text: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7642402604679807882014-11-26T10:14:45.545-06:00StackedLibrarians. Reviews. Mayhem.Stackedhttp://email@example.com http://www.stackedbooks.org/2014/11/inspire-toronto-international-book.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-764240260467980788.post-73559816775857936272014-11-26T00:00:00.000-06:002014-11-26T00:00:02.524-06:00INSPIRE: Toronto International Book Festival, Part 3 - The Sites, The Sounds, & The Wrap-Upliterary tourism that could be done throughout the city of Toronto, including some of the best bookstores, libraries, festivals, and more. Part of the post I was able to put together because of the bookstore tour I took part of while at the INSPIRE: Toronto International Book Festival. Since I couldn't put all of the bookstores into that post, I thought I'd share them over here, along with some of the photos and highlights of each shop. Before we headed out for the tour on a private bus (which was awesome), the bloggers met with Vanessa and Zena from Tourism Toronto, as well as Dominique, who was one of the Renaissance Hotel representatives and picked out a delicious breakfast selection for us. I'm a sucker for breakfast, so having it family style was even more enjoyable, since it meant sampling everything. The best thing, though, was what I ended up going back for on my last day in Toronto: banana bread french toast. All of us international bloggers took a photo together before hopping onto the bus: Left-to-right: Jane, me, MaryAnn, Gabi, Thea, Ana, and Liz in the back. When we got to our first stop, Book City, we met with Michael Kaminer, who was our tour guide, and we also met up with a number of local Toronto book bloggers who joined us on the tour. Michael wrote about how Toronto is a great city for bookstores in the Washington Post last year, and he took us through several of the stops he made and which he wrote about in his piece here. Book City reminded me a lot of the old Crown Books we used to have in the states. The set up and the way books were shelved felt like a used book store, but it isn't -- this is a new book store, though remaindered titles are left to sell through, rather than shipped back, so there is almost a wider selection of titles than many new bookstores have. We got to meet with the manager here, who told us much of their customer base is older, and that they strive to provide really good service, meaning that if someone calls from around town, it's not past them to sometimes deliver the book that the customer wants. I found their children's and YA section to be fairly underwhelming, which made sense because of who their customer base was and what it was they happened to be looking for. The second stop on our tour was to BMV Books, which is a used bookstore. They aren't the kind of used store that takes anything, though. They, too, cater to their customers and in particular, they look for books that are harder to find and, in some cases, which are more collectible items. This was one of my favorite stops on the trip, as it had a huge selection of titles. There were four floors to explore, including an entire floor dedicated to children's and YA lit (where I saw a great variety of titles) and an entire floor dedicated to comics. I ended up buying a graphic novel here when we had time to wander around, and I spent some time enjoying the shelves on the first floor that were marked as "old novels." The next stop was one that Michael called one of his favorites: Ten Editions Books. When you think of used book stores, this is the kind of place you think about. It was packed from floor to ceiling with books. Then, the back of the store featured additional piles and boxes of books. There were indeed ladders attached to the shelves, so you could climb up and pick through books. For some perspective on how tall the shelves were, the bottom right photo there is taken from above my head -- I couldn't reach the shelf below the one labeled "children's," and I'm about five foot two. This was a neat place, though not my favorite because I don't find the smell of old books romantic or sensual at all. For those who do love it, though, this would be a paradise. We walked to the next store, Bakka-Phoenix, since it was just around the corner. This was, hands down, my favorite store. The entire shop is dedicated to science fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction. The upstairs portion was new books, and the downstairs featured Star Wars/Star Trek titles. Bakka-Phoenix is where a number of well-known speculative fiction authors got their start as book sellers, including Cory Doctorow and Robert J. Sawyer, and Leah Bobet is currently one of their staffers. The seller who was there when we went was super nice, and she was so eager to talk about books and the tricky business of recommending books and getting to know your customers and what it is they may or may not like. We got to talk about book covers and how sometimes, the ugliest book cover can have the best story beneath it, and sometimes, selling the book with the ugly cover is a game of trust between seller and customer. When we were leaving the store, a customer was walking in and saw the crowd as we were heading out. The seller mentioned it had been a bunch of bloggers, and the customer mentioned how much he loved The Book Smugglers -- and he got to meet them. Then he mentioned how he loved Liz B's writing, and he got to meet her, too. It was a neat moment for a blog reader to connect with the bloggers he reads. The next stop on our tour was right next door, Caversham Booksellers. This is a specialty shop focused on mental health books -- if there were a guide or a book you needed about mental health, this is North America's largest store focused on it. They're especially focused on Freudian/psychoanalysis. It was neat to see the inside of a very focused store like this, and when we were there in the middle of the morning on a Friday, it was quite busy. Following Caversham, we hopped back onto our bus and got to see another traditional used book store, Willow Books. Unlike Ten Editions, this store was more spread out, and while it, too, featured some great piles and boxes as display spaces, there was more room to breathe. The tour guide suggests this is like a messier version of The Strand or Powell's books, which might be a little bit of a stretch in terms of size and selection, but in terms of how it was set up and unassuming, that's a pretty fair assessment. The best find at Willow Books for me was the glorious David Bowie Beta tape I found in one of the rows of books. I mean, I guess if you have a spare Beta player around, that might be something you'd need. And something maybe you'd be looking for in a store like this. Our final stop on the book store tour was to Seekers Books. The store owner told us a little bit about the background of the store, which is located down a flight of stairs, below the main street, and focuses on esoteric, philosophical, occult, and spirituality titles. It's a used shop, but it also has new books in it, too. The owner got inspired after majoring in psychology in college and meeting a professor who talked about spirituality and other topics that aren't traditionally part of a major in psychology. From there, he decided a book store dedicated to these ideas was what he wanted to do. More interesting than that, though, was his philosophy that people will find the right book for them. He often has people who come in and don't know what they're looking for, but because this shop offers such a unique mix of titles, they often walk away finding exactly what it is they didn't know they were looking for. Seekers has a nice vibe to it, and the way its set up lent itself to browsing and perusing. One of the most interesting parts of Seekers for me was the huge selection of middle grade and YA novels in the back room. This was something I hadn't seen at many of the other stores, and it felt like an interesting selection to have in a store like this. While the book store tour was such a neat experience, it was certainly colored by Kaminer's perspective that indie book stores were the best places. It's not a bad assertion, nor were any of his tour stops poor choices. Many of them weren't necessarily of interest to those of us on the tour though, meaning that during browsing time, some of us were done pretty quickly and ready to move on to the next place. I wish we'd seen a wider variety of stores, and this was something that was asked on the tour, but wasn't particularly well addressed. One of the most interesting things said on the tour, though, was from Jane, who pointed out that nearly every book store we went to had titles that featured male fantasy books (think pulpy, guy hero saves a vulnerable and attractive female stories) and none of them had a romance section. What did that say about the tour we went on? What did it say about the types of readerships these books have? There's a lot of food for thought in that comment and I'm not sure how to unpack it. *** I've talked at length about the highlights of the trip, the highlights of the INSPIRE: Toronto International Book Fest (TIBF), and the bookstore tour through the central part of the city. To wrap up this short series, I thought it would be worth talking about what worked for the event and what could be improved for the future. TIBF Highlights I think this was covered pretty well in my first two posts here and here. I think TIBF achieved what it set out to do, and I look forward to seeing what they have on tap for the future in terms of programming and panels. What Could Be Improved For the first year, there was a lot that seemed like it worked pretty well. That said, there were a number of things that definitely fell between the cracks. The convention center had no wireless internet. They did not even have an option to pay for a day of service. There was spotty public wifi located downstairs in the convention center, if you found the right corner, which made it impossible to live tweet or blog about any of the events. The green room, which was open to media, didn't have wireless, either. If the goal of bringing in bloggers was for media coverage and if the goal of bringing international bloggers was to do that, this was a big failure. I didn't turn on my data, and I didn't have an option for wireless in the building, so I felt no reason to do any writing at all until after the event. More YA panels. There was very little YA presence at TIBF, and the names they had were fairly well-known. I would have loved to see more local authors and more local YA authors. Toronto and the GTA, as well as Ontario more broadly, have a ton of YA presence, so tapping that would have been great. One of the things that Ardo mentioned in her own write up on TIBF was that there was almost no outreach to local bloggers. That...seems like a pretty big missed opportunity. How great would a local advisory committee have been? I know I would have loved to get to know the local bloggers better, as what conversation we did have was on the tour bus between book stores. It seems like they have a great community, and I wanted to hear more about it. It was impressed upon us that part of why they wanted to bring in international bloggers was to not just cover TIBF, but to also talk about the city itself. That's why we got passes to check out some of the attraction for free, as well as why we got to do this book store tour. However, no time existed to do this. I took an extra two days for myself on this trip, but because of the flight change, I didn't get time to explore Toronto, either. If we were to visit any of these places or to talk about the city, we should have been given more time to do so. This isn't a criticism of being given the opportunity to attend -- that was amazing -- but rather, one of the goals wasn't achievable because of the time table. It's hard to tear yourself out of a book festival to go to a museum when you want to attend sessions. It was fortunate that Ana, Thea, and I could get to the CN tower on Friday evening, thanks to their being open late and being right next to the hotel we were staying in. Better advertising. This was an event I could have envisioned a lot more people enjoying, but there was little word about it. Even when they reached out to us bloggers, it was early to mid October, which isn't enough time to request time off work or save money for many people. Hopefully, if this happens next year (and I hope it does), there's more lead time to advertise it. And, hopefully, they tap the local scene better. One of the most interesting things I noticed was that there were very few people in my age demographic at the event. It could have been different when I didn't attend on Saturday, but on Friday, it was primarily kids (it was a day for kids and that was a day they had off school) and on Sunday, it felt like an older audience. There were few 20- and 30- somethings in attendance. It was mentioned part of why bloggers were brought in may have been to fill this gap, but I think the lack of advertising and lack of tapping the local scene may have impacted this, as well. This is an audience hungry for events like this. Maybe the biggest thing tying almost all of these issues together was this: the TIBF didn't make it clear what they were hoping to do. This is insight we got before the fest opened on Thursday, that they wanted this to be a consumer facing event, meant for general readers and a general interest audience. It wasn't for professional reasons and it wasn't a trade show, and because there's not something like this in this part of the world, there wasn't an easy way to advertise and tap the appropriate markets. Trade shows are a very different world than consumer shows. If there had been wifi and live tweeting and a more tapped local scene, then the show could have hit more radars after the first day of those in the greater Toronto area, bringing in more people -- many in that 20- to 30- something demographic -- and generating more interest. Overall Verdict As I mentioned in my other posts, I'd absolutely consider going again. I really like Toronto, the prices for a trip during this time of year -- as unpleasant a travel time as it is -- were reasonable, and the event itself was fun. Even the hiccups and criticisms are minor and in no way really impacted the fun I had. In fact, this was the first time in a while I walked away from an event feeling energized and inspired to write and engage with books in new and thoughtful ways. ]]> Related StoriesINSPIRE: Toronto International Book Festival, Part 2 - The EventINSPIRE: Toronto International Book Festival, Part 1 - The Quick HighlightsToronto Bound: See You At INSPIRE! ]]> Kelly Jensenhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com http://www.stackedbooks.org/2014/11/a-few-cybils-reads-part-vii-audiobook.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-764240260467980788.post-4282694315406411622014-11-25T00:00:00.000-06:002014-11-25T00:00:05.850-06:00A Few Cybils Reads - Part VII (Audiobook Edition)Noggin by John Corey Whaley Whaley's follow-up to his Printz-winning Where Things Come Back is a character-driven novel with an SF twist. Travis' cancer was going to kill him, so he opted to have his head chopped off and put in cold storage, hoping one day science would advance far enough and he'd be revived using a donor body. He figures he'll wake up in hundred years or so. Except that's not what happens. It only takes five years. For newly-awakened Travis, it seems like no time has passed at all. But for everyone else, the world has changed. His friends (including his girlfriend) are now adults. His death profoundly affected his parents, and the fact that he's alive again doesn't magically fix everything. Not to mention the fact that he's walking around in (on?) someone else's body. Whaley's writing is very, very good, matched by Kirby Heyborne's equally good narration. I wouldn't have enjoyed this nearly as much if Heyborne weren't narrating. Travis' growth, the way he comes to terms (or not) with the way his life has changed, the way his family and friends come to terms with it – it's masterfully done and quite compelling. Travis' voice is clear; he's not always likeable, not even at the end, but he's believable. I can see why it was shortlisted for a National Book Award, and I can easily see this appealing to readers who normally don't enjoy science fiction. The focus is entirely on Travis' adjustment, and the medical/scientific procedure that allowed him to wake up five years after his "death" is not explained. That's not what Whaley considers important in this story. I've seen some reviewers describe the premise as absurd or weird, but as far as SF novels go, it's pretty tame. Night Sky by Suzanne & Melanie Brockmann Sasha, the little girl that Skylar babysits, has gone missing, and her father – who has also disappeared – is the prime suspect. The police already think Sasha is dead, but Skylar refuses to believe it. Then a girl named Dana comes into town, and Dana exhibits some of the abilities that Skylar believes she may have – like telekinesis. She learns that she's a "greater-than," which basically means she has superpowers. A lot of them. She and Dana, along with wheelchair-bound best friend Calvin and Dana's sidekick Milo, decide to figure out what happened to Sasha on their own – and they discover it has everything to do with the greater-thans. I've never read an adult Brockmann book and I can't say this would encourage me to pick one up. The premise certainly has appeal for a certain kind of reader – those who can't get enough books about teens with superpowers, for instance. It's fairly diverse, too, though only in its ancillary characters. It's action-heavy with a good vs. evil plot. But it goes on a little too long and the writing is weak. There's a certain sentence structure that's overused, so glaring that each time it happened I winced. ("He did this as I did that" or "I did this as she did that" with a long, drawn out second half. I could hear the narrator run out of air trying to get the whole sentence in without pausing for a breath. Just make it two sentences!) The narration isn't great. Melanie Brockmann does it herself and she doesn't voice any of the characters. Her voice is reedy and it sounds like she's not getting enough air, even when the sentences are short. There are better offerings. (Kirkus gave it a starred review. But what do they know?) Divided We Fall by Trent Reedy This is one of those books that may be good in print, but is absolutely fantastic on audio. It's about a high school kid, Danny, who joins the Idaho National Guard at age 17. He's sent to help police a protest in Boise. Things get out of control. Someone bumps into his gun and it goes off. Then more people start shooting. Twelve people are killed. Not even Danny knows exactly what happened, but he becomes the face of the state of Idaho's resistance to the federal government, which started as a refusal to implement a controversial federal ID law. The president wants Danny and the rest of the soldiers arrested, and the governor refuses. Events escalate. Each chapter ends with snippets from television news programs, tweets, radio callers, and the like, and these are all fully voiced by a diverse group of narrators. Some strongly recall Fox News or Rush Limbaugh (the latter of which is particularly painful to listen to), while others are more middle of the road, or simply reactionary. You've heard this stuff before, about similar things, things that are happening in real life right now. It's at times more interesting than the main narrative itself. Reedy does a good job of balancing each "side" of the story – those who support the state government and those who support the federal government. It's a really tough tightrope to walk, but he succeeds in not making his book seem like it has an agenda. That's partly due to Reedy's protagonist, who is an everyguy – but of the kind we don't see a lot in YA fiction: he lives in a semi-rural area, participates in rodeos, plays football, doesn't intend to go to college, enjoys guns and country music. He joined the National Guard because he loved his state and he loved his country. These are all things we tend to associate with conservative kids, but his political views aren't what's on display. He never wanted to get caught up in everything that happens and would rather it all go away. This is a tricky, very discussable book that will probably piss some people off. The setting could have been Texas (my home state) and been just as believable. It's very close to home; that's what makes it worth the read. ]]> Related StoriesA Few Cybils Reads - Part IVAudio Review: Cleopatra's Moon by Vicky Alvear ShecterA Few Cybils Reads - Part VI ]]> Kimberly F.http://email@example.com http://www.stackedbooks.org/2014/11/inspire-toronto-international-book_24.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-764240260467980788.post-54315772300492344112014-11-24T00:00:00.000-06:002014-11-24T00:00:02.695-06:00INSPIRE: Toronto International Book Festival, Part 2 - The Event Onto the second part of this multi-part series of posts about the INSPIRE: Toronto International book Festival, I'm going to talk about the event itself. Later this week I'll wrap up with writing about the outside activities and sites I visited, then end with a post on what worked and what could be improved to make this a really knock out event. The INSPIRE: Toronto International Book Festival (TIBF) ran for three days, from Friday, November 14 through Sunday, November 16. It kicked off on Thursday night, though, with a launch party. Prior to the launch, bloggers who were invited to meet with a handful of the event creators and facilitators, which gave us insight into how TIBF came to be what it is and what the vision for the event is. Unlike BEA, TIBF is meant to be a consumer-facing festival, meaning that the goal isn't to bring in the industry but instead, to draw in the general public. In other words, it wants to be more like what Book Con would hope to be, and the purpose isn't to talk up or get buzz going for upcoming titles. It's on selling readers what's already out there and encouraging reading in whatever form it takes. Other countries throughout the world hold large consumer book festivals, but something similar in scope doesn't exist in North America, aside from the Gudalajara Festival. TIBF wants to fill in that gap, and the hope is that by being located in Toronto -- which is quickly accessible to a large population -- it can do just that. I'd say for the inaugural year, it didn't do a bad job. The Metro Centre, where the event was held, was so much more pleasant than the Javitz, and I think a large reason for that was it was much smaller and because this event wasn't as huge as BEA, there was more room for spreading out and making it an experience for attendees. When you went upstairs, where the exhibition and event floor was, attendees were greeted with a really neat display of old printing presses: All of the programming stages, save for one of the multicultural ones, were on the same floor, meaning it was easy to go from program to program and dip into the different discussions without feeling like you were being a distraction. More, it never got too loud: the sound from the main stage didn't bleed into the smaller stages. There was enough space between the vendor booths and the stages, too, that it wasn't hard to hear in booth nor on stage. Some of the exhibitors took the time to create really great booths, too. At BEA and at ALA, the booths are pretty standard: you get so much space, and you use it to pack in as much stuff as you can. But again, because this was a consumer event, the idea is less about the stuff and more about the experience. The best booth was, hands down, the Simon & Schuster Canada booth, which was set up like a cozy house, and each of the rooms had books that fit the theme. Cookbooks were in the kitchen, children's books were in the play room, and so forth: There were eight stages/feature areas, including an entire stage area dedicated for a First Nations, Metis, and Inuit Literary Circle. I didn't get a chance to attend any of the sessions there, but I dropped by to grab a picture of it, and I also stopped by the accompanying bookstore, where I spent the bulk of my book money. I'll talk a little bit more about this in a final post, including a link to the store for anyone interested in browsing or buying books that could be extremely difficult to find otherwise. What the event coordinators told us about this specific element of the TIBF was that rather than go out and curate their own program for the First Nations stage and run the risk of appropriating culture or making huge missteps, they contacted the connections they had with members of the groups and asked them to create their own lineup of programming. They were given money to bring in their speakers and given money for those same people to get an honorarium for taking part. Though this is something a general attendee wouldn't know, this spoke volumes to me. From the beginning, the event was meant to include a diverse array of voices, and they put their money where their mouth is. If I have any regrets about what I didn't get to do at TIBF, it would be that I didn't get to spend time here. If I go back in the future, I'd want to spend a few sessions, if not an entire day, listening in to the programming here. On Friday, after the bookstore tour, most of my energy was zapped, but I did manage to make it to a session that I'd been really looking forward to: "I Don't Give A Damsel: Writing Strong Young Women," featuring Meg Wolitzer, Gayle Forman, Sarah Mlynowski, and E. Lockhart. The session, as the title suggests, was meant to explore what a "strong female character" was and why and how these particular YA writers develop strong females in their work. It was hosted by Lainey Gossip, who kicked it off by asking each of the panelists what was meant by "strong female character." I snagged a short video of their responses (and yes, I was sitting near someone who was taking their sweet time opening a can of pop): At times, especially during the Q&A, I felt like the panel went a little off the rails and became too self-conscious and directed at adult readers of YA, rather than YA readers (I even heard one of the panelists comment that a "real YA" was asking a question -- which was odd, since I thought most of the audience looked pretty young). It wasn't bad, but I ended up sneaking out before the end, since I thought the meat of the discussion happened early on, with questions like the one above. I skipped out on the event Saturday -- the only regret I have about that is missing Margaret Atwood -- but on Sunday, I hit up a number of really interesting panels. The first was called "Books By Their Covers: Redesigning Classics," featuring Elly MacKay (who redid the Anne of Green Gables and Emily of New Moon covers for Tundra), Debbie Ridpath Ohi (who redid the middle grade covers of the Judy Blume books), and Cybele Young (who redid the covers for the Kit Pearson books). This session was fantastic -- all three of the artists talked about "getting the call" and being asked to redesign covers for these hugely iconic books and what their design process was. How did they choose the images they did? What sort of mediums did they work with? The most interesting take away from this was how Elly MacKay does her art. If you look at the top picture, you can see her hand placing the tree in the image. She illustrates and paints, then she cuts out her work and puts them inside a box, where she can rearrange them. When she's arranged them the way that she likes, she'll photograph it. You can get a closer look at all of the covers on her website. I'm regretting that I didn't pick up the Emily set now (though I did, thanks to the exceptionally attentive and helpful folks at the Penguin Random House Canada booth, pick up the first book in the Kit Pearson series, which features the design above). The second panel I went to was "Comedy...? What's Funny in Funny Books?" and it featured Ryan North, Kate Beaton, and Chip Zdarsky. This panel was, as you'd expect, a complete riot. I know very little about humor or funny books, so I really enjoyed hearing about the process behind how funny writers come up with their jokes. Aside from a stomach that hurt from laughing so much, the biggest takeaway from this panel was that even funny people know it can be weird and uncomfortable to try something new -- and sometimes something series -- and that the only way to grow is to go for it if you believe in it. The audience who doesn't like it will skip it and those who do will only encourage you to grow your art and style. There was great chemistry on the panel, and the way they were all able to play off one another made it even funnier. The final panel I went to was at the end of the day on Sunday, and it was "Diversity, DJs, and DIY," featuring Greg Frankson A. K. A. Ritallin, Kayla Perrin, Stacey Marie Robinson, and Leonicka Valcius. Right before taking the stage, I got the chance to meet Leonicka, who I've been following on Twitter for a while and who has some incredibly insightful thoughts on diversity in publishing and the book world more broadly, and it was a treat to hear her talk about it on a big stage. Something I found interesting -- and troubling -- was that there were so few white people sitting in the audience for this session. Maybe it was because the session was at a really bad time (it was one of the last of the entire event, on Sunday evening and came on the heels of Maggie Stiefvater talking on the main stage) but I suspect there's still some belief that a diversity panel isn't "for" white people. If anything, after this session, I feel completely opposite that. This was a session I needed to go to, even though I've heard some of this discussion before. Aside from insight into what publishing is or isn't doing to bolster the voices of marginalized writers, the biggest take away I got came from Robinson, who talked about why she chooses to self-publish her work and how she thinks that self-publishing is one of the most interesting avenues for marginalized voices and stories right now. This is something I hadn't thought about before, and Robinson opened my mind to thinking about self-publishing in a bit of a different light. Like New Adult got its biggest audience via self-publishing, I suspect this is and will continue to be the case for diverse writers. More, it's not about going this route because it's the only option; rather, it's going this route because it's a way to subvert the gates that are hard to break down and even harder when you're not white. Leonicka talked about how publishing itself remains so white because it's difficult to break in when you don't have privilege to do so. In other words, going to college, getting an internship in the industry, then taking on a job that doesn't pay enough to cover the bills -- those are things people from marginalized backgrounds can't often do in the same way that white people can. It was impossible not to look at those two discussions in tandem. Another really interesting takeaway for me was how the Canadian landscape is different than the American one when it comes to reading and publishing. Perrin, who writes for Harlequin, talked about how in her first books, she was asked to change the setting of her stories, since American readers would be more reluctant to pick up a story set in Toronto than they would be a story set in Chicago. There was a good conversation about how black voices are represented and understood when they're from Canada, as well -- Perrin noted that her readers are sometimes surprised she's Canadian. I wish more people were in the audience to hear this panel. Perhaps in the future, a similar panel could be put on at a better time or, even more radically, maybe it could be a main stage event or not be competing with a large main stage event. TIBF had so many other sessions I wanted to go to and didn't get the chance to, either because they were scheduled against panels I wanted to see or because I was so drained from other events, I couldn't get myself there. This is the kind of event, though, I would be interested in attending again -- when the schedule goes up for next year, I'll definitely be looking to see if it's worth the trip. Toronto is closer, cleaner, safer, and so much more appealing to me as a visitor than New York City. While mid-November is kind of a crummy time to travel north, it didn't bother me much: there aren't huge tourist crowds, hotels and airfare tend to be cheaper (I stayed in the nice hotel for an extra night on my own, and it was under $100 with taxes which I consider more than a fair price), and this was a nice time to get away before the holidays consume everything. While I didn't have to pay for my pass to attend the event as a member of the press, the cost of $25 for the opening night party and three days of events is extremely reasonable. While the event's attendance seemed like it waxed and waned -- on Friday, for the Kid's Day, there seemed to be far bigger crowds than on Sunday, though the event competed with the city's Santa Claus parade that day -- it never felt packed and unbearable. I could wander the booths and could always find a chair for the sessions. One of the things I mentioned to a couple others was that the set up lent itself to browsing, mingling, and sitting. The last one seems like it's not important, but it is: there were seats and chairs and lounging areas throughout the convention center, which made it nice to collect yourself, your stuff, and to just browse through the books you bought. One of the very last things I noticed at the fair, and something I thought was just a nice touch, was that there was an entire gallery of children's books illustrations to browse. The event celebrated the entire landscape of the book world in a really accessible and fun way. Also, thumbs up to the publishers who took the little extra steps to make finding books about certain topics easy to find, both through labels (like below) and through being eager to talk about them. ]]> Related StoriesINSPIRE: Toronto International Book Festival, Part 1 - The Quick HighlightsToronto Bound: See You At INSPIRE!Fabulously Diverse YA Book Covers We Should See More Often ]]> Kelly Jensenhttp://email@example.com http://www.stackedbooks.org/2014/11/this-week-in-reading-volume-x.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-764240260467980788.post-62167097170788498392014-11-23T07:06:00.000-06:002014-11-23T07:06:01.966-06:00This Week in Reading: Volume X First up, the library books: Words and Their Meanings by Kate Bassett: A contemporary YA about teen girl writer working through grief and it's got a Sara Zarr blurb. I think that checks more than one of my boxes. Ugly Girls by Lindsay Hunter: An adult novel about a teen girl friendship. That cover is awesome, and the reviews suggest this is an intense book. Paper Airplanes by Dawn O'Porter: I read this one this week and was really let down. It did some of what Fiona Wood's Wildlife did in terms of being open about sexuality and toxic friendships between teen girls, but the budding relationship between the two girls here felt rushed and underdeveloped. I got bored about 3/4 of the way through. The Sky is Falling by Kit Pearson -- I picked this up at the book festival and it's a Canadian children's classic. Ignite by Sara Larson (January 6) -- I'll probably pass this on to Kimberly. Walking Home by Eric Walters -- Another title I picked up at the book festival. The Kenyan setting was what caught my eye. The Swallow by Charis Cotter -- This is a middle grade ghost story that came highly recommended by a couple of people at the book festival, so I bought it. Strong Female Protagonist by Brennan Lee Mulligan and Molly Ostertag -- I'm here for this graphic novel! The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma (March 24) -- I read this one, and then I got into a conversation with a fellow Book Rioter about it, and I realized how much I need to read this a second or third time before I can write about it here. I found a REALLY interesting detail that made me requestion something I'd read, and I know this is Suma's trademark, so I'm excited to follow this path again. Seed by Lisa Heathfield (March 10) -- Cults! Enclosed communities! This sounds a little bit like Gated by Amy Christine Parker. Things I'll Never Say edited by Ann Angel (March 24) -- There's gotta be a trend on short true stories by YA authors now, between this and Love & Profanity. X: A Novel by Ilyasah Shabazz and Kekla Magoon (January 6) -- A novelization about Malcoln X, co-written by his daughter. Read Between The Lines by Jo Knowles (March 10) -- This one wins for one of the best YA covers I've seen. These are the books I picked up at INSPIRE: Toronto International Book Festival at the First Nations book store. Aside from the bottom title, all of these are tough to track down in the US, and I know that there are others who might be interested in checking the store out and discovering First Nations titles from Canada. The store has a website, GoodMinds, and they do ship worldwide. It is a Native owned business, as well. I popped into their store before the show officially opened on Sunday, so I didn't get a chance to ask for book recommendations, but Ana and Thea of the Book Smugglers said that the staff was exceptionally knowledgable and helpful in recommending titles to them, based on their interests and tastes. I suspect the same would be said through contacting them on their site. A couple of these books I would never have picked up based on the covers, but because I was in Canada for a show, I wanted to put that aside and pick up the books that sounded great. This is what I decided on: The Night Wanderer by Drew Hayden Taylor -- A Native gothic novel? Yes, please. Nobody Cries at Bingo by Dawn Dumont -- A coming-of-age story. The cover was tough to pick up, but I read the description and kept coming back to pick the book up. I figured if I didn't buy it, I'd be mad later. Peace Pipe Dreams: The Truth and Lies About Indians by Darrell Dennis -- I wanted an easy-to-grasp non-fiction title and this fit the bill. If I Ever Get Out Of Here by Eric Gansworth -- I've been meaning to read this one, and I saw a copy, so I bought it. Aside from Paper Airplanes, I also read an early copy of I Am Not A Slut by Leora Tanenbaum, a non-fiction exploration of slut bashing and slut shaming. I didn't agree with the entire book -- at times her exploration of what slut shaming is and isn't actually is slut shaming in and of itself (which was weird) -- but in general, a solid read for anyone who works with teen girls and is interested in the problematic term "slut" and why it can't and shouldn't be reclaimed at this point. Around the Web: Summer wrote this fantastic post called "I am not oppressed" about YA books, covers featuring girls wearing hijabs, and what the implications of those things may be. This is powerful and important and eye opening. Enough other people have written and talked about Daniel Handler's racist comment at the National Book Awards, but this post at the Lee and Low blog about what those comments said about publishing more broadly is really worth a read. Four mistakes made in children's literature about Natives and books that fix them. Leila wrote an incredible review of Gabi, A Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero I am linking to because I really want more people to read and love this book as much as I do and as much as she does. Then go read Isabel's post over at Diversity in YA about making herself visible. 23 things I'd rather read than another think piece about what's "wrong" with children's literature made me laugh so hard. I got an even bigger kick out of the male who reblogged this from the Book Riot tumblr and asked what toxic shock syndrome was. Over in the UK, Ladybird is dropping the "for boys" and "for girls" labels from their books. On the heels of that post, there's this one at Paste Magazine about excellent graphic novels for adolescent girls. Ignore the "for girls" label there: this is really a list of female-led comics. A peek at the next projects on deck for comic artist Sara Varon. Kimberly and I are both fans of Varon, and I love this look at what's next. Angie wrote a really great post about how librarians and library users can do real work in bettering diversity within the library. Looking for current read alikes to Pretty Little Liars? Molly put together a great reader's advisory guide. And over at Leila's blog, 7 YA books about graffiti artists. I'm putting the final touches onto Contemporary YA week here at Stacked, which will run December 1-5. I am thrilled with the guest posts I've gotten so far, and I'm so eager to share them and the ones that are rolling in soon. These are all fresh topics, fresh takes on topics, and should spur some great discussion. ]]> Related StoriesThis Week in Reading: Volume IXThis Week in Reading: Volume VIIIThis Week in Reading: Volume VII ]]> Kelly Jensenhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com http://www.stackedbooks.org/2014/11/this-week-at-book-riot_21.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-764240260467980788.post-51616572580126533252014-11-21T00:00:00.000-06:002014-11-21T00:00:00.072-06:00This Week at Book Riot Over at Book Riot this week, just one post, since I'm writing a piece for this upcoming weekend and have been working on a huge post that's consuming my writing time with "research" time (but it's going to be a blast):3 On A YA Theme: It's Basketball Season -- three YA novels that feature basketball as a big part of the story. ]]> Related StoriesThis Week at Book Riot ]]> Kelly Jensenhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com http://www.stackedbooks.org/2014/11/inspire-toronto-international-book_20.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-764240260467980788.post-85812102209739358482014-11-20T00:00:00.000-06:002014-11-20T00:00:02.506-06:00INSPIRE: Toronto International Book Festival, Part 1 - The Quick Highlightsso excited to talk about books and reading. Rather than try to cram everything I want to say or think about into one massive post, I'm going to spread it out over the next couple of weeks. I'll hit some of the sites I saw, the events and talks I attended, and wrap it all up with a big post on what INSPIRE did right and what could make it even better the next time around. Today, though, I thought I'd do a quick run through of the highlights of my trip. Wednesday I've never flown internationally, so it got me a little nervous. I know going to Canada is no big deal, but I got to the airport early and everything worked out just great. Since I had gotten there so early, I stopped into the bookstore at Milwaukee Airport, Renaissance Books. The store is outside the security gates, so you can really only stop in if you plan ahead for it or don't go through security really early. Renaissance is different than most airport bookstores in that it's all used and rare books, rather than new or best seller-y titles. I took a picture of the Cherry Ames nurse novels for girls, which I've only ever heard about and never seen. You'd never find this in another type of bookstore in an airport: My flight only had 21 people on it, meaning that there was plenty of room to stretch out and actually enjoy the one hour trip to Toronto. When I got to customs, I had my first book interaction -- the customs agent asked what I was doing in town, and when I told her I was covering the book festival, she immediately asked me for book recommendations. I asked her what she liked reading and she pulled out Megan McCafferty's Perfect Fifths from her bag, and we bonded over our shared love of the Jessica Darling series. My original flight into town was supposed to give me the entirety of Wednesday to myself, but the week before, it got changed. Rather than landing at 10 am, I wasn't getting in until almost 10 pm. I'd booked a room in Chinatown at the Super 8, thinking it would be an ideal spot for wandering, and it would have been, had the flight worked out. But when I got there, the hotel upgraded me to a huge suite. That, coupled with the free continental breakfast, made up for the loss of a day. Thursday Part of why I decided to stay in Chinatown was that it's not far from downtown. But the walk from the hotel to the Renaissance, which is attached to Rogers Stadium and next to the CN tower, would have been easier and smarter when it wasn't cold, snowy, and I had a 40 pound suitcase to drag with me. Alas, it was an excellent workout and reason to room service a second breakfast: Thursday evening was when festivities began, and I got to find out all of the other bloggers who were invited to attend INSPIRE. It was a small and amazing group of women: Ana and Thea from The Book Smugglers, Jane from Dear Author, Liz from Strange Horizons and Tor, and mother-daughter team Mary Ann and Gabi from Chapter by Chapter. We got the chance to meet the founders of INSPIRE and hear why they created the event, as well as what their vision of it was. After we toasted to it, all of us bloggers were invited to explore the show floor before the event opened. We got to see the booths, as well as enjoy some finger foods. One downside, though, was that our night of exploration involved no complimentary drinks -- free food, but no water or anything to wash it down. When Liz asked how much a cup of pop would be and we heard $6, Ana, Thea, Liz, Jane, and I decided we were going to go grab drinks and food at the Library Bar, just down the street. Interestingly, I read another blogger's take on opening night and discovered people got free drinks when they entered. That wasn't the case for us. The Library Bar is what it sounds like: a library-themed bar. It was here I enjoyed a Douglas Coupland Pop Culture cocktail, as well as my first poutine. Despite having been to Ontario a few times, it was my first time trying the dish, and it was . . . okay. Maybe if were a bigger fan of gravy, I'd have felt differently, but I am glad I gave it a try. Friday It was an early morning on Friday, as we met with Dominique, our hotel representative, as well as Vanessa and Zena from Tourism Toronto, for a welcome breakfast. The breakfast was delicious and included eggs benedict, banana bread french toast, bacon, fruit, potatoes, and more. We got to hear about the restaurant itself, which overlooks Rogers Stadium and from which you could watch a Blue Jays game. When breakfast ended, we loaded into a small bus for a tour of Toronto's bookstores. The tour guide was writer Michael Kaminer, who wrote about these stores in a piece for the Washington Post last year. I'll talk about this in more depth in a later post, but it was neat to see inside so many stores, though by store 4 or 5 of 8, I reached bookstore burnout. We were dropped off at the Book Festival after the tour, wherein I went to one panel before deciding it was necessary to crash in my hotel room for a bit. As it turned out, the other bloggers did almost the exact same thing, so we hopped onto Twitter and made some more plans. That night, Ana, Thea, and I were hitting up the CN tower, then meeting up with Liz and Jane for more drinks afterwards. The trip up the tower was great, and it was absolutely beautiful to see the city all light up on a clean night from that vantage point. Going back for drinks was maybe one of my favorite parts of the night. I was so exhausted, but listening and talking about blogging, about books, and about what we are doing and thinking when it comes to those things was so nice in such a small group. There's been a lot of strange things going on in the blogging world, and having an opportunity to talk about it in a small setting with knowledgable, thoughtful people was great. Saturday I skipped out on the festival on Saturday to instead take the train to Kingston and see my friend. We had a wonderful day of bookstore shopping (it's hard to be burned out with good company), playing glow-in-the-dark mini golf (I am terrible at it), and enjoying some peanut butter cheese cake after dinner. It's probably not fair to point to something as my favorite part of a trip, especially when it wasn't part of the trip's purpose, but this was my favorite part of the trip. It's always refreshing and energizing to spend time laughing with people you know well and who know you equally as well. Sunday My entire day, sans an hour or two when I went to the tea shop, were dedicated to the sessions and events at INSPIRE. I got to sit in on some really excellent panels and I bought a pile of books, all of which I'll talk about in more depth in the next couple of posts. Here's a peek at what I ended up buying: After a full day of panels, I went back to my hotel, ordered room service, then fell into a deep sleep after writing down some of the things I walked away thinking about and wanting to think about some more. My Monday morning, prior to my flight home, involved returning to the hotel restaurant for a full order of banana pancakes, then tracking down a cafe from which I could do some writing. Interestingly, I did almost no reading while here. I decided before leaving home I would pack only two print titles, as well as my ereader. I knew I'd buy some books, and I didn't want the added weight. This ended up being a smart move, since I had no time or energy to read anyway. The walking, the dining, the conversations, and the event itself zapped me of leftover energy everyday, but in a really good way. The hotel was comfortable and I got solid sleep -- something I tend to have a problem with when I travel. This was an experience I really appreciated and cannot believe I had the chance to have. It was nice to put faces to names I knew and to do so in a way that allowed us to talk about INSPIRE as much as other book- and book blogger- related things. Stay tuned next week for an in-depth look at INSPIRE, the bookstores of Toronto, and more. ]]> Related StoriesToronto Bound: See You At INSPIRE!Good Girls, Bad Girls, Real Girls: WLA PresentationKid Lit Con 2014, Sacramento: The Recap ]]> Kelly Jensenhttp://email@example.com http://www.stackedbooks.org/2014/11/here-there-be-dragons.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-764240260467980788.post-51754053161399016072014-11-19T00:00:00.000-06:002014-11-19T00:00:01.664-06:00Here There Be DragonsDragonflight) and Patricia C. Wrede (Dealing With Dragons) for my dragon fix, though both sets of books were published before I hit adolescence. Right around the time I decided I was mostly too old to read YA books, Eragon became a sensation (I've still never read it). Today's teens have even more creative material from which to choose. Books about dragons published within the last five years or so put new twists on the legendary creatures, often turning the dragons into shapeshifters or imbuing them with other talents not found in previous incarnations. (Some also seem like poor imitations of Pern's dragons.) Below are nine recently-published titles that should appeal to teen dragon fans (three of which are Cybils nominees). Descriptions are from Worldcat. Are there any others I've missed? Dragonswood by Janet Lee Carey (2012) In AD 1192 on Wilde Island, Tess, the daughter of a cruel blacksmith, is accused of witchcraft and must flee, but when she meets a handsome and enigmatic warden of Dragonswood who offers her shelter, she does not realize that he too harbors a secret that may finally bring about peace among the races of dragon, human, and fairy. Eon: Dragoneye Reborn by Alison Goodman (2008) Sixteen-year-old Eon hopes to become an apprentice to one of the twelve energy dragons of good fortune and learn to be its main interpreter, but to do so will require much, including keeping secret that she is a girl. Sequel: Eona (2011) A Creature of Moonlight by Rebecca Hahn (2013) Marni, a young flower seller who has been living in exile, must choose between claiming her birthright as princess of a realm whose king wants her dead, and a life with the father she has never known--a wild dragon. Kimberly's review Seraphina by Rachel Hartman (2012) In a world where dragons and humans coexist in an uneasy truce and dragons can assume human form, Seraphina, whose mother died giving birth to her, grapples with her own identity amid magical secrets and royal scandals, while she struggles to accept and develop her extraordinary musical talents. The Story of Owen: Dragon Slayer of Trondheim by E. K. Johnston In an alternate world where industrialization has caused many species of carbon-eating dragons to thrive, Owen, a slayer being trained by his famous father and aunt, and Siobahn, his bard, face a dragon infestation near their small town in Canada. Firelight by Sophie Jordan (2010) When sixteen-year-old Jacinda, who can change into a dragon, is forced to move away from her community of shapeshifters and start a more normal life, she falls in love with a boy who proves to be her most dangerous enemy. Sequels: Vanish (2011), Hidden (2012) Talon by Julie Kagawa (2014) Long ago, dragons were hunted to near extinction by the Order of St. George, a legendary society of dragon slayers. Hiding in human form and growing their numbers in secret, the dragons of Talon have become strong and cunning, and they're positioned to take over the world with humans none the wiser. Ember and Dante Hill are the only sister and brother known to dragonkind. Trained to infiltrate society, Ember wants to live the teen experience and enjoy a summer of freedom before taking her destined place in Talon. But destiny is a matter of perspective, and a rogue dragon will soon challenge everything Ember has been taught. Talker 25 by Joshua McCune (2014) The fifteen-year-long war between man and dragons seems nearly over until Melissa becomes an unwilling pawn of the government after she--and those driving the beasts to extinction--discover that she can communicate with dragons. Voices of Dragons by Carrie Vaughn (2010) In a parallel world where humans and dragons live in a state of cold war, seventeen-year-old Kay and her dragon friend, Artegal, struggle to find a way to show that dragons and humans can co-exist. ]]> Related StoriesA Few Cybils Reads - Part VIRiddle Me ThisFabulously Diverse YA Book Covers We Should See More Often ]]> Kimberly F.http://firstname.lastname@example.com http://www.stackedbooks.org/2014/11/a-few-cybils-reads-part-vi.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-764240260467980788.post-79192878870145505372014-11-18T00:00:00.001-06:002014-11-18T00:00:00.867-06:00A Few Cybils Reads - Part VIDissonance by Erica O'Rourke Del is a Walker, which means she was born with the ability to travel to parallel worlds, each one formed when a person made a choice. The choice they made belongs to the Key world – the main world. All other possible choices spiral off into infinite echo worlds. When these echoes become unstable, it's the job of the Walkers to cleave them. Unsurprisingly, the regimented world of the Walkers isn't as it seems, and Del becomes caught up in a conspiracy that could have ramifications throughout the entire multiverse. Longtime readers of this blog may know I have a particular fascination with alternate/parallel worlds. Dissonance is a special treat for readers like me, since it focuses so much of the story on the specifics of the parallel worlds – how they're created, how they relate to the Key world, how Walkers can travel to them, how they can be destroyed. It's fascinating. Each chapter opens with an excerpt from what looks like a Walker-in-training textbook, and I wish I could read that textbook in its entirety. What's more, it all makes sense. If parallel worlds exist, they probably look like the ones from O'Rourke's imagination. Sometimes in books where world-building is so comprehensive and so detailed, plot and characterization suffer, but that's not the case here. The plot is smart, complex, and hinges both on this huge concept as well as the unique characters O'Rourke has created – rule-breaker Del, her strict sister Addy, and their senile-but-maybe-not grandfather Monty. Good speculative fiction is still character-driven, no matter how high the concept, and Dissonance fulfills this requirement. While it wouldn't interest readers who need something fast-paced to stay engaged, I have no doubt it will more than satisfy those who can't stop thinking about what it would be like to visit an alternate world themselves. The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg This is such an odd little book, one that doesn't feel much like YA. It's short and reads more like a novella, with sketchy world-building, a small cast of (rather thin) characters, and a single, focused storyline. Ceony Twill has just graduated at age 19 from the Tagis Praff school for the magically inclined. She wanted to be a Smelter, a magician who works with metal, but she's been forced into an apprenticeship as a Folder – a paper magician – under magician Emery Thane. One she's bonded to paper, she can't work magic with any other material. Ceony is heartbroken, but it's a career as a Folder or a career without any magic at all. She decides to make the best of a bad situation. This one drew me in initially with its oddness. I enjoyed reading about the tricks paper magicians could do, such as making stories written on paper come to life for a time by reading them aloud, or animating folded shapes by commanding them to breathe. Thane is suitably strange, obviously hiding some secrets. It lost me about a third of the way through, when Thane is attacked by his ex-wife, who rips his heart out of his chest. Ceony replaces his heart with a paper version, which will sustain him for a time. All this intrigued me; it's when Ceony sets off to find his real heart and somehow gets caught inside it that made me scratch my head. From that point on, the book is a journey through the different parts of Thane's heart (metaphor!) and life. We see flashbacks to his time as a child, marrying his wife, becoming estranged from his wife. We see his hopes, his dreams, his doubts, his fears. I've never been one for flashbacks and dream sequences, much less prolonged ones that encompass almost an entire novel. Characters should be built from their actions, not their dreams. Give this one to readers who delight in the odd and don't share my aversion to flashbacks. A Girl Called Fearless by Catherine Linka Avie lives in an America where almost all women who consumed a deadly hormone in beef have died of cancer. Only the very old and the very young lived. It is now ten years later, and America has to come to terms with its decimated female population. The Paternalists have taken power, restricting women's and girls' freedoms in order to "protect" them. They can't go to college, and they're married off at a young age (such as sixteen) to much older men, told they must dedicate themselves to having a lot of children. Avie's father has always promised she could go to college – even if it has to be in Canada – but in order to save his struggling business, he sells her to a rising Paternalist star. This man is 35 years old and it quickly becomes clear that Avie will be his prisoner. She decides to run. This is another dystopia by way of The Handmaid's Tale, albeit a well done one (though with much less nuance). It's fast-paced and focuses mainly on Avie's escape and its aftermath, plus a few scenes clearly meant to horrify (such as when Avie's intended "sticks his tongue down her throat," always a phrase guaranteed to elicit shudders). The plot crumbles a bit at the end, with the less-than-surprising revelation/twist that the Paternalists aren't actually trying to protect women and girls, but rather disenfranchise them. (Most readers will be shocked that the characters are shocked; preventing women from going to college and marrying them off to 35 year old men at age 16 was never about protection in the past.) This would be a good pick for readers who aren't yet burned out on this particular sub-sub-genre (dystopias where women are subjugated) or who perhaps haven't read much of it before. Readers who enjoyed Kristen Simmons' Article 5 would probably enjoy this one as well, as the two seem almost identical in execution. Dissonance and A Girl Called Fearless borrowed from my library; Paper Magician provided by the publisher. ]]> Related StoriesA Few Cybils Reads - Part IVHere There Be DragonsGuest Review: The Silence of Six by E. C. Myers ]]> Kimberly F.http://email@example.com http://www.stackedbooks.org/2014/11/fabulously-diverse-ya-book-covers-we.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-764240260467980788.post-60283654996379220682014-11-17T00:00:00.000-06:002014-11-17T00:00:01.906-06:00Fabulously Diverse YA Book Covers We Should See More OftenThere's no big introduction necessary for this post. It's not a post that requires a whole lot more than the title. It's a round-up of the awesome, diverse YA book covers that will be hitting shelves in 2015 that have been released so far. I'm including descriptions from Goodreads for each of the books, along with a link so you can add them to your to-be-read lists. In short: I want to see more and more covers like these that embrace diversity right on the front cover. No shadows, no fading-to-black, no hiding, no sunglasses-covering-the eyes, no backs turned. More like this, please! If I'm missing any other recent cover reveals from 2015 that are this straightforward, let me know in the comments. I want to see them and I want to share them. Endangered by Lamar Giles (April 21): Her name is Lauren, but everyone calls her Panda. What they don't know is that behind their backs, she also goes by Gray. As in Gray Scales, the photo blog that her classmates are addicted to because of the secrets Gray exposes: a jock buying drugs, a teacher in a compromising position, the richest girl in school shoplifting. But no one knows Panda's the vigilante photographer behind it all. At least, she thinks no one knows—until she gets a note from the Admirer, who's not only caught her red-handed acting as Gray, but also threatens to reveal everything unless Panda joins her Admirer in a little game of Dare or … Dare. Panda plays along. Anything to keep the secrets she's protected for years. But when the game turns deadly, Panda doesn't know what to do. And she might need to step out of the shadows to save herself … and everyone else on the Admirer's hit list, including some of the classmates she's loathed and exposed for years. Not Otherwise Specified by Hannah Moskowitz (March 3): Etta is tired of dealing with all of the labels and categories that seem so important to everyone else in her small Nebraska hometown. Everywhere she turns, someone feels she's too fringe for the fringe. Not gay enough for the Dykes, her ex-clique, thanks to a recent relationship with a boy; not tiny and white enough for ballet, her first passion; and not sick enough to look anorexic (partially thanks to recovery). Etta doesn't fit anywhere— until she meets Bianca, the straight, white, Christian, and seriously sick girl in Etta's therapy group. Both girls are auditioning for Brentwood, a prestigious New York theater academy that is so not Nebraska. Bianca seems like Etta's salvation, but how can Etta be saved by a girl who needs saving herself? Under The Lights by Dahlia Adler (June 30): Josh Chester loves being a Hollywood bad boy, coasting on his good looks, his parties, his parents' wealth, and the occasional modeling gig. But his laid-back lifestyle is about to change. To help out his best friend, Liam, he joins his hit teen TV show, Daylight Falls...opposite Vanessa Park, the one actor immune to his charms. (Not that he's trying to charm her, of course.) Meanwhile, his drama-queen mother blackmails him into a new family reality TV show, with Josh in the starring role. Now that he's in the spotlight—on everyone's terms but his own—Josh has to decide whether a life as a superstar is the one he really wants. Vanessa Park has always been certain about her path as an actor, despite her parents' disapproval. But with all her relationships currently in upheaval, she's painfully uncertain about everything else. When she meets her new career handler, Brianna, Van is relieved to have found someone she can rely on, now that her BFF, Ally, is at college across the country. But as feelings unexpectedly evolve beyond friendship, Van's life reaches a whole new level of confusing. And she'll have to choose between the one thing she's always loved...and the person she never imagined she could. About A Girl by Sarah McCarry (July 14): Eighteen-year-old Tally is absolutely sure of everything: her genius, the love of her adoptive family, the loyalty of her best friend, Shane, and her future career as a Nobel prize-winning astronomer. There's no room in her tidy world for heartbreak or uncertainty—or the charismatic, troubled mother who abandoned her soon after she was born. But when a sudden discovery upends her fiercely ordered world, Tally sets out on an unexpected quest to seek out the reclusive musician who may hold the key to her past—and instead finds Maddy, an enigmatic and beautiful girl who will unlock the door to her future. The deeper she falls in love with Maddy, the more Tally begins to realize that the universe is bigger—and more complicated—than she ever imagined. Can Tally face the truth about her family—and find her way home in time to save herself from its consequences? The Summer of Chasing Mermaids by Sarah Ockler (August 4): The youngest of six talented sisters, Elyse d'Abreau was destined for stardom—until a boating accident took everything from her. Now, the most beautiful singer in Tobago can't sing. She can't even speak. Seeking quiet solitude, Elyse accepts a friend's invitation to Atargatis Cove. Named for the mythical first mermaid, the Oregon seaside town is everything Elyse's home in the Caribbean isn't: An ocean too cold for swimming, parties too tame for singing, and people too polite to pry—except for one. Christian Kane is a notorious playboy—insolent, arrogant, and completely charming. He's also the only person in Atargatis Cove who doesn't treat Elyse like a glass statue. He challenges her to express herself, and he admires the way she treats his younger brother Sebastian, who believes Elyse is the legendary mermaid come to life. When Christian needs a first mate for the Cove's high-stakes Pirate Regatta, Elyse reluctantly stows her fear of the sea and climbs aboard. The ocean isn't the only thing making waves, though—swept up in Christian's seductive tide and entranced by the Cove's charms, Elyse begins to wonder if a life of solitude isn't what she needs. But changing course again means facing her past. It means finding her inner voice. And scariest of all, it means opening her heart to a boy who's best known for breaking them. This Side of Home by Renee Watson (February 3): Identical twins Nikki and Maya have been on the same page for everything—friends, school, boys and starting off their adult lives at a historically African-American college. But as their neighborhood goes from rough-and-tumble to up-and-coming, suddenly filled with pretty coffee shops and boutiques, Nikki is thrilled while Maya feels like their home is slipping away. Suddenly, the sisters who had always shared everything must confront their dissenting feelings on the importance of their ethnic and cultural identities and, in the process, learn to separate themselves from the long shadow of their identity as twins. Scarlett Undercover by Jennifer Latham (May 19): Meet Scarlett, a smart, sarcastic, kick-butt, Muslim American heroine, ready to take on crime in her hometown of Las Almas. When a new case finds the private eye caught up in a centuries-old battle of evil genies and ancient curses, Scarlett discovers that her own family secrets may have more to do with the situation than she thinks -- and that cracking the case could lead to solving her father's murder. The Boy in the Black Suit by Jason Reynolds (January 6): Just when seventeen-year-old Matt thinks he can't handle one more piece of terrible news, he meets a girl who's dealt with a lot more—and who just might be able to clue him in on how to rise up when life keeps knocking him down—in this wry, gritty novel from the author of When I Was the Greatest. Matt wears a black suit every day. No, not because his mom died—although she did, and it sucks. But he wears the suit for his gig at the local funeral home, which pays way better than the Cluck Bucket, and he needs the income since his dad can't handle the bills (or anything, really) on his own. So while Dad's snagging bottles of whiskey, Matt's snagging fifteen bucks an hour. Not bad. But everything else? Not good. Then Matt meets Lovey. She's got a crazy name, and she's been through more crazy than he can imagine. Yet Lovey never cries. She's tough. Really tough. Tough in the way Matt wishes he could be. Which is maybe why he's drawn to her, and definitely why he can't seem to shake her. Because there's nothing more hopeful than finding a person who understands your loneliness—and who can maybe even help take it away. Bright Lights, Dark Nights by Stephen Emond (August 11): Walter Wilcox has never been in love. That is, until he meets Naomi, and sparks, and clever jokes, fly. But when his cop dad is caught in a racial profiling scandal, Walter and Naomi, who is African American, are called out at school, home, and online. Can their bond (and mutual love of the Foo Fighters) keep them together? With black-and-white illustrations throughout and a heartfelt, humorous voice, Bright Lights, Dark Nights authentically captures just how tough first love can be...and why it's worth fighting for. Written in the Stars by Aisha Saeed (March 24): This heart-wrenching novel explores what it is like to be thrust into an unwanted marriage. Has Naila's fate been written in the stars? Or can she still make her own destiny? Naila's conservative immigrant parents have always said the same thing: She may choose what to study, how to wear her hair, and what to be when she grows up—but they will choose her husband. Following their cultural tradition, they will plan an arranged marriage for her. And until then, dating—even friendship with a boy—is forbidden. When Naila breaks their rule by falling in love with Saif, her parents are livid. Convinced she has forgotten who she truly is, they travel to Pakistan to visit relatives and explore their roots. But Naila's vacation turns into a nightmare when she learns that plans have changed—her parents have found her a husband and they want her to marry him, now! Despite her greatest efforts, Naila is aghast to find herself cut off from everything and everyone she once knew. Her only hope of escape is Saif . . . if he can find her before it's too late. The Last Leaves Falling by Sarah Benwell (May 5): Japanese teenager, Sora, is diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). Lonely and isolated, Sora turns to the ancient wisdom of the samurai for guidance and comfort. But he also finds hope in the present; through the internet he finds friends that see him, not just his illness. This is a story of friendship and acceptance, and testing strength in an uncertain future. Shadowshaper by Daniel Jose Older (June 30): Sierra Santiago was looking forward to a fun summer of making art, hanging out with her friends, and skating around Brooklyn. But then a weird zombie guy crashes the first party of the season. Sierra's near-comatose abuelo begins to say "No importa" over and over. And when the graffiti murals in Bed-Stuy start to weep.... Well, something stranger than the usual New York mayhem is going on. Sierra soon discovers a supernatural order called the Shadowshapers, who connect with spirits via paintings, music, and stories. Her grandfather once shared the order's secrets with an anthropologist, Dr. Jonathan Wick, who turned the Caribbean magic to his own foul ends. Now Wick wants to become the ultimate Shadowshaper by killing all the others, one by one. With the help of her friends and the hot graffiti artist Robbie, Sierra must dodge Wick's supernatural creations, harness her own Shadowshaping abilities, and save her family's past, present, and future. * While this isn't a final cover concept, I love it and hope whatever the final choice is, it's in this direction. ]]> Related StoriesGet Genrefied: YA in TranslationHardcover to Paperback Makeovers: Backlist YA Covers To ConsiderBuzz-worthy Covers: Bees All Around Us ]]> Kelly Jensenhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com http://www.stackedbooks.org/2014/11/this-week-at-book-riot_14.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-764240260467980788.post-65408312847602342622014-11-14T00:00:00.000-06:002014-11-14T00:00:02.593-06:00This Week at Book RiotOver at Book Riot this week...For "3 On A YA Theme," I wrote about 3 books featuring teens who are writers. I haven't written a "Beyond the Bestsellers" post in a bit, so I decided it was time. For readers who love Robin LaFevers's "His Fair Assassin" trilogy, here's a pile of books worth reading next. ]]> Related StoriesThis Week at Book Riot ]]> Kelly Jensenhttp://email@example.com http://www.stackedbooks.org/2014/11/toronto-bound-see-you-at-inspire.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-764240260467980788.post-23208937348544958902014-11-13T00:00:00.000-06:002014-11-13T06:17:55.821-06:00Toronto Bound: See You At INSPIRE! By the time this post goes live, I'll be wandering through the streets of downtown Toronto. It'll be my third time in the city and the second time this year alone. Thanks to the folks at Knot PR, I've been selected to attend the Inspire! Toronto International Book Fair as an international blogger, which kicks off tonight and runs through Sunday evening. I'm really excited to check out this book festival, and the panels I'm going to be attending look pretty excellent. There's a really nice array of different topics and a huge range of speakers attending, which you can check out here. Here's a peek at what I am looking at going to and who will be talking: Human Rights Books for Young Readers with Karen Levine, Rosemary McCarney, and Margie Wolfe I Don't Give A Damsel: Writing Strong Young Women with Gayle Forman, E. Lockhart, Sarah Mlynowski, and Meg Wolitzer (If ever a panel sounded like one that was up my alley, here it is) Love to Read: How Reading Programs Lead to Success with the Ontario Library Association and Toronto Public Library The Haunting: The Legacy of Shirley Jackson and the Authors Who Came After with Chizine Publications Books By Their Covers: Redesigning Classics with Elly MacKay, Debbie Ridpath Ohi, Cybele Young I've got a few other interesting panels and programs on my need-to-attend list, including seeing Leonicka Valcius talking about diversity. I've been reading her writing for a while now and so appreciate her perspectives on diversity. I'm also looking forward to some time to explore the city a little more than I have in the past. Both times I've been to Toronto in the past have been pretty quick. This time, I have almost a week, which includes a 3-hour city-wide bookstore tour that I'm really looking forward to. Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be writing a bit about the book festival, as well as about the city, both here on Stacked and over on Book Riot. I'm also hoping to talk a little more about it on Tumblr (you can follow me over there, if you want) and I'll be posting pictures on Instagram. If you've ever wondered what Toronto looks like from the top of the CN tower, here you go. At least that's what it looked like in summer 2011. I'm looking forward to this writing vacation, though I'm thoroughly prepared for some snow and cold. It is mid-November in Canada. That's...pretty much the exact same expectation I have for Wisconsin this time of year. ]]> Related StoriesGood Girls, Bad Girls, Real Girls: WLA PresentationKid Lit Con 2014, Sacramento: The RecapOn Girls, Girl Reading, and Girls in YA Fiction Beyond STACKED ]]> Kelly Jensenhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com http://www.stackedbooks.org/2014/11/riddle-me-this.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-764240260467980788.post-2172821341925070502014-11-12T00:00:00.000-06:002014-11-12T00:00:04.399-06:00Riddle Me This Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett When strange and seemingly unrelated events start to happen and a precious Vermeer painting disappears, eleven-year-olds Petra and Calder combine their talents to solve an international art scandal. First book in the series featuring art sleuth friends Calder and Petra. The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau Sixteen-year-old Malencia (Cia) Vale is chosen to participate in The Testing to attend the University; however, Cia is fearful when she figures out her friends who do not pass The Testing are disappearing. Kimberly's review | The sequels, Independent Study and Graduation Day, have some great riddles/puzzles too. Nearly Gone by Elle Cosimano A math-whiz from a trailer park discovers she's the only student capable of unravelling complex clues left by a serial killer who's systematically getting rid of her classmates. Kimberly's review The Riddle-Master of Hed by Patricia A. McKillip In seeking the answer to the riddle of the three stars on his forehead and the three stars on the enchanted harp and sword, Morgon, Prince of Hed, goes ultimately to the High One himself. Free to Fall by Lauren Miller Fast-forward to a time when Apple and Google have been replaced by Gnosis, a monolith corporation that has developed the most life-changing technology to ever hit the market: Lux, an app that flawlessly optimizes decision-making for the best personal results. Just like everyone else, sixteen-year-old Rory Vaughn knows the key to a happy, healthy life is following what Lux recommends. When she's accepted to the elite boarding school Theden Academy, her future happiness seems all the more assured. But once on campus, something feels wrong beneath the polished surface of her prestigious dream school. Kimberly's review The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin The mysterious death of an eccentric millionaire brings together an unlikely assortment of heirs who must uncover the circumstances of his death before they can claim their inheritance. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling Fourteen-year-old Harry Potter joins the Weasleys at the Quidditch World Cup, then enters his fourth year at Hogwarts Academy where he is mysteriously entered in an unusual contest that challenges his wizarding skills, friendships and character, amid signs that an old enemy is growing stronger. When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead Four mysterious letters change Miranda's world forever. By sixth grade, Miranda and her best friend, Sal, know how to navigate their New York City neighborhood. But things start to unravel. Sal gets punched by a new kid for what seems like no reason, and he shuts Miranda out of his life. The apartment key that Miranda's mom keeps hidden for an emergency is stolen. And then Miranda finds a mysterious note scrawled on a tiny slip of paper: I am coming to save your friend's life, and my own. I must ask two favors. First, you must write me a letter. The notes keep coming, and Miranda slowly realizes that whoever is leaving them knows all about her, including things that have not even happened yet. Each message brings her closer to believing that only she can prevent a tragic death. Kimberly's review The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart After passing a series of mind-bending tests, four children are selected for a secret mission that requires them to go undercover at the Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened, where the only rule is that there are no rules. The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien The adventures of the well-to-do hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, who lived happily in his comfortable home until a wandering wizard granted his wish. (Really, no description needed here.) Impossible by Nancy Werlin When seventeen-year-old Lucy discovers her family is under an ancient curse by an evil Elfin Knight, she realizes to break the curse she must perform three impossible tasks before her daughter is born in order to save them both. ]]> Related StoriesHere There Be DragonsA Few Cybils Reads - Part VIFabulously Diverse YA Book Covers We Should See More Often ]]> Kimberly F.http://firstname.lastname@example.com http://www.stackedbooks.org/2014/11/a-few-cybils-reads-part-v.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-764240260467980788.post-20721079684937542802014-11-11T00:00:00.000-06:002014-11-11T00:00:00.309-06:00A Few Cybils Reads - Part VWelcome to the Dark House by Laurie Faria Stolarz Horror filmmaker Justin Blake has invited people from all over the country to enter a contest to get an inside look at his latest project - all they have to do is write about their worst nightmare. Seven lucky teenagers, each with their own POV chapters, were selected based on their entries, and they've been flown to a creepy hotel staffed by people who are dead ringers for killers from Blake's many movies. Immediately upon their arrival, strange things start to happen: one of the girls flees the hotel; the others find writing on her closet wall in what appears to be blood warning them to get away. But it's all part of the fun, right? These horror-lovers (with the notable exception of Ivy, who entered the contest in hopes it would help her face down her real life horror) want to be scared. Then they're all taken to a carnival and told that in order to meet Blake, they must survive the rides that are their nightmares come to life - and things take a turn for the deadly. This is a great pick for fans of campy horror films. The book itself is pretty much a version of one of those films anyway, right down to a perspective told mostly in screenplay format. It doesn't try to do anything new, but rather embraces the tropes that make those films fun for viewers: a creepy carnival, a remote location, no cell phone signals, mostly one-note participants being picked off one by one. Readers will be able to see how it will end, but the ride is fun nonetheless. Scintillate by Tracy Clark After an illness where Cora was hospitalized for a high fever, she's able to see auras around people. They vary from person to person, depending on their personality and their mood, but Cora's own is always pure silver. She tries to talk to her dad about it (her mother is long out of the picture), but he won't answer any of her questions. The proprietor of a local bookshop tells her that auras are real, that Cora has a special ability to see them, and that pure silver auras are very rare - right before she's threatened into silence and refuses to see Cora again. When Cora begins to notice a man following her around, a man with a pure white aura who can somehow suck out the auras of others around him, killing them, she knows she must find out what's going on. She learns it's tied somehow to her mother's disappearance in Ireland, so she travels there hoping to puzzle it out, encountering danger, romance, and long-lost secrets. I started this one thinking I may not finish it, but it surprised me with how compelling it was. The way Clark wrote about auras was interesting; it's a topic that I haven't read much about in fiction. But what really makes this stand out from the sea of other paranormal light fantasies is the way Clark handles the romance. I wasn't at all surprised to encounter what's often called "insta-love" between Cora and her school's exchange student hottie. But there's a plot and a character reason for it, which is fully revealed near the end of the story and makes such head-over-heels instant attraction an inevitability. Clark knows what she's doing with her story - she recognizes the cliches inherent in her genre and works with them in a clever way. The writing is solid, with a great voice in Cora and an exciting climax, and the mythology is interesting, too, making this a good pick for paranormal romance fans. Nearly Gone by Elle Cosimano There's a serial killer on the loose at Nearly Boswell's high school, and it seems that he (or she) is doing everything he can to make it look like Nearly is the culprit. It started with an innocent-seeming personal ad in the Classifieds section of the newspaper, a section Nearly combs through every day hoping to read a message from her father who abandoned her and her mother when she was a little girl. The first victim is merely humiliated; when the second victim dies, Nearly knows the second personal ad referring cryptically to the location where the body was found wasn't merely strange; it was targeting her specifically. She goes to the police, but they either don't believe her or think she's in on it. She feels like she has no choice but to stop the killing on her own - with the help of the school's bad boy, a former juvenile delinquent who's now agreed to keep tabs on Nearly for the police in case she's the killer. This is a fantastic, smart mystery/thriller that's plotted to perfection. The riddles in the Classifieds are really fun to puzzle out, and Cosimano sprinkles a lot of red herrings and potential motives throughout the book. There are subplots galore; any one of them could point to the serial killer. The name "Nearly" is a little too cute for my liking (oh, the puns Cosimano uses!), and Nearly's ability to sense others' emotions by touching them seems completely extraneous. Unlike a book like Kim Harrington's Clarity, where the protagonist's ability is integral to solving the crime, Nearly's ability doesn't do much for her (or against her). There's one scene where she's at a rave and is overwhelmed by the emotions present within the drug- and adrenaline-fueled participants, but that's as much as her ability ever bears on the plot. Aside from these things, though, this is one of the best teen mysteries I've read. I especially liked that the riddles focused on math and science, areas where Nearly excels. It's a fun workout for the reader's brain and nice to see a girl protagonist who loves those subjects. All books borrowed from my local library. ]]> Related StoriesA Few Cybils Reads - Part VIA Few Cybils Reads - Part IVHere There Be Dragons ]]> Kimberly F.http://email@example.com http://www.stackedbooks.org/2014/11/for-girls-in-dedication.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-764240260467980788.post-85523146457764410172014-11-10T00:00:00.001-06:002014-11-10T00:00:00.999-06:00"For the Girls" in DedicationI don't pay a lot of attention to dedications in books. Most of the time, those are personal to the author, naming people in their lives who are important to them -- family members, friends, someone who helped them significantly while writing the book. I find acknowledgement pages far more interesting to read. But that's changed a little as I've noticed a small trend in YA dedications. It's a trend I love, and it's one that I hope I keep stumbling upon. These are dedications to girls. Not just one girl, but to girls more broadly, offering them a piece of advice, a word of kindness, or a piece of hope. A lot of these dedications make perfect sense in context with the book too. If the book's about strong girls or about a girl who learns what it means to be a girl, that sort of dedication feels like a sweet message from the author to the reader holding the book. Here's a round-up of recent dedications I've seen "for the girls." This is incomplete, as it's something that I've only just started to notice. If you can think of others, let me know in the comments so I can track down those books and include a shot of the dedication. I'd love to have enough to do another big round-up of them, and I know they're out there. I'm including a description of the book and, for some, the publication date, since these aren't all released yet. Descriptions are from WorldCat. Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson Fifteen-year-old Tiger Lily receives special protections from the spiritual forces of Neverland, but then she meets her tribe's most dangerous enemy--Peter Pan--and falls in love with him. Gabi, A Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero Sixteen-year-old Gabi Hernandez chronicles her senior year in high school as she copes with her friend Cindy's pregnancy, friend Sebastian's coming out, her father's meth habit, her own cravings for food and cute boys, and especially, the poetry that helps forge her identity. Glory O'Brien's History of the Future by A. S. King As her high school graduation draws near, Glory O'Brien begins having powerful and terrifying visions of the future as she struggles with her long-buried grief over her mother's suicide. The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma (March 24, 2015) Orianna and Violet are ballet dancers and best friends, but when the ballerinas who have been harassing Violet are murdered, Orianna is accused of the crime and sent to a juvenile detention center where she meets Amber and they experience supernatural events linking the girls together. The Devil You Know by Trish Doller (June 2, 2015) Exhausted and rebellious after three years of working for her father and mothering her brother, eighteen-year-old Arcadia "Cadie" Wells joins two cousins who are camping their way through Florida, soon learning that one is a murderer. ]]> Related StoriesAdvocating for and writing about girls is a radical actWrapping Up "About the Girls"Links of Note: March 22, 2014 ]]> Kelly Jensenhttp://email@example.com http://www.stackedbooks.org/2014/11/this-week-in-reading-volume-ix.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-764240260467980788.post-47199085035513645582014-11-09T08:35:00.000-06:002014-11-09T08:35:09.597-06:00This Week in Reading: Volume IXI'm heading to Toronto this coming week for the INSPIRE!: Toronto International Book Fair. I've got a post set up for later this week talking a bit more about the trip and what I'm looking forward to seeing. Before that, though, here's a look at this week in reading. For review: Love & Profanity edited by Nick Healy (March 1): Carrie Mesrobian gave this to me, and it's an anthology of real life stories from a wide variety of YA authors about being teenagers. It looks really great. Gone Too Far by Natalie D. Richards (January 6): This mystery looks pretty good! A viral sex tape and a burn book? Sign me up. Breaking Sky by Cory McCarthy (March 3): They're selling this as a "debut thriller." It's not McCarthy's debut novel nor her first YA. But it's her first thriller. That "debut" word needs to stop. Undertow by Michael Buckley (May 5)A List of Things That Didn't Kill Me by Jason Schmidt (January 6): "Debut memoir." This looks pretty interesting. I'm not sure about likening it to The Glass Castle, though. Read this week/currently reading: As Red As Blood by Salla Simukka: This YA novel in translation is quite similar in tone and execution as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which it was compared to. I mean this in a good way. I quite liked it, and more, I liked that it's part of a series, but the entire story was self-contained. There's a lot going on in the main character's backstory we don't get to know . . . but that leaves those sequels an opportunity to give us more about Lumikki. I will definitely pick up book two. I plan to write more about this book soon. The Vigilante Poets of Selwyn Academy by Kate Hattemer: I thought the voice was funny, but then I didn't find myself caring about any of the characters. I quit this one half-way through. It felt a little like the author's voice came through too much and that got in the way of some authenticity. The Good Sister by Jamie Kain: I'm reading this one right now and am being optimistic that some of the things I don't like -- the magical dead sister who knows everything and the two other sisters who feel a little cardboard -- end up changing and surprising me. I'm enjoying the story itself. The writing is nice and tight, which I appreciate. Around the web: A great round-up of YA novels that have POC-centric romancesSarah Rees Brennan talks about the risk involved in writing girls' stories, and Malinda Lo notes that same risk exists in telling lesbian story lines. I love this short interview with Amy Poehler, where she's asked if she's a feminist and what she thinks about the feminist question more broadly. So good. Since I'll be traveling next weekend, I can't take part in the 24 in 48 Read-a-Thon, but you should. Leila at Bookshelves of Doom highlights 7 YA books featuring the suffragist movement. I debated for a long time whether or not I'd do another contemporary YA week this year -- putting the series together takes a lot of work and energy, and I wasn't sure I had it in me -- but it will be happening. December 1-5, it'll be all contemporary YA here at Stacked, featuring 5 really exciting guest posts from voices who we've never had here before. In addition, there will be a big series of book lists, interesting discussions, and more. ]]> Related StoriesThis Week in Reading: Volume VIIIThis Week in Reading: Volume VIIThis Week in Reading: Volume VI ]]> Kelly Jensenhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com http://www.stackedbooks.org/2014/11/this-week-at-book-riot.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-764240260467980788.post-9611782298863984202014-11-07T00:00:00.000-06:002014-11-07T00:00:01.381-06:00This Week at Book Riot This week over at Book Riot . . .I talked about teens who have parents that are writers for 3 On A YA Theme. ]]> Related StoriesThis Week at Book Riot ]]> Kelly Jensenhttp://email@example.com http://www.stackedbooks.org/2014/11/good-girls-bad-girls-real-girls-wla.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-764240260467980788.post-86186703802167115372014-11-06T16:26:00.001-06:002014-11-06T16:26:36.115-06:00Good Girls, Bad Girls, Real Girls: WLA Presentation Yesterday, I presented with author Carrie Mesrobian at the Wisconsin Library Association's annual conference up in the Dells. We talked about teen girls in YA fiction and in the library to a full room of librarians who were really excited to talk with us about this topic. We started out asking for names of strong female characters in YA and got a nice response -- then we flipped the switch and asked what the hell "strong female character" even meant. We had a great conversation about how we define strong female characters in YA and how names of heroines in fantasy or science fiction come to mind quicker than those in realistic YA. Perhaps the best quote was one Carrie tossed out when we were talking about how today's teens read and how they think about their reading: where we as adults are trying to program the VCR, today's teens are already streaming the content they want and like. Rather than try to box teens in, it's our job as adults who work with teens or who care about them to continue giving them diversity and to quit thinking about them and their interests in binary ways. They don't think that way, and we shouldn't either. For those who attended and asked about our presentation -- or those who are interested in it -- here's a link to the Prezi. The books we talked about are included with covers, and you can zoom in as much as you need to to grab titles/authors. There are links to a couple of surveys of teen girls, as well. I'm happy to answer any questions or for those who attended and can't remember the name of one of the books we talked about, I'm happy to help out. ]]> Related StoriesINSPIRE: Toronto International Book Festival, Part 1 - The Quick HighlightsToronto Bound: See You At INSPIRE!Kid Lit Con 2014, Sacramento: The Recap ]]> Kelly Jensenhttp://email@example.com http://www.stackedbooks.org/2014/11/ya-review-round-up-100-sideways-miles.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-764240260467980788.post-56511798198130695252014-11-06T00:00:00.001-06:002014-11-06T00:00:01.896-06:00YA Review Round-up: 100 Sideways Miles, Tell Me Again How A Crush Should Feel, and Press Play read, then I need to do that and when I'm in the mood to really dig into the books I'm reading, then I need to just do that. I'm putting together a couple of review round-up posts for recent reads to talk up some of the things I have been reading. There's nothing thematically similar about these books, other than they're all titles I've read recently and are worth talking at least a little bit about. My experience with Andrew Smith's books are a mixed bag. Sometimes, I love them and sometimes, they're really not my thing at all. I found Grasshopper Jungle to fall into the "not my thing at all" category this year, especially as I felt that the way females were depicted in the story was problematic. I don't expect a book that's through the eyes of a teen boy to always be perfectly respectful to female characters -- that's unrealistic -- but when every female in the story has some kind of problem or is depicted as merely there as a side item, it starts to grate on me. Enter 100 Sideways Miles. The story centers on Finn and his experience as an epileptic. Or, well, it's less about his experience as an epileptic as his experience being a teen boy trying to figure out what's next in his life. It so happens he has epilepsy, due to a bizarre accident involving a horse that subsequently killed his mother. Finn's goal at the end of this school year is to travel outside California with his best friend Cade. They want to check out a potential college in Oklahoma together. In the interim, a new girl moves to town and quite literally meets Finn as he's in the midst of a seizure. It's completely embarrassing to him to have the new girl -- who he can't help but have his eyes on out of curiosity, if not more -- walk in on him like that. But Julia isn't fazed by it. In fact, it's that event that brings them together and forges a satisfying relationship between the two of them. Smith offers up a solid female character in Julia, but more than that, he shows a really great romantic relationship between the two that feels real and more, feels real to who Finn is. But this isn't really about the romance. This is a book about guy friendship and about figuring out the questions of "what's next" in life. I'd call this a straight up adventure story, especially in the second half, and it's the kind of adventure story that seems to be lacking in YA. It's two guys, on the road, figuring out not just who they are, but how they can solve big problems outside themselves while they're on the road. 100 Sideways Miles also features what readers have come to expect out of Smith's writing: it's not necessarily straightforward and there are plenty of straight-up weird and bizarre plot elements. But those are part of the story and make sense within it. This is a much more accessible and, I think, enjoyable read than Grasshopper Jungle was this year. It features a diverse cast and a really authentic look at male friendship. Tell Me Again How A Crush Should Feel is Sara Farizan's sophomore novel, and it repeats some of the same writing-related things that I found didn't work for me in her first book, If You Could Be Mine. In Tell Me Again, main character Leila -- who is Iranian -- has never had a crush before. It's something she is almost a little proud of, or at least it's something she'd be more proud of if it weren't for the fact this is because she's a lesbian. Her parents, who are strict and religious, can't know about this, as they have very high expectations of her to follow the straight-and-narrow in the same way her older sister is. Leila feels the pressure, even if she doesn't necessarily pursue it. When new girl Saskia comes to Leila's school, though, suddenly, she finds herself falling. Saskia is gorgeous and she appears to be very open and honest about her feelings. Leila can't believe that someone as attractive and cool as Saskia could be the kind of girl she'd be able to call a girlfriend. Between their getting together after school, their intimate moments in a dressing room, and their shared kisses, it feels all but certain Leila now has her first real girlfriend. How will she tell her friends? Can she tell them? And what about her parents? It's not what it seems though, and Saskia isn't the cool girl or girlfriend Leila thought her to be. She's taken huge advantage of Leila and her naivety, leaving her hurt and confused. But when a long-time friend reenters the picture, perhaps things aren't as bad as Leila thinks they are. And maybe, just maybe, she'll be able to come out to her parents. The writing in this one drags a bit and there are times where info dumps not only slow the pacing but they also sometimes seem to contradict themselves. We don't get a super clear picture of any of the characters -- including Leila -- though Farizan does an outstanding job rendering Saskia as a toxic, manipulative girl who uses others for her own gain. At times, little to nothing happens in the story, and I felt like this moments deserved some higher stakes, both for the plot and for the characters so they could be more rounded and clearly depicted. I also wish there'd been a little more economic diversity within the story; this was a book featuring a lot of privileged characters and after a while, reading that got to be a little too much. Tell Me Again reads younger than a lot of YA out there, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. While there's talk of sex and there's drinking, I think this would be an okay book to hand to more mature middle school readers, as well as younger high schoolers. If you're looking for a book that's a hard look at "dude culture" -- something perhaps not explored as much as it should be in YA -- then Eric Devine's Press Play should fit pretty well. Greg Dunsmore has earned the nickname "Dun the Ton" because he's a big guy. A very big guy. But he's using this as an opportunity to develop a film to gain him admission into a top film school. His plan is to film himself through intense weight-loss workouts, as well as the sort of bullying and teasing he gets for his body. When he's doing his workout in the weight room after school, he accidentally overhears and oversees something going on with the lacrosse team. It looks and sounds like bullying and hazing on a level he can't stomach. He doesn't have quite the solid proof that he'd like to to turn this into something bigger, but Greg knows now he has to pursue what it is he thinks is going on in order to shed light into the brutal hazing culture at his school. It's not easy, and he's not above seeing further bullying for what he's trying to do, but Greg understands this is beyond him . . . even if he is also aware this could be an opportunity for his own future, too. Devine's book is a fast-paced, adrenaline-fueled book along the lines of Joshua Cohen's Leverage. While there's not a lot new offered to the fat kid being bullied angle in the story, Greg is authentic and honest in a way that many of these kinds of stories don't allow their main characters to be. He's not a perfect character, and his flaws are what make him a character worth following. Because he's sometimes unlikable, stubborn, and frustrating to readers and to those who care about him, he's almost the exact right person to be attempting to out the hazing going on with the lacrosse team. He doesn't start out with an agenda, and when he decides he does have to pursue this, his dedication to it becomes something that both impresses and annoys those around him. At times, Press Play went a little long and it could have maintained its intensity with a little tighter editing, but this is the kind of realistic YA that should appeal to both teen boys and teen girls who are interested in unflinching, stomach-twisting looks at the underbelly of high school and high school athletic culture. It's a story that's exceptionally timely and, unfortunately, exceptionally timeless. ]]> Related StoriesHere There Be DragonsA Few Cybils Reads - Part VIFabulously Diverse YA Book Covers We Should See More Often ]]> Kelly Jensenhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com http://www.stackedbooks.org/2014/11/guest-review-silence-of-six-by-e-c-myers.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-764240260467980788.post-91488876067938741402014-11-05T00:00:00.000-06:002014-11-05T00:00:05.663-06:00Guest Review: The Silence of Six by E. C. MyersFrequent guest contributor Matthew Jackson - freelance writer, film & book critic, and professional nerd (plus Kimberly's cohabitator) - is back with a review of E. C. Myers' latest book, The Silence of Six. In 2012, Jackson reviewed Myers' Norton-winning Fair Coin for us. He has also written frequently here at Stacked on the subject of horror. One minute, 17-year-old Max Stein is sitting in his high school auditorium, watching a live presidential debate. The next, he's watching – along with everyone else in the room – as his friend Evan hacks into the debate's live video feed and shoots himself after uttering a very cryptic question: "What is the silence of six, and what are you going to do about it?" That this is how the new novel from E.C. Myers – the Andre Norton Award-winning author of Fair Coin, which I loved – opens is compelling enough. That it happens within the first 15 pages of the novel is something I found outright gripping. Myers rockets the story from establishing scenario to brutal catalyst almost immediately, trusting his readers to take his hand and follow him on what will be a bullet-train of a techno thriller. Handled clumsily, this kind of set up might make the reader skittish. In Myers' hands, though, it sends a message: All will be revealed if you just hang on for the ride. Because Evan made contact with him shortly before his death, Max is suddenly at the center of a government manhunt, and a conspiracy that he can't possibly begin to comprehend. Reeling from his friend's drastic act, and desperate for answers, he must dive back into his own previously abandoned hacker identity, and navigate a complex online world of aliases, back doors, secrets and lies, before it's too late to find out what Evan really gave his life for. I remember all-too-well the emotionally harrowing feeling that everything when you're a teenager, even the most mundane thing, is a high-stakes moment, so I'm a sucker for stories that take that all-or-nothing rollercoaster of adolescence and morph it into an adventure where the stakes actually are high. In the world of The Silence of Six, the secrets teenagers harbor really are worth dying and killing for. The government really is out to get you. Every keystroke really can be watched over by someone else. This is a world of whispers and codes and masks, both physical and virtual, a world where you sometimes have to lie and steal to survive another day, a world where the truth could mean permanent silence. It's got all the trappings of a government conspiracy blockbuster, but instead of a renegade cop or a paranoid reporter, a handful of resourceful teenage hackers are in the driver's seat, and that makes it all the more engaging. One of the things I found most impressive about Fair Coin was Myers' ability to simultaneously deliver the goods we've come to expect from a story of that kind, and subvert those expectations. He does it again with The Silence of Six. It's a techno-conspiracy-cyber-thriller, with everything that implies. It's a search for the truth, a story about making it to the center of this knot of secrets no matter what, and to that end it's a breathlessly entertaining page-turner that darts artfully forward from page one and never lets up. But that doesn't mean Myers won't to stop play with some of the conventions he's working in. His hero is not an action star or an always technically precise supergenius. He's a gifted, scared kid determined to find whatever right he can in a world that's just gone wrong for him in countless ways. What looks like it could be a romantic subplot evolves into something else entirely, as Max forms a connection with another hacker that's built more on personal stakes and, perhaps, a mutual sense of mischief than something romantic. The hacking done by the characters isn't a few quick keystrokes of brilliance, but rather a series of clever, yet often imperfect, ploys to get to the next clue. The hacking in this story is both messy and satisfyingly geeky, giving it a realism that nerdier readers will happily get lost in. Perhaps most importantly for a thriller, though, the solution to this puzzle is both satisfying and surprising. Even if you actually do think you see the end of this book from a mile away, how Myers and his characters arrive at it, and what happens when they do, still manages to defy a few of the rules set forth by so many stories of this kind. With The Silence of Six, Myers has again proven his gifts as a storyteller who both celebrates the tropes of genre fiction and wants to pick them apart and stitch them back together into a new creature. It's a lightning-fast thriller with other, darker themes lurking beneath, and even if you think you've read books like this before, it will find a way to surprise you. Review copy received from the publisher. The Silence of Six is available today. ]]> Related StoriesA Few Cybils Reads - Part IVA Few Cybils Reads - Part VIYA Review Round-up: 100 Sideways Miles, Tell Me Again How A Crush Should Feel, and Press Play ]]> Kimberly F.http://firstname.lastname@example.com http://www.stackedbooks.org/2014/11/a-few-cybils-reads-part-iv.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-764240260467980788.post-21939962307062473832014-11-04T00:00:00.000-06:002014-11-04T00:00:02.537-06:00A Few Cybils Reads - Part IVBurn Out by Kristi Helvig Part of the reason I love SFF so much - and always have - is how fun it can be. Authors can really let their creativity fly and not worry so much about trivial things like "Could this actually happen?" Burn Out is probably the most fun Cybils nominee I've read so far. It's set 300 years in our future, after an asteroid that was heading for Earth was deflected and hit the sun instead, causing it to advance much more rapidly through its life cycle. It's now a red giant, all the oceans on the planet have dried up, it's too hot to go outside for more than a minute or two at a time, and most humans live underground or in protected pods, using a machine to drag the last bit of moisture out of the air in order to survive. (You could ask me if this could actually happen and I could honestly say I don't know, but my first guess would be "probably not.") Tora lives underground, alone, after her mother and sister were killed by the sun and her father was murdered by the people he worked for after he refused to hand over the powerful weapons he built for them. Tora has resigned herself to probably ending her own life eventually. The air soon won't have enough water left in it and she figures it will be less painful to overdose on pain pills than die of dehydration. Then an old family "friend," Markus, comes knocking on her door. He says the Earth's leaders have found another planet where humanity can live. He can take her there. The price is her dad's weapons, left in Tora's safekeeping. Tora knows they were made to be used on other humans, which is why her father refused to give them up in the end. Tora says no. Markus leaves, but he returns, and he brings friends. Not the nice kind. This is an action-packed story, told in Tora's funny, sarcastic voice that kept me flipping through the pages. The plot has a hole big enough to drive a truck through, but that didn't dampen my enjoyment. The setting is unique and the futuristic concepts are interesting, including a gun that can be keyed to a person's particular vibrations, allowing only that person to use it. Each of the characters have ulterior motives, and Helvig teases these out over the course of the story, providing the plot with plenty of twists and turns. Some questions are answered by the end, and some aren't, clearly leaving an opening for a sequel. You can bet I'll be reading it. The Truth Against the World by Sarah Jamila Stevenson Olwen Nia Evans, Wyn for short, is moving with her family for a few weeks to Wales, to a little town called Cwm Tawel. The trip is her great-grandmother's dying wish. She grew up in Cwm Tawel and wants to die there, among the peaceful scenery and familiar surroundings. Before the move, Wyn starts to have strange dreams of her great-gran and a little girl, which she blogs about. Another boy, an English boy with his own family ties to Cwm Tawel, stumbles across Wyn's blog after a recent visit to his great-grandfather in Wales, where he found a headstone bearing Olwen's name - and had his own run-in with a strange little girl. The two eventually meet up in Cwm Tawel and set about solving the mystery of the ghost Olwen Nia Evans, which involves digging up painful family history that some residents of the town would prefer stayed buried. Stevenson's book is unique for its setting; Wales doesn't get a lot of love in the YA world, especially compared to its UK counterparts. I can easily see the descriptions of the country's natural beauty encouraging readers to seek out more information or dreaming about visiting themselves. This is a gentle story, perhaps too gentle, as the stakes never seem very high. The solution to ghost Olwen's mystery is too simple and will be easily deciphered by readers familiar with ghost stories. This would be a good pick for younger, patient readers who may not guess the connection between the ghost and Wyn's great-grandmother from the start. (A pronunciation guide would have also been helpful for the nerdy readers.) Messenger of Fear by Michael Grant Grant's latest is a series opener, though it stands on its own easily. Mara wakes up without any knowledge of who she is, other than her name. (Yes, it's another amnesia book.) She's greeted by someone who tells her he is the Messenger of Fear, and that before she lost her memories, she agreed to be his apprentice. Their duty is to confront those who have done wrong and present them with a choice: play a game, win it, and go free; or refuse or lose the game and face their worst fear. Messenger starts by showing Mara a teenage girl's suicide, then rewinds time and shows her the events leading up to it. None of the events can be changed, but they must learn from what happened in order to present an appropriate game - and mete out the appropriate punishment if the wicked person loses. This is not as much of a horror novel as the title or the cover would have you believe, despite a scene where a person is burned alive (described in detail). Fear is not really its goal. Instead, it's more of an exploration of guilt and atonement, of the choices we make and how - if - we can make reparations. The idea behind the Messenger is to restore balance to the universe. Those who have not been punished by a human court must suffer a visit from the Messenger of Fear, in hopes of preventing the wicked from committing the same actions in the future. The situations Mara and Messenger view are realistic and presented with shades of grey. More often than not, multiple people are at fault rather than a single individual. It is left up to the reader to determine if the wrongdoer's interactions with Mara and Messenger have set the balance right - if such punishment is justice or if it's merely cruelty. There's a twist to the story that sharp readers will see coming, though the hints sprinkled throughout start light and grow heavier as the story progresses. It will take a truly eagle-eyed reader to spot the truth from the beginning, keeping tension high through most of the novel. Picking out the twist before the end isn't always a bad thing, provided it doesn't happen too soon (as I think it would in the book above). There's a certain satisfaction in putting the pieces together yourself over several chapters and then learning you were right in the end. At times gruesome, the book is also thought-provoking and smoothly written, easily absorbed in an afternoon. ]]> Related StoriesA Few Cybils Reads - Part VIA Few Cybils Reads - Part IIIGuest Review: The Silence of Six by E. C. Myers ]]> Kimberly F.http://firstname.lastname@example.com http://www.stackedbooks.org/2014/11/get-genrefied-ya-in-translation.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-764240260467980788.post-68826365034079109242014-11-03T00:00:00.000-06:002014-11-03T00:00:17.038-06:00Get Genrefied: YA in Translation We've dabbled in non-genre posts in our "Get Genrefied" series, covering different formats like graphic novels. For this addition to the series, we're going to dig into a category within YA that doesn't fit neatly into one genre, since it includes all genres, and one that doesn't fit nicely into a format, since it can come in a variety of formats. We're talking YA books in translation. Works in translation for YA make up a very small number of titles published each year, and those which are published through major publishers make up an even smaller portion of those titles. While good numbers of English-written books are sold for translation in other languages, the number of titles published in foreign language and translated into English is tiny. On this post about books in translation at The Girl Who Keeps Reading, she cites a study from Publishing Perspectives that notes 3% of the market for books is works in translation -- that is inclusive, which suggests that the YA books in translation number is similar, if not smaller. There's also surprisingly little being written about YA works in translation. YA works in translation contribute directly to the diversity within this category of literature. It opens up perspectives on story and voice. Even the most expertly translated works are expert for a reason: they allow the original author's writing and storytelling to shine through. Though the themes or the appeal of the book may be universal, the magic of reading a title in translation is experiencing that universality. And, perhaps, what makes works in translation even more exciting for many readers is that those voices or ideas can be so divergent from the thoughts or ideas offered in what's published in English. How many of the works in translation in YA dive into a philosophical notion that feels completely foreign or maybe even scary or strange? It's through exposure to those odd-to-us worlds, though, we build bridges among and across cultures. In 2006, Roger Sutton posed the question of what makes a good translated book, and publisher Arthur A. Levine weighed in with this: Wherever they start their lives, we want the books we publish simply to be terrific reads, written by interesting, powerful, affecting writers. And looking overseas (or across borders) is just a matter of making the broadest possible sweep when searching for those talented creators. For me, part of the appeal of looking for great authors to publish in translation is the tantalizing potential in that deep and — for English-language publishers — largely untapped pool of talent out there in the rest of the world. I ask myself, What refreshing new voice, what unique imagination would I find if I could read the very best writers in each country? One of the interesting elements in this piece is that Levine notes the idea of a book being "too foreign" for an English readership isn't something he takes into consideration. He notes: I've never found such pronouncements that helpful. They remind me of discussions of what boys like. And what girls like. There's probably some crumb of truth buried in such a discussion, but it's not a very interesting truth to me, based as it is on stereotypes and least-common-denominator assumptions. What's really interesting to me is the experience of the real, complex reader. Another interesting piece from Horn Book, this time from 1999, looks at the task at hand for those who are translators. Cathy Hirano translated Kazumi Yumoto's The Friends, which won the Boston Globe-Horn Book award in fiction, and she talked at length about the different elements that she had to keep in mind with not just Yumoto's book, but what all translators think about when bringing a work into English. It's far more challenging than a straightforward sentence-by-sentence, word-by-word translation: I must strive to remain true not only to the essence, but also to the style and tone of the writer in the source language while at the same time render it in a way that is understandable to someone from a very different culture and way of thinking. It is a balancing act, requiring sensitivity and intuition, a combination of humility, vigilance, and arrogance. I say humility because as a translator I must be willing to accept that the author comes first, and that even if I don't agree, or think that I can say it better, the author is always right. Laura Watkinson, a translator whose work has been recognized by the Batchelder Award, did a fascinating interview with Cynthia Leitich Smith, talking about the good and less-than-good parts of the translation process that hint at maybe why we don't hear as much about YA in translation as we might otherwise: Reading some reviews, you might think that a book gets magically translated into English at the press of a button in Google Translate. I think that perhaps the funniest – you have to laugh – review of a translated book I ever saw included a great long list of facts at the beginning, including the name of the author (of course), publisher (yes), price (okay...), number of pages (hmm), font (maybe interesting from a design point of view), and type of paper used (huh?), but neglected entirely to mention the name of the translator, i.e. the person who had written every single word of the book that was being reviewed. I laughed – and then I wrote a note to point out the critic's omission. They were very apologetic, but said that it hadn't actually occurred to them to mention the translator's name. Sigh. And then there are the occasions when the perceived weaknesses of a book are blamed on the translator. There's honestly only so much you can tweak when you're translating a book. You have various options at word and sentence level and you can spot consistency issues, but plot and character issues are generally out of the translator's hands. It's so frustrating to see that tired old "lost in translation" line trotted out when you know how much work goes into the process of translation and how many tricky issues the translator has to solve. The whole interview is excellent, and it's a nice window into the world of translating children's books for an English audience. As noted above, there is an annual recognition for the best work in translation for children, the Mildred A. Batchelder Award. The award honors the most outstanding children's book originally published in a language other than English, from a country outside of the United States which is then translated into English for publication in the US. One the small print aspects of the Batchelder Award is that it's limited to books published for an audience of those up to and including 14, meaning that older YA titles -- those that would generally be published 14 or older -- are not eligible for the award. The Batchelder is an award given from ALSC, the children's division within ALA, so it makes sense. But it's interesting there hasn't been an equivalent award through YALSA or an award that covers the books that would fall under both ALSC and YALSA's age divisions, as some others do. Although works in translation contribute to the variety in YA fiction, it's not always obvious when a book is a work in translation. Sometimes that gets noted in reviews, typically in the trades, but not always. And as Watkinson noted, rarely do we know about the intermediary who does the work of making the book come alive in English the same way it captured attention in its original language. Perhaps there's a bias against translated works, as Levine notes in his piece, and perhaps it's simply not being aware that these books are out there or that they are works in translation. If we don't know, we can't spread the word or talk about whether the translation is or isn't successful. More than the perceived success of the translation, we can't talk about the bigger, more interesting issues relating to translating, including why stories are or deserve to be translated, what stories we are exposed to through translation, and even the overarching question about what storytelling does for us as humans. Another angle of thinking about YA in translation, and maybe what would be most familiar and accessible to teens, is manga. The bulk of manga is translated, and readers who love it have little to no problem diving right in and "getting" it. Let's dive into the world of YA in translation. I've not limited my list to recent titles, but have included a span of publication dates. All descriptions are from WorldCat, and I've tried to note relevant information about original language or the name of the translator, where I can find it. If you know of more YA novels in translation, I'd love to make this a bigger list, so please feel free to hop in in the comments. Boy On The Edge by Fridrik Erlings: Henry has a clubfoot and he is the target of relentless bullying. One day, in a violent fit of anger, Henry lashes out at the only family he has-- his mother. Sent to live with other troubled boys at the Home of Lesser Brethren, an isolated farm perched in the craggy lava fields along the unforgiving Icelandic coast, Henry finds a precarious contentment among the cows. But it is the people, including the manic preacher who runs the home, who fuel Henry's frustration and sometimes rage as he yearns for a life and a home. Author Fridrik Erlings offers a young adult novel that explores cruelty and desperation, tenderness and remorse, but most importantly, kindness and friendship. ** This book isn't technically in translation. Erlings wrote the book in English, based off the original he had written in Icelandic. But I'm including it because it's too neat not to. The Storyteller by Antonia Michaelis, German, translated by Miriam Debbage: Wealthy, seventeen-year-old Anna begins to fall in love with her classmate, Abel, a drug dealer from the wrong side of town, when she hears him tell a story to his six-year-old sister, but when his enemies begin turning up dead, Anna fears she has fallen for a murderer. Why We Took The Car by Wolfgang Herrndorf, German, translated by Tim Mohr: Mike Klingenberg is a troubled fourteen-year-old from a disfunctional family in Berlin who thinks of himself as boring, so when a Russian juvenile delinquent called Tschick begins to pay attention to him and include Mike in his criminal activities, he is excited--until those activities lead to disaster on the autobahn. 172 Hours On The Moon by Johan Marstad, Norwegian, translated by Tara F. Chace: In 2019, teens Mia, Antoine, and Midori are selected by lottery to join experienced astronauts on a NASA mission to the once top-secret moon base, DARLAH 2, while in a Florida nursing home, a former astronaut struggles to warn someone of the terrible danger there. are u 4 real? by Sara Kadefors, Swedish, translated by Tara F. Chace: After meeting "online" in an Internet chat room and helping each other deal with family problems, Kyla and Alex, two very different sixteen year olds, decide to meet in person. Ruby Red series by Kerstin Gier, German, translated by Anthea Bell: Sixteen-year-old Gwyneth discovers that she, rather than her well-prepared cousin, carries a time-travel gene, and soon she is journeying with Gideon, who shares the gift, through historical London trying to discover whom they can trust. Arcadia Awakens series by Kai Meyer, German, translated by Anthea Bell: When seventeen-year-old Rosa Alcantara travels from her native Brooklyn to her ancestral home in Sicily, she falls head over heels for Alessandro Carnevare, whose family is the sworn enemy of hers, and must confront both of their families' criminal--and paranormal--pasts. Nothing by Janne Teller, Danish, translated by Martin Aitken: When thirteen-year-old Pierre Anthon leaves school to sit in a plum tree and train for becoming part of nothing, his seventh grade classmates set out on a desperate quest for the meaning of life. The Prince of Mist by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Spanish, translated by Lucia Graves: In 1943, in a seaside town where their family has gone to be safe from war, thirteen-year-old Max Carver and sister, fifteen-year-old Alicia, with new friend Roland, face off against an evil magician who is striving to complete a bargain made before he died. God And I Broke Up by Katarina Mazetti, Swedish, translated by Maria Lundin: Linnea is sixteen and when she meets Pia, she feels like she has finally found a friend. But now Pia is dead and Linnea struggles to understand the loss. Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit series by Nahoko Uehashi, Japanese, translated by Cathy Hirano: The wandering warrior Balsa is hired to protect Prince Chagum from both a mysterious monster and the prince's father, the Mikado. No and Me by Daphine de Vigan, French, translated by George Miller: A novel about two very different teenagers and the true nature of homelessness. As Red As Blood series by Salla Simukka, Finnish, translated by Owen Witesman: In the midst of the freezing Arctic winter, seventeen-year-old Lumikki Andersson walks into her school's darkroom and finds a stash of money splattered with someone's blood. She is swept into a whirlpool of dangerous encounters with dirty cops and a notorious drug kingpin as she helps to trace the origin of the cash. City of the Beasts series by Isabel Allende, Spanish, translated by Margaret Sayers Peden: When fifteen-year-old Alexander Cold accompanies his individualistic grandmother on an expedition to find a humanoid Beast in the Amazon, he experiences ancient wonders and a supernatural world as he tries to avert disaster for the Indians. Me On The Floor Bleeding by Jenny Jagerfeld, Swedish, translated by Susan Beard: Highschool-outsider Maja would never hurt herself on purpose as her dad, teachers, and classmates seem to believe. Can't a person saw off the tip of her thumb without everyone starting to worry? That is, everyone except Maja's mum, who worringly seems to have disappeared from the face of earth. Crashing a neighbour's party, Maja meets twenty-year-old Justin Case, a super-verbal car mechanic with pink pants, who makes her forget everything about absent mothers and sawn-off thumbs, at least temporarily. But then Maja hacks into her father's email account and reads an email that hurts more than all the electric saws in the world. Dream A Little Dream series by Kerstin Gier, coming January 2015, German, translated by Anthea Bell: Liv Silver, fifteen, has lived in six countries in eight years and she and her sister yearn for a real home and normalcy, but soon after moving in with her mother's boyfriend in London, Liv's dreams turn bizarre, filled with talking stone statues, mysterious corridors, and strange rituals conducted by four boys who happen to be her new classmates. Playing A Part by Daria Wilke, Russian, translated by Marian Schwartz, coming March 31, 2015: In June 2013, the Russian government passed laws prohibiting "gay propaganda," threatening jail time and fines to offenders. That same month, in spite of these harsh laws, a Russian publisher released Playing a Part, a young adult novel with openly gay characters. It was a brave, bold act, and now this groundbreaking story has been translated for American readers. Grisha adores everything about the Moscow puppet theater where his parents work, and spends as much time there as he can. But life outside the theater is not so wonderful. The boys in Grisha's class bully him mercilessly, and his own grandfather says hateful things about how he's not "masculine" enough. Life goes from bad to worse when Grisha learns that Sam, his favorite actor and mentor, is moving: He's leaving the country to escape the extreme homophobia he faces in Russia. (Description via Goodreads). ]]> Related StoriesHere There Be DragonsFabulously Diverse YA Book Covers We Should See More OftenRiddle Me This ]]> Kelly Jensenhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com http://www.stackedbooks.org/2014/11/this-week-in-reading-volume-viii.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-764240260467980788.post-63003382245519175122014-11-02T10:11:00.002-06:002014-11-02T10:11:53.017-06:00This Week in Reading: Volume VIIIAmity by Micol Ostow and 100 Sideways Miles by Andrew Smith, both of which I blew through in the last week (and both were enjoyable -- I'll write more about each in a big roundup soon). Here's what I've purchased/received/checked out/bought in the last couple of weeks: Captain Marvel: Volume 1 by Kelly DeConnick Ms. Marvel: Volume 1 by G. Willow Wilson -- This was great and I can't wait to keep up with this series. Yes Please by Amy Poehler -- The hardcover edition of this is so nice. The print quality, the paper, the design, everything is really lovely. The book itself was great, too. I love how much Poehler celebrates and encourages other women. Bird Box by Josh Malerman In The Woods by Tana French Stone in the Sky by Cecil Castellucci (February 24) -- I'm eager to read this duology all at once. Alex As Well by Alyssa Bergman (January 20) Those Girls by Lauren Saft (June 9) The Witch Hunter by Virginia Boecker (June 2) Kissing Ted Callahan (And Other Guys) by Amy Spalding (April 14) -- I got to read this one early and I loved it. It might be my favorite Amy Spalding title to date. Scarlett Undercover by Jennifer Latham (May 19) -- I am so looking forward to this one. A Million Miles Away by Lara Avery (July 7) After The Red Rain by Barry Lyga, Peter Facinelli, and Rob DeFranco (August 4) Court of Fives by Kate Elliot (August 18) -- This is pitched as (wait for it) Game of Thrones meets Hunger Games meets Little Women, which means...absolutely nothing to me. Six Impossible Things by Fiona Wood (August 11) -- I loved Wildlife and can't wait to read the companion novel. All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven (January 8) -- This is getting a massive push and I've seen some good reviews, but can we knock off the Eleanor & Park meets The Fault In Our Stars thing? Because that's actually a turn off for me. Currently Reading: I started Sara Farizan's Tell Me Again How A Crush Should Feel last night and while it's imperfect -- there's weirdly timed info-dumping and not all of that info feels consistent -- the voice is young and sweet, and I love that the main character is Iranian and working through how to best express her sexuality. This is lighter reading, which I am really in the mood for right now. Around the Web: Have you donated or spread the word about the We Need Diverse Books Indiegogo campaign? I made a contribution, and I have loved watching them grow closer and closer to their 100K goal. I really liked Robin Talley's top 7 LGBTQ YA novels featuring main characters of color. At Kid Lit Con in early October, Hannah Gomez talked about the different types of bloggers that are out there. Here's a nice infographic she made sharing those "types."Over at Book Riot, Alison put together a really nice list of YA books about or featuring LGBTQ characters, both frontlist and backlist. I've been reading like crazy the last month or so. I think I was finishing a book every other day in October. I wanted to get through as much horror as possible, and because of all the reading, I decided I wouldn't pressure myself to write up reviews of everything. If you're curious about what I read in horror -- some YA and some adult -- here's a visual peek on my Tumblr. After I posted it, I realize I didn't add Rachel Klein's The Moth Diaries. That was a better read than it was a movie, for sure. ]]> Related StoriesThis Week in Reading: Volume IXThis Week in Reading: Volume VIIThis Week in Reading: Volume VI ]]> Kelly Jensenhttp://email@example.com http://www.stackedbooks.org/2014/10/this-week-at-book-riot_31.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-764240260467980788.post-3043101017699092014-10-31T00:00:00.000-05:002014-10-31T00:00:11.863-05:00This Week at Book Riot Here's a look at this week over at Book Riot . . . If you are a bit of a language and grammar nerd, this one's for you. I wrote about different oddities in the English language and what they're "formally" called. If you've ever wondered why job and Job are pronounced differently or why words like replace can have two definitions that are the exact opposite of one another. For this week's "3 On A YA Theme" post, I talked about not 3, but 6, YA books that feature at least one scene set on Halloween. ]]> Related StoriesThis Week at Book Riot ]]> Kelly Jensenhttp://email@example.com http://www.stackedbooks.org/2014/10/guest-post-victoria-signorelli-and.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-764240260467980788.post-28256251999540193212014-10-30T00:00:00.000-05:002014-10-30T10:59:39.693-05:00Guest Post: Victoria Signorelli and Kathleen Willard of Gay YA It's not often we do guest posts for people who aren't authors. But today's guest post, from Vee Signorelli and Kathleen Willard, is one I am so excited to share. If those names don't sound familiar to you, maybe their blog does. These two ladies -- teenagers -- run GayYA.org. This is an incredible resource of book reviews, book lists, and discussions about all things relating to LGBTQIA+ in YA, and it's one that I turn to regularly. If it's not on your reading radar already, it should be. Let me reiterate that the two minds behind this site, as well as its Tumblr and Twitter accounts, are teenagers. Their work and their insight into YA is keen and thoughtful, and I had to ask them to come talk about why they started the site, what they offer up on the site, books that have impacted them, and more. ** One night in May of 2011, Jessica Verday announced to the internet why she'd pulled out of the anthology Wicked Pretty Things: one of the editors said they would not include her piece unless she changed her m/m pairing to an m/f one. The internet exploded. A #YesGayYA hashtag formed on Twitter. Hundreds of blog posts went up. People came out of the woodwork to talk about similar experiences, and to promote LGBT YA. My older sister and I were both scrolling through our Twitter feeds the night of this announcement. We ushered each other over to read stories of characters being "straightened" by publishers/editors/agents who didn't think they would sell, or someone explaining why they needed LGBT YA. We both saw the same thing: tons of people calling out for representation, with no way to reach publishers, agents, and editors, and nothing to connect them to each other. To this day, we don't know who said it. But it was announced, "someone really needs to make a website on all of this stuff." We looked at each other over the top of our computer screens. "are you…" "thinking…?" "Yes!" "SAME." We realized there was a huge demand for representation of the people, and no one organizing to talk about it past some hashtags on Twitter. We were only sixteen and twelve at the time, but it wasn't even really a question in our minds: we knew how to do websites, and we knew social media. We both identified as straight at the time (ha ha), and we really knew nothing about the LGBTQ community. To be honest, we were probably the least qualified people to do the job. But, we had the time and the passion and the knowledge of websites to be able to do it. We made many mistakes: calling a pairing of two bisexual guys "gay" when it should've been M/M, using "gay" as an umbrella term for the entire LGBTQIA+ community, and generally just being the most clueless people in the world. It was a learning curve, but once we realized we were not the ones who needed to do the speaking, we got out of the way. We got some great posts on our site, and many wonderful and rich conversations going. We both enjoyed it, and put a good amount of time into it. But there was only so much effort two presumably straight teens could put into something like this— we were convinced that all LGBT lit was dreary and full of angst, and the words "the problem is, it's just not good" were muttered frequently. We had no over-arcing vision for the site, and were really getting nothing out of it, except getting to talk to some authors who we were convinced wrote solely angst. So after about two years, we abandoned our site. It was partially due to issues at home, but the site had started to drag on us. If it had been something we were still incredibly passionate about, I don't think we would've let it go. It didn't really look like it would ever get going again, especially after my sister headed off to college. Then, this past winter when I turned sixteen, I went through a process of figuring out my own identity. It was an extremely hard time for me, as I had never heard of either non-binary genders or pansexuality and it took me a long time to realize that they fit me. During this time, I found such solace in books. Beautiful Music for Ugly Children by Kirstin Cronn-Mills really opened up the door to self discovery, because Gabe, the MC was trans and happy. I had the same thing with The Realm of Possibility by David Levithan which made me feel like however I identified would be accepted. And Far From You by Tess Sharpe, which made me feel OK about my attraction to girls. Eventually, I figured out what my identity was through tumblr (non-binary and pansexual), but I got the humanity and the ability to discard shame from books. I remember the first time I held in my hands a book that had me in it (which was Brooklyn, Burning by Steve Brezenoff)-- a book that had a happy ending. Every time I was told that people like me didn't exist, every time I started to believe that I would never be happy, I had something physical to cling to that proved to me I really was here, that I had a chance at a good life. But I also ran into a lot of difficulty: because most people don't even know people like me exist, I can count on one hand the books that have non-binary people in them. And I had the resources to be able to find them. I understood more than ever the importance of not only queer YA, but the service I had an opportunity to provide through GayYA.org. I realized that there were a lot of teens out there like me, looking for themselves in books. And I realized I had a chance to really help them out. So, this March, I decided to start it back up. For the first time since we began, I had a vision and purpose. Kathleen: I never "figured out" that I was gay, as so many people do later in life. I knew from the beginning. I thought girls were the bomb. I had a substantial crush on Daphne from Scooby Doo. I also thought that something was horribly wrong with me--that I was wrong, and needed to be fixed--because I did not know that queer people existed. Representation is pretty important to me. I don't know exactly when I figured out that there is a word for what I am, but it hit me somewhere around age nine, watching Willow and Tara become a couple in Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer. At age eleven, I came out to my parents, and while they were really surprised, they also really didn't care who I fell in love with as long as I was happy. The notion that Gay is OK grew and grew in my mind; it cautiously morphed into pride, then bloomed into lesbian feminist rants, and the rest is history. Flash forward six years and picture an angst-ridden teen riding the bus with a cup of coffee in her hand, wearing enough black clothing and red lipstick and false confidence to be mistaken for a widow spider, while simultaneously searching her person for her bus pass. That's me. I have known Vee and Maria, the founders of Gay YA, for years and years; I witnessed the growth of Maria's first fansite, an homage to Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely Series, and the birth of Gay YA. Early this spring, Vee decided to singlehandedly reboot Gay YA after a dormant period. One day, as I was presumably sipping on tea and V was working on Gay YA's Tumblr, she said, "What have I done?! I have so much to do!" And I said, "I can do that for you if you want." She handed me the laptop. This happened several times with several tasks over a period of several months. In early summer, I said: "Have I become your co-conspirator?" And she said: "Yeah, if you wanna be." I did. Helping to run Gay YA started out as a cool hobby to promote something very close to my heart; it has become something much bigger and a little bit scary. After running our social media and receiving positive feedback, I realized that I have stumbled backwards into the opportunity to support--even help?!--queer youth just like me, who are looking for themselves on the page. Vee: Very frequently, my parents will ask me with a twinge of hope in their voices if I've ever rethought getting into this-- they still think I'm a straight girl. "No," I respond with a smile. "Not at all." Although my workload is huge and overwhelming and growing every day, re-booting this site has lead to some of the most amazing experiences in my life. I live in Minnesota, which is secretly one of the coolest states in the country (especially in a literary sense). I've gotten to meet some of my favorite authors, usually through events at the Loft Literary Center, or Addendum Books. Though it still terrifies me to go up and squeak at them, I now have something I can say. We've even gotten to interview some of our favorite authors (like Francesca Lia Block!!). And we've been able to make a difference for teens and adults looking for representation. The last few years have been HUGE for queer YA books— the representation is out there! It's just hard to find. And we have been able to collect a thorough knowledge of all the titles, and are able to recommend exactly what people are looking for. We're far from becoming the exhaustive resource that I have my eye set on, but we're getting closer by the day. Kathleen: In the last few months, we have been spectators to the site's explosion (in a good way). There has been an influx of posts, followers, questions, and general publicity to the point that that between the two of us, it is a daily struggle to keep everything running smoothly. Part of the struggle is financial: we each contribute 2-10 hours to the site on any given day (in addition to keeping up with a high school education), for which we are not paid. For me, this is in addition to a part-time job; for Vee, it means giving up having a job at all. Our operating costs add up to approximately $100/month, which is a LOT when you're taking from one part-time job and a $40 allowance. I recently added a donation button to the site-- anything is greatly appreciated: 50 cents to $50. Although something like 50 cents seems like nothing, it really helps us a lot. Vee: We have a number of new things happening with our site. We are currently are accepting (until the end of October) applications to become a regular contributor to our site. We're also looking to gather a small group of dedicated volunteers to help us with some small but essential tasks, so we can continue tackling the big picture things. We're completely strung out with everything we've got going on now, because it all just sort of happened, and had no grasp on the amount of work it would all take. We have a lot of cool project ideas running around our heads, but no time to enact them, because of all the day-to-day emergencies we have to keep up with. Volunteer help is essential to keeping this community and project moving forward. See here for more information! I've had the opportunity of working with Nita Tyndall on GayYA's Masterlist Project. We've made a wiki and are cultivating a three pronged project to help people looking for queer YA find exactly what they're looking for. It's entirely community driven, and we'd love it if you joined us! We just started up our first book club, and we're reading Pantomime by Laura Lam. Check out the schedule and how you can participate! We also have continual opportunities for authors, teens, and everyone else. And if you have an idea for something you'd like to work on with us, or have a question, comments, or anything else, my email is always open at email@example.com. We're really looking forward to expanding this website in new and awesome ways, and we hope that you'll join us! ]]> Related StoriesGuest Post: Fiona Woods on Female Sexuality in YA FictionFabulously Diverse YA Book Covers We Should See More OftenGuest Review: The Silence of Six by E. C. Myers ]]> Kelly Jensenhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com http://www.stackedbooks.org/2014/10/review-giveaway-loop-by-karen-akins.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-764240260467980788.post-8898663131434723392014-10-29T00:00:00.000-05:002014-10-29T00:00:07.368-05:00Review & Giveaway: Loop by Karen AkinsBree Bennis attends a school for Shifters, those who were born with the ability to travel backwards in time. Her goal at the book's opening is to travel to the 21st century, complete her midterm, and carry out a little side project that will earn her the money to ensure her sick mother is able to get the care she needs. It should be doable, except that Bree runs into a bratty kid named Finn and accidentally takes him hostage while trying to complete her tasks. Oops. She eventually escapes the 21st century and goes back to her home time, the 23rd century, knowing she'll have to return to the 21st to somehow convince Finn not to talk about her little visit. Only when she does return, she lands three years later, and Finn is no longer a bratty kid. He's her age, he's pretty hot, and he claims to have been in a relationship with her for some time. It doesn't take long to figure out he means a future version of Bree. Of course, he can't tell her about her own future, for fear of disrupting the timeline. (Picture River Song saying "Spoilers" to the Doctor here.) In true Bree fashion, in trying to extricate herself from this situation, she accidentally brings Finn along with her to the 23rd century, something that shouldn't even be possible. Oops again. Now Bree must unravel not only how to return Finn to his own time without anyone the wiser, but also how exactly he came to know future Bree so well, and what it all has to do with the strange things going on in her boarding school. Karen Akins' debut Loop really embraces how fun time travel can be. This is a time travel book for readers who love time travel. Do you have certain websites bookmarked whose sole purpose is to speculate on the possibility of time travel? This book is for you. This is a true speculative novel, one that continuously asks what if. What if we could time travel? What would the rules be? What would the consequences be? For readers who love those kinds of questions, this is a gem. For readers who get headaches thinking about it, it might be best to pick up a different book. It's not just the time travel that makes this book so much fun. Bree and Finn have great snarky chemistry, and there's a slew of futuristic 23rd century technology that is fascinating to read about. The 23rd century feels real, chock full of fun little details and new slang terms. The plot itself is fast-paced and complicated, but makes sense in the end, as good time travel books should. Often when I read a book with multiple moving plot parts, I'm a little hesitant to reach the end; I've been burned with unresolved subplots and details left dangling before (seemingly unintentionally). This is especially true for time travel stories, which can be more complicated than most. Trust in Akins – it all comes together in a satisfying way. St. Martin's Press is giving away a finished copy of Loop to one lucky reader (US residents only). Enter using the form below. The giveaway closes November 14. Loading... ]]> Related StoriesGuest Review: The Silence of Six by E. C. MyersA Few Cybils Reads - Part VIYA Review Round-up: 100 Sideways Miles, Tell Me Again How A Crush Should Feel, and Press Play ]]> Kimberly F.http://email@example.com