One of the ultimate ways to disrupt people's thinking is through the unexpected. For example, when we think of stories, we think of them as being told through one medium--we read stories through prose in books, and we watch stories through visual media in movies and tv shows. Yet, there are times that authors experiment with form, telling stories through multiple media and genre. This lesson is designed to help us disrupt our thinking about YA literature. As you will see below, there are multiple ways to tell a story. We are only limited by our imaginations.

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For this lesson, you have multiple options. Select and experience one from the list below.

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Patrick Carman is one of the masters when it comes to experimenting with form. His Trackers series is told across platforms, combining the text with videos and websites. His Skeleton Creek series uses videos to tell pieces of the stories. The Voyagers books tap into the love of STEM and provide enrichment to the story through secret codes and online games. And Towervale requires you to beat levels of a video game to make your way through the book. Each of these books provides an immersive reading experience that disrupts our notion of what it means to read a book Although you only have to choose one of the books in any of the series, you might not be able to stop there.

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While some authors do not venture into the digital world for help in telling their stories, they do play with form by mixing genres within the books pages to help tell the stories. Explore one of the books below for insights into how this might be done.

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In Hold Me Closer: The Tiny Cooper Story David Levithan creates a musical in the pages of a YA novel, presenting it as a screenplay. And Lauren Oliver's book Replica looks deceptively traditional, until you turn the book over and discover two stories in one!

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