aruliden, and Jerry Helling of company Bernhardt Design, led a free workshop for students called “Tools for Schools,” where students learned how design works by creating furniture for the classroom of the future. They tackled things like classroom chairs, desks, and lockers, and used their new design knowledge to come up with creative approaches to these school staples…approaches that were fresh, cutting-edge, and addressed challenges the students experience every day in their classrooms.

The results were pretty amazing.They came up with a new classroom chair, one that allowed for noiseless fidgeting, swiveled, moved up and down, and had storage space on the back to easily stow books. One of the desks they brainstormed had a “writable surface” so they could doodle on it (and not waste paper in the process) as well as interchangeable trays to hold things like art supplies, pencils…even a potted plant. When they looked at how they could design a better locker, they focused on the fact that these tiny metal closets are in essence their school “bedrooms for the year,” and thought about ways to incorporate more creative storage options and personal touches.

I love that these teens were empowered to look at these objects they spend so much time with every day through fresh eyes and use their newly honed design skills to seek creative alternatives…I mean, just think about the possibilities when they apply these creative skills to addressing challenges in the future!

To see pictures of the completed prototypes from these impressive teens, visit the gallery here.