I am on quite the rampage lately.

This just makes me boggle. Yes, I know it's old for a blog post, but I just saw it so here I am. It damn near made my head explode.

You know, I don't even write original fiction, and I know that most of it requires some degree of research. If I write a book that's set in a hospital, I'm going to visit hospitals. If I'm writing a novel in which the main character extols the virtues of In-N-Out Burger, I'm not going to set it in New Jersey. And one would think that if I wanted to write an urban fantasy novel, I'd read some urban fantasy and get a picture of the genre. Regarding this blogger's recent reading of YA, I'm shocked by the "I'm shocked" factor, too. Maybe that's my emotionally disconnected librarian talking, but the stuff of YA novels does not faze me. It all stems from SOME reality. Yes, it's easy to make smaller truths into huge issues in a book, or on TV, or in a movie, but I really think that's okay. That's the point of art, isn't it, to make us think differently?

This passage: Now, I was not expecting Nancy Drew. But... surely this sort of behavior isn't very common? Is it something you'd want your ten-year-old reading? (YA is supposedly for 12-15-year-olds, but in fact younger kids who are good readers consume most of it.)

just shows ignorance.

1. No, if it were common behavior the book would be really boring. Who wants to read books where common behavior happens?

2. I've never met anyone who recommended Valiant to a ten-year-old. If you have, please send them my way so I can smack them one.

3. Younger kids who are good readers consume most YA? First, define "younger." Second, where did this statistic come from? It's not like Nielsen Bookscan asks you for your age when you buy a book. I can only speak for the libraries I've worked in, of course, but I found that most of the people checking out books from the YA section are, um, teens.

4. YA is supposedly for 12-15-year-olds? Geez, you better tell YALSA, then, because their "Ages 12-18" service plan is all wrong and most of the books on BBYA are too old. Also, please send that memo to John Green, M.T. Anderson, Nancy Werlin, Robert Lipsyte, Chris Lynch, Sonya Hartnett, and all those other authors that write YA for the 14-and-over age range. Clearly, no one is reading their books and they need to quit writing.

So my question overall is: Why on earth is this writer talking about putting together a proposal for a YA novel when she doesn't read YA and hasn't kept up on the genre in years? How could you even think about writing YA fantasy and not know blackholly's work? The number of adult authors writing YA is climbing every day. In some ways this is good: We got Sherman Alexie, Carl Hiaasen, Alice Hoffman, Nick Hornby, Benjamin Alire Saenz, and other authors who have remarkable talent and wrote terrific teenage voices. But on the other hand, we get people like James Patterson, who I'll discuss in Part II: Stop Biting the Hand That Feeds.

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In other news, this is just wrong. Way to ruin my childhood. Sometimes movies are best left alone. You know one thing about Hollywood I never could stomach? All the damn sequels.

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Today in a meeting, someone's cell phone went off. Instead of silencing the phone immediately, she picked it up, answered it, and proceeded to have a short conversation. In front of a very crowded room. Those of us with manners damn near had heart attacks.

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ANTM: I know this makes me unpopular, but TEAM LAUREN! (Not opposed to teams Katarzyna, Claire, or Aimee either.)

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Who wants to beta the SPN fic I'm writing for pinkfinity's belated birthday? gwendolyngrace? titti? emmademarais? Anyone? Bueller?

Tags: i work with crazy people, rants, ya
126: cranky

adjudicated and pinkfinity are asking about personal theme songs. I don't have mine available for downloading thank you, lauriegilbert! "Extraordinary" by Liz Phair:

I am extraordinary, if you'd ever get to know me
I am extraordinary, I am just your ordinary
Average every day sane psycho
Supergoddess
Average every day sane psycho

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Our home modem died. That was not fun. But I have a new one, yay! Only now I'm behind on email, boo!

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Work has not let up, and on top of all that I have to do on a daily basis I had the Office Plague last week. I will be very happy as of July when one of my biggest time-sucking commitments will come to an end. Normally I'm one of those people who isn't happy unless I'm way too busy, but this is kind of ridiculous.

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fasterthanlight asked me if I was still writing fanfic and the answer is YES! A more detailed answer is, "When I have the time, which is not as often as I'd like for it to be."

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Been following the fap over Orson Scott Card winning the Margaret Edwards Award and I have to say...I agree wholeheartedly with the Edwards committee. Card's personal views should have no bearing on receiving the award. Ender's Game absolutely fits the criteria of the award. Applause to the Edwards committee for doing a great job this year. I know one of the members fairly well and I know how hard she worked and how much serving on that committee meant to her.

Like this, only it's not Amy Winehouse.

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Reading:

Prey by Lurlene McDaniel. I wanted to read this the minute I heard about it. Basic plot: A high-school freshman begins an affair with his thirty-two-year-old history teacher. It's done in three voices: The boy, the teacher and the boy's best friend, who is the one who breaks the secret. It's a great premise and fabulous fodder for discussion written with terrible dialogue, superficial character development, and a predictable ending. Too bad, really. I didn't expect it to be Boy Toy, which was my favorite book of 2007, but I did expect that the teacher wouldn't sound like some professional seductress/evil overlord, and that the best friend would at least be likable (and not in the way where you like a person because you feel sorry for them).

Tyrell by Coe Booth (coebooth). DAMN. This book is STUNNING and I suggest that everyone go out and read it right now. This is easily one of the best first-person novels I've seen in a long time. Normally I like well-done first person because they show how unreliable narration can really drive the story, but in Tyrell's case I liked the first-person narration because it voiced not only Tyrell, but his friends and family and even his physical environment. I love that Booth didn't try to make Tyrell into some kind of Upstanding Teen Novel Hero, whose greatest aspiration was to go to Harvard and Make Something Of Himself. Tyrell wants to be a DJ like his dad and protect all the people he loves. More than anything Tyrell is honest and vigilant, and that makes the reader want to see him succeed at what he sets out to do. The only thing? I wish this were available on audio.

A Drowned Maiden's Hair: A Melodrama by Laura Amy Schlitz. I should have read this book when it first came out. I avoided it, I confess, because it's historical fiction and really long, and I'm no good at history. Doesn't matter with this book. Schlitz's writing is sublime. She has this incredible gift for writing settings so that the reader gets a clear view of what's going on but never once does said reader get bogged down in adjectives. Basic plot: a girl is adopted to help with the schemes of women who make their living as fraudulent psychics. But it's more than that. There's an overlying theme of morality and moral ambiguity, and cruelty and love. Melodramatic? Sure! But it's supposed to be, and it's amazing.

Airhead by Meg Cabot. Dead people and famous people are all the rage in YA lit, so how long was it going to be before we got a book about a dead famous person? This is a different turn for Meg Cabot. It's got her breezy, fast-paced edge but it's not fun and fluffy. Basic plot: Completely average high school student Emerson Watts takes a blow to the head while saving her sister from a falling plasma TV at the opening of a Stark Megastore. When she wakes up, she can't figure out why she's got a manicure and a craving for wasabi peas, and why everyone is calling her Nikki, as in supermodel Nikki Howard. This is definitely a fun and intriguing read, and I'm curious as to where Cabot will take the rest of the series. She's set us up to know that all is not right in Nikkiland, but we don't know how not-right, or who's behind it.

Next on the pile: He Forgot to Say Goodbye by Benjamin Alire Saenz; The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart...which I've had for seven months and still haven't read because I suck...and also I can't find mine :( ; Debbie Harry Sings in French by Meagan Brothers (good so far, but I'm only on page 10); Skin Deep by E.M. Crane, lots of others.

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and now...back to work

Tags: books 2008, books i'd pay retail for, memes, ya

On a YA lit listserv I mostly lurk on, someone expressed great dismay and anger that One Whole and Perfect Day by Judith Clarke got a Printz honor this year while Mistik Lake by Martha Brooks did not. Now, I have not read One Whole and Perfect Day so I have no opinion on it whatsoever, but I'll tell you the reason why I think the Printz committee shut out Mistik Lake:

It's because Mistik Lake is a seriously flawed book in many, many ways.

First, the writing is very thin and overly ambitious. The author introduces a lot of characters but never fully develops any of them. The...I guess you'd call her the main character, Odella, has a lot of the markings of a Mary Sue: She has an unusual but never explained name, she is always heroic in the face of tragedy, everyone seems to love her. Brooks gets so busy explaining the effect of Odella's mother's life on everyone that no one character's reaction ever really comes to fruition. I have absolutely no problem with books where the life of a character who never appears on screen affects everyone who appears on-screen. In fact, I find those books fascinating if they're done well. Here, Sally's (the mother's) tragedy affects everyone in the book, but everyone around her is such a saint that she's always viewed as poor, poor Sally. Sally packs up when Odella is a teenager, moves to Iceland to be with her lover, later husband, and dies in a car accident a few years later. At the end of the book (SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS) the reader learns that Sally and her husband (whose name I can't remember because I borrowed the book and had to return it, sorry) had a baby. That almost made me throw the book across the room.

Tinhattery to follow.

First, Odella and her sisters Janelle and Sarah were supposed to love this little baby they'd never met, who was flown from Iceland to Canada not long after her mother's death. Because everyone knows that babies have the magic power to bring destroyed families together. Second, because Sally had a baby I really believe that the author wanted us to see her as a Truly Good Person, because you can't speak ill of a dead mother. Third, the introduction of the baby in the very final pages seemed to send a message to the reader that Sally must have found True Love, because having a baby with someone else must mean it's True Love and you have a Forever Bond. Because Sally found True Love, Odella has to forgive her for her abandonment. Not forgiving her for the abandonment might hurt the baby, because Baby can't think bad thoughts about her mother.

I'm not saying that Sally didn't truly love her new husband. That's entirely possible, but you'll never know because the book doesn't cover it. I guess the reader is just supposed to understand all that because of the presence of the baby. But the message I really think Odella got in the end? Mommy loves the baby more than she loves you.

The secondary plotline (and oh yes, there was a tertiary plotline, too) about Odella's great-aunt Gloria being a lesbian was nice, but the book could have survived just as well without it. I know there are supposed to be parallels between Odella's falling in love and Gloria's falling in love with a woman named Violet, but it's an apples-and-pineapples comparison. Gloria was a pretty cool person, probably the one person in the book with any idea of what it means to love, but she couldn't save the underdeveloped, melodramatic, whiny disasters that were all the other characters.

In short, a book where the setting is the best character in the book does not deserve an award. It'll probably get a spot on BBYA for reasons I'll never understand, but it was rightfully shut out of the Printz.

Another big complaint I've seen centers on Shaun Tan's The Arrival being shut out for the Printz. To that I reply, Well DUH. Maybe I'm a snob who doesn't understand the truly progressive nature of the graphic novel but The Arrival, as beautiful and moving as it is, is not literary because it's got no words in it. Graphic works that incorporate words can certainly be literary, because the words and pictures depend on each other to move the story along (see American Born Chinese). But because there are no words in The Arrival, it misses the chance to paint its picture for the reader in words. I'm sorry it wasn't eligible for the Caldecott because it certainly could have given ...Hugo Cabret a run for its money. It's a fascinating book I'd recommend to those who love graphic works, but again, it's not literary and didn't deserve to be honored at the Printz.

I have a headache that makes me want to rip half my brain out, so the Happy Galley Post of Midwinter 2008 will have to wait. I will say, though, that I'm really looking forward to reading a lot of what I picked up.

Tags: 2007, books, ya
126: discontent

Oh, ALA, why do you insist on holding Midwinter a week earlier than usual this year? I am sprinting to read everything I need to read. But, on to my 2008 Printz predictions.

Disclaimer: I do not serve on the 2008 Printz committee and although I know people on that committee, this post does not contain any of their opinions, only mine. Also, I have yet to predict a Printz winner. The closest I've ever come was 2007, when I picked two of the four honor books.

That said, on to my picks for the 2008 Printz Award:

The book most likely to win: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. It's received more critical acclaim this year than any other YA book, and deservedly so. And how amazing would it be for a funny book to take The Big Award?

The books I don't think will win, but that I think deserve honors: A Swift Pure Cry by Siobhan Dowd, Boy Toy by Barry Lyga, The Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt, Click by Linda Sue Park, et.al.

If Part-Time Indian doesn't take it: The New Policeman by Kate Thompson.

The books I still have to read: Before I Die by Jenny Downham and The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean.

Why this post is so short: Because I'm back at work after two weeks of vacation and I can't find my desk. Also it is really cold in my office and my fingers hurt. I did go to see Sweeney Todd and although the singing could have been better, I was extremely impressed by the acting.

Tags: books, ya
126: cold
780: I'm not here for your entertainment

I don't know why I bother reading anything Slate writes about YA literature. All it ever does is get my blood pressure up. Their latest offering is no different.

Her Dark Materials: Should children read Philip Pullman's trilogy—or the incest classic Flowers in the Attic?

Why does it not surprise me that this article is written by the same woman who completely missed the point of one of last year's Printz honorees and the National Book Award winner The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation? At least she had the smarts to not compare Pullman's writing style to Andrews's.

To start on what bothers me about this article, here's a list of the books the author mentions:

Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews
the His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman
Forever by Judy Blume

One of these things is not like the others. Can you guess which one? That's right, it's Flowers in the Attic, and that's what makes me the most angry about the article. Bazelon is comparing apples and pineapples. Flowers in the Attic, unlike HDM and Forever, was never intended to be sold or marketed as a young adult novel. I can't expect that much from Bazelon, who appears to have never read an actual YA novel in her life, or at least talked to a YA librarian (given that she mentions Sula, Black Boy, and Huck Finn as "classics of YA literature" rather than The Chocolate War, The Pigman, and The Outsiders). Every YA librarian...well, this YA librarian, anyway...will tell you that two of the most popular authors among middle school students are V.C. Andrews and Stephen King but I sure as hell wouldn't put them in the YA section of the library. If Bazelon is going to call FitA a "preteen classic" then it only seems fair to me that she give Stephen King's work the same label and compare HIS books to Pullman's. Fact is, though, FitA is not a preteen classic. It's a book written for adults that has been co-opted by the preteen audience. One cannot call it a preteen book just because it has a preteen main character. If that's the case, then we're going to have to call The Kite Runner, The Lovely Bones, Special Topics in Calamity Physics, etc. YA, and the authors wouldn't like that because, well, YA books don't normally get the big sales and publicity of adult titles.

I get asked a lot what separates a YA novel from an adult novel with a YA main character, and this is the answer I give, one that I believe applies to the FitA/HDM comparison: In a YA novel, the main character is describing the events as they happen with only as much wisdom and insight as he or she has at the time. In an adult book with a teen main character, an adult is looking back on events of his or her adolescence and writing them with some degree of adult wisdom, however small. YA books concern "today" and "tomorrow" and adult books with teen main characters concern "yesterday." This is why I don't consider Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep a YA novel; it's told from the perspective of an adult who is describing her teenage years. FitA is not a YA novel because (and please correct me if I'm wrong; it's been a while since the reread) Cathy is telling the story at the time of the end of Seeds of Yesterday. The series is a retrospective, not a narration of the events as they occur.

The second paragraph of the article reads:

But the depth of my Pullman devotion doesn't make me want to give his books to my two boys, who are near his intended audience. Pullman's work is a hybrid: It's sold to adults as complex fantasy, and to the 12-year-old crowd as Harry Potter-plus. In some ways, the trilogy is part of the coming-of-age tradition of literature for young teens (and inevitably, somewhat younger kids, too). It tells the growing-up story of Lyra and Will, Pullman's wild and enterprising child characters. But it's a complicated and dark and unsettling coming-of-age.... Maybe this is an idea that's more horrifying to read about as a parent than as a child, but giving Pullman to my still-small sons, even a couple of years from now, is an experiment I'm not about to conduct.

1. Harry-Potter-plus? It's all about comparing the apples and pineapples today, isn't it? Not all fantasy works for a YA audience are good next reads for Potter fans, and Rowling and Pullman set out to accomplish two entirely different things in their works. I'd be kicked off CHILD_LIT for saying this, I know, but I don't think the two should be compared.

2. A complicated and dark unsettling coming-of-age? Really? The YA world doesn't have any of those! Okay, that was mean, but I couldn't resist.

3. Part of this rant is tied into something that Bazelon is not responsible for, and that's what I like to call the My Child Is A Genius Because He Read Harry Potter Effect. In my personal and usually not humble opinion, Harry Potter was often marketed to too young an audience. It's a YA series if I ever did see one but parents for years have been pushing it on their second- and third-graders. After all, if their kids can get through that big book, they must be smart! But the thing is, Harry Potter was never intended for eight-year-olds any more than FitA was intended for twelve-year-olds. Consequently, two things happened. First, more fantasy series for the middle-grade crowd got published. YAY! There is no bad in that. Second, YA fantasy suddenly became the desired purchases/library checkouts by those parents with genius children who did not understand the idea that YA literature is about content AND vocabulary. I think that might be some of the reason behind my annoyance over the HDM media frenzy. Those books, despite the look of the movie, do not belong in the children's section of a bookstore or library. Your child is not a genius because he read HDM at eight. It just doesn't work that way. A book is more than the words on its pages.

4. The plural of anecdote is not evidence. And I'll leave that at that.

And yes, I understand that the point of the article is about the secrecy and defiance of the preteen reading experience, but that doesn't change the fact that the basic comparison is flawed. I really don't see kids reading Pullman with the same "OMG I know I'm not supposed to be reading this" savor that they read Andrews and King. Chances are, most middle-school students will not try to shock or impress their classmates by reading HDM because, yeah, that's what Stephen King and V.C. Andrews are for.

Tags: books, rants, ya
780: been caught stealing once when I was five

I stole this from the YA Authors Cafe because it was so damn cool.

[Reader] bloodymandy suggested we ask everyone about their favorite characters who have certain characteristics. We think this is a great discussion topic. Sometimes favorite or memorable characters are not the main characters or even ones from favorite books. We've created five categories. Let's hear who your favorites are. And how about trying to give us a male and female character in each category if you can?

1. Most Sassy, Attitude Overloaded Character

2. Most Unexpectedly Funny Character (As In You Snort Milk Out Your Nose)

3. Character You Would Most Like To Slap

4. Character You Would Most Like To Give A Hug To

5. Character You Will Never Forget

My answers:

Tags: books, memes, ya
780: You may tire of me as our December sun is setting

Everyone I know has a to-read list/pile/stack of post-its/folder of del.icio.us tags. Book descriptions come our way...well, mine at least...and I think, "I'll read that as soon as I'm done writing this review, or reading this stuff for a work project, or whatever." Between having a life and being a librarian, my to-read pile never has fewer than twenty books in it. Yesterday, however, I finished one of the books in my to-read pile, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan.

To write a short review in the style of the book: Holy FUCK this book was fucking great! It's like about this straight bassist in a queercore punkish band, Nick, who just broke up with his ho-beast girlfriend, Tris. Only Tris fucking won't not come to his gigs in NYC and so when he sees her at one of his gigs one night he grabs Norah and asks her to be his girlfriend for five minutes. I didn't know stream of consciousness writing could be so damn good until I read this. The book takes place over one night where Nick and Norah kiss, fight, break up, get back together, fight again, get back together again, and play out one of the hottest non-sex sex scenes in teen literature (right up there with Order of the Poison Oak).

And then I read Crackback by John Coy, which suffered the fatal disease of Too Many Plots, Not Enough Character Development and the world looked a little less shiny. But such is life as a reader.

Off to move Naomi and Ely's No-Kiss List to the top of my non-required-reading pile.

Tags: 2007, books, ya
126: determined

I love PubRants, a blog written by literary agent Kristin Nelson. She agents YA, among other genres, and always has fascinating things to say.

Monday's post (why is my RSS reader always so slow to pick up posts?) was on "What They [Editors] Want." Agent Kristin attended a meeting at Penguin Children's Group and heard editors speak about what they'd love to see. The list included YA psychological thrillers, paranormal YA that is NOT centered around vampires and werewolves (is the YA world as sick of glittery vampires as I am? and I was surprised that they mentioned werewolves but not faeries, as I can think of many more faerie than werewolf books...but maybe faeries are the new vampires?), and middle-grade boy reads. Many of the items on the list are things children's and YA librarians would like to see, too, especially with this year's overwhelmingly girly Newbery books. But I'll save the rant on Newbery books being pushed on all kids for another day.

I have nothing to rant about regarding Agent Kristin's post. I do, however, have to rant on this comment, which ends, I'm getting into YA and am glad to see that the genre is expanding outside of the bubble-headed "Gossip Girls" type stuff.

Well, gee, the YA world thanks you ever so profusely for realizing that there are more than eleven books on the YA shelves at your local bookstore/library.

Look at a calendar, people. It's 2007. Seventeenth Summer is over sixty years old. The Pigman is nearing fifty. Forever recently turned thirty. YALSA is fifty. The Printz Award is seven. Surprise, surprise, the YA genre has always been more than Gossip Girl. And even as the Gossip Girl readalikes hit the market, a lot of not-Gossip Girl is out there, too. YA is just as diverse and literate as adult fiction and has been so long before Cecily von Ziegesar turned her computer on to write the first book in the series. Gossip Girl adds to the diversity of the genre. It gets all the press because it was the first book of its kind regarding the life of rich kids in NYC with all the brand-dropping, but let's not forget Blair and Serena's big sister, Lila Fowler.

(The comment below that one straightened her out a little. But probably not enough.)

Oy, and "high-concept" books, too. I can't deal with the stress of that post right now.

Tags: books, rants, ya
126: annoyed

First, *hugs friendslist*. Thanks for the funny. I needed it. I may need it more when I have to come up with the insurance deductible, and then pay my premiums for the rest of the year. I swear, when I retire I'm going to move to New York City where I don't have to own a car.

Second, I got to thinking about the members of YALSA's Best Books For Young Adults committee, and how they have to read, on average, one book per day. I think I might like to try that. Maybe not one book a day, but five books a week. I could do it, right? As long as not too many authors get Aidan-Chambers-inspired to put out 800-page tomes. (And I'm STILL on page 250 of that book.)

So far this week, I've read:

Impulse by Ellen Hopkins. I don't know why I can't get into Ellen Hopkins's work. She's certainly a great writer who really has a handle on what word to use when (always important when you're writing a novel in verse), but I always leave her books feeling sort of beaten down. Her books are always long and packed full of teen issues, and I LIKE long books full of issues, but...meh. Impulse centers on three teens at a mental health facility. Each has attempted suicide, and each is harboring a lot of damaging secrets: Tony is a drug addict who did six years in juvenile detention, Connor is cracking under the pressure from his perfect parents to be more like his perfect sister, and Vanessa, a cutter, is bipolar but hasn't told anyone about her symptoms. Together, they form a supportive relationship and work with doctors to learn coping skills for when they return to the real world. The ending, like the ending of Burned, is a shocker.

Stuck in the '70's by D.L. Garfinkle (dlgarfinkle). Shay, your average California teen in 2006, appears naked in Tyler's bathtub...in 1978. She's beautiful and instantly popular, and she and Tyler strike a deal: If Tyler uses his knowledge of physics to transport her back to 2006, she'll give him a makeover and all the keys to the popularity he's always wanted. Lots of fun, with alternating guy/girl viewpoints. It reminded me of Pleasantville, which is a very good thing because I love that movie, and it made me think about how the times we live in affect who we are. I've known more than one person who believed they belonged in another time, and I wonder how being transported could affect your life choices. (I know I would look really good in poodle skirts and sweater sets but I think I'd still want to go to college.)

Fix by Leslie Margolis. Cameron changes her life through plastic surgery, and Cameron's little sister Allie is about to do the same. But Allie, star soccer player and average student (as opposed to A-student not-so-athletic Cameron) isn't sure that a nose job will change her life for the better. Their mother, a former actress and model, is not immune to beauty standards, either. There's a lot in here, about beauty, self-esteem, aging, and self-confidence, but the book is a fast read, almost too fast. I think it could generate a lot of excellent discussion in something like a mother-daughter book group, even though the book itself is a little too jam-packed with Topics that don't all get their full development. Still, not a bad read at all.

The Plain Janes by Cecil Castellucci (castellucci) and Jim Rugg. This is the first book in the Minx imprint, and I can only hope that all the other books Minx puts out are even HALF as good as this one. Jane's family moves from Metro City to Suburbia, and Jane is convinced she's landed in Hell. She finds a home among the "rejects," three girls named Jane who are smart, dramatic, and almost athletic. Together, they form P.L.A.I.N.: People Loving Art in Neighborhoods, in which they find sneaky ways to bring art to their sleepy suburb. Not everyone appreciates their efforts, however, and Jane has to wonder: Is art really enough to save someone? The writing and art are both fabulous, though I can only go into detail on the writing because what I know about art could fit into, um, something really, really small. Jane is someone I wished I could be in high school: Artistic, determined to pursue art even through her setbacks, and intent on pursuing happiness even if it costs her popularity. I can't wait to see what the Janes will art up next.

And I'm going to finish, because I should finish what I start:

-Anatomy of a Boyfriend by Daria Snadowsky (adultolescent)
-Hex Education by Emily Gould and Zareen Jaffery
-The Titan's Curse by Rick Riordan (how much do I love this series? SO VERY MUCH!)
-Flush by Carl Hiaasen

and then the ones next in the pile that I haven't started:

-Crazy in Love by Dandi Daley Mackall
-Do Not Pass Go by Kirkpatrick Hill
-Your Own, Sylvia by Stephanie Hemphill (this one is getting a lot of good buzz)

My Large Box O' Galleys arrived yesterday, and ( here are the highlights of what I picked up )

So much to read and write, and so little...

Tags: 2007, books read, ya
126: determined
780: a bit of a shout and a bit of an angry snout

Way to miss the point, Slate, you bunch of whiners. I hate you.

You know what? I didn't love Octavian Nothing, either. In fact, I kind of felt like I needed therapy when I finished the book and I was rooting for The Rules of Survival to win the NBA. (I'm also rooting for it to win the Printz.) I wrote a favorable review of Octavian Nothing because my personal feelings aside, it's a hell of a book. There is nothing else like it out there. M.T. Anderson is one of the most gifted wordsmiths around and the YA world is lucky to have him. The language and Octavian's actions are perfect, considering where Octavian came from and what he's been reading all his life.

A good book needs to do more than evoke horror, however deftly. It needs to use that horror to make us understand as well as feel—to bring us inside a character, to open up a corner of the psyche. That responsibility is arguably heightened for young-adult books, the often awkward category that's meant to be read by teenagers but is often shelved in the children's area of stores and libraries. Young-adult books are typically of more interest to preteen readers (or adults) than they are to teens.

*beats with clue-bat*

YA books are not "typically of more interest to preteen readers (or adults) than they are to teens." If they were, they would be called middle-grade or adult books. I see plenty of teens reading YA books. I see it on a daily basis, in fact. You probably don't know this, but YA books are, like, actually really good and stuff and there are way cool authors turning out fantastic books that teens want to read. Clearly, you haven't read a YA book since Sweet Valley High was still in print , evidenced by the fact that you think Sula is a YA "classic," but that is no reason to take it out on the extraordinarily talented M.T. Anderson. Not all YA books have a message. YA authors, I'm guessing, don't feel like they have to "send a message" any more than adult authors do. From what I've seen, they have a story to tell and they tell it. M.T. Anderson's stories just happen to be about consumerism and slavery. Ann Brashares's are about friendship. Jonathan Stroud's are about corruption.

The voice of Octavian never broke free of its own metal casing. He remains disembodied—pitiable, no question, but too remote to actually pity.

Um, yes, that's kind of the point, isn't it? Isn't the point of the book that Octavian has been told all his life what to think and now, given the chance to think on his own, finds he has very little voice (and in places, none at all)? I'm betting his voice will develop more in Vol. 2.

Oh, and also? Maybe you're just hanging out in different libraries than I am, but the libraries I go to usually have a separate section for YA books. Bookstores, too. Who'd have thought?

Tags: rants, ya
126: cranky

Last week, I had dinner with four other librarians, one of whom is a school librarian. The five of us had just come from a panel discussion on which the school librarian participated. One of the subjects that the panel didn't get around to talking about (they ran out of time), was the perception of YA lit by teachers and school librarians vs. the perception by public librarians.

"I did a survey among my kids," said the school librarian over dinner, "and a lot of them feel that because modern YA literature is so graphic and gritty and real that they feel like they now have license to go out and do the same things the character did in the book because it was described in so much detail."

I am still open-mouthed over this. I didn't know how to respond without sounding like a huge bitch. I wanted to say, "Do teens today really have such a difficult time separating fiction from reality? Do they think it's all right to do everything they see in an episode of The O.C.? If not, why is TV different from books?" I wanted to say, "Please tell me I misunderstand what you just told me, because if I'm not, either your students live in Bizarro World or I do."

I can't be interpreting her words correctly. I can't. I can't believe that teens would think it's all right to go out and run away to Mexico to help an abused friend just because they saw it in a book, or shoplift, or take a friend's Ritalin. Do teens do these things? Yes. But I have to believe that they do it for reasons other than "I read it in a book, so I thought it was okay." Teens are smarter than that. Most PEOPLE are smarter than that, regardless of age.

Related to this, the results of the YALSA Teens Top Ten are in, and only one of them is modern realistic fiction. Five of the remaining nine are grounded in reality but have fantastic elements. The other four include three "regular" (non-urban, not set in modern times, etc.) fantasy and one historical fiction. Since the Teens Top Ten is actually picked by teens, I'm throwing my hands up. Who's reading the realistic fiction? Or maybe it's just that a higher percentage of fantasy readers are inclined to vote. I don't know.

Editing to add: Over lunch, I read the books chapter of Packaging Girlhood by Sharon Lamb and Lyn Mikel Brown, and it turns out that I am wrong. I am disillusioned in thinking that teens, especially teen girls, can separate fact from fiction. I am not in the know about the marketing that goes into messages of femininity and popularity in books. Woe is I, for I suck at my job.

Posts on this book will follow. It's...interesting, I guess, but I have some serious problems with the chapter on books, starting with the fact that the only fun, interesting, smart, brave girls they name in YA lit are all in fantasy novels. NOT ALL TEENS READ FANTASY, YO.

In happy news, my former boss, Violet, just got a New York Times Librarian of the Year 2006 award. She rocks. Oh, and also I am reading Cures for Heartbreak by Margo Rabb and that rocks, too.

---

merry_smutmas fic well on its way toward done. YAY.

Tags: i work with crazy people, ya
126: disheartened

Probing YA Writer's Absence from Borders Shelves and Is Borders Blocking a Book With Sexual Content?

Technically, yes, Borders is blocking a book with sexual content, but that's not the point. Borders is not buying this poor quality book with sexual content. Pop has a lot going against it. The cover is lame, although a part of me is grateful not to see random body parts on it. The author couldn't seem to decide when the book took place. I *think* it was set in 2006, but there were so many '80's references that it may very well have been set in 1986. (Who makes a mix tape in 2006?) I didn't care whether the main character accomplished her goal of having sex or not, although I did like how her relationship with her eventual partner turned out. It was nice to see an emotional guy. That, however, couldn't save this book. I'd go into more detail, but I gave my galley away a while ago and don't have references.

More information and a quote from the author can be found in this article in The Book Standard:

Wallington explained, "I wanted to write a book that would serve a new generation of girls the way Judy Blume's Forever served me—answering questions that I was too embarrassed to ask anyone, and showing the emotional issues of sex and virginity through a character I could identify with."

Authors, I am begging you: Please, please don't give your book a job to do before it's even published. Don't set out to change the face of YA literature. You won't. The books that have did not set out to change YA literature, they set out to be great stories. Judy Blume wrote Forever on the request of her daughter, who wanted a book where "two nice teens have sex and no one dies." Don't set out to be the next Harry Potter, or Gossip Girl. Write your book, write it as best you can, and let readers decide what will become of it. There's no way to tell what will become a classic, what will change YA literature history.

Aury Wallington, for all her efforts and good intentions, did not achieve her stated goal because book was nowhere NEAR the quality of another book that did accomplish this "serving a new generation of girls:" A Bad Boy Can Be Good For a Girl by tanyaleestone. And A Bad Boy... even incorporates Forever, making it even cooler. I appreciate efforts made by teen authors to be honest about sex. Teens need honest, straightforward information about sex, and they need books that reflect their own struggles with sexuality, whatever those struggles may be. But Pop! is not deserving of a place on the shelf next to A Bad Boy.... Borders sells PLENTY of teen books with sexual content. Try Blankets, Sandpiper, The Order of the Poison Oak, Looking for Alaska, and the Gossip Girl series, to start. Sex is not the only thing that keeps books off shelves. It is, however, an easy way to get people riled up about OMGCENSORSHIP. It's not censorship if the book isn't any good.

I could go on more, and I might some day, but right now I have to finish two book reviews, two fics, papers for a meeting tomorrow, a seminar on Thursday night, and...lives, I used to have one.

Tags: writing, ya
126: rushed
780: I think I'll go to Boston, I think that I'm just tired

First and most importantly: Happy birthday to the brilliant, fun, and beautiful deralte.

Sigh. YA books are all about sex. Again. I missed the news because I don't get home from work until 7 p.m. on Mondays, but argh. YALSA-BK is all craziness. But a good kind of craziness. Professional-like. I think I'm just all aboggle at this big important article published by NBC where the journalist has clearly not read the books, nor talked to anyone who's an expert in the field. I thought journalism was about reporting, like, the facts.

So. Let's talk a little bit about why Harry Potter is a young adult series, rather than children's. All my reference books on this subject are, of course, at home, so forgive my faulty memory.

Young adults as defined by YALSA are 12-18. This distinction isn't perfect, of course. There are a lot of books that cross over between children's and YA, like Holes and House of the Scorpion, and YA books that won the Newbery or the Newbery Honor for children's literature, like The Blue Sword, because the Printz didn't exist until 2000. Because of this, I can see the argument for SS and CoS as children's books, and even though I think CoS is more YA, I'm not going to go to battle over it. PoA on up, though? Classic examples of YA lit.

Not too long ago, I wrote an article for a YA lit encyclopedia on why HP is a YA series. I used the criteria from Literature For Today's Young Adults, which has a six-point list of the things that separate children's books from YA. Some factors, like a diverse cast, cross over from children's to YA, but others, like the role of parents, don't. (My book is at home, my paper is at home, yada yada.) When I consider Donelson and Nilson's criteria, HP fits all of them perfectly. It's true that some children's books carry traits of YA, but these criteria are hardly one size fits all.

Disclaimer: There are always exceptions to every rule, and I'm just providing examples. It is impossible to get all YA lit into six categories, but most of it covers at least four of the six. Also, I have read every book I mention.

Some of my arguments for HP as a YA series are:

1) Lack of parents. It's not just Harry's parents who are gone. In the setting of Hogwarts, EVERYONE'S parents are absent. With their parents out of the picture, the teens are free to go about their adventures and grow as individuals. Parents in YA lit are often a source of strife, and more often than not one of them is dead or otherwise out of the picture. Some exceptions to this rule: My Heartbeat by Garrett Freymann-Weyr, The Cat Ate My Gymsuit by Paula Danziger (although the father is Marcy's premier antagonist), Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie by David Lubar (must pimp this book as often as humanly possible). Even with the parents in the picture, most of these books take place at school or at friends' residences, leaving the teens to act independently. I'm not saying there aren't children's books with no parents; look at From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. In children's books, however, the parents play a much different role. They influence their children's decisions more, like in Charlotte's Web, or they shape who their children become, maybe their children want to follow in their footsteps.

2) The age of the main character. Yes, maybe this is somewhat of a duh, but I've seen a lot of outrage from parents who don't want their third-graders reading a book with lots of kissing and a sexual awakening (Harry's). But that's what a good young adult book incorporates: the physical and mental changes that all teens go through. In Time magazine, article here, J.K. Rowling says:

"There comes a point where Susan, who was the older girl, is lost to Narnia because she becomes interested in lipstick. She's become irreligious basically because she found sex," Rowling says. "I have a big problem with that."

So do I.

One of the things I admire most about JKR's writing is her attention to the feelings of teenagers. Harry isn't just The Boy Who Lived. He's The Boy Who Lived To Develop A Crush On His Best Friend's Sister And Really Screw Up His Relationship With Cho Chang. It's Harry's jumbled feelings, so normal to teens, that make him likeable and make the reader able to relate to him. By ignoring Harry's emerging sexuality, JKR would have done a huge disservice to her teen readers. HP would have been the Michael Jackson of YA lit: a teen protagonist with a child's mentality. I think a lot of people still expect it to be that way. Too damn bad. We cannot expect readers to go from Bridge to Terabithia to The Color Purple. YA lit is the way to bridge that gap. HP is unique in that he ages and grows over the series, and it seems to me like many readers have a hard time accepting the inevitable: All people change as they grow older. One of the joys of YA literature is witnessing these changes firsthand and seeing them treated so well, with so much care, by YA authors. I sure as hell couldn't do it.

That, and the fact that any other book where the characters smoked, drank, beat each other up, kissed, had obvious sexual longings, bled every other page, talked back to their teachers, and fought for their lives against evil would go straight to the YA section of any library.

3) Questioning authority. Again, this does happen in a lot of children's books, but realizing that authority figures aren't always right and don't always have children's best interests in mind is a primary theme of many YA books. Look at just about anything written by Nancy Farmer, Edward Bloor, or Robert Cormier. The best part of this aspect of Harry Potter is that not only is Harry questioning his superiors, he has to put his life in their hands. Think Snape in OotP. It's not that younger children in children's-not-even-close-to-YA books don't question their superiors or parents, but unlike in YA lit it is sometimes (often? jury's still out on this one) the parents and/or authority figures that bail characters out of bad situations with their peers, usually through advice. Example: Ole Golly in Harriet the Spy.

4) Diversity of cast. We're all familiar with this one. No one at Hogwarts cares if your last name is Patil, Malfoy, Goldstein, Chang, or Corner, but your parents had better be wizards. Wizarding blood, of course, isn't the focus of the story, and we don't see people talk about how their being pure or half or nonblooded has affected their life experiences *pokes florahart*, but the sentiments are there.

5) The publishing perspective. People see HP published by Scholastic, a well-known children's book publisher, and assume the book must be for younger kids. But Rainbow Party is published by Simon & Schuster Children's Books. Right now, there aren't that many YA specific imprints. There's Simon Pulse and Scholastic's Push and others, but YA books are almost always published by a children's division. I don't see teens as children. I see them as, well, teens. I was appalled the other day at a parent who said, "But what do you have for little kids?" and when I asked her what she meant by "little kid," she pointed to her daughter, age fourteen. Teens need different books and different library services than pre-readers and school-age children, which is why I've turned down jobs where the teen librarian's position is part of children's services. (Also, teens cannot get the reference and non-fiction materials they need in a children's section.) I got bingoed out the wazoo last week on my local HP meetup list by someone who said, "Well, why shouldn't Harry Potter release parties cater to young children? After all, they're CHILDREN'S books and weren't you a child once?" (Yes, but I grew out of it.)

HP, and please note that I do not now and have never worked in publishing, seems to me to be the biggest conundrum in YA publishing. It's a series that started as a children's book and has since moved into YA, yet Scholastic still sells this book with a sixteen-year-old protagonist to eight-year-olds. I don't know why. I'm not saying that there aren't eight-year-olds who enjoy the series, but in marketing the book to a young audience, I think Scholastic alienates their teen market. Teens need and deserve books like HP, books that show a character who always strives to do the right thing, who has unfailingly loyal friends that love him even though they fight sometimes, who is often confused and hurting yet always brave. But many teens won't touch HP because they believe it's a book for little kids. Even though it's one of the bestselling books in history, Harry Potter is unquestionably my biggest challenge when it comes to booktalking and selling to teen readers.

Those who do work in publishing, especially for children and/or teens, are more than welcome to comment and straighten out my ignorant statements.

Other tidbits which may or may not be pertinent to the YA argument, but which are fun nonetheless:

Members of YALSA-BK were asked if they were buying HBP exclusively for children's, or for children's and YA. No one who responded bought it exclusively for children's. My library bought copies for children's, YA, and adult.

Harry Potter, numberswise, is the largest online fandom. But you have to be at least 13 to post at fanfic sites.

HP has opened the doors to YA publishing. Many adult authors who wanted to write books for YAs and kids and were told they were crazy have gone on to win awards and receive praise for their YA books. Includes: Carl Hiaasen, Joyce Carol Oates, Alice Hoffman, Walter Mosley, Neil Gaiman, Scott Westerfeld, David Baldacci, Clive Barker. Unfortunately, also includes James Patterson.

Lots of litrachoor types like to say that HP is yuck and it won't be around in ten years. My response: Who the hell cares? It's getting teens to read NOW. And if they don't read now, where will they be in ten years?

Tags: books, harry potter, ya
126: depressed
780: did you think that I would cry on the phone

From the OMGHOLYCRAP files:

VOYA just sent me an advance of the new Julius Lester book for review.

Julius.

Lester.

I swear I'm not that good a reviewer.

Tonight: Write for the FA Be Timely challenge, make fandom post? work out, dinner, try to sleep. Not in that order.

Tags: 2005, books, ya
126: worried