And you may ask yourself, well, how did it get there?

Via Roger Williams at the Publish or Perish Literary Agency, here's an article that I found very interesting: The secrets of the Amazon bestseller list. If you wonder how an author's online presence affects book sales (or not), and how important is the Kindle to the bestseller list (or not), check this out.

The article opens:

It's almost a philosophical riddle: Do sales drive the best-seller list, or do best-sellers get all the sales because buyers see them on the list?

As much as we'd like to believe that the crowd picks the best books, a strong presence in retail locations -- front-of-store positioning and tempting discounts -- still counts a great deal in determining how well a title sells.

One of the hardest things for me to reconcile lately is switching my brain from libraryland to retail in terms of how books get into the hands of readers, and seeing that bestsellers are often made, not born. Libraries are unique in that their collections rely heavily on peer reviews of books. I keep forgetting, after my years of library work, that not everyone in the world reads Kirkus, PW, or Booklist to make their buying decisions. This isn't a bad thing; it's just the nature of the beast. Librarians buy books for libraries in much different ways than retail consumers buy books for their personal collections. The question of bestsellers is very chicken-and-egg, and it's one that I think librarians can benefit from understanding. Amazon itself is also a different entity with different buying rules than brick-and-mortar chains. Anyway, read it. It's full of answers to (some of) the questions that keep me up at night.

Boys will be readers, or not

What's the YA lit blogging world atwitter about today? This SLJ Talkback contribution: Wanted, Male Models: There's a good reason why boys don't read. No one seems to like it but me. I think it's kind of great.

First, it's written by Gail Giles, author of books that include the modern classic Shattering Glass, Right Behind You and What Happened to Cass McBride?. If there's anyone I admire for saying what she thinks, it's Gail. Not only that, but she is an experienced teacher of reading and writing and I've learned quite a bit from her just from reading her YALSA-BK posts. She fully admits that the article stems from her experiences and from generalized observations, not from peer-reviewed research, and the opinions she expresses in the article are shaped by her personal thoughts. (Or, as I like to say around here, "The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'evidence.'")

With this acknowledged, she speaks about one big reason boys might not be enthusiastic readers, that is, they don't have male reading role models. She doesn't pretend that the reason she writes about apply to all boys, but she does encourage men to set an example for the boys in their life by reading. It's true what she says about teachers and librarians being mostly female (one only has to enter library school to see that), and I also believe it's true that as boys get older, reading becomes a chore. It becomes a chore for many girls, too, but that's not the focus of the article.

Her final paragraph begins:

Whatever you do, don’t expect teachers and librarians to turn your son into a reader. It’s not their fault he won’t read. By the time he meets them, he’s been primed for failure. Be proactive. And I’m sorry to say this, but a male has to be involved in your plans.

Wow, talk about things no teacher or librarian wants to hear. Talk about a whole article full of things that teachers and librarians don't want to hear. But you know, I don't disagree with it. The thing is, it's our JOB as teachers and librarians to encourage reading and try to turn kids into readers. Kids know this. For all the makeovers libraries give themselves, they're still seen as "the place where the books live." I don't think this is a bad thing, because I love me some books. However, teachers and librarians cannot follow every kid home and make sure that the home environment is conducive to a love of reading. That's where parents come in, fathers in this case. I think that male role models are only one of many factors in getting boys to read, but they're an important factor.

Thanks for a thought-provoking article, Gail!

r u thr gd? its me max

Today's Publishers Weekly online had a fun little editorial by Max Leone, 13, of New Jersey: read this b4 u publish

I found parts of it very clever:

Finally, here is what I consider the cardinal rule of writing for young adults: Do Not Underestimate Your Audience. They actually know a lot about what's going on in politics. They will get most of the jokes you expect them not to. They have a much higher tolerance for horror and action than most adults.

(The only problem with this statement was that Max then went on to say that most of what he reads isn't aimed at a YA audience in the first place, making me wonder why PW picked him to talk about writing and marketing books for YA boys.)

Other parts I found downright laughable:

“Methinks”? “Doth”? Really? So we are constantly ridiculed for “lol,” while these offenses go unnoticed? To all writers of books aimed at teenage boys, I beg you: please use only modern language, no matter what time period or universe your book takes place in.

(Methinks Max needs to read Octavian Nothing, or perhaps learn a little about the evolution of the English language.)

Regardless of what I felt, it's always nice to see a teen speak passionately and articulately about reading. I don't think this piece defines what really does or doesn't make a YA book sell and garner readers and fab reviews, but it does touch on some important points.

Tales of a Fourth Grade You

Today's Entertainment Weekly Popwatch blog asks readers to share your formative Judy Blume experiences.

The first Judy Blume book I ever read was Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, and then I think it was Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret. after that. I might not have understood every word of the books, but I do know that Margaret helped me be fearless about bras and periods and all that other fun girl stuff, and Peter Hatcher, just like me, was the more conservative, fact-oriented older sibling of, um, a free spirit. Really, where would YA lit be today without Judy Blume?

America's Next Top Book Model

I may have failed in the effort to get Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki to pose for a READ poster, but the way I see it, my cat Henry is cuter anyway. Proof:



Henry is very literary. He also posed for a READ poster with The Book Thief, which he loved.



Once Henry is done hiding his red sparkly ball under the couch, he says he'd like to pose with Toys Go Out. He feels a great kinship with Lumphy.

To make your own Read mini-poster, visit ALA Products and Publications.

Read it like you mean it

When students have to produce an essay on a book they care nothing for, it becomes a nightmare for both the student (think "all-nighter") and the teacher, who'll spend precious weekend hours reading papers devoid of content. The upshot of this empty drill: teens increasingly resistant to great books.

This, and the rest of it, a thousand times yes.

Sometimes I think that the hardest part of being a YA librarian is not reaching teens, but reaching teachers, parents, and school administrators who don't know anything about modern YA lit, refuse to learn about it, and see no value in it. Analyzing any book to death does the reader, the writer, and the teacher no favors, but when my youngest sister raided my room for copies of her assigned English books when she was in high school, I had to sigh. She's ten years younger than I am. Also, a true story: When she was in sixth grade, her class was assigned The Dark is Rising and the class had to write an analysis of every page of the book. Every. Page. No wonder she and her friends "hated" it.

Here's another true story: When I was in high school, I was what one might refer to as a reluctant reader. I didn't mind finding books on my own at the public library, and there were books I found on my own that I loved, like What's Eating Gilbert Grape?. All through high school and into college, however, I felt endlessly frustrated by what I had to read. It wasn't that I couldn't understand it, though there was certainly some of that, it was that I always felt like I could never give the teacher the answer he or she wanted to hear. If I didn't analyze the text "correctly," I would get a lower grade. None of my teachers had books in their classrooms other than the ones their classes were assigned. No books but the ones we were assigned were ever discussed in the classroom. I'll never forget reading The Great Gatsby sophomore year. Now, this was a book I actually quite liked once I got past the first chapter. But my most distinct memory was of my teacher reading to us the passage where Daisy is upset that sometimes she misses thinking about the longest day of the year, and he looked up and said to the class, "Isn't that superficial?"

I knew then that I would never make it as an English major in college. Personally, I look forward to the longest day of the year and thought as a sophomore in high school, and still think to this day, that there are many worse things to be upset about missing. I also have distinct memories of taking quizzes on the required reading for my education classes, and getting lower grades because I read the text but interpreted it differently than my professor wanted me to. Yeah, college was hell.

Sure, there's value in analyzing a text. It teaches us to look beyond the simple words on a page and see an author's thoughts about humanity. But there is also value in not reading the same book year after year, in using age-appropriate books that will speak to teens as human beings, not just as minds to analyze a text and take a test on it. There is value in classic books, and there is value in YA lit. There is a time and a place for analysis, and a time and a place for simply enjoying a novel. Maybe one day the majority of high school classrooms will educate their students about this balance.

Happy 20th birthday, Teen Ink!

When people ask me what made me decide to become a librarian, I always tell the story of my first trip to the local public library. At least, it's the first one I can remember. I walked into the children's room and thought, "This is home."

In the twenty years that passed between the first time I checked out Dorrie and the Birthday Eggs and the time I received my MLIS, I went through a few other career ponderances. When I was five, I wanted to be a ballerina and a bus driver. I can't dance and I hate to drive, so I'm sure you can imagine how that turned out. When I was a freshman in high school, I wanted to be a writer. I'm sure if I'd known about Teen Ink then, I'd have tried my hand at submitting something. In my librarian years (which followed my professional musician years), I've encouraged my aspiring writer teen patrons to submit to this magazine, which has 100% teen-written content.

Although my passion was fiction when I was in high school, Teen Ink prints essays, poetry, short stories, visual art, and book reviews, so there's something in there for most creative teens. They also offer blogs on a variety of subjects, and teen readers can friend them via MySpace and Facebook. Most importantly -- and this IS important in an age where anyone can put up a website about anything -- Teen Ink will never charge a teen money to get published. Their content is diverse; they've published essays ranging to "Why I'm Not on Facebook" to "The Final Exam." If you haven't read it yet, pick up a copy. I think you'll be surprised in a good way.

Fanfiction: The future of literacy

In today's NYTimes there's an article, the first in a series, called Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading? The awesome Linda Braun will talk about just this topic (and more) at the YALSA YA Lit Symposium, so if you haven't registered yet, do so! There are many, many good questions raised by this article: What is reading? Is it better, worse, or the same to read online as it is to read a book? Are today's teens doomed because many of them would rather spend time online than reading books? The point in the article I want to talk about, though, is fanfiction.

Liz B. and I will present on this topic at the YA Lit Symposium. We have an hour and a half to present and let me tell you, it is not enough. I bring up fanfiction because one of the teen subjects of this NYTimes article, 15-year-old Nadia Konyk, is a mostly reluctant reader who loves fanfiction.net. Now, FF.net has many, many flaws, but I will say this about it: It's relatively easy, easier than many fandom-specific archives, to use. Anyone can create an account for free. Anyone can upload stories in a huge variety of fandoms. Anyone can comment, or leave a review on a story. Of course, it's easy to see the flaws in this system. Anyone can upload badly written stories full of grammar errors, and they often do. Anyone can flame another person's story, and they often do. But what the NYTimes article doesn't address is that Nadia is expanding her literacy by reading fanfiction.

Fanfiction forces you to look at characters in new ways and think differently about their actions and motivations. When you write fanfiction, you think of characters beyond the way they appear on the page. You think of all the things a character might be capable of but isn't seen doing in the series. For example, would Ron Weasley ever use an Unforgivable Curse? What if Tally Youngblood hadn't thrown her necklace into the fire and chose instead to rat on David? With fanfic, the possibilities are endless. You can write fanfic in prose or poetry or word art. You can write about any character in just about any book or TV series or movie out there. Fanfic does not have to stick to the point of view of the series of the book, and it doesn't have to be about the main character. One of my favorite Harry Potter fanfics of all time is mostly made up of original characters and the only recognizable name from the series is Albus Dumbledore. The writing and the author's attention to detail and characterization are truly spectacular. One of the things I personally like about fanfic is that it gives writers the chance to develop one particular writing skill, such as first-person point of view or past perfect tense, without worrying about building an entire world and its characters.

The one big caveat with fanfic is that good fic is hard to find. I would say that 85% of what's on Fanfiction.net is utter dreck. Another ten percent is readable but mediocre. Four of the remaining five percent are good stories with solid writing, but nothing special, and one percent is outstanding. I don't have one set formula for finding good fic, but try these tips:

1. Do an interest search on LiveJournal. LiveJournal is a place where fanfic and fanfic communities thrive.
2. Find an author you like, and see who this author has favorited on ff.net and/or on LiveJournal.
3. Many fandoms have their own fan boards and discussion sites. Harry Potter, for example, has FictionAlley, which houses fanfics and recommendations forums.
4. If you're a romance fan, you're in luck. Fanfiction is FILLED with romance. On ff.net, you can limit the characters in the story and read about your favorite characters to your heart's content.
5. Pay attention to the story's summary. If the summary is enticing, chances are you'll like the author's work.

A lot of finding good fic is trial and error. Mostly error. I've read a lot of bad fanfic in my time and chances are, you will too. The time spent reading the bad stuff, though, is worth it when you find the good stuff.

It's Still Not Easy Completely Missing the Point

There are not one but 2 YA lit stories in Newsweek this week, so I'll blog about the Anne of Green Gables story first: It’s Still Not Easy Being Green. Subtitle: 'Anne of Green Gables' turns 100 this year, but she's the most modern girl in the bookstore.

You know what else isn't easy? Continually seeing so much fail when it comes to mainstream news sources covering YA literature.

I will be the first to confess that I was never a fan of Anne of Green Gables. I read the first one and then I think my mom bought me the other seven books in the series, but I couldn't get past page 40 of book 2. I don't think it was Anne so much as it was my dislike of the setting. I have never liked any book that could even remotely be described as "quaint." Despite my not being a fan of the series, I could not believe it when I read this:

That "Anne" has survived so long—and, with 50 million copies sold, so strong—is a small miracle considering the state of young-adult literature. It's rare to find a best seller with a strong heroine anymore, in large part because, although girls will read books about boys, boys won't go near a girl's book, no matter how cool she is. Even in Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" series, the strong, grounded Bella is willing to chuck it all for the love of her vampire boyfriend. "The literary smart girl is still showing up in literature, but she's often the sidekick," says Trinna Frever, an "Anne of Green Gables" scholar.

Trinna Frever must be an Anne of Green Gables scholar to the point of not reading any other YA literature, because her statement is patently false. First, Bella Swan is neither strong nor grounded. She is completely without a sense of self, a spineless wimp, and a Mary Sue of epic proportions. Second, the idea of boys not reading books about girls is well on its way to being outdated. BOYS READ TWILIGHT. Every year, I pick an equal number of books for Talk It Up with male and female protagonists and never once have I seen a boy shy away from a discussion just because the book had a female main character. The boys my colleague in BCCLS and I have led in discussions loved Hope Was Here, I am not Esther, Dr. Franklin's Island, Magic or Madness, Kiki Strike, No Shame, No Fear and many other books with female protagonists. It's simply not true that boys refuse to read about girls.

Third, it's not true that books with smart female protagonists don't become bestsellers. A sampling:

• Tithe by Holly Black


• Uglies by Scott Westerfeld


• Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr


• The Book Thief by Markus Zusak


• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins...which is not a bestseller right at this moment, but it will be when it's released


• Lock and Key by Sarah Dessen


• Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, which has gone from bestseller to modern classic


• Cathy's Book by Sean Stewart and Jordan Weisman

and many, many more.

Fourth, if I see one more article that cites Harry Potter, Twilight, and Gossip Girl as all that there is of YA, I'm going to throw something. Are these three series insanely popular? Duh. You have to live in a cave to not know that. But I don't go around telling the media that all adult literature is John Grisham and Janet Evanovich, so media, please give the HP/GG/Twilight triumvirate a rest until you can tell me what the Printz Award is.

Generally: Are there books with smart girl sidekicks? Sure. One can't help but think of Harry Potter and Percy Jackson, to start. But their existence, and the bestselling status of these particular books, does not change the fact that books led by smart girls do exist and are bestsellers. Oh, and that they're enjoyed by boys, too. So perhaps the larger question is: What is a modern girl, and why is Anne such a prime example? I'm assuming that a "modern girl" is smart. Okay, but there are book smarts and street smarts and people smarts and athletic smarts and artistic smarts and more. A modern girl stands up for herself. Well, there's certainly no shortage of those in YA lit. Does a modern girl have sex? It wasn't an issue in Anne, was it? What's a modern girl's social status like? Fact is, there is no one definition. Clearly, the author of this article has an idea, but hers is just one idea.

I've talked before about boy books and girl books so I won't rehash too much of that here, but I find it frightening and disheartening that an Anne of Green Gables scholar knows so very little about the larger world of YA, and so very little about the reading habits of teens. Just once, I wish Slate or Time or Newsweek would interview a YA librarian, or a literary agent, or a bookseller, or anyone else who knows about what's really out there in the YA world. Of course, I also wish Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki would come strolling through the front door of the BCCLS office and take me to lunch in the Metallicar. Any bets on which will happen first?

Summer reading is killing teens

Darn. I was going to blog about this exact topic, and ShelfTalker beat me to it. It's a brilliant blog entry, really, so I will just add a few comments of my own. ShelfTalker says:

The best summer reading lists, I believe, should include a solid mix of books published for young adult readers and books published for adults, with an emphasis on ENJOYING reading. I think lists should include books that will appeal to reluctant readers AND books that will catch the eye of those kids who genuinely seek a challenge (or who just want to impress college admissions counselors). A list NEEDS to include newer books and (really, truly) the lists need to include a brief summary and/or review.

This is one hundred percent true, and if I may, I'd like to add a few summer reading list requests of my own. A great summer reading list, imho, should also have:

1. Books about people of all different colors, social backgrounds, and nationalities, preferably ones published after 2000. Not that I don't love Things Fall Apart, but can we get Chanda's Secrets on there, too?

2. A book 150 pages or shorter, and a book 500 pages or longer.

3. An equal balance of male and female main characters, and those characters should be treated as equals. One of the most egregious insults I ever saw on a summer reading list was a list that had books covering health topics. In these books, all of the boys were heroes who were "coping with" a family member's mental illness, and all the girls were mentally ill. I don't even know if the person putting the list together noticed this. Noting that the NIH says that men are more likely to suffer from mental illness than women, I suggested that the school add Under the Wolf, Under the Dog and A Beautiful Mind to start. I don't think they ever did, though.

4. Books that have the word "fuck" in them. No, I'm serious, and this is where my lack of ever being a school librarian shows. I think there's a lot to be learned from the structure of Fight Club, the way Palahniuk plays with the narrator's identity and the graying lines between order and chaos. But it's got a lot of grit and swearing, so one is unlikely to see it on a summer reading list. But come on. What reluctant reader sixteen-year-old boy, if he had to read something during the summer, wouldn't want to read Fight Club? Strong language is a way of life, and it can be a way of great writing.

5. Science fiction and fantasy...wait for it...written by women. If I'm lucky, I'll sometimes see The Mists of Avalon on a summer reading list, and that's it for speculative fiction written by women. Everything else seems to be Asimov, Clarke, Card, etc. Those books aren't bad, but a list that doesn't include fantasy and SF written by women doesn't send a great message. Please, if you're reading this and one of your jobs is to assign summer reading titles, consider books by Octavia Butler, Mercedes Lackey, Robin McKinley, J.K. Rowling, Nancy Farmer, Holly Black and Annette Curtis Klause, to name a few.

6. Books with gay characters. You know where this is a problem? Middle school reading lists. Fact is, it's 2008 and kids are becoming sexually aware earlier and earlier, even knowing they're gay or lesbian in middle school. Please, middle schools of the world, would you consider adding Alex Sanchez's So Hard to Say to your reading lists?

7. Non-linear structures and non-narrative language. Books written in IMs. Books written in diaries, letters, and emails. Books that alternate narrators. This is a multitasking generation. Shake things up a little!

8. Popular fiction. Oh yes, I went there. Maybe I'm not cut out to put summer reading lists together, but I believe all reading is good reading. As I've told some reluctant readers, finding the right book is like finding the right pair of jeans. Sometimes you have to try on 5 or 6 before you find one that's the perfect fit for you. And we all know teens are heavily influenced by their friends, so why not add the books their friends are reading, whether it's Scott Westerfeld or Janet Evanovich?

I'm a little worried by the ShelfTalker commenter who thought Lurlene McDaniel's Prey was "a surprisingly good, realistic, and non-exploitive(!!) look at a predatory female teacher," because I found Prey to be the exact opposite of all of those things (and not just because Boy Toy was my favorite book of '07), but other than that the comments on that entry are fantastic.

I didn't blog yesterday because I was tired from being in line for my new iPhone since 5 a.m., so I think the next entry will have to be How Do I Love My iPhone 3G, Let Me Count the Ways.

With great print runs comes great responsibility

I wasn't going to blog today except to say that I'm leaving for ALA tomorrow and won't be around for a few days, but a post on YALSA-BK today brought back some memories and thoughts.

At my first job out of library school, a woman approached me at the reference desk one night. Somehow we got to talking about Harry Potter and she went on a short rant, telling me that she couldn't believe J.K. Rowling had allowed Cedric Diggory to die. Rowling was writing for children, said the patron, and she had a duty to think of the children and she owed them a happy ending.

I was so stricken by the narrow-mindedness of this patron regarding what authors do and don't owe to their readers that I changed the subject. I could have gone in a couple of directions, I suppose. I could have told her that E.B. White didn't feel he owed it to children to keep Charlotte alive, or that J.K. Rowling owes absolutely no one but herself any particular ending, but I didn't.

Oh, the things we do in order to avoid patrons calling our directors.

Lately there's been talk on YALSA-BK about liking or disliking popular books. Personally, I don't care what books people like or don't like. To every reader his or her book. (For the record, I loved Harry Potter, thought Gossip Girl was just okay...although I'm loving the Carlyles series, and did not love Twilight at all.) The conversation is starting to die down a little, but today's post from author Dina Friedman had to be blogged about. Part of it reads:

Not that I don't sometimes "hate" other people's work, but I'm careful not to say that publicly, i.e. on Goodreads or other social networking sites, or on my blog, knowing how hard it is to write a good book, or even a not-so-good book, and recognizing that taste, as so many of you have expressed, is varied and opinions are subjective.

However, YA writers do have a responsibility to audience--multiple audiences. It's interesting that the subject line here is liking/disliking *popular* books, not just any book.

I realize this is an author's perspective and authors need to be much more careful about what they say in their blogs regarding what books they like or don't like than librarians do. Not a problem there. I am sort of perplexed by the sentence that begins, "However..." though. I wish she had gone on to explain exactly what is the responsibility YA writers have to their audience, or multiple audiences. I've always been of the opinion that the only thing YA writers owe to their audience is a good story with believable characters. Notice I did not say likable, heroic, virtuous, or morally upright characters. Faulkner once said, "If the story is in you, it has got to come out." Isn't that why writers write? Because they have a story to tell? If telling a story is the basis for the creation of a book, what does an author owe to his or her audience besides that story?

Authors are not public property, and neither are their books. The same could be said for bloggers: I don't owe anyone a blog post on any particular subject. For every book, there will be people who love it and people who hate it. What, exactly, is an audience owed?

Galleys: They're the new "So, you come here often?"

From my favorite blog to love and hate, Gawker: Getting Laid with Book Galleys.

I always seem to have a galley with me. Between my reviewing gigs plus what I get from publishers (thank you, thank you, thank you!!) I'm usually reading something that won't be out for a couple of months. Gawker, however, only mentions galleys of adult novels. So that makes me wonder:

Do children's galleys hold the same amount of intrigue as adult galleys? To be fair, I don't see any galley of any children's book standing up to the OMGWANT of the upcoming Chuck Palahniuk to anyone over 21. But I have to wonder: Would a galley of a YA novel hold even more mystique than a galley of an upcoming adult novel? Because not only would there be the mystique of "how did she get a galley?" there would be the mystique of "how did she get a galley of a book by an author I've never even heard of?" Would the relative lack of knowledge about YA that the general book-reading adult population, and certainly the Gawker-reading population, has make the reader of the YA galley even seemingly harder to get?

Okay, so the answer is "probably not." It's fun to wonder, though.

Editing to add: It seems the New York Observer is all over this, too: The Status Galley: How to pick up girls with the new Roth. Still doesn't answer my question about YA galleys, though.

Let's get together and maybe read a bit.

All three authors (Jane O'Connor, MAC, and Scott Westerfeld) have interesting things to say about their books and summer reading, but I just HAD to blog about what Scott said.

One of the things I've really been working towards with Talk It Up! and Speak Out! is getting librarians to emphasize the social aspect of the program. Two libraries in BCCLS are doing this especially well, incorporating games, movies, and food into their book discussions. Dumont does a program that has participants watching movies along the same theme as the book they're reading; for example, when they read Jacqueline Woodson's Hush they watched Sister Act. Rutherford emphasizes a relaxed, social environment where it's great if you've read the book before the meetup, but if you haven't you're still welcome to stay. Scott emphasized this idea when asked how reading can become a more popular activity (I paraphrase), the idea that reading is important, yes, but it's just as important as being part of a group and discussing a book. Books grow as more people read them. My absolute favorite part of being a book discussion group leader is seeing all the different perspectives and interpretations teens bring to the group regarding a single title. That's also why I hated high school English, but that's for another post.

Reading as an activity is important, yes, but I think in order to succeed with as large a number of potential readers as possible, we need to recognize that there are many ways to read, not just many books.

Editing to add: The publicity department at Toasted Coconut Books linked me to M.A.C.'s blog, where she's got even more suggestions for creative reading. The ideas are fantastic; I just wish she had added "or library" to "Check out the local bookstore." Many libraries host author visits and other cool book events, plus we have trained, knowledgeable professionals who can help young readers choose their next book.

Anarchy in the UK! (Age banding)

One of my biggest pet peeves in library teen services are public libraries who split their YA collection into "middle school" and "high school" or somesuch. (Note: This peeve does not apply to school libraries.) I've always felt that this discourages not only reading on the part of the teen patron, but an effort to do your job well and know the literature on the part of a librarian. If you work hard at your job and read the literature and know the books, you shouldn't have to separate your collection. You should be able to hand-sell the right book to the right reader without breaking down the collection. It's not that I don't support dividing a library's collection into picture books, easy readers, middle grade, YA, and adult, but I don't support breaking it down any further than that.

Apparently, British publishers disagree with me. For the linkphobic, Philip Pullman, Jacqueline Wilson, and other British authors have come together to protest age banding, a practice that will start this fall that will mark the front covers of books with age designations: 5+, 7+, 9+, 11+ and 13+/teen. Many authors and librarians (myself included) think this is a terrible idea and have established No to Age Banding in protest.

One of the comments to the Telegraph article reads: There are certain types of material that young children should not be exposed to before they have the emotional or intellectual resources to deal it. Why are these authors so reluctant to protect the young could it be they are greedy or have political agendas?

I think this commenter is missing the point. He doesn't seem to understand that every child has a different level of emotional and intellectual resources. Some kids are ready to babysit at eleven while others still need to be babysat. That's where librarians come in. We have the knowledge and the resources to interview each reader and suggest books that he or she will enjoy. My favorite book when I was in third grade (eight years old) was The Pistachio Prescription by Paula Danziger. Cassie, the main character of that book is thirteen and in eighth grade, concerned with her average looks, class president elections, her mother's superficiality, dating, and parties. In short, things most third-graders don't deal with. But I loved how honest and witty Cassie was, how much she cared about her best friend and her little brother, and how open she was about her anxieties. That book would probably carry an 11+ age branding but at eight, it spoke volumes to me. Would this commenter think that Paula Danziger, bless her, was reluctant to protect me? Maybe, but it wasn't Paula Danziger's job to do so. Because I learned to read at an early age, I had a lot of autonomy when choosing books. I often asked the librarians at the public library (Sharon Levine, I will never forget you!) for suggestions, and they were able to recommend books based not on my age, but what kind of reader I was.

Personally, I think age banding is a great way to encourage unhealthy competition in both parents and kids, to discourage those who don't read as fast or as well as their peers from reading at all, and to have publishers make decisions that are best made by parents, children, librarians, and booksellers. But that might just be my greedy political agenda.

Editing to add: Printz winner Meg Rosoff thinks age banding is a good thing.

I do not think that award means what you think it means

Via one of my listservs, I found this entry from The Reading Zone. It's an entry I pretty much agree with, talking about the effect the No Child Left Behind act has on reading for pleasure. What I find odd are the comments from "safelibraries," who seems to have a very skewed idea of what the Printz award is given for.

The Reading Zone suggests that books like Printz winner Looking for Alaska and honor book Speak be read and discussed in classrooms, not instead of but along with the classics most high school students are assigned. SafeLibraries says, in one of his/her comments:

Regarding parents needing to be aware of things, you are correct. But right now ALA-awarded books are considered ideal without the need for parents to question the ALA. The parents are aware the books are award winning books and that’s enough to know. Parents are not yet aware that the ALA now awards books that parents would not want their children to read if they knew the true contents. That’s the rub.

Nowhere in the Printz criteria does it say that a winner or honor book is ideal for any one reader or even any one audience. The Printz is given for literary merit, meaning (to me) that it's not always what you say, but how you say it. I could have written a novel with the same ideas as Looking for Alaska, for example, but because John Green is a much better writer than I, he was able to give it a literary bent that I could not. Green's use of language is what made that book stand out. When the Printz committee awarded Alaska, it was because of the way Green conveyed his ideas and made his characters come to life. The Printz committee does not care what content is in a book. It's not their job to care, frankly. American Born Chinese has no sex in it at all, but Repossessed does (sort of). When the Printz committee grants the award, they are in no way saying that the winner is a book appropriate for all children 12-18. That would be ridiculous. No such book exists, regardless of content. Teens are too diverse for any one group of people to determine what is good for all. I would also say the same for the Newbery. The book that wins the Newbery is not going to be enjoyed by all children, and their parents might not deem it appropriate.

SafeLibraries continues:

Parents are supposed to judge books for their own children, while at the same time parents are misled as to the contents of those books.

I really don't get how giving a book an award would mislead any parent as to the content. The award is given for the way the book is written, not what topics it's written about. A parent picking up a book with an award medal on the cover will probably figure that the book is good because it is. A group of people who did nothing but read YA books for a year deemed that particular book the most outstanding contribution to the genre in that given year. But an award sticker cannot tell a parent how appropriate, or not, the book is for their child. Everyone's values are different.

SafeLibraries cites an article in which former YALSA president Pam Spencer Holley was quoted talking about the Gossip Girl books:

So I’m going to provide evidence that, to me, is clear and convincing.

Consider the following:

“The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), the fastest growing division of the American Library Association (ALA), has announced a list of books to recommend to teens, both avid and reluctant readers, who are looking for books like Cecily von Ziegesar’s ‘Gossip Girl’ series.

“‘The books on this list are perfect for when your readers have finished with every “Gossip Girl” title in your library and are clamoring for another book like the Gossip Girl,’ said YALSA President Pam Spencer Holley.”
The press release goes on to say, “For nearly 50 years YALSA has been the world leader in selecting books, videos, and audiobooks for teens.” Fine. But why not also reveal that at a certain point along that timeline YALSA started recommending sexually inappropriate books for children, accompanied by glowing reviews that intentionally hide such inappropriate material? You buy these books in a bookstore and the store signs advise of inappropriate content. The ALA has no such advisories. This is another example why the ALA should no longer be considered authoritative when it comes to the recommendation of children’s books.

I have never seen signs in a bookstore advising that some content of YA books is explicit. Has anyone else? If so, where did you see them and what did they say?

Also, what is "sexually inappropriate?" And if the Gossip Girl series is just that, reader's advisory logic would dictate that those who love Gossip Girl would love other books that address the teen view of sex. "The ALA has no such advisories," but doesn't that speak to a belief that says that ultimately the teen (and the parent, if so desired) has to be the last word on what book is appropriate for him/her? There's a wide range of maturity in teens, and even in adults, and since librarians cannot address every single teen, the best we can do is recommend readalikes and let the reader decide.

In the meantime, here is YALSA's Printz Award page.

It's April 17. How are you supporting teen lit?

Support Teen Lit Day is a relatively new project of YALSA's, meant to increase visibility and positive press for teen literature. This year, the fabulous Readergirlz are hosting Operation Teen Book Drop, in which they donate young adult books to hospitals.

What did I do to support teen literature? I talked to a library board and foundation.

One of our libraries in BCCLS is undergoing a renovation and plan to expand their teen section and offer more teen programming. The director asked me to speak today as the BCCLS consultant on YA services, and I had a great time. I got to talk to a room full of people who don't read YA lit, and I told them about the amazing array of YA lit available these days, from the literary to the fluff, and how to reflect the lives of teens in a library's collection. Because here's the thing: We can talk all we want about how important it is to communicate with teens, to get teen input on books, all that good stuff, but if we can't make those who fund us (taxpayers, library boards, Friends of the Library groups, etc.) see how important teen literature is, and how it's more than just Eragon and Gossip Girl, all our good intentions and readers' advisory means nothing.

Visit the YALSA Wiki's Support Teen Literature Day page to find out what you can do to support teen literature on April 17th...and 18th, and 19th, and 20th, and 21st...

The Berenstain Bears Get Nose Jobs

This might be the most disturbing article I've seen in a while short of that one from Philadelphia Magazine about 8-year-olds getting bikini waxes: Mommy 2.0. For the linkphobic, the article is basically about a new children's book written by a plastic surgeon about moms who have plastic surgeries and how their kids can cope with Mommy's recovery. It's available through Big Tent Books, hyperstylized depictions of the female form and all.

And just when you thought there was a children's book to deal with every possible issue a four-to-seven-year-old could possibly encounter...

Seriously, if people want to get plastic surgery, go ahead. It's not my place to tell people how to spend their money and there are several procedures I myself would consider if I weren't deathly afraid of pain and had more than $25 to my name. But there is a set of questions that come with this book that frighten me a little. If Mommy doesn't like her nose and little Susie looks like Mommy, does that mean Susie is ugly to Mommy? Are mommies who haven't had surgery inherently less beautiful? Why do we all have to conform to one kind of beauty, anyway? Larger philosophical questions aside, I find it kind of scary that there's a need for this book.

Also, the geeky side of me wonders how many copies it's going to sell.

Wait, you mean it's real? Confessions of a Midwest reader.

This post at the Horn Book blog made me do a double take. No, not about the idea of Roger Sutton singing "If I Had a Hammer," but that Community Auditions was a real show. As far as I was concerned until now, Community Auditions was a show Lois Lowry made up so that Bambi Browne could have a resume in my very favorite Anastasia Krupnik book, Anastasia's Chosen Career.

This is the time for me to stop and tell you a little about my childhood.

I lived all my life in Niles, Illinois, a town of about 35,000 people that borders the north side of Chicago. It is home to a really great public library, the Bradford Group, a 1/2 scale replica of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and like most areas of Chicagoland, corrupt politicians. I didn't do much traveling when I was growing up due to lack of family funds. I was 17 when I saw New York for the first time. I was 23 when I took my first trip west of the Mississippi. I've never been to Boston. As far as I was concerned, all high schools in books looked like the one I attended...which looks like not a lot of other schools out there. Growing up, I also raided that library for a LOT of books. I read all the Ramona books, all the Anastasia Krupnik books, everything Ruth Chew and E.L. Konigsburg ever wrote, most of what Jerry Spinelli wrote. Know what all of those books have in common?

None of them take place in the Midwest.

When you're learning new vocabulary words, your teachers always tell you to put them in context to figure out their meanings. That's what I did with all the unfamiliar places and things that showed up in my books; I put them in the context of the world I lived in. Klickitat Street looked like the street where I lived. Peter Hatcher's apartment looked like my grandparents' condo at Devon and Sheridan. Linda Fischer lived in my friend Jaime's house. The Metropolitan Museum of Art became the Field Museum. Rereading these books as an adult, I find that I love them just the same but I get more out of them because I'm now familiar with so many more places. What made all these places start to click for me?

Butterscotch Krimpets.

You have to understand, we have a great many wonderful things in the Midwest but we do not have Tastykakes. Those are strictly an Eastern thing. Growing up, my experience with butterscotch were the little hard candies my dad liked to keep around. When I read Maniac Magee as a kid and came to the part where Maniac had butterscotch Krimpets for breakfast, I thought to myself, "That doesn't sound very nutritious," and moved on. Years and years later, I was at my in-laws' house in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, and opened their bread drawer. I just about fell over when I saw, staring up at me in the most innocent of innocent ways, a box of butterscotch Krimpets. They looked like Hostess cakes! Why had no one ever told me this? My husband, whose entire family lived in eastern PA and central NJ, had quite the field day with my cries of surprise. Then again, he's never known the pleasure of Matt's Chocolate Chip Cookies, which are nearly impossible to find outside Illinois and Wisconsin.

(Jerry Spinelli was very nice when I told him the Butterscotch Krimpets story last year.)

All this said, I think we need more YA books set in the Midwest. It's not that none exist, don't get me wrong. I loved Dairy Queen, Teen Idol, Ninjas, Piranhas, and Galileo, The Year of Ice and more. But to look at YA literature today one would think that all teenagers, and certainly all teenagers with any degree of style, live east of Pittsburgh and west of Phoenix (unless they live in Ohio, which seems to be the recent go-to Midwestern state). I'd love to see a Gossip-Girl type series set at New Trier. I've contemplated writing a YA novel set at my high school at the time of the John Wayne Gacy murders because several of my teachers taught his victims. (I'm not writing it because I'm a much better blogger and critic than I am a writer.) We didn't live in Seattle, but we listened to grunge. We didn't live in New York, but we read and loved Sassy. And although Rush claimed that "the suburbs have no charms to soothe the restless dream of youth," we were not entirely without interesting things to do and say and think.

So where's the love for the Midwest, o writers of children's literature?

Jewelry that sucks

I may not like the Twilight books, but I couldn't help but think of them when I saw this. My question is, if Bella and Edward get married (in book twelve or whatever), will their wedding rings look like these?




(The interested can purchase their very own baby vamp rings from Catbird NYC.)

Reader's advisory for the reader's advisor

A funny thing happened on my trip to the bookstore.

I didn't know what to get.

I live not far from a very large Barnes and Noble, and I like to browse the YA section to make sure I'm not missing out on any of the hot titles. I figure if I've at least heard of all the books on faceout, I'm doing okay. Then I wander the adult fiction section and I feel thoroughly, embarrassingly, lost.

In my apartment that is really too small to hold all the books I own, I have five bookcases. No, six. Two of them hold YA fiction. One holds nonfiction. One holds children's fiction. One belongs to my husband and holds his science books and cookbooks. And one holds adult fiction and graphic novels. The adult fiction bookcase is noticeably less stuffed than the YA and nonfiction bookcases and studying it, I'm not sure what to think. I haven't read a work of fiction geared toward an adult audience in about a year. Part of this is the drive I have to do my job well; I review for three YA sources and that plus whatever else I want to read for my job puts me in the area of 125+ books a year, just YA. That doesn't leave a lot of time to read adult fiction. The other part, I think, is just that I don't know what to get when I want to read an adult book. I know the authors, don't get me wrong. I know James Patterson writes murder mysteries and Alice Hoffman writes literary fiction and Anne Rice is a bit of a nutjob. But I'm not one of those people who can definitely say "I like mysteries" or "I like Regency romances." When it comes to adult fiction, I know what I don't like (fantasy, Regency romances) , but I'm often lost as to what I do like. Most of the time when I read a book aimed at adults, I end up reading nonfiction. I found The Tipping Point and Freakonomics fascinating, and currently my nightstand holds Women and Money by Suze Orman, How to Walk in High Heels: The Girl's Guide to Everything by Camilla Morton, and The Numbers Behind NUMB3RS: Solving Crime with Mathematics by Keith Devlin and Gary Lorden.

That said, here's a sampling of some of my favorite adult books:

• The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson (in fact, Shirley Jackson is probably my favorite adult author of all time)


• Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk


• A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley


• Waiting to Exhale by Terry McMillan


• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith


• The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith


• The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison


• The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

and other books I liked but aren't my favorites:


• Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen


• Light Before Day by Christopher Rice


• One for the Money by Janet Evanovich (I love humor!)

I'm also one of those weird people who love short stories: Ring Lardner, David Sedaris, Neil Gaiman, the aforementioned Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury, Amy Hempel, etc.

All of this leaves me standing in the adult section of your average bookstore or library feeling very dumb and kind of lost.

My husband is a huge fan of Christopher Moore (I got him hooked, oddly enough) and tells me his books are a must-read, so those are on my list. Other than that, I haven't got a clue as to what I might like. Joyce Carol Oates? I do like her YA books. Khaled Hosseini? Tom Wolfe? How is it that I'm so good at picking out books for other people and my personal collection of adult books looks like fourteen different people put it together?