Finding Wonderland: The WritingYA Weblog

We Gotcher Hearts Right Here

2012-02-14T01:48:00.003-08:00

FEEL THE LOVE, GIVE THE LOVE

It's We Give Books.org's Book Giveaway Day, it's Day 14 of the Brown Bookshelf 28 Days Later African American authors and illustrators highlights, it's International Book Giving Day, wherein authors and publishers from around the world are giving books, and it's also the day that.... *drum roll, please* .... THE 2011 CYBILS AWARD WINNERS ARE ANNOUNCED!

(Oh, and, you know, it's Valentine's. Chalk candy hearts and dead saints and all. Woot.)

Just in the categories we covered - A.F. in graphics and me in SFF - I know there was a lot of ground to cover. Since the team at SFF read ebooks for the first time in 2011, we had a lot of self-pubbed and small press stuff which was a tremendous opportunity. Some of it was, non-spell checked, poorly plotted, unrealistically characterized first draft stuff, but most of it was really wonderful - congratulations on your finalist nomination, Susan Ee - we were truly impressed -- and Nora Olsen, you are awesome and were so, so close! Please, keep writing!

Well, our crew eventually fought our way to a shortlist. While others loved Anna Dressed in Blood with an undying - and rather crimson - passion, I really loved The Girl of Fire and Thorns -- but I'm frankly disappointed that Misfit and The Shattering weren't also overall winners. However, there can only be one, winner -- and there were SO MANY GOOD BOOKS from which to choose this year.

Holly Black, Susan Ee, Rae Carson, Jon Skovron, Karen Healey, and the others in our shortlists well deserved their nominations, and I'm grateful again for the chance to be involved, for the publishers and editors and authors who were good sports and subbed something for us, and for everyone who let me play. Thank you Overlord Anne, Sheila, Hallie, Steve, Maureen, Sommer, and Gwenda and Leila in abstentia (they were there in spirit) for letting me play. Woot!

Without further ado, the winners, as taken from the website - and if you are not Leila Roy, you must now restack your TBR list:

Book Apps
The Monster at the End of This Book
by Callaway Digital Arts, Inc
Nominated by: Sheila Ruth

No one will be able to resist lovable, furry old Grover in this giggle-inducing book app based on the 1971 classic Golden Book. Sesame Street and Callaway Digital Arts hit all the notes perfectly from the opening pages, as Grover draws the reader in with his charm and natural humor. From that point on, no matter what age you may be, you will laugh, smile and read along while Grover tries his best to keep you from turning yet another page. Emerging readers will follow the highlighted words as Grover speaks. Little fingers will tap the screen, discovering ways to untie the ropes and knock down Grover's brick wall, undoing each of his creative attempts to stop them. This app is perfect for preschoolers, but Grover’s silly voice and the engaging interactive features make it fun for all ages.

Fiction Picture Books
Me . . . Jane
by Patrick McDonnell
Little, Brown
Nominated by: Kerry Aradhya

Me...Jane is a touching glimpse into the life of a young Jane Goodall as a curious girl with a love of nature, and books, and a stuffed chimpanzee named Jubilee. A unique combination of dreamy watercolor vignettes and nature-inspired vintage engravings complement a simple and evocative text. Every element of the book's design, from its album-like cover and heavy yellowed pages to the inclusion of photographs and Goodall's own childhood drawings, helps create a picture book that feels like a relative's cherished scrapbook. Readers of all ages will take inspiration from a young girl who so fully follows her dreams.

Nonfiction Picture Books
I Feel Better with a Frog in My Throat: History's Strangest Cures
by Carlyn Beccia
Houghton Mifflin Books for Children
Nominated by: Mary McKenna Siddals

From the very first page, A Frog in My Throat offers readers a great deal of scientific and historical information with just enough ick factor to keep readers of all ages turning the pages. The question-and-answer format gives it an interactive feel, and the author includes amazing language choices that continually draw in the reader. The text and the illustrations are loaded with tidbits that will send kids to the library asking for more information on specific topics.

Elementary listeners, middle grade readers, and their parents will eat up this nonfiction picture book, filled with enlightening conversational text and perfectly suited pictures. Kids will likely choose I Feel Better with a Frog in My Throat for the gross-out factor, but they'll put it down ever wiser about history, science, and sociology, too ... just don't tell them there's learning inside.

Easy Readers
I Broke My Trunk! (An Elephant and Piggie Book)
by Mo Willems
Hyperion
Nominated by: Becky

Piggie is surprised to see Gerald's trunk wrapped in a bandage. When she asks how it happened, Gerald starts a v-e-r-y detailed, humorous explanation. It is wonderful how much suspense can be packed into so few words, leaving readers eager to turn the page. Willems effectively blends illustration and early-reader vocabulary in a way that allows new readers not only to decode what's happening, but to add emotion to their reading aloud. With wonderful facial expressions and expressive body language, Gerald and Piggie invite the reader into their friendship circle. Elephant and Piggie is an entry-level Easy Reader that works very well for that very first-time, read-by-yourself story, and hits kids in one of their favorite spots: their funny bone!

Early Chapter Books
Have Fun, Anna Hibiscus!
by Atinuke
Kane/Miller Book Pub
Nominated by: Madigan McGillicuddy

Readers of all ages will fall in love with Anna Hibiscus. With beautiful writing and great illustrations, Anna invites us into her world as a young girl from Africa visiting family in Canada during the winter. Have Fun, Anna Hibiscus has a lot of heart and humor. The story not only makes the reader reflect on his or her world, but shows them constructive ways of handling different situations. This is not a "girl book," but a story that celebrates cultural differences and at the same time highlights how childhood cares and concerns are similar around the world. The illustrations - particularly how they are used - add to the story's effectiveness as an early chapter book, making Anna a true friend for developing readers.

Poetry
Requiem: Poems of the Terezin Ghetto
by Paul B. Janeczko
Candlewick Press
Nominated by: Tricia Stohr-Hunt

"I am a watcher/sitting with those about to die." These are the words of Elisha Schorr/25565 as imagined by poet Paul Janeczko. In Requiem: Poems of the Terezin Ghetto, we all become watchers, viewing snapshots of the Holocaust, one after the other, each one deepening the grief and raising questions to which there are no answers.

We watch, but we also hear the story of Terezin, voice by voice, insistent and haunting, so that the effect by the end of the collection is almost choral. For each song of despair, there is a concordant and essential song of anger, tenderness or resignation; like a recurring melodic theme, the voice of one child appears and fades and appears again. We hear the violin of one victim playing "as only the heartbroken can play."

Cybils committee members agreed early in the deliberations that this slim volume of poems was a strong contender for the prize, with words like "stunning" and "haunting" coming up repeatedly in our conversation. Ultimately, the voices Janeczko created could not be forgotten.

Graphic Novels
Zita the Spacegirl
by Ben Hatke
First Second Books
Nominated by: Isaac Z

Zita the Spacegirl's appealing combination of humor and sci-fi adventure already has kids begging their librarians for the sequel. It's got everything: aliens, robots, critters from the cute to the weird to the scary, and a smart, self-sufficient heroine who's unfailingly loyal to her friends whether they happen to be human, robot or giant mouse. The visual storytelling is just as appealing—the drawing style is loose and open, and the fun character design and sound effects add liveliness and humor. There's enough action, novelty, and color to keep younger readers interested, and enough thoughtfulness to satisfy more sophisticated readers, making this a terrific choice for a wide range of ages.

Fantasy & Science Fiction
The Cheshire Cheese Cat: A Dickens of a Tale
by Carmen Agra Deedy and Randall Wright; illustrations by Barry Moser
Peachtree Press
Nominated by: Monica Edinger

The Cheshire Cheese Cat slipped into our hearts like Skilley the alley cat sneaks into Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese. Much more than just a cute, talking animal fantasy (though it is that too), this book has a depth of theme and character and a richness of language that blew us away. Both animals and humans ring true to life and the unique alliance that develops between Skilley and Pip, an uncommonly well-educated mouse, matures and ripens like a tasty piece of cheese. The illustrations scattered through the text are warmly humorous and add dimension to the characters. Charles Dickens has an important supporting role and there are abundant literary allusions and though these may be lost on some younger readers, we believe they will remember and enjoy them again in later life. We feel that The Cheshire Cheese Cat has oodles of kid appeal and that readers will be as charmed as we were by this sweet and funny tale of an unlikely friendship overcoming the odds.

Middle Grade Fiction
Nerd Camp
by Elissa Brent Weissman
Atheneum Books
Nominated by: Jennifer Donovan

Gabe is a nerd. He's not ashamed of this fact; quite the contrary, since he's been accepted into the Summer Center for Gifted Enrichment. It's the most exciting thing of his 10-year-old life. Then he meets his soon-to-be stepbrother, Zack. Zack is cool and most definitely not a nerd. In fact, Zack is disdainful of all things nerdy. Gabe really wants his new brother to like him, but he also really loves all things nerdy. In the end, Gabe sets out to find scientific proof, once and for all: are the adventures he has at the SCGE camp over the course of the summer too nerdy for words? Or are they cool in their own right?

With its quirky, nerdy humor; amazing camp activities; and believable characters, Nerd Camp is a delight to read. There are nerds of all stripes, from Gabe's bunkmates Wesley and Nikhil to a guy who goes by C² (a living legend at the camp because he skipped two grades). Elissa Brent Weissman just gets the awkwardness of being 10. It's admirable that Gabe strongly identifies as a nerd, even though he is picked on, and finds comfort and belonging in a group of people as quirky and as unique as he is. (Memorizing pi to the 20th digit, or rocking the nations of the world song on karaoke night, anyone?) A celebration of all things smart, Nerd Camp is a book that's worth cheering for.

Young Adult
Nonfiction Books
Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart
by Candace Fleming
Schwartz and Wade Books
Nominated by: Monica Edinger

Amelia Lost offers both a biography and an expose of Amelia Earhart, the aviation pioneer whose exploits played a groundbreaking role in the achievement of equal rights by American women. Earhart actively crafted and cultivated a mythology around herself in order to create ongoing opportunities as a female aviator and to maintain her heroine status. Exciting chapters alternate between Amelia's high-profile life and the days and hours preceding her still-unsolved mysterious 1937 disappearance somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. Author Candace Fleming carefully separates history from myth with her meticulous research. Packed with photos and informative sidebars, Amelia Lost shows readers in vivid detail the dangers of early aviation and an accurate portrayal of this very real American heroine.

Graphic Novels
Anya's Ghost
by Vera Brosgol
First Second Books
Nominated by: Robin

Ghost story—check. Snarky but fully rounded protagonist—check. Believable teen characters and behavior—check. Humor—yep. Anya's Ghost has the perfect blend of story elements and it deftly layers several classic teen literature topics in a relatively short space. The themes of fitting in at school and in life, avoiding toxic friends both earthly and unearthly, and learning to come to terms with who you are, are nicely underscored by the fact that Anya is an immigrant. At the same time, Anya's interactions with the ghost add suspense and the perfect amount of creepiness. The art style is simple, engaging and funny, and works well with a monochromatic format. A fast-paced read that doesn't skimp on story.

Fantasy & Science Fiction
Blood Red Road
by Moira Young
Margaret K. McElderry Books
Nominated by: Leila Roy

Blood Red Road is one of those books that can be infinitely compared to other stories -- one panelist wrote that it “read like the Harlequin Romance version of Mad Max” -- while still having its own unique voice and style. We’re not sure where an Australian writer living in England learned an Ozark accent. Although we sometimes struggled with it, we admired the way the innovative use of language allows the reader to get into the head of the prickly but ultimately sympathetic protagonist.

Saba’s beloved twin brother Lugh has been kidnapped, and Saba knows it’s up to her to rescue him. This is no easy task in their post-apocalyptic world, where food is scarce and those who can’t fight are easy pickings. Luckily, Saba’s a survivor, and she finds some allies in her quest: a handsome man named Jack, a group of fierce warrior women, and even her own little sister Emmi.

Saba is a wonderfully dynamic character, growing from a sometimes cruel girl with a single-minded purpose into a more mature young woman sensitive to the feelings of those close to her, particularly Emmi. The violent wasteland Saba inhabits is well-drawn and terrifying in the best way. The romance can feel cheesy, but it’s interwoven in a way that doesn’t overpower the story. While the plot is sometimes predictable, we loved that this book takes risks, doesn't talk down to its audience, and takes us on a familiar journey in a style that we don't often see. The combination of voice, character, and fast-paced action make this an appealing book that will keep readers turning the pages.

Young Adult Fiction
Stupid Fast
by Geoff Herbach
Sourcebooks Fire
Nominated by: Karen Yingling

"I am not stupid funny. I am stupid fast." Enter the frenzied world of Felton Reinstein. His vibrant, engaging voice draws readers into a teenaged mind knocked off kilter by a growth spurt of body and hair that lands him on the radar of the football jocks. Suddenly, Felton is racing past defenders, romance is blooming, his best friend has left the country, his prodigy little brother has stopped playing the piano and turned into a pirate, and his hippie mom is sinking into depression. An extraordinary mix of adolescent angst, football, family drama, first love and refreshing humor, Stupid Fast lets reader run fast with Felton as he navigates the complicated and raucous maze of going from high school joke to high school jock.

Monday Review: THE KNIFE AND THE BUTTERFLY by Ashley Hope Pérez

2012-02-13T08:00:00.000-08:00

We really enjoyed Ashley Hope Pérez's debut novel What Can't Wait (reviewed here), so we're proud and excited to be a part of the blog tour for her latest novel, The Knife and the Butterfly. Tune in this Friday, February 17th, for Ashley's guest post about edgy fiction—what does it mean for fiction to have an edge? Join the discussion in just a few short days! In the meantime, we've got a review of her newest book, which plunges us straight into the intersecting stories of locked-up gang member Azael Arevalo and troubled teen-on-trial Lexi Allen.

Reader Gut Reaction: When we first meet Azael, he's just woken up in a cell—not for the first time, but something's different about this lockup. For one thing, he's got zero contact with the outside world, and for another, he can't remember anything that happened to him before he got locked up. He knows there was a fight with another gang, but after that...

The fact that Azael can't remember what got him locked up immediately creates a feeling of suspense and the need to keep reading to find out what really happened; and the more we find out, the stranger—and sadder—the story gets. Some have said that this is an "edgy" book, and it is, in the sense that it's a story about life in the world of gangs and taggers, fights and feuds, and, for Azael, the constant looming threats of arrest, foster care, and deportation. But it's also a sad story, and the author makes us feel for Azael and his tough situation, the hopeless feeling of inevitability that his life has, whether or not it's true. And the situation suffered by Lexi is no less difficult, as Azael begins to see--even though he's not sure what his jailers want him to learn from observing her. Sure, she's locked up, too, but what does that have to do with him? Solving the mystery of Lexi and the mystery of his own situation go hand in hand, of course, and the gradual revelation of clues and details kept me turning the pages.

Concerning Character: Both characters offer an equally wrenching story—and I'm using wrenching here rather than edgy because, for me, it covers the subjective emotions of the characters, where "edgy" seems like a more detached term that refers more to their environments, their situations, the quality of their lives. Because we DO get such an intimate glimpse into both Azael's and Lexi's emotions—Azael because he's got nothing else to do BUT think while he's locked in his cell, and Lexi through her journal entries—it becomes clear very quickly that there is so much depth in both teens, so much pain and sadness in their lives. They are far more than just kids who have been failed by the system or who have fallen into tough circumstances or have made bad decisions. They are kids who are lost and hurting.

Recommended for Fans Of...: Stories about young people trying their best to make do under desperate circumstances, like Coe Booth's Tyrell (reviewed here) or Lockdown and other books by Walter Dean Myers.

Themes & Things: Despite the difficult subject matter and the seemingly hopeless situations of both Azael and Lexi, this book conveys a strong message of hope and redemption. Even if we can't change what's already happened, we all have the power within ourselves to change, at the very least, how we think and act in the future, and how we think and feel about ourselves in the present. As Azael does what he can to take control of his situation, as Lexi does her best to work through what's happened, both find an inner core of strength, and this helps them grasp at a sense of meaning in what often feels like a chaotic and rocky existence. In the end, while the ending is not exactly happy, we are left with a sense of relief that our paths in life aren't necessarily fixed and unswerving, that we can shift things in a direction for the good and that it's never too late to do so.

Review Copy Source: NetGalley. This review refers to the Kindle electronic ARC.

Authorial Asides: We're honored that Ashley was able to write and send us her guest post when she could easily have been doing other awesome things from her current location in Paris, the lucky duck (see that picture there? Aren't you envious?). For those who want to keep up with her writings and happenings, she keeps her own blog at AshleyPerez.com. You can also follow her on twitter @ashleyhopeperez or find her on Facebook.

You can find The Knife and the Butterfly by Ashley Hope Pérez at an independent bookstore near you!

Toon Thursday: Ferrets' Revenge

2012-02-09T11:49:00.000-08:00

Another brand-new toon for you guys this week--and with the return of ferrets as a topic of Twitter conversation, I thought they should make a return cameo in this week's toon, too. (You can find more toon ferrets here and here.) As always, click to view larger.

Happy Thursday!

A Few Random Notes Amid the Chaos

2012-02-07T10:41:00.000-08:00

This week I'm just trying to put my head down and charge forward, step by lagging step, on my WIP, while attempting valiantly not to be distracted by FUN things like figuring out what I could put on a Bookprint at YouAreWhatYouRead.com (I only get to pick FIVE influential books in my life??) or indulging my organizational fetish over on Pinterest (which I've joined, but am forbidding myself from doing anything with until I finish this dang chapter).

But it is also a priority for me to let you know when I've found interesting writing- and book-related things online, and so I will take a moment to note a couple of things that have crossed my desk. First, remember early last month when I posted wondering whether there was such a thing as a Book Boxing Day or the like? Well, there IS! And I couldn't be happier. I found out via Zoe Toft of Playing by the Book that February 14th is International Book Giving Day (read about it here on Delightful Children's Books). If you could not possibly care less about yet another corporate candy-buying holiday (particularly one that advocates spending two months' salary or whatever on blood diamonds) then why not do something worthwhile instead, like giving books? Fantastic. Check Zoe's site for more book giving ideas and a lengthy list of charities--or do a quick search of ARCs Float On for teachers in your area who need books for their classrooms.

Lastly, a bit of sad news. Via Sheila at Wands and Worlds, I found out today that John Christopher, the pioneering YA sci-fi great who penned the Tripods books, has died. There's a very nice obituary and remembrance of his work over on Tor.com.

Turning Pages: Code Name Verity, by Elizabeth Wein

2012-02-05T03:09:00.000-08:00

It's V-Day: Verity Day, the day Code Name Verity is available in the ~~U.S.~~ UK! (In the U.S., the book is available in May!)

For the past few days, we've focused on the history and many people's reactions to historical fiction as a genre, and we haven't spent much time on the blood-pounding excitement of espionage, spy thrillers, derring-do and unlikely escapes. But now, bombs are falling, enemy aircraft has been spotted, and I want to delve a bit more into the book in terms of theme and scope -- I'll be doing that carefully, as to avoid spoilers. In many ways, that feels like there's not much I can say -- in other ways, not talking about more than the outline of the plot still leaves plenty to discuss.

Onward!

Reader Gut Reaction: I talked before about getting this book and then sort of sitting and looking at it. I'm skinhead/supremacist phobic, and Nazis are nightmare figures right up there with the Thing Under the Bed. Five pages into my reading, I had a horrible free-falling feeling that swooped and chittered in my gut as I read. The first narrator spoke at length about what she was doing, and why she was writing, and I realized, "Oh, my goodness, she's already been caught."

The She remains unnamed until halfway through the novel... but you figure out some things about her pretty quickly... First, she was the victim of a plane crash, and it was just her rotten luck that she got caught, in France. Second, that they seem to think she knows something - she's a wireless operator after all. And third, she's trying to put a good face on it, being funny and wry and all, but she's a squealer of the first water, a quisling, a tattler, a Benedict Arnold. And she's writing as fast as she can.

Concerning Character: Maddie and "Queenie" are the two girls whose voices we hear in the two halves of the novel. Structurally, the style and the voice are different in both halves, as they're very different young women who've met by happenstance. Maddie is a sturdy middle-class Manchester girl - with dark curls and Jewish roots - who is mad about engines and likes to get her hands dirty, taking apart motorbikes and the like. She is straightforward, blunt, and tends to worry quietly to herself. Fey, fair Queenie is both a Stewart and a Wallace, a proud, proud Scottish girl who has been educated in Swiss boarding schools and has just started at University when the war breaks out. She grew up in a castle - Castle Craig, is a dreamer, a risk-taker, a play actor. In the same shelter when an air raid sounded, these two shared an umbrella, smokes, and secret fears, cementing a tentative friendship. Maggie -- who fearlessly flies planes but who shudders into tears at the sounds of gunfire and bombs -- and Queenie -- who speaks flawless German, wields her beauty like a knife, and fearlessly sasses her superior officers, but secretly worries about having to kill someone, growing old, or being alone in the dark -- come together in a solid friendship which will see them through the darkest hours of the War.

There are other characters in the novel - family members, loyal mentors, Royal Air Force airmen and Air Transport Auxiliary airwomen - but the looming, faceless evil, with meticulously clean hands and pips on his shoulder, is the SS-Hauptsturmführer von Linden, the Gestapo agent who interrogates Queenie. Though Maddie fears doing the wrong thing, letting everyone down, and court-martial, Queenie's great fears of cold and dark and bad manicures have all faded in the face of what she has truly learned to fear: who she has become -- "I'm a regular Judas," she confesses wryly in her notes to the Gestapo. She's telling secrets -- all of them that she knows -- and she's doing it for a blanket, for the dignity of clothing, and so that they will stop punching her, groping her, and burning her with cigarettes, carbolic, and electrical wires.

And, they are going to shoot her anyway.

Recommended for Fans Of...: Older teens, and adults. (The Gestapo means there's pain, not overt, but it is there.) Also recommended, oddly enough, for those who loved Anne of Green Gables and Little Women as well as What I Saw and How I Lied, by Judy Blundell; The Machine Gunners and Fathom Five, by Robert Westall, and The Last Mission, by Harry Mazer.

Themes & Things:

“A what kind of friend?” asked Marilla.
“A bosom friend–an intimate friend, you know–a really kindred spirit to whom I can confide my inmost soul.” ~ Anne of Green Gables

This is a novel about war, risks, airplanes, and espionage. Mostly, though, this is a novel about... friendship.

Despite being part of a greater organization -- the ATA, the RAF -- despite being British and part of the Allied force, in many ways, both Maddie and Queenie experience isolation. Maddie, who, as a girl is maybe a bit less feminine and a bit more masculine than she "should" be; Queenie, with her upper-class accent, long, fair hair, perfect manicure, and love of the German language and culture -- both girls are essentially squared pegs in the round holes of their culture and time, and when they are thrown together, these two unlikely opposites attract, and create "a sensational team."

With the comparison to Anne Shirley and Diana Barry we see the kind of intensely supportive friendship that Maddie and Queenie have -- the "bosom-friend" kind which figures largely into books like Pride & Prejudice -- those good sisterhood friendships which are close and tender, as well as unflinching and not allowing for self-deceit and nonsense. These aren't the types of female relationships, quite frankly, that are seen in mainstream young adult fiction novels much. Remember the Bechdel Test?

/bech·del test/ n.
1. It has to have at least two women in it
2. Who talk to each other
3. About something besides a man

Legion are the YA novels who fail this test - legion are the novels with female protagonists and tons of friend groups, but few are the female friendships depicted which are not singularly obsessed with stalking relationships (Readers: Disagree with me. List your "Nu-uh, this is ALL about female friendship!" YA novel choices in the comments). I hate to use the word "refreshing" about anything but an iced lime-and-cinnamon drenched watermelon, but seriously, it is really, really nice to see a novel that:

1. Has at least two girls in it
2. Who are concerned with hopes, fears, and dreams,
3. And survival. Despite there being plenty of men around.

If you are especially prescient, you might get a wispy hint of a romance that might someday bloom in the sweet by-and-by, but it's a hint, and isn't at all the novel's focus.

Cover Chatter: You've seen the British cover so far -- the girl's silhouette, the sepia tones highlighting the red of the rose she holds and the red circle around the name, Verity; the Lysander, billowing red-tinged smoke and falling, falling -- the crisply written tagline, "I have told the truth." But, what you might not have seen is the American cover.

The scratchy-looking ropes binding the girls' wrists together are symbolic - they're tied together by circumstance, by the war, by their friendship. Queenie is also tied - to chairs, and the ropes which loosely bind the girls here cut off her circulation. But what's more important than the ropes is that their hands are grasping on to each other... the white lettering on the black background is evocative and stark and for once, it's kind of hard to choose a favorite -- but for me, the plane and rose and the sepia tones give a feeling of the early forties to the British cover, and really works even that much better. CODE NAME VERITY is quite fortunate in covers, whichever one you happen to pick up. Lucky author!

Authorial Asides: Full disclosure - Elizabeth Wein is a friend, and though we've only gotten together once (by virtue of the fact that we are far too busy [READ: lazy] to travel the two hours between our homes), we actually chat now and again, and our paths cross in cyberspace, because the children's literature pool, with the help of the Web, is not as massive, wide, nor deep as it once was.

We at Wonderland have had the opportunity to talk with Elizabeth Wein once before during the Winter Blog Blast Tour in 2008 about her life in Perth and her writing process (please note: NOT A DEBUT NOVELIST).

As always, I am astounded when I find someone who writes primarily longhand, and transfers their work to a keyboard, chapter by chapter. Despite her tendency to downplay what she does workwise - interjecting the loads of laundry, trips to the children's school to bring lunches and glasses and homework, the pottering about in the yard, watching raptors - Elizabeth works darned hard, immersing herself in her characters, their societal mores, and their realities. I think of the tiny props she fashioned for herself - the knitted WAAF doll, the eensy matches, cigarettes and lipstick, the gorgeous lined wool coat (pictured on the left!) she made from a 1940's pattern, which caused many a naughty word and seam-ripping session; the maps, the flights, the reading and rereading of historical documents as well as diaries, letters, and other accounts of wartime Britain -- these all represent just a tremendous amount of research, time, creativity, patience -- and tears.

I asked about the tears -- this novel required a lot of heart, and with such an immense commitment of time and research with CODE NAME VERITY, the tears when it was done must have been both of regret and release. The author noted, "I even got tears on my last set of proofs!"

As this is a war story, there are dire moments, daring escapes, and staggering losses. You might have a sniff or two yourself while reading this, but for those who have asked, this novel is not too scary. It is heartfelt and true, and there are also plenty of things to smile about, and to keep you nail-bitingly on the edge of your seat!

A meticulously researched, note-perfect pair of voices; a feast of espionage, suspense, secrets, love and risk, CODE NAME VERITY is a triumph of friendship and courage and heart which will take your breath. It reminds me that though it is soldiers who fire the guns and generals who write out the peace accord, it's courage that ends wars.

You can find CODE NAME VERITY by Elizabeth Wein out today at an independent bookstore near you!

You can also download Elizabeth's interview with Clare English on BBC's Book Cafe through the month of February - I doubt it'll be downloadable long after that, as BBC podcasts seem only available for forty-five days - sorry listen quickly! If you're in the UK, you can hear a replay on BBC Radio Scotland on Sunday, 12th Feb., 3 p.m.

The CODE NAME Blog Tour marches on. Tomorrow catch author Elizabeth Wein at Bookbabblers.

WAR STORIES: Further Musings on Historical Fiction

2012-02-05T01:56:00.000-08:00

"[O]nly the dead have seen the end of war." - George Santayana

In one of those serendipitous synchronicities of the blogosphere, Marjorie Ingall was blogging the other day about the Holocaust books which scared and distressed her as a child, and linked to her Tablet piece about the "fear factor," and when and how one introduces this bit of history to young children.

I chuckled at some of the memories she collected, while shuddering at the same time. I am still haunted by a Dutch girl named Betsie.

"Girl" is a misnomer; she was a grown woman when she died at Ravensbrück, and she didn't die in any particularly harrowing manner, except from being kept in dehumanizing conditions, from not being fed, from being kept in the cold and wet, from being forced to do horrendous manual labor and shoved and beaten and threatened instead of being told what to do and where she was to go. Sometimes, though the mind is strong, the body just gives up.

But -- I was six when someone got the bright idea to read the book The Hiding Place in our church's book group. Then they showed the film... I was six. My parents wanted me to see the life of a righteous woman, I know, but they didn't count on my imagination. I kept my eyes closed a lot of the time after the soldiers came, and I cringed back in my chair, thinking, "But, the sisters took care of the Jews and were kind and didn't fight with anyone, and they prayed, and the Nazis still shaved their heads and slapped them, and Betsie still died???"

And the penny dropped into the rather empty piggy bank of my understanding: for every choice, there is a consequence. Or, sometimes, stuff just happens ...because.

Well. I tried to put the stopper back into that particular bank, but there was nothing doing. The Holocaust - or, The War, as it is still referred to here in the UK, as if there has never been any other - figured largely in dreams and nightmares. Indeed, WWII and its horrific aftermath held an entire world in thrall for more than a generation, and now its villains - and its heroes -- are in some ways being lost. We don't like reading war stories. Remember now - I'm just repeating what almost every single (female only - hm. I wonder if this comes into it?) person has said, when responding to CODE NAME VERITY over the past week or so: we don't like war stories. We don't "normally" read them. We prefer other types of fiction. There's blood, in war stories. There are bad teeth and squalid toilets - or none at all - in history. There are often great clothes, but sometimes they're bloody. History, while a fine thing to enjoy sometimes in an esoteric sense, is maybe a little uncomfortable when we put people we can relate to into its midst.

I am, at times, thankful for the peculiarities of memory, and grateful to draw a veil over Bad Things. At the same time, the adage, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," lurks in my hind brain. Perhaps it's simplistic to lay it out in this way, but it is fact: Americans, largely, have gotten on with their lives after WWII. After the Korean War. After the Vietnam War. After the Bay of Pigs Invasion. After Grenada. After the U.S. invasion of Panama. After the Gulf War. After the NATO Bosnia intervention. After the Afghanistan invasion. After the Iraq invasion. In point of fact, some young adults now can remember no other world than the one in which there has been war. It plays as a backdrop to "normal life;" like the television being on in a distant room. Never mind the machine gun fire. Turn up your iPod.

Perhaps World War II still haunts much of Britain because it leveled out the class divisions and displaced thousands and created change in a society which had been the same way for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. Americans, meanwhile, are more conversant with change, because we were "newly" cast upon our country's shores, in comparison. It was easier to forget hardship and displacement; easier to compartmentalize Pearl Harbor into a tiny corner of our minds and have a moment of silence for it, easier to concentrate on commerce, on getting ahead, on the shiny and the new. The tragic and horrific events of 2011 expanded our memories, though; we will never forget now what it feels like to be fired on in one's own country, and have thousands of civilian casualties.

One would think that this would help us remember to avoid war at all costs.

And yet.

I maintain that it is especially important not to forget WWII, and not just because historians call it "a just war," but largely because of the arrogance, excess, and dangerous rhetoric of the past has returned to the present full-bore. What happened back then, people agreed, should happen not ever again. Historical fiction which examines these places and times gives voice to the millions who did their job and got on with things, gives young readers - and us older readers, too - a hook into the past, to align ourselves with its huge and epic events, and to have a place to hold onto, so we can understand. Why do you read historical fiction? For those same reasons, or others?

I leave you with some powerful bits of thought from things I've read recently on the topic:

"History gives us a pair of powerful eyeglasses with which to examine our own times. It is hard to look directly at our present reality because we are both too myopic and too faint-hearted." Katherine Paterson, from her keynote address to the annual meeting of the Vermont Historical Society, "Why Historical Fiction?" September 18, 2004.

“That may be the best that any work of historical fiction has to offer—not just to its author, but, more importantly, to its readers—a chance to grapple with the mysteries and complexities of the past, in hopes of seeing the present a little clearer.” - "The Facts of Historical Fiction," by Ron Rash, Publishers Weekly.

"This gift of the practice seems to come of its inherently solitary nature. A writer has no credential except as it is self-awarded. Despite our university graduate programs in writing there is nothing that licenses a writer to write, no equivalent of a medical degree, or a law degree or a Ph.D. in molecular biology or divinity. Writers are on their own. They are specialists in nothing. They are liberated. They can use the discoveries of science, the poetics of theology. They can ventriloquize as anthropologists, report as journalists; they can confess, philosophize, they can leer as pornographers, or become as wide-eyed as children. They are free to use legends, myths, dreams, hallucinations, and the mutterings of poor mad people in the street. All of it counts, every vocabulary, every kind of data is grist for the mill. Nothing is excluded, certainly not history." - Cory Doctorow, "Notes on the History of Fiction", August, 2006, The Atlantic.

As you can see, CODE NAME VERITY's blog tour is moving onward! Today Elizabeth is at I Want To Read That, talking about her life as a pilot. (You will never find me talking about Liz's piloting skills on this blog. Though I'm quite fond of the woman, I am NOT GETTING INTO AN AIRPLANE THAT SMALL WITH HER OR ANYONE.) Tiger Moths and Westland Lysanders, Avro Ansons and Spitfires were the planes flown in the novel, and Elizabeth can, of course, fly them all. And probably parachute out of them, too. ::shudder::

Stay tuned for more tomorrow!

I Don't Do History: The Case For Historical Fiction

2012-02-04T12:54:00.000-08:00

Cross-posted at Fiction, Instead of Lies, and kind of a continuation of the response/discussion to the comments on this blog post.

Imagine two best friends, united against a common enemy. It is the pitch of midnight, and they are making a desperate flight across country, to deliver a package necessary to the scrappy resistance fighters desperately battling a corrupt government for their freedom. There's been a car accident, so they're the emergency fill-ins. Neither of them are supposed to be where they are. And then there's another, bigger accident. In a foreign country, neither with any business being there, the girls have to split up and vanish -- and those who are caught disappear into the night and fog -- for good.

It is the pitch of midnight. And the enemies of truth and right are playing for keeps.

~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~

Wouldn't you be on the edge of your seat reading this book? I know I was...at times feeling quite hopeless and desolate upwellings of terror and the word, "Nooooooo!" pulled from deep within. I could imagine myself there -- and making a horrible mess out of all of it. If you read it, you'd imagine yourself there, too.

It's exciting. There's espionage, airplanes, parachutes, firefights, and girls hunched in dark places under umbrellas, waiting for safety in breathless silence. There's fear -- bleak terror -- great laughs, and the best friends you could ask for.

So, why'd we want to go and ruin it all by calling it historical fiction???

~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~

For a long time, one of the biggest concern of the Gatekeepers in our world o' books was where to put historical fiction in the canon for young people. Was it "edutainment?" Was it fictionalizing history or historicizing fiction, sliding in a character's fears and hopes and their thoughts where students perhaps ought to be better employed with learning dates and facts? Was it, and could it ever be, authentic?

These big questions were hashed out in historical journals and literary papers and I think it's safe to say that though some historians remained uncomfortable, the majority of teachers, especially in the middle grades and junior high, where I served most of my time, felt that historical fiction was an important lamp to illuminate some darker corners. Especially with the rise of multiculturalism, some pieces of history that "we" - as in mainstream, dominant culture America - had not realized were part of "our" story needed to be dug out, rediscovered, and explored. Historical fiction was a great tool to bridge the gap with the unknown pasts of a commingled people with the commonality of the human story. Through the insertion of tiny, literal accuracies, historical fiction maintains a sturdy cover story of "true enough," and more quickly engages young minds with the history before them. For most students, blending stories into a study of history helps to recreate the past as a dynamic place.

For MOST students.

For other students -- and for many of the rest of us -- it's an automatic "No." Seriously. Go back and read the comments of the people who have talked about CODE NAME VERITY. "I don't usually read war books..." "I'm not usually a fan of wartime historical fiction..." "I don't normally do historical fiction..." Is it the war? Or is it just the past?

Author and teacher Ashley Hope Pérez responded to a post a few days ago, "I have a kind of knee-jerk recoil from the term "historical fiction," probably because I know how it would make my kiddos eyes glaze before they even tasted the prose." Jen over at Reading Rants agrees: "In my experience, most teens won’t even look at hist. fic. unless they have to read it for a school assignment. You know, stuff like My Brother Sam is SO Dead, or Johnny TREmain (as in TREmendously booorrrriiinnggg!)."

It's baffling, really -- no one characterizes, say, The Great Gatsby as historical fiction -- or, a better example, The Key to Rebecca, not really. They're listed as what they are, first - a novel of manners. An espionage thriller. Nothing to do with their setting and time period and everything to do with their plot content. In part, the sticky label of "historical fiction" is a marketing key for parents and librarians to identify the book: Here is something semi-educational to slap into the unsuspecting hands of innocent youth. Go to it!

That, mainly, explains why it doesn't work.

Oh, come on: how many of us pick up a book of fiction for the its educational aspects? Not me! When I pick up a book, I want a good story, period. Unfortunate, but the label attached to this genre can sometimes shoot even a very good book in the foot. The only thing we can really do about that is to book talk, book talk, book talk. Word of mouth will win the day! Talk up the other aspects of the story - the plot, the characterizations, the types of planes, the outfits, the guns. You can order the story bits by their importance: CODE NAME VERITY is a.) a thriller, b.) a story of the kind of friendships that start in a bomb shelter c.) a fast-paced, dangerous tale full of espionage, spies, and double agents d.) a cracking good read, which just happens to be, e.) set about sixty-some years ago.

I think we can just leave off that last one.

As an author, I can say that one of the hardest things about writing historical fiction is the tightrope walk the author has to do -- between historical accuracy and humanity. It's important not to infodump dates and names, but it's also crucial not to veer the characters - and the details of their daily lives - into obvious anachronisms by using more modern tools, language, and attitudes about social tolerance which make the historical accuracy a lie. Further, I know that writing about a war is tough because historical accuracy is a must - the dates have to match up, including when historical people die, and when troops moved in fact, they must move in fiction, too. But people's characters -- their loves and needs and fears and even their grocery lists -- are much the same, no matter what era they're in. Sure, they might swear a bit less or a bit more, wear their hair down, their pant-legs shorter; they might speak another language, but the human animal remains a constant - an important thing to know.

As a (former, now) teacher, I know that this is the saving grace of historical fiction, or any fiction, really -- the people. The characters make the story, and you just have to close your eyes to the fact that since it's history, you think you already know how it's going to end, jump in to knowing the characters, and let go --

-- you may find yourself on the edge of your seat, in the pitch of midnight, with two best friends, delivering a necessary package, having an accident, and disappearing into the night and fog...

Call it "historical fiction" or "historical suspense" or anything you'd like, the word is out: CODE NAME VERITY is a sensational novel. Don't forget to check out the other stops along the way for the blog tour.

* Chachic's buzzing about Verity; stop by and read her great review, as well as some discussion on starting an All Spoilers, All the Time discussion group so that people don't have to keep the spy secrets to themselves.

* The Scottish Bookstrust is a fab organization interesting young people in books. Visit them at BookTrust.org.uk for more from Elizabeth Wein about friendship in CODE NAME VERITY. And stay tuned for Monday's review of the novel, and links to Elizabeth's interview on the BBC's Book Cafe!

Later, Sucker

2012-02-03T03:32:00.000-08:00

Or, rather, now, Sucker! SUCKER LITERARY MAGAZINE is the name of a new YA literary 'zine, and it's full of writers - undiscovered writers - unagented, published or no - doing their best work under the skillful guidance of Hannah Goodman, who does a lot of things, including write and teach writing, win awards and parent and all that good stuff. She also dreams big, and has launched this project on the strength of an idea she had whilst getting her MFA ...and the rock-bottom slump that comes after you get that MFA, and the Real World does not hold you close and support you with warmth and kindness and beams of light, but rather, with, you know, reality. And rejection notices.

I've read and read until I realized I was down to the last story, so I paused to save and savor it -- and write this post. Truly mesmerizing reading, the sort of addictive, read-right-on-to-the-next, the feeling you get from the most tightly written professional literary mags. There's well-edited and brilliant stuff here - plus, lovely use of white space, artistic input, and a great recurring placement of suckers. A welcome place to rest the eyes and engage the brain when you're in need of Really Good Story. An unpretentious but highly readable, quality lit 'zine, the likes of which we haven't seen since... Tallboy. Yeah. It's good like that, except online only.

Consider getting involved, because young adult aficionados, writers and readers, ought not be on the receiving end all the time of industry information. We ought to be creating the industry information, harnessing our own collective enthusiasm and interest and making news, instead of reacting to it or being dragged along in its wake. We know who YA lit bloggers, readers, and writers are, and it's when I see stuff like this that I think, "Yay! we can be both fans and creators, and producers and make our own mark in this world."

Now, all I have to do is find a few grantwriters to fund and resurrect The Edge of the Forest again, and remind us further that we don't just review and shout into a vacuum, but that what we read and think matters...

Get involved with SUCKER. Check it out. Maybe you'll have the next bright idea for changing the world.

(Also, the why behind "sucker" title - whoa. Who--a. There's a whole novel in that there little piece of history. Whew.)

Thursday Review: A SWIFT PURE CRY by Siobhan Dowd

2012-02-02T08:00:00.000-08:00

Reader Gut Reaction: Every time I read another of Siobhan Dowd's books—there aren't many—I'm reminded anew of the tragedy that her loss constitutes. Her writing is amazing, and so is her own personal history. This novel is her first, and while I don't want to give too much away, I will say that I don't necessarily gravitate toward serious, weighty stories about family scandal and the limitations of small-town life. But I will read everything she writes, because her prose is so clear, perfect and striking, regardless of theme. She brings out the exquisite pain and beauty even in difficult, ugly situations. And, in the end, I couldn't put this one down.

Concerning Character: The main character, Shell Talent, is fifteen years old, but she's the woman of the house now, mothering her little brother and sister and keeping a wide berth around her father, who has slipped into alcoholism since her mother died. School and church hardly seem relevant when she has dinner to cook, laundry to do, and an unpredictable father to avoid. She's got a tough exterior, but inside she's still hurting, and she's got more questions than answers. When the young, handsome new priest Father Rose moves to their tiny Ireland town and provides a sympathetic ear for Shell and her troubles, he also inadvertently provokes gossip, and things start getting even more complicated. Then comes the scandal, and the mystery...

Recommended for Fans Of...: Stories about coming to terms with the death of a family member, and books with quiet but vivid and lyrical writing, like Nothing But Ghosts by Beth Kephart (reviewed here), The Piper's Son by Melina Marchetta (reviewed here and Deadville by Ron Koertge.

Themes & Things: I would be remiss if I didn't note that this one owes a great debt to the work of James Joyce, the Quintessential Irish Writer in the minds of many. Though the two writers share a national identity and other profound similarities with respect to growing up Irish, this is not the story of a young man struggling with intangible issues of faith and identity, but that of a young woman grappling with all-too-harsh realities. While Shell's story isn't always an easy one to read, it's testament to the human spirit's ability to endure and heal.

Authorial Asides: A Swift Pure Cry is Siobhan Dowd's first novel. I also reviewed Bog Child (here) and hope to read A Monster Calls soon—her posthumously published work written with Patrick Ness. Siobhan Dowd won the 2008 Cybils Award in Middle Grade Fiction for her novel The London Eye Mystery.

Review Copy Source: Library.

You can find A Swift Pure Cry by Siobhan Dowd at an independent bookstore near you!

A Few Notes on Inspiration

2012-01-30T08:00:00.000-08:00

Whether you prefer to tap into a sense of inspiration, motivation, or just plain old perspiration (aka Butt In Chair), sometimes it's hard to get started on whatever it is you're supposed to be writing. Excuses flow much more easily than the words of the story you're trying to write, and procrastination becomes a shining beacon, a siren song.

Distraction can take a lot of different forms, but so can inspiration (as these two blog posts by Kate Messner--Part 1 and Part 2--attest). I found a combination of both in this week's announcement of the various YALSA Book Awards.

There were some surprises--such as the fact that I hadn't heard of this year's Printz winner at all (probably because I spent several months of last year in a study cave). Also surprising, but gratifying, was finding out that Susan Cooper won an Edwards Award for her contribution to teen literature in the form of The Dark Is Rising sequence.

I find it hard to put into words the influence these books had on me when I was growing up. I was about 11 or 12 when I first read them, and they both fascinated and scared the pants off me. I was kind of shocked, when I read the press release, to see that they were written in the 1960s and 1970s, because they felt modern when I read them circa 1988-ish. I suppose a better description would be that they had a timeless quality.

I was already interested in things English and Celtic and Arthurian when I read them, but The Dark Is Rising books hooked me, and kind of made me obsessed. (They also gave me more than a few scary nightmares.) Among other things, they were a very large stepping stone on my path to eventually learning Welsh language (which I learned here and here). Also, when I think about iconic children's fantasy, when I think about books that hooked both my heart and my head, that made me believe in magic--the magic of words--I think about these. And I hope someday I'm able to write something that has just a tiny fraction of that magic.

Cheers, Susan Cooper!

February Book Lovin'

2012-01-27T01:13:00.000-08:00

This year's Cybil's reading had the unexpected reaction of causing a bit of brain atrophy. I was reading frantically right up to the last day, and anxiously pestering the postman, waiting for my next book. I feel like I did only a "meh" job of reading, in the end being unable to gain access to forty of the contenders. Because we have such a doughty crew, though, the books ALL got read by at least two people, but still! I wanted to have done better than I did.

January I took to just relearn to look at words on a page without them swimming around; meanwhile, AF got all thoughty and started rereading Plato's Republic (And today's UNSHELVED is also just for her!!). Now that February is on the horizon, complete with flying dragons, the books are calling us back. February brings with it the read-a-bration that is 28 Days Later, and two blog tours. Look for things to be a little busier around here in the coming days. It's time to set aside the winter blahs and get back to the books!

As I'd thought, Elizabeth Wein's novel Code Name Verity is really, really good... review coming up shortly.

It's always a nail-biter, reviewing a book of someone you know and like, and you just end up doing Liz Burns' patented Hope It Doesn't Suck dance while you read it - fingers tapping, crossed legs swinging, anxiety pouring from every pore.

Of course it didn't suck.

One thing Elizabeth knows how to do (well, she knows how to do more than one thing, but please - this is big) is RESEARCH, research, research. She makes the past come alive, no matter what piece of the past she happens to be into. She immerses herself into her topic - she visited Africa to write her last books -- and she pretty well stayed in WWII era - complete with outfits (dolls!!!), old planes, music, etc. -- to get into character for writing these. (I'd actually like to see what she would do to write a novel set in modern times -- how does one prepare for that?) She is an impeccable historian and her plotting is tight, and ... ah. As I said: review to come.

But, I had to say this: whilst snooping around the web, I found a couple of things that made me laugh -- one was a blog post by someone waiting for their copy of Code Name Verity. They used the 'd' word -- as in debut.

People, people, people.

Google is our friend, all right?
Elizabeth Wein has written SEVERAL other books; please take a moment to check them out, yes? Meanwhile, check THIS out!!

Toon Thursday: NEVER Gonna Happen.

2012-01-26T13:27:00.000-08:00

This cartoon's not writing-related, really, but I woke up yesterday morning with this one taking shape in my half-awake brain. (So if it's goofy and makes little sense, you can blame it on that. Unfortunately, I have no such handy excuse for the goofiness of any OTHER cartoons.)

Geek Bonus Points if you get the ironic math joke. Happy Thursday!

Monday Randomness

2012-01-23T08:00:00.000-08:00

After spending much of the weekend reading Plato's Republic, I find my brain has decided to retreat into a tiny corner of my skull and refuses to work any more. And, I'm again pondering blog-related what's-the-point-itis and rethinking what I want to do in my blogging life. So...here are a few links for your amusement while I return to normal. Enjoy.

If you're interested in writing for educational publishers and live in...er...Central California, there's a seminar by writer Christine Peterson on March 3rd in Bakersfield. Why Bakersfield? I dunno. I liked the sound of it until I saw it would be a 3-hour drive (each way), so I am unlikely to attend, but for those who live a little closer, check out this link. For those of you on the opposite side of the country, in April our blog bud Mitali Perkins is leading a Highlights workshop on Creating an Authentic Cultural Voice.
Also, in an e-mail to the Kidlitosphere Yahoo Group, author Martha Brockenbrough says: "YALSA reached out to authors, asking us to sign a petition that asks for school libraries for every child in America. They are in need of almost 15,000 more signatures. If you feel so inclined, might you write a blog post about what school libraries meant to you, to your kids, or to kids you know?" Here's the petition--they still need signatures, but I agree with Martha that a heartfelt blog post might also be in order. I know I spent a ton of time in the school library, not just browsing books, but studying and being a tutor. (Weirdly, I was a chemistry tutor. Go figure.) My middle school library was where I first checked out and read Ursula LeGuin's A Wizard of Earthsea. I even remember the two librarians there: Mrs. DeLeon, who was the mom of a girl in my class, and Mrs. Y, who had a long and unpronounceable last name. As an adult and as a writer I've had some amazing school library experiences, too, talking to kids in book clubs and creative writing clubs and just regular kids. I can't imagine a world without school libraries. If you feel the same, go sign the petition! And if you write a blog post, let Martha know for her roundup.
Lastly, I'm proud to say that my advice, such as it is, has been included in Katie Davis's new e-book, How to Promote Your Children's Book. Katie does the podcast Brain Burps About Books and her book is an amazing collection of first-hand marketing information from the likes of Our Jane, Cynthia Leitich Smith, Liz Garton Scanlon, and plenty of others. I know I'm going to find it useful, and I'm happy to give it a plug!

Thursday Review: PLEASE IGNORE VERA DIETZ by A.S. King

2012-01-19T08:00:00.000-08:00

What really happened to Charlie Kahn? He was Vera Dietz' best friend, but now he's dead, and Vera knows more than she's telling. Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King (author of Dust of 100 Dogs, reviewed here) was a 2010 Cybils nominee.

Reader Gut Reaction: This one was gripping as well as heartbreaking. What do you do when your best friend is in trouble? What if he's your EX-best friend? Alternating between past and present, eventually the two strands of the story come together in a way that's both shocking and satisfying. This one had me thinking about the story long after I was done; had me wondering what I'd do if someone close to me was in a terrifying situation and I had to make a tough choice about whether to try to help or take the seemingly simpler route of putting my head in the sand.

Concerning Character: Vera Dietz is a relatable character with multiple issues to deal with—not only her betrayal by Charlie, but also the absence of her mother and the fact that she's trying to live down an embarrassing secret about her family. She WANTS to be ignored. Especially after what happened to Charlie. But the side characters are well developed, too—most notably Charlie, shown to us in flashbacks, who suffers from even more horrifying and emotionally damaging issues; and Vera's father, who has struggles of his own. All of the main figures in this book are hurting in some way or another. Those who are able to reach out to others when they can't cope alone, the ones who stop ignoring their own pain and their own damaged selves, are the ones who can finally move forward and grow. But if you ignore the warning signs, it might take a shocking wake-up call to provide enough impetus to make a real change.

Recommended for Fans Of...: Stories about coping with changing relationships and overcoming the baggage of the past, like Melina Marchetta's The Piper's Son (reviewed here) and The Freak Observer by Blythe Woolston (reviewed here).

Themes & Things: Growth as a human being, of course, is one of the overarching themes of the book. A part of that growth is learning to deal with one's conscience, one's regrets, and coming to terms with what you know you should do even when it seems impossibly hard. This is also a book about what happens when abuse is allowed to become a pattern and take its toll unchecked. The idea of closure is also an important one in the story—when less tangible wounds go unhealed, that too takes its toll.

Review Copy Source: Library.

Authorial Asides: A.S. King keeps a blog here, and she also tweets.

Cover Chatter: I think this one has a really awesome cover. Just sayin'.

You can find Please Ignore Vera Dietz at an independent bookstore near you!

Glad-Making Bits of News...

2012-01-17T01:14:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the third week in the first month of the new year!

And welcome, all 156+ of you who have delurked and are participating in the Comment Challenge with Lee Wind & Mother Reader this month. I have to admit that I don't particulate in the Comment Challenge - mainly because I'm a regular Chatty Catrina in terms of blogs, and I routinely comment more than five times a day. (I have more than a hundred blogs I visit regularly on my Reader.) I am a person who's not on FB or any other social media, though, so it's easier for me to read what people are writing, and comment there. (I think blogging will always be Just About My Speed. Just don't ask me to talk to five people in a room in public.)

It's always nice to get comments from new people. We have a dedicated group of "followers" on our Blogger site, but we also know that beyond those hundred plus folks are those who follow on Readers, those who pop up when others direct them this way, and those who never comment at all, but who are a part of our silent friend group. We're glad to hang with all of you in a Shrinking Violet-y sort of quiet, holding-up-the-walls way, or in a chatty, we-know-you're-there fashion.

Greg Pincus, blogging at social media blog The Happy Accident, has as primer on commenting, to help with the challenge this month. And we must give full props to Lee for the hilarious Blogging Vacuum Diva. I laugh every time I see her. (Randomly: I found a link to a most hilarious Ed DeCaria poem, Who Is This Woman, And Why Is She Trying to Kiss Me whilst reading the comments from Greg's post. I laughed right out loud - it's so my entire childhood in a few short stanzas. See what commenting can do for you?)

Last week, I got THIS BOOK in the mail. (Why, yes, I AM special!) I know that many of my friends in the U.S. have been awaiting this snippet of historical fiction eagerly, and would have dived right in.

It's a book written by a friend - ample reason again to dive right in!

Instead, I sat and sort of looked at it with horrified fascination. It is Going To Be Scary. I knew this because I knew the topic of the book...

I read the first chapter and hyperventilated. Bargaining! For the return of clothing!!! SCARYNAZIS.

Yes. I am a scaredy-cat. Five words in, you know our heroine has already been captured by the Axis in WWII and Further Bad Things Will Commence.

This book is KILLING ME. And yet, I keep picking it up and reading chunks, when I fully intend to just move it to another spot on my desk. Yikes. It's addictive.

Out Feb. 6 - Stay tuned for the review.

(Also: I LOVE this cover. But the other cover, with the hands tied together... oh. Oh, oh, oh... poignant and scary and gorgeous. Must have been so hard to choose.)

CONNIE WILLIS, author of fifteen novels and over fifty short stories and novellas, is the Grand Master of science fiction. We knew that. But, she's just been awarded this officially, as winner of the 2011 Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award from Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America. You'll recall our 2007 interview with her. Or, maybe you won't. Maybe you've never yet read a Willis book. Well - do. Her hallmark talent is writing on brilliant science fiction topics, and bringing the reader along so that they, too, feel smart, and in on the joke and all the brainy stuff. She writes strong, smart female characters who don't take themselves too seriously; there's a touch of humor in her stories, and she's very, very good indeed. She's also gracious to answer questions from random bloggers. Well done, Grand Master Connie!

The Brown Bookshelf has officially announced their line-up for this year's 28 Days Later campaign, highlighting the books of African American authors, in honor of Black History Month. I always like to peruse the names - and note how many of them are utterly new to me. I did a happy dance for Malorie Blackman -- I've enjoyed discovering her books here in the UK. But, Debbi Chocolate? Really? I am ENVIOUS of that name for all kinds of reasons. As spokeswoman Paula says, "The Brown Bookshelf is the place to hit for any reader, parent, teacher or librarian looking for great books by and about people of color. Tell a friend to tell a friend to come back every single day in February..." Please support the work of these five doughty bloggers who do their best to shine a light on African American literature each year.

Please go over and join the discussion on YA speculative fiction, featuring our blogosphere babes Tarie Sabado, Gwenda Bond, and one of our fave YA spec fic authors, Malinda Lo, too.

The conversation at SF Signal tends to be dominated by ...science fiction aficionados. Obviously. They tend to be male and perhaps not as informed on YA stuff as we tend to be in our blogosphere, so please, please, please go over and show your support and welcome some fresh new ideas as our 'spheres overlap. (I'm thinking of the thread on appreciating the place of romance in YA spec fic for young girls - it's not all Twilight, my peoples! I don't care for Twilight especially myself, but I will throw elbows and hip-check you across the room so that others get to read it if they want to, all right???) I'm so excited that a mainstream SF site is talking about the great big elephant in the room: specifically marketed young adult lit in the subgenre of science fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction, and I hope that hearing from such intelligent and cool people will help to sort of ease the "Ugh!" factor that a lot of the aficinado set feels when faced with the whole YA SFF thing (I mean, we have UN-IRONIC nail polish that goes with our books and movies now. How scary-cool are we??).

Also: new blog alert! I'm a big fan of The Enchanted Inkpot but am glad to hear about The League of Extraordinary Writers, which is focused on dystopia, and The Interagalactic Academy which is hopefully going to fill the space that The Spectacle used to fill for me.

O, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea!
And love is a thing that can never go wrong,
And it's Tuesday already!

Have a happy week.

With apologies to Dorothy Parker.

Bits and Bobs: The Power of Words, The Art of Books

2012-01-16T08:00:00.000-08:00

Holly Cupala is one of our longtime author friends and blog buds, as well as a kindred spirit, so we're happy to help plug her newest book, Don't Breathe A Word, which is already getting some great buzz. Not only that, ten percent of the author proceeds go toward Hope for Sexually Exploited Girls. All of those are reasons why I was happy to do my part to help get the word out, along with numerous other amazing (far more amazing than me!) YA authors, as part of this YouTube video on how Words Have Power:

I can only wish I was less dorktacular in this video, but I hope my words and everyone's still ring true. I was thrilled to be a part of it and join Justina Chen, Melissa Walker, Stephanie Kuehnert, Beth Kephart, Denise Jaden, Lish McBride, Lisa Schroeder, Cynthia Jaynes, Tara Kelly, Joelle Anthony, Stasia Ward Kehoe, Janet S. Fox, Tina Ferraro, and Janet Lee Carey in such a worthwhile endeavor. Thanks, Holly, and congrats on your latest!

Need motivation, but the shoulds and the expectations keep bogging you down? Dear Sugar says, don't write "like a man." Don't write "like a woman." Write like a motherfucker. (I would say Pardon my French, but it isn't MY French. I'm just quoting. Plus Tanita sent it to me in the first place.)

If that's not working for you, here are some pretty pictures.

More wild, gorgeous repurposed books are in the slideshow accompanying this Sydney Morning Herald article. (Link via Jim at This Into That, whose work is mentioned in the article.)

Writers' Rites: On Motivation

2012-01-13T07:08:00.000-08:00

"BIC. Butt In Chair. There is no other single thing that will help you more to become a writer. William Faulkner said: 'I write only when I’m inspired. Fortunately I’m inspired at 9 o’clock every morning.' BIC." ~ Our Lady Jane

Happy New Year, again - I took a little hiatus from having a brain for awhile, but it's mostly back in working order, so here I am.

I don't remember who said it, but it's one of those jokes of which I can only remember the punchline - or the sort-of punchline. Basically what the joke was saying is that it's a bullpuckey kind of job that we have, where we can check out of it because we lack motivation. That's just not an excuse that anyone else can have.

Judge: I'm sorry, this case is going to have to go back on the docket. I'm just not feeling moved to pass sentence right now.

Obstetrician: Chica, you're gonna have to just hold all that in, because I am so not motivated to deliver your child today.

Policeman (over the crackling of the radio): Meh. Another call. Whatever. The Muse of the law enforcement just isn't whispering to me today.

Teachers: I'm not feeling it today, kids. Just color for awhile or whatever. I'm going to stretch out and read.

(Oh, wait. That last one did happen a couple of times while I was teaching. Never to me, of course.)

You see what I mean? It's kind of ...well, bull, as I said. You're a writer if you write, and if you don't write... well, you're kind of like those knitters who still call themselves that, and haven't picked up a pair of needles in ten years, yet still have skeins of yarn in a box somewhere. We call those folks people who need to declutter and donate some stuff. (And if this is you, please: don't make the scary people from Clean House have to come and see you, all right?)

Wait - I saw that flinch. Don't think I'm coming at you with judgment -- Oh, my goodness, I am not. I am coming at you from a seat on the couch next to you, wherein I have whined to myself that I am not motivated and this doesn't feel like anything but the most grinding of work, and what was I thinking, hoping I could come up with anything sharp and fresh and new, but which is turning out to be stupid nattering, and shouldn't I get a real job, one which will help pay for the roof and put my metaphorical kids through college, and one which will allow me to respect myself, and not be at the mercy of strangers and -- gah! -- critics for the rest of my life. I am coming at you from the place of being a writer in a funk, but we both know that if we stay here for too long, that "unmotivated" thing will twist us into someone we are not meant to be.

'Cause, here's the thing. We have the motivation. We do. Without motivation and will and the ability to put sentences on paper, we wouldn't be writers. And we are.

What we're lacking isn't motivation and the murmuring of the muse.
What is lacking is the courage to just get on with it.

How easy is it to say that we're too tired, too busy, too stressed to finish a story? How simple are the distractions of Dancing With the Stars or the Food Channel, or the sudden need to have a clean house or to pet the cat so you can get started with work?

...How hard is it to actually look at what we're writing, and know that it's not working, not one word of it, and to delete the whole file and start again?

Yeah. Sometimes, it's like that.

The thing is, nobody is going to give the time or attention span to do the work that you want to do. No one is going to give you the clarity and the focus and the plot. You have to really work for it. You're going to have to sweat and sit down and say things out loud and mutter to yourself; stand up and shadowbox or shuffle your feet to make sure you've got the movements right. You're going to have to suffer and bite down and maybe bleed.

Writing is sometimes work - more work than any of us want to admit. It's a pain. It's singing this writing song louder than the other little neurotic tunes playing in your head. It's bouncing in your chair when your butt-glue (thank you, Yat Yee) comes unstuck, and having to hold yourself there by bracing your feet.

And then, after all of that, your end result might be mediocre or even awful. You might find your creation laughable. You might be shocked. You might be deeply disappointed, as the wonderful Ira Glass says, but you'll have proven something -- to yourself, and to the watching world. You can write. You can finish. You did it once. You'll do it again. And, as your good taste and your love of story will still exist, you'll do it better the next time.

So, from my position next to you on the couch - perhaps let's call it the Whining Couch - I'm not telling you anything you don't already know. What I'm telling you is this: we're all on the same couch. The springs poke into our bums and the stuffing is leaking out, and we're all here, at one time or another. I'm sitting here, looking over at you, and deciding that I'm going to stop looking at the output or plot brilliance of other writers, and mind my own keyboard. I'm going to stop waiting for lightning to strike, and I'm going to strap down my own cold, unwieldy prose, and hit the switch and make my own magic. I'm going to let loose the leash on my motivation, let go of the tether to caution and safety and --

jump -

Toon Thursday: Revenge of the Pie Chart

2012-01-12T08:00:00.000-08:00

It's the first shiny new Toon Thursday of the New Year. How 'bout them apples? (Um, no pie-related pun intended there...)

There are certainly myriad others I haven't listed here, such as the all-important "so you'll have something to show for all those hours you spent sitting at the computer surfing Twitter" and "so you'll have something to tell your nosy relatives during holiday get-togethers," but I particularly like these. May we all find our sources of writerly motivation during the new year...

Monday PREview: FRIENDS WITH BOYS by Faith Erin Hicks

2012-01-09T08:00:00.000-08:00

Liked 2011 Cybils nominee Anya's Ghost (reviewed here)? Then I highly recommend checking out First Second's new title Friends With Boys. It's also a story about fitting in at school and in your own family, and, hey—it's also got a ghost! Friends With Boys will be available at the end of next month, and I was thrilled to get to read an advance copy and give it a little buzz. I'm happy to see First Second and other GN publishers stepping in to fill the niche that I'd hoped DC's short-lived Minx imprint would fulfill: graphic novels that appeal to teen girls but aren't "girly."

Reader Gut Reaction: With a quick, engaging storytelling style that's well-suited to a manga-influenced page format, Faith Erin Hicks has created a story that highlights classic themes like fitting in at a new school, making friends, appreciating your family for who they are, and learning that you don't have to struggle through life alone. The great balance of laugh-out-loud humor and relatable high-school angst, along with a fun cast of characters and just a touch of mystery and hijinks, made this one hard to put down.

Concerning Character: The main character, Maggie, lives in a house full of boys—three older brothers and her dad—but things are about to get even crazier. After being homeschooled for years, she's about to start (GASP) high school. She doesn't know anyone at school or have much contact with people besides her brothers, but despite being nervous, she meets friendly, endearingly goofy punky chick Lucy and her brother Alistair, and they quickly become friends. But they've got a few secrets, especially Alistair—and, of course, there are plenty of pre-existing tensions and social dramas that Maggie has no inkling of, having been homeschooled until now. Even her brothers have their own issues. But so does Maggie...and that's where the ghost comes in.

Quiet and thoughtful, I found Maggie an easy character to relate to, even though my experience with homeschooling is pretty limited. After all, we've all (mostly) faced the first day of high school, and whether you're new or not, it's nervewracking even if you're excited. She's also a really good-hearted person--she tries her best to be open and friendly, and she doesn't judge people by appearance alone.

Recommended for Fans Of...: School stories with plenty of humor, like Anya's Ghost by Vera Brosgol (reviewed here), The Plain Janes by Cecil Castellucci (reviewed here), Americus by MK Reed and Jonathan Hill (reviewed here), and Skim by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki (reviewed here).

Themes & Things: The more general theme of fitting in at the beginning of high school is nicely underscored by Maggie's more unusual story of starting public school after being homeschooled by her mother for all of her school career prior. I like the fact that this is a story homeschooled kids will relate to, as well as kids with a more traditional school experience. Family, too, forms a big part of this story—coping with the loss of a family member and the complex and ever-changing sibling relationships that occur when you're a girl with three older brothers. Friendships—looking beyond appearances to the person inside—always a good theme. Also, forgiveness comes up again and again, in big ways as well as little ones; sometimes people act like doofuses and you have to learn when it's better to forgive and let go than to hold a grudge.

Authorial Asides: Friends With Boys was released as a webcomic, too, and you can read parts of it online there.

Review Copy Source: First Second (publisher)

You can pre-order Friends With Boys at an independent bookstore near you!

A New Year's Link Roundup and A Bright Idea

2012-01-05T08:00:00.000-08:00

While Tanita braces herself against a brisk Scottish wind, and while I wait for my library holds to come in (Cybils graphic novels shortlist; woo hoo!) I've been accumulating a small collection of interesting links and tidbits from around the Kidlitosphere. Hope you enjoy!

First, are you ready for the 2012 Comment Challenge? MotherReader and Lee Wind are once again encouraging all of us to spend a month trying to leave five comments per day on blogs around the kidlitosphere and beyond. The jump-starting of our good blogger habits kicks off tomorrow. I'm not sure yet whether, or to what extent, I'll be able to commit to participating, but I know I've already been trying to poke my head up a bit more than usual, and I do plan to continue that good behavior. :) Anyway, if you want to officially sign up, check MotherReader tomorrow.
Via Leila at Bookshelves of Doom, I found a link to Lizzie Stark's hilarious post on If Famous Writers Had Written Twilight. For instance, Annie Proulx might've written a story that went something like this: "Edward and Jacob defy society’s expectations up in the mountains." OODLES more in the comments to the original post.
On Fuse #8, Betsy Bird speculates on which children's literary conferences she'd attend If She Were a Rich Girl, and I sulk, having discovered several more new conferences I won't be able to afford to go to.
Of course you all know this already, but Walter Dean Myers has been named the next Ambassador for Young People's Literature and has chosen the platform "Reading Is Not Optional." Not much to say other than bravo!
AbeBooks highlights major literary events of 2011, including the death of Ms. Diana Wynne Jones and the demise of Borders.
And, last but not least, a fascinating story from the intersection of literature and science--after 150 years, a Penn State anthropologist may have deciphered the mysterious cause of death of poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

Oh, one more thing--and this is especially for all you Cybils Round 1 folks wondering what to do with the ARCs or review copies you might not have space for: the ARCs Float On effort is a searchable database that helps match bloggers with teachers looking to augment their classroom libraries. Why not send your post-Cybils stash to a needy teacher? If that doesn't work out, ARCs Float On's host site Reach A Reader has a great list of links to other ways to help and places to donate. Think of it as Boxing Day for books!

*Bright Idea Time* In fact, maybe that's something the Kidlitosphere should institute...Book Boxing Day, during which bloggers commit to boxing up one average-sized file box of books and donating it to their chosen location--a library, a teacher, even some lucky reader! Look, we get LOTS of books in the mail, and we BUY lots of books on top of that (c'mon, you know you do). Filling (or nearly-filling) a file box per year, or even every other year, shouldn't be a problem, should it? And it would make a fun blogosphere-wide event. What do you all think? Let me know in the comments. Or let me know if my bright idea is already being implemented somewhere by someone, so I can slink off in embarrassed silence. Thank you kindly!

Why, yes. It is windy in Scotland.

2012-01-04T11:54:00.000-08:00

But, I'm still alive. Thanks to those of you who asked.

Drum Roll...

2012-01-02T11:06:00.000-08:00

It's a New Year, and you all should know what that means by now.

Yep, the Cybils shortlists have been announced! After all of the amazingly hard work reading, rehashing, and winnowing, the Round 1 judges (including our own Tanita) have come up with their picks for the most kid-friendly and blogger-approved titles of 2011 in a dizzying array of genres. Go check it out.

And now, my work as a Round 2 judge will begin. (I can hardly wait. I already read two of the finalists earlier in the year, and I know the rest will be just as awesome.)

Happy New Year, everyone!

New.

2011-12-31T06:16:00.000-08:00

Emerging, slitty-eyed and wrinkled into the light of midnight-plus-one, the year stares up at you, astounding in its ...newness. No missed deadlines, no editorial rejections, no misused adverbs or deleted lines marring its pristine wee face.

Can you treat it as carefully as you would an infant?
Can you support its dreams as firmly as you would the wobbly head of a child?
Can you allow it to live and move and grow, and not doubt it, not dither at it with indecision, not allow its inexorable forward momentum to drag you beneath it, and crush you?

In its toddlerhood, the new year might work your nerves. Have some dim sum and a few fireworks, rekindle your relationship at the Lunar celebration, and keep your patience.

In its adolescence, the new year will try your patience. But, June is also the time to celebrate the first soft brush of summer -- and you and the year will have become acquainted enough to know each other's faults and weaknesses. Forgive. Grit your teeth. Start over.

In its mellow adulthood, anything is possible. September will find you recovering from the last gasp of the summer, ready to start again, as everywhere, students give you a good example to follow. You can do this "life" thing. With a newly sharpened pencil and a fresh sheet of paper, anything is possible - the year has shown you this before.

The year will spin 'round again, before you know it. Open your hands, and cup the treasure it brings: hope. Possibility.

The present is, after all, a gift.

Bonne année (Fr),
Feliz año nuevo (Sp),
bliadhna mhath ur (Scots Gaelic),
& Blwyddyn Newydd Dda (kinda Welsh)
from the writer girls in the Wonderland Treehouse.

For Y2

Toon Thursday: Throw Out the Old...

2011-12-29T08:00:00.000-08:00

...Ring in the new, right? Well, in preparation for a New Year, with a New Agent (WOO!) and hopefully plenty of new writing successes for all of us, here's an old favorite from a Toon Thursday Past (in fact, I think it was the 7th Toon Thursday ever posted). Please to enjoy, and have a truly wonderful new year from me, Tanita, and CitySmartGirl.

I've also updated the Toon Thursday Archive, so if you're still on vacation and want a few writing-related laughs, (insert self-deprecating joke here). Or you could check out more Toons from the Past! Har.

Also, don't forget to check the Cybils website on New Year's Day for the announcement of shortlists! As you've seen, Tanita's Round 1 work is coming to an end, and soon I'll be hard at work on the Round 2 panel for Graphic Novels. I can hardly wait!

Bleary Eyed Bloodshed: The Cybils Finalists

2011-12-27T03:19:00.000-08:00

Yaaaaaawn. After three and a half hours of argument and six hours of sleep (::my brain switched back on, and woke me up::) I'm back for the YA SFF summation.

The 2011 Cybils in Science Fiction and Fantasy ~ what a long, strange trip it's been. One hundred and seventy-one books - of which I read just over one hundred and thirty -- and all the books on the list were read by at least two readers, huzzah! Some sterling small press and self-pubbed books this year, and with the new rules about having books available by electronic publishing, we all read books on various Devices, which brought the future of publishing and concerns about quality vs. quantity right in the center of things.

Quite a few debut authors were nominated this year - but some familiar faces as well, which is always nice. Several adult crossover authors from paranormal romance circles came through - not all of them were successful imports, but a couple of them have a great future writing for MG readers, if they can get their marketing folk to agree. It's all about finding one's correct audience.

Fewer vampires were nominated this year, but they are still there - though the conventional wisdom (of Secret Agent Man and others) is that after the final Twihard movie, None Shall Pass with editors and publishing houses. We shall see.

There were nominated a lot more angels - gah!!! - and other paranormal abnormalities like witches, but only three books that I recall with werewolves (is that because Team Jacob lost? Aww). We were into ad infinitum with the Greek gods and goddesses - hello Persephone as hot YA romance of the season? - though some truly were special and original - which is well-nigh impossible, given such old, ancient stories and tropes with which to work, so well done to those authors. There were a goodly number of princess novels nominated this year, which was kind of fun, though most of them weren't as hardcore as a real princess would need to be - I mean, hello, girls, never mind the prince. If you're going to be queen someday, your whole purpose is the queendom, no? ::sigh::

As usual, there were tons of book series, which was hard - I'm getting to the point that I don't even like books with sequels anymore, because they just produce annoyance - (Dear Publishing peeps, please don't let your authors/editors talk you into creating an incomplete novel and calling it the first novel in a trilogy. Each novel must. have. a. full. story. arc. Thank you so much.) - and as usual, jumping in on the third in a set of eight means that if the novel often doesn't have a compelling enough plot to stand alone, I don't know where I am in it - but fortunately, most of our nominations were the first or second novel.

2011's most obvious SFF Cybils nomination trend was conception novels. Clearly, there was some Super Seekrit Shindig somewhere, and publishing houses got together and decide the thematic content of popular books. "Hey, let's harp on pregnancy. Endlessly. Let's have novels about locking girls up, and bartering, buying, selling, stealing, and otherwise commodifiying their sexual/marital relationships and their fertility." And everyone else says, "Ooh, let's do! That'd be soooo FUN!

Arguably, not all of these fertility novels are bad - but it still slightly gives me the creeps that they all came out the same year. What else can we blame this on? Surely there's not some zeitgeist that decided, "Hey, great, we all read The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood in grad school. Let's see in just how many ways we can recreate it!" But, maybe there was, and A.F. and I didn't get the Author Mansion Memo... how else could there have been so many novels on essentially the same topic? Off the top of my head, the books I recall were:

Eve, by Anna Carey
Bumped, by Megan McCaffrey
Wither, by Lauren DeStefano
Delirium by Lauren Oliver
Matched, by Ally Condie
Dark Parties, by Sara Grant

...and, to a lesser degree, Across the Universe, by Beth Revis, Glow, by Amy Kathleen Ryan, and Possession, by Elana Johnson, A Long, Long Sleep, by Anna Sheehan.

...there might have been more.

All in all this year, there were a couple of books of actual science in the science fiction field, and we were glad. There were a few more novels with male protagonists and gay protagonists, a few more male authors, and a few more authors of color. Progress - the slow, creaking kind - is being made. We have a list of books of which I think we can be proud, representing ethnic and gender diversity (not as much as we might have liked, but we must choose for the whole book, not for authors or characters alone), a balance between teen voices and various subgenres. It's a strong, solid list.

(And if I'm doing a little happy dance with my big boots because I got a couple of books on that I really wanted, please excuse the stomping.)

As for the SFF YA judging panel itself... it was midnight (7 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Mountain, 4 p.m. Pacific) for me when we started deliberating, and I met my bed after 3:30 a.m. There was some... er, bloodshed, screaming and quiet sobs (Poor Steve) involved in these deliberations. Daulton the cat may or may not have eaten either staggering amounts of turkey, or his drugged owner, who'd been in a minor car accident just before our meeting and was on painkillers, slightly loopier - and quieter - than usual. There were polite pauses and bursts of sarcasm. We fortified ourselves with pie, and found the strength to keep arguing. The word "sequins" was taken in vain, which made me think of jazz hands each time ; one panelist, who'd warned us in advance that she was prepared to "get all hostile" about her shortlisted choice found to her shock that she didn't need to. This year, the judging panel also, pre-discussion, unanimously shortlisted one book, - which has never happened in all the years I've been doing this! I cannot wait for everyone else to find out what that one was!

And now it's A.F.'s turn -- since she's on a final judging panel, and while I kick back and recover - my eyes, my bloodshot EYES!!! - she starts her final judgment part of the job with Graphic Novels. Over to you, Aquafortis!

Thank you, SFF peeps. You're so fun.

Thank you, Sheila, SFF Peeps Organizer. You're so organized, and we appreciate you not getting sick of us messing around.

Thank you, Overlord Anne, for putting in the long days, long nights, and pulling out your luxuriant hair one more year on behalf of the Cybils Awards.

Long may they reign.

2011 Cybils: The False Princess, by Eilis O'Neal

2011-12-27T02:33:00.000-08:00

One of the great joys of the Cybs is discovering that rare new book which hasn't gotten on everyone's radar yet. Other than a fab review from the Book Smugglers of Awesome, I haven't heard this one reviewed many places, and that's a real and serious shame. Pick it up, folks! Part princess tale, part superhero adventure, this novel pivots on what a strong young woman can do, once she sets her mind to it, and re-prioritizes romance to something which keeps the heart warm, but which has to be considered after the important things. (Love is important, romance, less so.) A brilliant debut from the author.

Reader Gut Reaction: If you read The Man in the Iron Mask - or, okay, even saw the movie with whatshisname Di Caprio, you know the trope - royals switched at birth, yadda, yadda, yadda. There's a traditional amount of suspense and derring-do and running around that this trope entails. The author took these familiar things, and somehow, made them live and breathe.
Concerning Character: ...the story, for me, started with disappointment. When I could feel Nalia - or Sinda's disappointment that her life wasn't real, her quiet terror, resentment, and deep, deep hurt, then I was well and truly hooked. The characterizations in this tale are sharply done and thorough. They had to be, or the reader would have balked at revisiting the same old story. But, there's not only newness here, there's a twist.

She's never been all that good at the princess gig, but it was her life, and to be hustled out and shoved away -- with only a small chest of simple gowns and a merely adequate bag of gold -- it breaks her. Now Sinda is at a loss - she tried being as common as she had been raised to be, living with her cold, dyer aunt, but she messes up the simplest dyes and she misses her best friend, Kieran, with what's left of her heart. Finding out she has magic revives hope within her. She returns to the city -- but the college of magics won't have her. A stroke of luck brings her to the attention of a woman who can train her -- and things get better.

Or, they should have gotten better. However, nothing is ever that easy. Some people aren't destined to go their own way - and the needs of the world and of the kingdom turn out to be larger than a single person. Sinda responds to the needs around her, though it might cost her not only the home she's managed to carve out, but her life.

Recommended for Fans Of...: Shannon Hale's The Princess Academy, Alexander Dumas' The Man in the Iron Mask, Northlander by Meg Burden, and the magical component reminded me of Nightwalker: The Warlocks of Talverdin, by K.V. Johansen. (The Smugglers note The Decoy Princess, by Kim Harrison, writing as Dawn Cook, but I haven't read it... it is so on my TBR list, though.)

Cover Chatter: I haven't seen umpteen covers for this novel, which is because the one it has, though using The Headless Girl cover trope, actually manages to do its job - not in any brilliant, notable way, but... well enough. The face in the locket around the headless girl's throat stares unhappily out at the viewer, and we know this is probably Sinda. Sadly, there was no locket in the novel. What was in the story was a birthmark which the princesses shared, and a prophesy... which could have been fairly easily depicted. My only conclusion about this Headless Girl cover is that the designers were afraid of giving too much away...?

Authorial Asides: Eilis is pronounced A-lish, and that's a really righteously Irish first name, is it not? Almost as good as Teagan, Sian, and Aisling. We're really collecting these great Irish first names in YA lit! Anyway, Ms. O'Neal was clearly going to write an excellent first novel because she is the managing editor of the Nimrod International Journal for Prose and Poetry at the University of Tulsa.

You can find THE FALSE PRINCESS at an independent bookstore near you!

Even if it's not snowing.

2011-12-25T10:39:00.000-08:00

May you rediscover wonder, and the joy of family and friends this year.
Happy Holidays, and Joyful New Year.

2011 Cybils: The Shattering, by Karen Healey

2011-12-24T10:13:00.000-08:00

In my next life, I obviously need to be from Australia or New Zealand, because they clearly have some of the best YA writers in the world there. Penny Russon, Garth Nix, Sonya Hartnett, Melina Marchetta, D.M. Cornish - and that's barely scratching the surface. Karen Healey is a force in her writing style. Achingly realistic characterization, intelligent dialogue, and just the right amount of cultural shading which informs but doesn't overwhelm. Love, love, love her work.

Reader Gut Reaction: I read Karen Healy's Big Idea piece on this novel, which encapsulated the entire plot: the girl who plans for everything cannot plan for her sibling's suicide. But then, she finds out that it wasn't a suicide at all, but murder.

Ooooooooh, I thought. A mystery! And I was in. I figured I knew the whole plot at that point. Boy, was I wrong!

Concerning Character: As a small girl Keri imagined what it would feel like to break her arm to the point that she knew what it'd feel like, and how she'd tell her friend Janna to run and get her mother. She's that type of person - organized, pre-planning, prepared - for everything but her brother's death. Janna, no longer her best friend, now that they've grown up and apart, believes he was murdered... as her brother was. She has proof, in the form of another boy named Sione, who has a dead older brother, too.

This is a novel for mature readers - not necessarily because of underage drinking or out-of-bounds behavior, but because thematically this is about death, anxiety about death, and the painful clarity of realizing that you didn't really know someone who died - and you might not have loved them as well as you should have. Not everyone will "get" this - and this isn't to say that the writing is in any way inaccessible, but you need to know your audience to pass this one on successfully. It's both funny and sad, scary, wry, bittersweet, and realistic.

Recommended for Fans Of...: Oddly enough, Shirley Jackson's The Lottery comes to mind, as well as Holly Black's Tithe.

Themes & Things: I love sibling novels, I really do, and this has some major sibling mojo because it's about dead siblings - that love-hate relationship becomes loved-and-lost. It's completely impossible to know how an individual is even going to deal with that, but the grieving process here is ongoing - even though for each character the time has been different. And what I love is that Healey not only examines love (aggravation) and loss, but goes into how to make friends your family, and explores creating new links and bonds with good people, who can become your new siblings. These three let nothing stop them -- not even sometimes when they all hate each other.

If that's not siblove, I don't know what is.

Cover Chatter: While there was indeed a completely silly cover for this novel (so, so bad), the two official covers I've seen (there may be at least one more) have been fairly good. The UK/AU cover is suitably atmospheric, with the three teens running through a field of sea grass, and the sky looking kind of shatter-y above them. But my true love is the American cover. It's kind of ... mauve? No, burgundy, really - with what looks like a fist-sized break in a pane of glass. Behind it is the most lovely facial profile. Again -- not a big fan, here, of the Traditional YA Girl Head on novels, but she is truly gorgeous and -- if you hold the cover back and squint through the broken glass - a nonwhite model, who might even be a Pacific Islander, like the Samoan and Māori characters depicted.

You can find THE SHATTERING at an independent bookstore near you!

2011 Cybils: Misfit, by Jon Skovron

2011-12-23T02:16:00.000-08:00

We're getting right down to the wire with our Cybils selection process. The Big Dance for SFF is on the 27th, wherein we stay up all night and argue. Or, in my case, get up ridiculously early and yawn whilst everyone else argues.

The Cybils reviews will continue, even as we finish our selection and the final judges begin their deliberations, because we simply had too many unique and strange books this year to stop talking about them now. So, onward with the books!

Reader Gut Reaction: This is Jon Skovron's second novel, and he brings to it a real skill at characterization. Dry humor, excellent pacing, and realistically flawed and totally "getable" main character - one of the most fun books I've read this year. I gulped it down in a single sitting.

What I love most about this novel, perhaps, is the romance.

Now, wait - don't wander off with the eye-rolling. There is a romance - and we all love our romances, yes - but the plot does not pivot upon the One Dreamy Forbidden Irresistible Boy trope. All right? I love a romance, but I am well sick of that one, and Skovron doesn't do it. Jael's in high school, she has hormones, exercises them, yes. But, that's not even remotely the important part of the story. Read this book for that alone.

Concerning Character: Jael Thompson would really like to stick around, just once -- but she and her father move more than anyone she's ever known. An ex-priest with some kind of issues with the Church, he still makes Jael go to Catholic school - and he teaches there, too. There's kind of no escaping him. It's not that Jael doesn't love him, but it's tiring to have him be all she has, when it's not like he acts like he wants her. What Jael seems to want most is for someone to both know her and like her, all at once. Most people don't know her at all. I mean, she attends Catholic school, and she's not exactly ...angelic. Which causes her some problems, to say the least.

When Jael turns sixteen, her gives her a gift that her mother left for her when she died. It is both history and legacy, and Jael realizes that she doesn't know herself at all, either -- and neither does her Dad. Maybe her father doesn't even know what's best for her. A determined Jael sets out to get in touch with the darker side of her family, and in turn, with the darker side of herself. She's been doing her best to be good, but her mother was a demon - maybe there's just no hope for her anyway...?

This is a coming of age novel in a million hilarious ways -- with real life dramas such as high school and guys getting involved -- but it's also a really intelligent treatise on belief, and the nature of good and evil.

Recommended for Fans Of...: the Dad and Daughter novel thing - Sarwat Chadda's The Devil's Kiss trilogy, Lili St. Crow's Strange Angels series, or Jana G. Oliver's The Demon Trapper's Daughter, & etc.

Cover Chatter: I've thought and thought and thought about this cover. It's straightforward, the red, black, and gray color scheme easily appealing across sexes, and the title is only slightly whimsical, with the tail of the 's' a serpentine curve with a devilish point on the end. The 'i' is dotted with a representation of Jael's locket, a gift she received from her mother at sixteen. What I don't understand is the ...blood on the letters. There's none of that in the book. This isn't gory by any means. Maybe the letters are metal, and it's really runny rust? Ach, well. It makes the title stand out.

You can find MISFIT at an independent bookstore near you!

Warm Winter Greetings...

2011-12-22T11:08:00.000-08:00

A very happy holiday from me and Tanita and CitySmartGirl! My greetings (at the moment, anyway) come from Monterey, CA, which is spectacularly sunny, if a bit chilly. The husband and I took a couple of days to rest and recuperate and walk along the ocean, and we were rewarded yesterday with a glimpse of a whale spouting and surfacing a few times very near to shore before continuing on its way. (What kind of whale, we're not sure...evidently several types commonly migrate through the area, including blues, grays, and humpbacks...all I can tell you is it was too small to be a blue whale!)

Anyway, I wanted to share some writerly holiday cheer from Bruce Black, who has posted inspiring excerpts from his interviews throughout the year, and urge you to share a bit of holiday cheer yourself by donating to Reading Is Fundamental by Dec. 31--if you donate during that time, the Sisco Family Fund will match your gift. I'll be making a year-end donation with the money earned from my Latte Rebellion swag sales plus a tad bit more on top.

Last but not least, a major milestone from one of our longest-running blog buds--Jen Robinson's Book Page just turned SIX. Congratulations, Jen! We're privileged to have met you and have been so pleased to see your blog carve out a niche in the Kidlitosphere and in the world of children's literature. Hooray and cheers!

Unless I find a few spare moments on Boxing Day, you probably won't hear from me until next Thursday. So, with that in mind, have a very merry whatever-you-celebrate (or, if you celebrate NOTHING, enjoy that, too!).

2011 Cybils: The Girl of Fire and Thorns, by Rae Carson

2011-12-21T08:14:00.000-08:00

Stories set in various unfamiliar areas - deserts, high mountains, flatland prairies - can be neat things to read, because the weather, animal life, and entire lifestyle is so different. This novel presents a nomadic desert people who remind me a lot of the people with whom the young Alana stayed in Tamora Pierce's Lioness books. The author stays true to a fish-out-of-water character in that setting, and just on that very basic level creates a book which comes across as very real. That's what gets you - there are other very "real" aspects which deal with characterization, sibling relationships, etc., which just made the plot sing. Pick this one up, guys.

Reader Gut Reaction: Elisa is so sure she knows everything in her world, and her place within it. She knows for sure that a.) her sister hates her, b.) she's not meant to be a queen, and c.) in spite of the gift of the Godstone within her, and the reality that she has a mission on earth, she doubts that she can fulfill it.

The novel starts off quietly - with a wobbly, unsure new bride. Briefly, the plot seems to sway toward being a traditional "learning about her Prince Charming" sort of thing, but then, as the first lies are told, there's this sense of "WHAT? This is not how a Grand Romance is supposed to go. Good thing, since that's not quite what the novel turns out to be.

There's an interesting religious component, with a Godstone and ceremonies and things which somewhat mirror a liturgical service, but with its own twist. There are nasty sorcerers and innocent bystanders and those who should have been Defenders, but who are instead defenseless and bewildered. All in all, this is a twisty, surprising novel which kept me reading for one long afternoon.

Concerning Character: Elisa begins her story an unsure and wobbly princess; though she's quite young, she's being sent to marry to unite kingdoms. It's kind of her job - she knows this - but she can't help but think that her sister would be so much better at it. Unfortunately, she thinks her sister believes that as well.

Repeatedly, throughout the first few chapters of the novel, Elisa gives up - and gives in. It's easier to fill her mouth with temporary sweetness and deliciousness than to deal with what's in front of her. A husband. A secret. And people who hate her. She's got to learn who to trust - and she's making mistakes which she can't afford to make.

For anyone who has ever struggled with an eating disorder, the description of Elisa just stuffing down her feelings along with her food might make you need to get up and pace a bit. It's intense and suffocating, and utterly realistic. Overeating helps Elisa cope, but as always, any endorphin high is only temporary, and afterwards, she feels worse than ever.

Elisa has to take hold of her faith in order to take hold of her life. But, no one said it would be easy.

Recommended for Fans Of...: Tamora Pierce, Song of the Lioness and all the Tortall books, also Graceling and other books with strong female characters.

Cover Chatter: I'm pretty sure that when this book came out, it was already highlighted ad nauseum as having a "whitewashed" cover. The novel clearly describes Elisa as being "dark;" at one point, she revisits a childhood memory in which her sister cites that "dark and ugly" thing as the reason her mother breathes her last and dies -- so it's kind of a fairly salient point in Elisa's memory. We might as well be looking at her pale, beautiful sister on the cover of the first novel.

More than the color issue, Elisa is heavy. Not curvy-cute and rounded heavy, but unhealthy, dragging, weary and ill-heavy. While I don't expect them to necessarily picture that Elisa on the cover, the girl with the flashing eyes and dark hair on the ARC cover certainly bears not even a remnant of that person. Unfortunately, a lot of the novel was spent being that person; even when she wasn't the same unhappy person, her body didn't change into a pale size 4 with some magician's wand. Here was an opportunity to depict even a slightly rounded cover model, and it was missed. Unfortunate.

The replacement cover is more traditional than striking - the U.S. cover features a faceted Godstone with a face in the center, with smoky jewel colors and poisonous flowers - which relate directly to the plot. The UK cover has an exoticized perhaps Arabic, perhaps South Asian looking person wearing Traditional Desert Garb - okay, Elisa probably wore something close to this, and the cover model looks queenly here, but the line of camels makes me laugh. The desert folk wish they had that many camels and that no one had to walk!

Authorial Asides: Rae Carson was once a beauty queen. No lie. How this prepared her for writing a desert culture, I can't be sure, but it did give her insights into human nature and some great stories she'll probably never forget.

You can find THE GIRL OF FIRE AND THORNS at an independent bookstore near you!

2011 Cybils: MISSING, by Madeline Smoot

2011-12-20T13:29:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, reading along in my Cybs books, I find that the paranormal elements are slow to develop within a plot. That's jarring to some people, but when well done, I rather like stories centered in "normal" life in the known universe that then drift into the land of weird. In this novel I was caught up in the crisis and the mystery - and the tweaked attitudes of the people surrounding the case, and then I thought, "Hey, wait!" The paranormal is there - but first, there's some stuff to get through...

Reader Gut Reaction: This novel caught me off guard, and had my eyes welling with tears several times. I hadn't expected that. The emotions and the setting were very real. The mystery isn't exactly mysterious - the situation is set pretty clearly, but it's also unbelievable - thoroughly. And it's set up perfectly that way.

Concerning Character: Liv is actually... a pretty hateful sibling. It's not hard to discredit an older sister who just loathes her brother. As a narrator, Liv is thoroughly unreliable. I mean, she blames her brother for people's deaths in the neighborhood -- "see, we moved here and people died. He's just that abhorrent, obviously. Liv comes across as someone shallow, who is easily distracted by shiny things and boys. A small complaint is that her parents seem slightly one-dimensional, and only continue to fade as the story goes on - but they make the right noises that parents do with squabbling kids: "Stop bothering your brother. Don't make that face at your sister." The mutual distaste continues until one night when Liv and Mort - junior and freshman - end up at the same high school party. How heinous is that!? It's only when her brother doesn't come home that night that Liv's entire life is refocused. Yeah, so they had zero in common and couldn't really stand being in the same room, but... maybe she loved Mort after all.

It's just depressing that she discovers this when it seems to be too late.

Recommended for Fans Of...: Mort, by Terry Pratchett, Meg Cabot's Abandon, or various vampire novels.

Themes & Things: There is in this book a terrifyingly skillful depiction of the stages of grief, and the manifestation of it - very well done, to the point of being a bit stab-in-the-heart painful. However, one of the characters, Liv's good friend, brings up a thought which turns the novel around - sometimes, grief is selfish. Sometimes, we find ourselves trying to turn our lives into an apology that the person we didn't love enough is never going to see. That's not a healthy path.

I don't think I've ever come across a novel - any novel, not even just marketed to young adults - which has brought up that point. It was kind of stunning.

Authorial Asides: ...and the author of the stunning-ness is Madeline Smoot, the publisher of CBAY Books and former Editorial Director of Blooming Tree Press. After bringing the work of other people to print, she is now a debut author herself.

From the title and the way the novel ended, I understand there will be more stories forthcoming about these odd siblings... it will be interesting to see where this one goes.

You can find the ebook, MISSING: A LIV & DEATH NOVEL, at Amazon, B&N and Smashwords.

Monday Review: LOST & FOUND by Shaun Tan

2011-12-19T14:43:00.000-08:00

This book is a 2011 Cybils nominee for Graphic Novels.

I've been meaning to review this book for quite a while, but I find it difficult to write about Shaun Tan's work. Mainly this is because I have a bit of a professional crush on him, in the sense that every time I read one of his books, I wish I'd done it. And I get floored by the sheer awesomeness of the art and the visual storytelling and then I get all sorry for myself and pathetic-feeling and have to just sit there and remind myself that we can't all be so incredible. So, um, I ended up reading Lost & Found about three times over the course of this year before I felt like I was capable of writing about it.

Reader Gut Reaction: This set of three graphic stories—The Red Tree, The Lost Thing, and The Rabbits (written by John Marsden)--all share Tan's quirky aesthetic, which reminded me inescapably of the books of Edward Gorey as well as the painting of Surrealists like Giorgio di Chirico and Yves Tanguy and the collage work of Nick Bantock and Lynda Barry. That is definitely a compliment, but it's not just the visual style that is so arresting in these stories. Each tale creates an immersive world in itself, with words and art perfectly complementing one another and each story rather wrenching and poignant in its own way, from the pathos of The Lost Thing to the hopeful glow of The Red Tree. The Rabbits, in particular, is worth noting, because it's an allegorical look at the coming of Western settlers to Australia in which the settlers are depicted as the rabbits that they, in fact, brought--and which went on to plague the country and disrupt the ecosystem.

Color is used to great effect, and the large size and format of the book do a lot to make it feel as if the reader is a part of each story's world. And the versatility of Tan's visual style consistently impresses me—from expressive, highly textured and painterly surfaces to intricately detailed scenes populated with fantastical machine-creatures, he seems capable of nearly anything.

Recommended for Fans Of...: Edward Gorey's odd little books, which are collected in the various volumes of Amphigorey, the Griffin and Sabine books by Nick Bantock, and The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, who shares Tan's ability to tell a story entirely through visual means. If you're interested in lushly artistic visual storytelling, this is one not to be missed.

Authorial Asides: Shaun Tan also wrote Tales from Outer Suburbia, reviewed here, and The Arrival, which I read but apparently did not review. He has a darned awesome website, too, where he explains some of his inspiration and thought process for his books.

Review Copy Source: I acquired an advance review copy of this book from the publisher at ALA Midwinter in Jan. 2011.

You can find Lost & Found at an independent bookstore near you!

2011 Cybils: My Favorite Band Does Not Exist, by Robert T. Jeschonek

2011-12-17T05:33:00.000-08:00

In the category of Cybils Books That Mess With My Head comes the one with the Titanic and freakin' werewolves (FATEFUL, by Claudia Gray), that one with the really horrible adult-free school with gangs hideously reminiscent of Lord of the Flies, except with one REALLY AWFUL TWIST (VARIANT, by Robison Wells), and now, well, this one.

Reader Gut Reaction: All the way through this novel, I wasn't sure if I liked it. I was laughing, annoyed, bewildered, and "WHAT?"-ing most of the way through. I was a little jarred by a continuing spoof on a bad fantasy novel -- I kept thinking, "what does this have to do with anything????" And yet: I couldn't put it down. That's got to say something, right?

Eventually, it all works out.
Mostly.

Concerning Character: Well, there's this guy - his name is Idea Deity. He's... um, a little edgy, a little jumpy. He has some odd beliefs, the main one which brings on his mental skitzes is that he thinks he's trapped in the plot of a novel, and that he will kick it in Chapter 64. This is the kind of thing that can seriously "mess your head 'round" as they say in these parts, and put a bit of a dent in your social life.

He's on the run from a couple of guys who are either a.) trying to kill him, or b.) trying to keep him away from someone, or c.) trying to get him back to his parents, depending on how Idea is feeling. The girl he runs into at a concert, Eunice, decides to help him - and he wonders how soon she'll regret it.

Idea has had such a sucky life with so many rules that he's always felt hemmed in. The internet has been his salvation. He's created an imaginary world online - and in that world, he's part of a really cool rock band...

Meanwhile, Reacher Mirage is the lead singer of a hip - and super seekrit - band called Youforia. They're super seekrit because Reacher - a lovable obsessive perfectionist - just doesn't think they're ready to hit the big time. Pity that someone else believes they're quite ready -- to the point of broadcasting online where they're rehearsing, what they're rehearsing, and background details about band members, love interests, family members... it's all there on the Youforia website. Someone even knows about his relationship to Eurydice, and it's just in its fragile beginning stages.

It's all crazy. Who knows all of this dirt on them!? They haven't even had a performance yet! And yet: the band is crazy famous. Crazy popular. There are rabid, absolutely nutjob fans.

Idea and Reacher have more in common than you might think. They're both reading a fantasy novel called Fireskull's Revenant -- and as the novel goes along, so are you...

Recommended for Fans Of...: Honestly? I can't even say. This book is like nothing I've ever read. If you enjoyed Sarah Rees Brennan's short story, "Undead Is Very Hot Right Now," from The Eternal Kiss, or "Let's Get This Undead Show on the Road" from the anthology Enthralled, you'll get the sense of humor going on in this novel.

If you like wacky metafiction and reading about the power of the internet, this one's for you. Also, readers who enjoy Phillip K. Dick, Jasper Fforde, and Thomas Pynchon might find this enjoyable, as well as those who enjoy band novels which don't take themselves too seriously...

Cover Chatter:The front cover is a stylish black with a silhouetted Youforia singing their wee hearts out. The back cover is what made me laugh out loud: Fireskull's Revenant lives, people. Flaming skull and all. Check out some of artist James Smith's other work.

Authorial Asides: After you read this novel, you'll want to know who the heck this skewed visionary author might be. I looked him up on Wikipedia, and wow - he's a real fictioneer, a copious writer and while I'd heard of him, I hadn't had the pleasure of the ...mental trip of one of his books. I will say unreservedly that you have to respect someone whose nuttiness is both intelligent and disturbing. He has an unique view of the world, and it really showed in this novel. He writes crime, suspense, and science fiction. Plus some other stuff.

You can find MY FAVORITE BAND DOES NOT EXIST at an independent bookstore near you! Read carefully. If you start feeling like you're a character in a novel do not blame me.

Cybils 2011: What Happened to Serenity? by P.J. Sarah Collins

2011-12-16T04:15:00.000-08:00

O, Canada! Occasionally you bring us the most interesting new authors...

Reader Gut Reaction: This novel is DYSTOPIAN.

(* Occasionally, I feel the need to refresh myself -- and other authors -- on the meaning of the word. A dystopian novel depicts a society with a heavily-involved State (aka "police state"), which feels it is doing its best for people, in a totalitarian and coercive way. The people feel that they are being done for in the best way possible, and keep any complaints on the down-low, or are forcibly chucked from said society, or made to accept that the society is the best, in some vaguely sinister way.

Dystopian novels are not always post-apocalyptic. They most often explore misuses of technology or the natural world.

Much like steampunk, just because someone says something is dystopian doesn't make it so. Please see 1984 by George Orwell for reference. Thank you. *)

::climbs down from soapbox, dusts off jeans::

So, yeah. A dystopia. Real dystopia. And a pleasant surprise...

Concerning Character: So, Katherine's life is pretty proscribed. There's the Father, and he's in charge of the welfare of the Community, which formed in the wake of the Ecological Revolution. There are the Aunts and Uncles, whose memory is respected and revered, for they are the ones who left the Community, and they died trying to find help. There are the families and the parents, and the red light that comes from the Community TV Remote. The light from the screen makes you feel calm and centered.

Technology is what plunged the world into ecological ruin, so the Community is strictly agrarian. Individual greed and selfishness is what plunged the world into chaos, so there are no questions in the Community. There is no color in the community: brown reminds us that we are part of the Earth, and when we seek to be merely a part of the Earth, we don't seek to distinguish ourselves in any other ways. We are only part of the Community...

World-building in dystopian novels is vital, and Collins does it well here. The Community is well thought-out and clearly visible to the reader. Katherine comes across as fairly typical - she's a teen girl who thinks of boys, wonders about her future, and also wonders about the Outside. Things away from the Community aren't meant to exist in their minds, but Katherine questions unavoidably, thus recreating the traditional tension: the suppressing state vs. the wondering individual. When Father can't suppress Katherine's thoughts, he seeks to subvert the direction of her thoughts.

When her best friend's baby sister, Serenity, disappears from their tiny, ordered world, Katherine expects a panicked search. Instead, she's expected to forget Serenity ever existed.

Katherine can't forget, and won't stop looking for answers.

Recommended for Fans Of...: Margaret Haddix Peterson's Running Out of Time -- this is an older YA version of the same novel, almost, except with some intriguing differences.

Cover Chatter: First, I love the irony of the title: "What happened to serenity?!" is as much a question about the peaceful and ordered world of the Community as it is a title. We don't have a clear identity for the character on the cover. Is she meant to be Serenity's sister? Is she meant to be Katherine? We don't know, but we do know by the wildness of her eyes, she is a member of the Community, and that all is not well. I don't usually like faces on covers, but this one is obligingly sepia-toned and evocative.

You can find WHAT HAPPENED TO SERENITY? at an independent bookstore near you!

Toon Thursday: Attitude Adjustment

2011-12-15T11:13:00.000-08:00

You see, last time I posted a Toon Thursday, I revisited a theme which seems to be a personal obsession--i.e., rejection. In one of the great ironies of the universe, later that day I received a very exciting offer from my publisher. As a result, Tanita challenged me to write a cartoon that was NOT about rejection, but was rather about finally getting that acceptance letter.

All I've got to say now is....Challenge Accepted.

As always, click the cartoon to view it larger. For the Toon Thursday Archive, click here (though it needs some updating).

2011 Cybils: FORGOTTEN, by Cat Patrick

2011-12-14T03:28:00.001-08:00

I'm a woman of lists, because I swear my brain leaks out of my ears, and I don't have the excuse that it does that in my sleep.

Memory and its loss is kind of an oddly fascinating YA topic. There are a surprising number of novels, good, bad, and indifferent, on the topic. Perhaps that's because the question What should I do? is common at that phase of life -- and it's made more acute by not having all of the facts.

A compelling moral ambiguity is made more complex by a character not knowing which way to turn -- and if they have none of the facts to propel them toward a choice, the conundrum becomes sharply agonizing, comedic, or wildly dramatic, and the reader is drawn. This is a strangely charming little novel -- long on questions, and pretty short on answers. Sometimes in science fiction, an unclear answer to the questions of "What if...?" is a-okay.

Reader Gut Reaction: If we forget things with our conscious minds, does some part of our unconsciousness/heart/soul remember? This is kind of a weird question, yes, but it's in part the premise of this book. What if all we remembered was the future, but the past was instantly forgotten? In a way, it would be kind of freeing - you could live your life without disappointment or embarrassment. On the other hand, people would hate you, perhaps, or be disappointed in you -- and you'd not really understand why.

It's all about comprehending the world around you.

Concerning Character: This is the little about the plot that I can tell you: Each morning at 4:33 a.m., London Lane's memory resets. If her activities, friends, homework assignments, outfits -- all of her personal details -- if they don't show up on her lists, they're utterly lost in the mists of the past.

London has a plan for understanding her world. It involves lists - detailed lists. Notes in the note function of her phone. Alarms. Memory-joggers. She needs that kind of help, but surprisingly, she doesn't come across as scattered or particularly fey or even terribly troubled. This is just Reality for her, and she Deals, end of story.
This strange phenomenon has been plaguing London since she was small - she remembers forwards, and forgets backwards. She has a tangled relationship with her mother - she relies on her heavily, because she has to, but as a growing teen has some tiny feelings of ambivalence shaded with resentment toward her. She has one trusted girlfriend - who makes mistakes London cannot tell her to avoid, because she knows it will damage their relationship -- in fact, it already has. London is a medium sort of student - middle of the road gradewise and popularity wise, and in this way avoids the unpleasantness of becoming too involved in the lives of others -- and then forgetting them, but some things are just unavoidable. For instance, London really wants to know who this boy Luke is, who she doesn't see in any future thoughts, but who keeps... showing up in her present.

The day Luke shows up, something else happens. London has a strange, frightening memory -- a vision -- burst into her consciousness. She's pretty sure it means her father - who left her when she was a small child - is going to die. But, isn't she supposed to do something about that? Can she? And incidentally, where's her Dad been all this time? Suddenly, surviving life and dealing with her unique issue isn't enough. London has questions - and the past - and the future - demands answers, or else she may have nothing left but the forgotten past.

Recommended for Fans Of...:Emily the Strange: The Lost Days, by Jessica Gruner et al, Trigger, by Susan Vaught, Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac, by Gabrille Zevin, and films like Dark City and The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Cover Chatter: This novel has had a WEALTH and a plethora of covers.

(Props to The Mile Long Bookshelf for lining them up that way.)

Each cover highlights in some way the absence of London - we see part of her face, but not her eyes. We see her shadow, but only the slightest hint of her person. She is seen both waking and sleeping, in color and in black and white. Is she a real person, or a shadow; a waking dream or a player in her own reality?

I find it interesting - and likeable - that none of the covers show a hint of Luke. The romantic elements, while enjoyable, are just not really the point. At all.

You can find FORGOTTEN at an independent bookstore near you!

Some Holiday Notes, an Apology, and an Announcement

2011-12-12T08:00:00.000-08:00

So, first, the apology...sorry I've been a bit quiet lately, though luckily, Tanita has been more than capably holding down the fort. Aside from the usual excuses about life being hectic and whatnot, I've also been a bit scatterbrained for a much happier reason (here comes the announcement): I'm now officially a client of Jennifer Laughran of the Andrea Brown Literary Agency, who is a longtime fellow blogger--yet another reason for feeling extremely lucky and thrilled about this new development.

Anyway, a few links for your Monday perusal: First, a fundraiser that won't take but a moment of your time and will help kids in need of books. Over at Teaching Authors, they're sponsoring a fundraiser in support
of First Book--for every comment they receive on their blog this month (one per person), they'll donate $1 to First Book, up to $225. Every $2.50 donated provides a brand-new book to a child in need. And through
Dec. 31, Disney Publishing Worldwide will match every $1 donated with another new book. So Go! Comment!

Second, if you're like me, you're always interested in end-of-year booklists--here are a couple of intriguing ones:

Now through the new year, NPR Books is rolling out a huge series of lists of their favorite books of the year--kids' books and adult books, fiction and nonfiction. There are already a number I've had to put on my wish list, and there are still a lot of lists to go!
Goodreads has released the final results of their Goodreads Choice Awards, with 2011 favorites selected by readers in a number of categories.
Last but most definitely not least, the Guardian Books blog released their Books of the year 2011 back at the end of November (so glad to see A Monster Calls on that list--and I can't wait to read the new Michael Ondaatje).

What books released this year are at the top of YOUR to-read pile?

2011 Cybils: Tyger, Tyger, by Kersten Hamilton

2011-12-09T09:08:00.000-08:00

An Irish character named Teagan, which is my favorite Irish name? Check. High fantasy? Check. Strange new worlds? Check. Strong female characters? Check. This novel has in it all the things I love, plus a healthy dose of a happy family and Celtic mythology, and yet, I didn't think I'd like it. I think it was the cover. The tiny print on the cover which assured me that there was a SLJ starred review somewhere about its person gave me an extra nudge to bring it closer to the top of my TBR pile - and I'm very glad that I did.

This novel is, in part, about Irish travelers, and living in the UK, I know that rarely is there mentioned such a maligned and mistrusted group who aren't brown-skinned. They're nomadic ethnic Irish folk, who tend to keep a separate language and who live in trailers (or caravans, as they're called here) and haven't ever fit into normative British society. They're seen as dirty, feckless, thieving, and bad.

"I do not ask for a path with no trouble or regret, Mrs. Wylltson began. Teagan spoke the words with her. "I ask instead for a fried who'll walk with me down any path.
"I do not ask never to feel pain. I ask instead for courage, even when hope can scare shine through.
"And one more thing I ask: That in every hour of joy or pain, I feel the Creator close by my side. This is my truest prayer for myself and for all I love, now and forever, Amen. -

(The above is found on pg. 32 of the novel. I'm not sure whether the author made this up, or if it is a genuine traveler prayer, and it is something so beautiful I want to memorize it.)

Reader Gut Reaction: I laughed a lot, reading the first few pages of this novel. Having read a lot of Irish literature in grad school, there are some truly amusing recurring themes, one of which is Things don't go well for the Irish for long and, It's an Irish story - it won't have a happy ending. As a reader, I then knew: all kinds of crap is going to happen here. However: this is a family who is going to keep trying to pull through.

Also, there's this gorgeous boy named Finn...

Concerning Character: Teagan Wylltson's mother paints goblins - she's a popular children's book illustrator, and so they're all around the house. Her father is a librarian, and reads Celtic faeries stories aloud nightly. But, please - they're not real. Only Teagan's best friend, Abby, seems to think the ghouls and ghosties are, and she's forever lighting candles at their local for Teagan and dousing suspicious looking guys with Holy Water, just to make sure. (Teagan's pretty sure that Abby reads too many vampire novels.) Teagan and Abby's friendship is true, and Tea's unbothered by her zany - and far more fashion-forward best friend. She is beloved by her family, and her slightly aggravating, but lovable little brother, and her family life is solid. Her focus is on her life goal - to be a brilliant vet. She even puts up with a job socializing a jealous primate - who smears poop on her favorite sweater. It's all about earning the scholarship to the dream college and getting the career of her dreams. No discussions, no deviations, no drama.

What's that Yiddish proverb? "Man plans, God laughs..." (Mann traoch, Gott Lauch)

Recommended for Fans Of...: The Hollow Kingdom series by Clare B. Dunkle, and The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff. Yes, I invoked both the Dunkle and the Brenna. It is that good. Other comparisons have suggested the Lemony Snickett A Series of Unfortunate Events.

Themes & Things: This is that special brand of high adventure novel which resembles the hero's journey, except that it has more of a group vibe going on. Our fine hero steps out to sacrifice himself for the good of the clan, only ... that's not going to work. Evil is not going to be so easily appeased. It will take the whole village to rescue the hurt, and bring them back to safety. And then ... everything else in the village will change.

I love that this novel has both ghouls and God. Abby and the Wylltsons are staunch Catholics - one branch Italian, one branch Irish. On the run, the kids cobble together a belief system that's part superstition and part saints, and do their level best. The pacing and the heightened tension, when there's so much at stake, and so much more to lose, really makes the storytelling work for me.

You'll note I'm not telling you much in terms of details. I just don't want to spoil it.

Authorial Asides: In 2008, quietly prolific author Kersten Hamilton was interviewed on Cynsations. She has much that is good and intelligent to say to writers who write for the Christian market and the mainstream secular market, which she does. I'm ... impressed, and hoping to read more of her work for teens, and can't wait to read this sequel. Read Electrifying Reviews' interview with the author.

Cover Chatter: I do not love this cover - the murky colors and the indefinite picture don't speak to me. The book has starred reviews from both Kirkus Reviews and The School Library Journal, but instead of making that proud and large, it's minuscule and I missed the Kirkus one the first time around. I'm not sure I understand what the book designers were up to... but, the story is what's going to sell this, and as others read it, there will be fan art, which will make me feel better!

Read another review of this novel, and a quick author chat at The Enchanted Inkpot.

You can find TYGER, TYGER: Book One in The Goblin Wars at an independent bookstore near you!

2011 Cybils: Awaken, by Katie Kacvinsky

2011-12-07T05:45:00.000-08:00

Reader Gut Reaction: This novel seemed mistitled, at first, and the cover seemed to have nothing to do with the plot. Flowers in a jar? Awakening? The story of a quiet girl living a quiet life seemed not so much of an awakening, but a putting to sleep.

And then I realized that if you write a novel about awakening, you have to show how people have been asleep. Right.

Concerning Character: Maddie is a virtual prisoner - in more ways than one. Her father doesn't trust her anymore. She's committed a Great Sin, as far as he's concerned, and he goes so far as to track her movements with a tail on any vehicle she's in, with lie detector tests, and with a lot of heavy sighing and asking of obnoxious questions.

Maddie's a virtual prisoner in other ways - but then, so are most people. They live in front of their computers - shop for groceries, order books from the library, and even get exercise, all hooked up to a virtual universe. Artwork? Who needs messy charcoal, graphite, and paints when there are notepads and electronic brushes and screens? Music? There are thousands of voice samples, composition programs, and streaming music channels. You needn't expend the effort of going outside and interacting with people, when the whole world is brought to you via your screen...

Maddie's father is the inventor of the Digital School, and nobody does anything so gauche as go to high school in person anymore.

Recommended for Fans Of...: Saci Lloyd's Carbon Diaries series, Divergent, by Veronica Roth, and other near future dystopian books presenting a conflicted but eventually strong female protagonist who learns how to fight for her beliefs.

Themes & Things: The theme of the novel is at first contrasts - Maddie's life is thoughtful, ordered, circumscribed. She takes a gamble and meets Justin, whose life is much more colorful, chaotic, and risky than hers. For much of the novel their lives are simply contrasted, and the reader observes how vastly different their lives seem to be.

Next, the theme is sort of ecological - not as in "save the Earth," but a subtle push to save humanity - from itself. Readers may be divided about the reality presented in that message, but it provokes some interesting thoughts.

Cover Chatter: I did mention that the cover seemed very quiet - a pixelated photograph of flowers in a jar - and also somewhat nonsensical -- Um, flowers in a JAR?? But, I think the novel's central theme is depicted clearly in the cover - flowers don't grow and thrive their best in jars, even as human beings would not grow and thrive their best inside. Perhaps the message sounds a little heavy-handed, but it actually sneaks up on the reader with reasonably subtlety. (Or, maybe it was only me who's slow to catch on.)

You can find AWAKEN at an independent bookstore near you!

2011 Cybils: Flip, by Martyn Bedford

2011-12-06T05:41:00.000-08:00

We don't have a lot of Cybils books by British authors, but I'm always a bit pleased when we do have them, because for once I can cruise down to the library and get my hands on them before many of my other Cybs teammates! Author Martyn Bedford is actually a fairly well-known British author - for adults. This is his first novel marketed to young adults.

Reader Gut Reaction: Surprisingly, this novel is a little freakier than Freaky Friday, which I always thought was unrealistically lighthearted. If you woke up in someone else's body... frankly, twin squeals would not get it. Who wants to be their mother? With no idea of how long it'll last, and why it happened, I wouldn't be trying to imagine ways to get my mother to take my calculus test - I'd be frantically trying to get... her... OUT.

I imagine that it would be even worse if the body in which you awakened wasn't a friend or relative's, but a stranger's...

(British Cover)
Concerning Character: I like Alex. He is genuine, a "swotter," a clarinetist, and he's brave. When faced with waking up in a boy named Phillip's body, he's justifiably terrified, but he's canny enough not to fall completely apart -- not at first, at least. His increasingly desperate actions really ratchet up the tension level in the novel as he becomes someone who is at first willing to go along with things, later, willing to try almost anything to be home with his family... and then, finally, willing to try anything at all, with no qualifiers.

The classmates, girlfriends, and friends Alex meets while inhabiting Phillip's body are ... not as dull as Phillip's sister might think, but not as sharp as they could be, either. Clearly, in Phillip's life, there's been nothing but sports and girls. He is popular and good looking, well-liked and well regarded, despite his dismal grades and underachiever status. Alex struggles to figure out how to be someone like Phillip, first physically, then socially. Eventually, the behavior Alex assumes to be Phillip's comes easier and easier... but is it really Flip he's turning into? Or, a more less version of himself?

(U.S. Cover)While Alex is casting about for answers, he runs across an older guy who seems to have some... and at first, he's a comfort. Then, Alex wonders what he's gotten himself into.

I didn't think I'd like this novel - I mean, Freaky Friday as I've said: been there, and they've Disneyfied that. But, this is much deeper... a search for both identity and answers. I'm not surprised that this book is an ALA 2011 Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers. It's a mystery I couldn't put down.

Recommended for Fans Of...: Well, we've already covered Freaky Friday, by Mary Rodgers, I Will Fear No Evil, by Robert Heinlen, and at least two or three R.L. Stein novels like, The Barking Ghost. This is a true science fiction novel, because the idea of "what if?" is riding right out in front of the plot.

(Canadian Cover)Themes & Things: Body swapping is a trope because it's based largely on longing to be someone else. All over fiction, in movies and in books and on TV the theme is repeated. Bedford actually explores this really thoroughly in Flip and both the upside of having someone else's body (with some hilarity), face, and wardrobe are explored and the downsides as well. People are like homing pigeons - we know where home is, and the obvious thing to give ourselves comfort, when we're feeling six kinds of crazy from finding ourselves in someone else's body, would be to go home... but, what will the people there think? That you're a crazy person? Or worse?

Bedford coins the term "psychic evaluation," and I had to Google it to just to make sure it wasn't real - that tells you how disturbing this book is, and how far it goes to capture the imagination, shake it up, and return it to its proper place, a lot more nervous, and a bit shaken. FLIP is a well-paced and tautly written, thoughtful psychological thriller.

(Italian Cover) Cover Chatter: This is a most successfully covered book, let me tell you. Apparently the imaginations of the design teams were truly captivated. In the hardbound British version I read, even the chapter numbers are backwards, reflecting the flip that has taken place in Alex's life. I like the Canadian cover the very best, because the character of Flip is adorable, and his hair has the look of it might be stylish, with the judicious application of product, which is something that Alex struggled with in the story. The Italian cover is the most unique - both faces are striking on their own, but when put together, there's a Beauty & the Beast moment happening. Even the Dutch illustrated cover depicts a pivotal moment from the text. Recently Bedford announced that there will be a Chinese language edition. I cannot imagine what they'll do!

You can find FLIP at an independent bookstore near you!

A Few More Links

2011-12-05T08:00:00.000-08:00

I've been too busy for a lot of my regular bookish activities--including writing reviews or updating Goodreads or anything like that--but I still wanted to tune in and say hello with a few interesting writing- and YA-related links that have crossed my virtual desk recently. Well, I suppose the desk is physical. But the information is virtual.

First, via my mom and the NCTE newsletter comes a PDF article from author Jennifer Buehler that includes a wealth of advice and resources from YA authors, including a few links that were new to me as well as a few familiar ones.

Next, did you know that Lee Wind of I'm Here. I'm Queer. What the Hell do I read? has a newsletter now? He does, and it's great--you'll find out what's new on the blog, what speaker visits Lee has been doing lately, and you'll even get an inspirational quote to round it all out. To sign up, just go to his blog and enter your e-mail address in the sign-up box at the top of the left-hand column. One recent post highlighted the Make It Safe Project, which "donates books about sexual orientation and gender expression to schools and youth homeless shelters that lack the resources to keep their teens safe." In addition, they have tons of resources and support for school Gay-Straight Alliances. Kudos, and I hope their efforts are wildly successful! (via Little Willow @ Bildungsroman)

Can I just note how excited we are that our good friend Colleen of Chasing Ray has a Big Idea post up at John Scalzi's Whatever blog? I'm in awe, especially since I thought about writing in to ask about doing a post but then after reading a bunch of amazing installments of Big Idea I completely chickened out. Colleen's post adds to that amazingness and I hope it brings many more readers to her gripping book about Alaska flying, Map of My Dead Pilots.

Last but not least, a couple of links from Graphic Novel Reporter--these links really got me excited about my upcoming term as Round 2 Cybils judge for Graphic Novels: first, a graphic novel holiday gift guide, with suggestions for all ages and tastes, and second, a list of favorite graphic novels of 2011 (which is going to make MY Christmas list much, much longer). I was happy to see a few of the great ones I read this year on the best-of-2011 list, like Anya's Ghost.

Well, that's it for today. I hope to get my butt in gear enough to do a review for this Thursday, but we'll see!

A Cybils Check-In

2011-12-03T07:01:00.000-08:00

Yes, you've noticed: we haven't had much to say that isn't specifically book-related around here lately! A.F. and I have been working away at our version of NaNoWriMo, which in our case is National Novel Oh, For Heaven's Sakes Just Finish It Month (NaNoFiMo for short), which, owing to our vast knowledge of ourselves and our general panic level, goes on for two months instead of one.

I just finished a massive, brain-draining project and some small revisions on something else, and The Race Is On to finish one last thing before the end of the year. Meanwhile, A.F. has received some excellent news about a project of hers, and now has this one last project to go...

And, then there's the Cybils. Just to keep things interesting.

Of the 171 books nominated in Fantasy & Science Fiction, of which there are quite a few dystophias - some just randomly grim and filled with mayhem, others thought-provoking and classics-in-the-making; a few funny, mostly a lot of romance, relationships and revenants -- bring on the undead emo! -- I have to admit that I am not quite at the halfway point in my reading.

Yeah! I know. I'm disappointed in me, too.
Partially, it's because some of the books haven't arrived, or, won't arrive. Partially, it's because I've been distracted by three other projects, and with a holiday in there, and a Christmas concert after which my train was canceled and I got stuck in Edinburgh on a Sunday afternoon (with no book in my bag!!), I lost my A-game. But, now I am down to one more concert, only finishing one novel(!), and doing One Big Fat Read. I can do this.

Well, it's a MAYBE on the novel. I'm hopeful I can do that.
But, I know I can do my Cybils reading.

That's one of the more fun things about taking part in the judging each year. It's not just the singular joy of discovering fresh, unique storylines that you enjoy that you haven't heard people talking about, and that you can talk up on your blog. It's also a personal challenge, and a feeling of accomplishment, and the fun of wallowing in the riches of stories and not feeling the least bit guilty about all of the people you're ignoring to do so.

Busy. Reading. Later.

The real trick is to figure out a way to always live like this.
~~~

That was LITERALLY the DHL guy just now. I have another box of books... and I'm off.

-- Later.

2011 Cybils: The Near Witch, by Victoria Schwab

2011-12-02T05:11:00.000-08:00

Reader Gut Reaction: Long, long ago... This novel has so much of the feel of a fairytale that I was pleasantly shocked. It's rare that you get a new fairytale. Retellings are a dime-a-dozen practically, but it takes skill to put together something that feels like it's been simmering in culture and oral tradition for a few hundred years. This novel crosses that hurdle with aplomb. Gothic and dark, but with a lyrical tone, this is a story-within-a-story. It starts with a bedtime tale, a tale told generally to frighten small children, but plunges into the heart of the entire village, and takes every character with it.

Concerning Character: First of all, the village of Near itself is a character. It is moody and desolate, sparsely peopled with some who have been there for what seems to have been thousands of years. The Moors are a character - mysterious and trackless, and unknowable - forbidden and scary.

Lexi is her father's daughter - stepping into his heavy, worn boots, strapping his whetted knife around her sturdy waist. She is a Hunter and a tracker, with not much to hunt or track. Her uncle takes care of the family now, and his care is more a shepherding, a driving her in, toward the center of town, toward known things, acceptable boys, and respectability. He has all but promised that if she does not embrace these things, those she loves - her baby sister, Wren, her mother, her home - will be forever taken from her.

Lexi's mother is a shadow of her former self; as her Uncle becomes more imposing, her mother fades away. Lexi is desperate to find her mother again - and to push back her Uncle's influence on their lives. There needs to be a change - even though no one and nothing much ever changes in the village of Near...

The change, when it comes, is everything Lexi desires, and nothing anyone would have ever wanted.

Recommended for Fans Of...: Jane Yolen's Pay the Piper, or Donna Jo Napoli's Breath and other fairytale retellings wherein A Great Wrong is done to a witch, and the whole village has to suffer until they atone.

Themes & Things: The night Lexi sees the Stranger, things begin to shift irredeemably within. She is unstoppably curious about someone she doesn't know. Who is he? Why has he come? More importantly, why hasn't anyone new ever come along? Why are there no other strangers?

There's an entire history of secrets and lies and things forgotten which haunt this village. A Hunter can find out the truth -- but only if she's allowed to hunt. Themes of self-reliance and standing up for the truth, and for those who are different give this novel a strong backbone.

Cover Chatter: From the author's descriptions, you can almost see the village of Near, its low, encircling wall and the desolate moor. It's very atmospheric, infintely moreso than the cover. While Lexi at the window is a common enough scene from the novel, and the overlay of vining flowers is possibly representative of the witch's garden, the female-teen-with-sheer-curtains (Bad Girls Don't Die, Witchlanders) has been done fairly repeatedly. It's not a bad cover by any means, but the novel contained within is certainly better.

You can find THE NEAR WITCH at an independent bookstore near you!

Toon Thursday and Random Notes

2011-12-01T12:17:00.000-08:00

Greetings! Today's toon is on a familiar topic...the range of cartoons I can write on the subject of rejection seems inexhaustible somehow. Wonder why that is? Anyway, as always, click to view the cartoon larger.

On a separate note, some good links have come my way over the past few days. From Doret over at Happy Nappy Bookseller comes a list enumerating MG/YA books published by authors of color during 2011, as an addendum to a post by Zetta Elliott on the topic of books published by African American authors over the past year. Interesting reading (and fodder for TBR piles, too)...the numbers are pretty thought-provoking and I'd love to see someone crunch them in relation to the total number of books published by all authors.

If you're looking for gift ideas, MotherReader has released her annual list of 150 Ways to Give a Book. There are ideas for all ages--and I especially love that Tanita's A La Carte is on the list.

Speaking of giving books, there's still some time left for the Guys Lit Wire Ballou Holiday Book Fair--buying even one book would help these kids' school library more than you can imagine.

Looking for someplace to send your writing? There are a few contests going right now. With a Dec. 15 deadline is the She Writes Young Adult Novel Contest, to benefit Girls Write Now. All you need to do is sign up for She Writes (which is free) and your 2,000-word excerpt could be eligible to win valuable feedback and guidance from writing and publishing pros. And, if you're up to writing an essay, you could win a 50-page critique in a contest from the Book Wish Foundation. Some great authors and agents are involved in both, so get cracking!

2011 Cybils: Wildefire by Karsten Knight

2011-11-30T04:12:00.000-08:00

I am always intrigued by how tricky it must be for male authors to write a novel with a female protagonist in YA circles. We're pretty female-saturated in the field, both in terms of writers and readers. As writers, we're hard on women who write male characters lacking in testosterone. There are going to be equally difficult challenges for male writers (although, somehow feminine roles are just never as sharply defined as what men are "supposed" to be. Don't even get me started on that soapbox). However, if you don't get tangled up in what you assume gender roles to be, you'll find that men who know women can write multifaceted and realistic characters of any gender. We at Wonderland very much champion the male YA writer, so YAY, Karsten Knight! And yay for the debut salvo in a trilogy promises to be as fast-paced, fresh and intriguing as the first novel.

Reader Gut Reaction: Though there are a ton of mythical retellings going on in YA fiction, there aren't a whole lot of them which fall outside of the traditional - Greeks. A few Egyptians. Aaaand, back to Greeks. Other cultures have myths and gods and goddesses, and it's intriguing to see the rest of the pantheons finally representing.

This is a novel which reflects the real world for some young adults - so there's a lot of unapologetic underage drinking and behavior that will be looked on unfavorably by some, but it's hardly the point of the story, and goes beyond that to tell an engaging tale.

Concerning Character: Ashline Wilde would just like to have ONE good thing going in her life. She's the only Polynesian girl in a pretty Caucasian school, her adoptive Jewish parents love, but don't really get her, her boyfriend - now ex - has turned out to be a complete cheating tool, and now her sister, Eve, who is crazy mean (heavy emphasis on crazy), has just blown back into town -- and has actually managed to make sure that Ash's world is completely, seriously ruined. Knowing she never wants to see her sister again, Ash transfers to Blackwood Academy three thousand miles away to start over again.

It's not the clean-slate start that she thought, though. Ashline is expected... no, she was summoned to Blackwood, she and five other students. Supposedly, she's some kind of a goddess? And so is Eve.

Wait, what?

Ashline is tough, driven, and angry. Her intelligence, which shines forth as the novel progresses, is part of what saves her.

Recommended for Fans Of...: Anyone who enjoys action and adventure tales of teens with strange abilities. If you enjoy the X-Men, or the Percy Jackson novels, and the novels of Tera Lynn Childs, this one's for you.

Themes & Things: While there's sisterhood in this novel, it is mainly about finding your own way, in spite of what you've been given, and about looking within and finding out what you've been given. Ashline has been given a lot - her adoptive parents are upper middle class, and they have given she and her sister every advantage - and yet, Eve is still unhappy and leaves, and Ash is still awkward-feeling and making bad choices. It's only when she starts to draw from within herself that she changes and becomes who she's meant to be.

This is, of course, brought out a lot more subtly than I just said it.

Cover Chatter: A flower illuminated in a sea of other dark flowers - both matches a scene within the novel, and mirrors Ashline's internal powers. A beautiful, must-stroke-it cover which I think will appeal to tons of readers. Mr. Knight lucked out - I think this cover is gorgeous and will appeal to readers all across the board.

Even the German language cover has a lot of originality and while its flower is more stylized and not as pretty, it is appealing as well.

You can find WILDEFIRE at an independent bookstore near you!

2011 Cybils: Slice of Cherry, Dia Reeves

2011-11-29T02:44:00.000-08:00

Once there were two sisters who were separated from their father. They lost their innocence, but were left with their anger...

PSA: This book is about sisters. It is about sisterhood. It is about loving, and hating. It is about innocence, and its end. Despite the bland Library of Congress description (Dating? Social customs? African Americans? Really, guys?) it is pretty much a supernatural murder mystery, with more bloodshed -- and more mystery -- than you might be comfortable with at first. To be blunt, the body count is pretty darned high, and the attitudes about scrubbing blood from beneath one's manicure are pretty blasé, so This Might Disturb. I would not presume to list age restrictions, but were this a movie, its rating would take into consideration violence and sexual situations. Definitely better for mature readers, and of course adults (those aren't always the same thing).

Reader Gut Reaction: Dia Reeves is frankly an intriguing author to me, and so far, it has always paid to follow her down the twisted little path of story through the hedge-mazes of the her bizarre inner universe. She is an excellent writer whose quirky humor is paired with the richly imagined, bloodstained, and haunted parallel worlds of wherever she's writing about, plus the South. There's something parablesque in her novels, and there are, as in all good Southern fictions, stories within stories.

It's hard to communicate to you the tight turns of phrase ("Cadbury-smooth skin" which gives hints of both color and richness without clubbing you over the head), ironic, sardonic humor (Oh, the letters from the nuts in the community), the subtle nuances of meaning or the true-telling in this clearly fictional novel without spoiling it, so this review will be necessarily lacking in detail. Just read the book.

Concerning Character: Fancy and Kit Cordelle are sisters who are the children of a notorious serial killer. They're closer than close, practically twins, practically the same person. Even their wishes are the same, or so Fancy thinks.

Their mother works the graveyard shift at the hospital, so they have uninterrupted - and unsupervised - time together in the warm summers in Portrero. Portreto is a weird town in and of itself, a place of doors where monsters lurk, where green-clad warriors make it their business to patrol the Dark Park, and where transients come and go, and are pretty much universally reviled. Potrero-ites stick together - everyone else can go hang. It takes a little something special to open a door and make a place for yourself in a community like Portreo. Not everybody who visits stays. Not everyone who visits survives...

While Fancy has been mostly the observer, Kit's favorite hobby used to be animal dissection, but it's lately become more interesting to discover the ins and outs of the human body. Their father had an interest that direction, after all. Prowlers, kidnappers, molesters get a bit more than they bargained for with Kit and Fancy ... these are the children of the notorious Bonesaw Killer, after all.

Lazy days are spent reading and answering the mail ("What I love about Guthrie Cordell is that not only is he one of the few black serial killers, he is one of the best..."), looking through the doors of Fancy's other world to see what's there, and, well, finding new people to play with (Kit & Fancy's playmates tend to wear out easily). When their mother begins to suspect that Kit and Fancy are not using their summer vacation, er, wisely, she decrees that the girls go to summer school. Fancy balks. What does she need other people for? Kit, on the other hand, thrills with the chance to meet people and air out her hormones. Kit starts to get to know people. She changes. She gets a ... boyfriend.

And the furiously betrayed Fancy's not having any of that nonsense...

Beware of the girl who can wield a sharp knife... and open doors into other worlds...

Recommended for Fans Of...: Well, that's hard to say. If you like horror novels with a strong family theme, this one's for you. Alyxandra Harvey's Hearts at Stake series is the only thing I can think of which might slightly compare because of the tight family bonds. Jack Gantos' The Love Curse of the Rumbaughs because the family that dissects together... um. Yeah. (Flowers in the Attic comes to mind, but Reeves' writing is stellar, and rises far above that of Andrews'.)

Themes & Things: This novel is, at heart, a Bildungsroman, a the story of growth and development within the context of a defined social order. It is kicked off by deep loss, and is earmarked by the arduous effort of the individual to find a place for themselves within the social order. Of course, the social order is a bit...er, disordered in this novel, but the conclusion is still the same - a place is found, and the individual can now see that they belong.

This story has the flavor of parable, of gossipy urban legend transformed by oral narrative into the wisdom of the elders, tales of warning and woe. Did you ever hear about The Girl Who Stayed Out Too Late? Well, she Met A Bad End. Kit and Fancy have A Bad End prewritten into their story. They live in a powerful world and have strange abilities, abilities which help them fit into the world of monsters they inhabit. Their ancestor, Cherry, was certainly as fey - maybe a witch? Maybe not. They are "slices" of Cherry, and with their father the murderer (and their penchant for slicing people), chips off the ol' block. Theirs was to be an odd tale regardless.

And yet: they are also an average, albeit freaky, family. They squabble and argue (mainly about whether or not their victims should live or die). They meet boys (and imagine doing great violence to them - in Fancy's case, anyway). They fall in love - and their swains bring them gifts. They ask questions (sometimes with the use of drugs) to find out truths. They grow up - eventually. And they find out that change isn't always as bad as it seems. Sometimes, the best way to enjoy the sundae is to eat the cherry on top.

Maybe the theme of this novel is that even the freakiest of us are all pretty much the same.

(Mostly, anyway.)

Cover Chatter: The beauty of light-limned, fine china, the quirkiness of its polka dots and stripes. The freak factor of streaks and spatters. Oh, yeah. The cover is clean and striking and highlights both the Southern gentility of the girls - tea drinking, as all good Southern girls do, thank you very much - and the creep factor - bodily fluid on the cups - instead of the romance. As the book's jacket flap reads, "Happiness is a bloody knife." The cover goes right along with that, and the only thing they could have done better was have a few crumbs of red velvet cake.

You can find SLICE OF CHERRY at an independent bookstore near you! Be prepared to shiver, wince, and laugh... and then worry about yourself for laughing.

2011 Cybils: Witch Song, by Amber Argyle

2011-11-26T06:30:00.000-08:00

In a Cybils crop filled with plenty of dystopia and -- still! -- vampires, this is a fantasy tale in the more traditional vein. It doesn't begin with "once upon a time," but it has the classic fantasy feel which makes it an engaging and satisfying read.

Reader Gut Reaction: This is a Quest novel, and there's a feminine version of the Hero's Journey going on. Senna is raised in ignorance of her heritage, spit into that rarefied world in the midst of it being threatened, and must make her way and take her place within that world, and play the part which only she can play. This is a solid, tried and true plot device, and it works. Through some parts of the novel, the reader might feel mired in mud, as the resolution stalls, but overall, this moves reasonably well. The conclusion leaves room for either one book, or more.

Concerning Character: As is typical for me when I read novels based strongly in the Hero's Journey trope, I have a hard time liking the Hero(ine) at first. They come across as resentful, immature, and blind, often making impetuous decisions that really cost. Senna is blind to an entire world, and when she discovers it, she is both awed and resentful. Anger at her mother eventually gives way to self-blame, and she doubts the guardians who are sent to help her. Senna has a few more leagues to travel on the Journey, because of her own hardheadedness, but in the end

Recommended for Fans Of...: The Crystal Singer series by Anne McCaffrey, The Spellsong War by L.E. Modesitt, Jr., Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, China Miéville's King Rat, and any other fantasy novel which uses music as a powerful force.

Themes & Things: Imperfect, impetuous heroines are a definite must for the Hero(ine)'s Journey. Senna is ignorant, impatient, infuriated and inept by turns. Her success is assured only through her perseverance, which is a main thematic element of the Hero's Journey. A secondary theme is that of strong women -- supported by strong men. Sometimes in novels praising strong women, the men are completely unsung, and it's refreshing to see someone keep the balance right. Well done, Amber Argyle.

Authorial Asides: According to the About the Author section in the back of the book, Amber Argyle has a real face, and is not a pseudonym. (The euphonious-ness of her first and last name together made me think she'd made it up.) Argyle is a Utah writer who has "worked as a short order cook, janitor, and staff member in a mental institution. All of which has given her great insight into the human condition and has made for some unique characters." Indeed.

You can find WITCH SONG at an independent bookstore near you!

2011 Cybils: ANGELFALL, by Susan Ee

2011-11-25T06:11:00.000-08:00

"I wonder which will get you killed faster -- your loyalty, or your stubbornness?"

Sooo, I've made it plain how much I hate angel fiction, right? Somehow, vampires, unicorns, orcs and all the rest don't bother me, but I've never liked the whole angel thing - from the fat, naked Cupid with wings and a lap blanket to the Michael Landon-Della Reece-tele-extravaganza, to the much more recent novel craze thing. Somehow, angels bug me more because of the element of faith involved, unlike, say, with werewolves. We have faith that they don't exist. (Um, right?) Now, I'm all about making hamburger out of sacred cow, to quote Mark Twain, but the depictions of fictional angels are so random. They run the gamut of saccharine sweet to plain scary... (much like vampires. Hm). No one can agree on any kind of lore.

Well, anyway. I had all of my reasons lined up for why I don't the whole angel thing, but now I have to say, I don't like most angel fiction. I ran across a book that has elements of courage and sacrifice... and dystopia. Which made a good thing better.

Reader Gut Reaction: The familiar Bay Area setting (Mountain View!), Penryn's iron will, and the dire circumstances of "the end of days" came together to make this an eminently readable and memorable book.

Concerning Character: Penryn just wants to keep it together long enough to make everyone safe. Ever since her Dad left, her mother has been off in schizophrenia-land, and returning to lucidity less and less often. Six weeks ago, after the world as Penryn knew it was demolished by these monsters called angels, she lost whatever was left of the girl she'd been. Gangs have taken over the cities, and lawlessness and sprawled bodies are a daily sight. Penryn's main goal is to keep her wheelchair bound little sister, Paige, fed and safe, and get her family to a less populated area.

Their escape was going so well, until the angels landed in the middle of the highway, and began fighting with each other.

And then, they took Paige.

Recommended for Fans Of...: Carrie Vaughn's Voices of Dragons, David Patneaude's Epitaph Road, and other family-centric dystophia.

Themes & Things: It's hard to name a singular theme for this book, but "Appearances are deceiving," would be a good one. Or maybe, "It's not what you think." I could add something about judging books by their covers, but that would be just overkill.

Ironically, these phrases could apply to the character as well. Penryn thought she knew all there was to know about angels; Raffe thought he knew all there was to know about Daughters of Men, and they both thought they understood the world around them, and how it worked.

And both of them were wrong.

Authorial Asides: This is author Susan Ee's first novel, but her short stories can be found in Realms of Fantasy magazine and in other places. She is quoted as saying that she chose to write about angels because of the gamut of story about them - from destroying army to dimpled cherub. "Like unicorns and vampires, they must have an amazing public relations department." Hah!

You can only find this book from Amazon Digital Services for Kindle or Barnes & Noble for Nook - but eventually it will be a paper book, too. Meanwhile, don't forget that if you don't have a reader, both Kindle and Nook have readers for computers.

A Writerly Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T08:00:00.000-08:00

HAPPY TURKEY DAY!

Here's wishing you all a very happy Thanksgiving, even if you live somewhere where you won't be eating mass quantities or celebrating the mythology of pilgrims and Native Americans feasting together in peace and harmony.

I'm grateful for quite a few writerly things this year, myself. I'm thankful for the wonderful friends and critique partners that comprise our writing group, WritingYA. I'm thankful for the fantastic community of kidlit bloggers, many of whom have become good friends over the years, and who make me feel like I'm not alone or working in a void when I'm sitting at my computer all day. I'm thankful for my wonderful publisher Flux, my superhero editor Brian Farrey, and everyone else there who made my first novel publication such an exciting and enjoyable experience this year. I'm thankful for the support of other authors out there whom I've had the privilege of getting to know a bit better this year, and I'm thankful for the conferences and other circumstances that brought us together. I'm thankful for everyone who has read my book, and for everyone who took the time to comment on it or review it or send me words of kindness and support.

Since this is about writing and all, it shouldn't be surprising that there are a few words people have said that I'm especially grateful for. I'm thankful for the reader at San Francisco's Balboa High School who said "thank you for writing this book." I hold those words close when I'm feeling discouraged and uncertain. I'm thankful for the words of my onetime figure drawing professor, Dewey Crumpler, who said "Do not be afraid to step into the void." I try to remember that when fear is keeping me from my work. And I'm thankful for the words of my co-bloggers, Tanita and CitySmartGirl, both on and off the blog.

Enough gushing. Eat, drink, and be merry! And feel free to leave a comment and let us know what you're thankful for this year.

Hail & Farewell, Anne McCaffrey

2011-11-23T01:29:00.000-08:00

All The Weyrs of Pern, by Michael Whelan
This was my computer desktop picture for much of the early 90's.

Have a seat. Close your eyes.
Go back in memory to your favorite Anne McCaffrey book.
Does it include dragons?
(Incidentally, were you into dragons about the time you were into horses?)

As you are by now aware, Anne McCaffrey, prolific publisher of science fiction books and short stories has ended her journey around the sun, at age 85.

When I read the news, the first thing I thought was, "and thus ends an era."

For some reason, though I read and loved Menolly and the Dragonriders and the Harper Hall books, and liked the dragons as well as anyone, I never loved them. Not as much as I loved... the ships.

The ships were about freedom - and distance - and adventures. The ships were about lucky breaks, escapes, and the ultimate cooperation between a person and their machine. They were about the romance of the unknown, and the unexplored frontier.

The Ship That Sang was probably the greatest book, ever, and was published in 1961-9, as a series of shorts published in various magazines. The novels that followed it were stories of people trapped, by disability, within their bodies, given the freedom of the stars. These were some of the earliest, "friendly" tales of cyborgs, in which a man-machine hybrid was not some mindless killer, but a complex and alive person, just incorporating differences into their bodies.

For some reason, this hooked into my imagination, and set it spinning.
(That, and the crazy '60's - 80's era paperback covers. Those probably had something to do with my excess of imagination. And, possibly, nightmares.)

There were more dragon books, a unicorn series, and some sea-people stories. There were tons of books marketed to adults, the relationships in which were strongly flavored with the 60's version of the Battle of the Sexes. Later, there were tales of new settlements, twins, ESP, pirates, and yet more dragons. But my stubborn favorite has remained the Brainship books. And oddly enough, those were Anne McCaffrey's favorites, too.

She was the first woman to win a Hugo. She was the first woman to win the Nebula. And though many of her books are looked at kind of sideways by many Serious Science Fiction Aficionados, she was a woman who went, in the late fifties and sixties, into realms traditionally only open to men, and she opened them up - with unique and strange and incisive stories that dealt with the sexual politics of the day, but also which dealt with the reaches of science as it was known then.

You don't have to like all of her books, or any of her books, but you've gotta respect the heck out of that. She opened the doors for the women whose science fiction writing I respect today -- and they're keeping it open for the next generation.

It's always sad to lose someone during the holidays, and we send our hearts out to the McCaffreys at this time. But, we at Wonderland also salute the pioneering imagination of this Grand Dame, and join with her thousands of other fans in saying "thanks for the memories." As long as we keep reading, the magic remains alive.

The Ships are still singing, and now singing her home.

These are the Ship books:
The first Helva compilation novel was followed by a series of team-written novels, including
* PartnerShip (1992) with Margaret Ball. ISBN 0-671-72109-7
* The Ship Who Searched (1992) with Mercedes Lackey. ISBN 0-671-72129-1
* The City Who Fought (1993) with S.M. Stirling. ISBN 0-671-87599-X
* The Ship Who Won (1994) with Jody Lynn Nye. ISBN 0-671-87657-0

Her partner authors wrote two more alone -
The Ship Errant (1996) by Jody Lynn Nye. ISBN 0-671-87854-9
The Ship Avenged (1997) by S.M. Stirling. ISBN 0-671-87861-1

Well-covered in most public libraries, Anne McCaffrey's books are everywhere. If you've never read anything by her before, ask a librarian for their favorite of her books, and start there. Or, start with the ships...

from Wikipedia: The American Library Association in 1999 cited The Ship Who Sang and the two early Pern trilogies (Dragonriders and Harper Hall), when McCaffrey received the annual Margaret A. Edwards Award for her "lifetime contribution in writing for teens."

2011 Cybils: Sweet Venom, by Tera Lynn Childs

2011-11-22T06:45:00.000-08:00

Reader Gut Reaction:I missed this author's whole mermaid phase, so a mythology novel seems a return to a familiar topic for me, as her BOOTCAMP GODDESS was a Cybil selection a few years ago. Tera Lynn Childs does Greek mythology quite well, and a book with the fun setting of San Francisco, combined with the idea that it does indeed contain strange monsters, made this book lots of fun. Fast paced, light adventure, and ghoulish monsters for all.

Concerning Character: Gretchen would like to have a normal life - well, maybe not really. As nice as it is to live in a great, modern townhouse, and have no curfew and no one to be concerned about her comings and goings, she really wishes her mentor, Ursula, would answer her phone once in awhile. Things are getting really weird in Gretchen's world; there's practically the constant reek of monsters, and she's getting called out all over the city to dispatch them. She's hardly getting to sleep at night, and if she can't pull it together, there are going to be teachers phoning home... only, Ursuala isn't home. And Gretchen will just have to keep on trying to fulfill her destiny ... until she dies trying.

Grace keeps reminding herself that everything is now going to be different. A computer scholarship to a prestigious San Francisco high school means that she has the chance to go on to Stanford - and it's worth it to her to change schools and take a gamble on not only a dream, but changing her own realities. Unfortunately, it's not that easy to be someone bold and daring when you've spent all your time being "boring" and "doormat" before. Grace meets a cute guy who actually seems into her - which of course is why she suddenly starts hallucinating a dude with the head of a bull, and another one that looks like a snake with feathers.

The very best dates are when you smell something so bad you puke a little, right?

Halfway through the book, readers meet Greer... who really would just like to be left alone...

Recommended for Fans Of...: The Percy Jackson series, Meg Abot's Abandon, and Aimee Carter's The Goddess Test. Mythology retellings for $500, Alex!

Themes & Things: Even if you're unfamiliar with the story of the Gorgons, if you enjoy adventures with strong female leads, you'll enjoy this novel. Themes of self-sufficiency and cooperation to overcome obstacles plus a subplot about belonging, and how we can make family will make this a fun series.

Cover Chatter: A clever cover - yes, we've done female backs in YA, but the thick braid, resembling the heavy, arched body of a serpent, and the hair tendrils curling to resemble the forked tongue of a snake made me want to read the book before I even knew what it was about. Plus, Sweet Venom is a pretty good title, too.

You can find SWEET VENOM at an independent bookstore near you!

Monday Review: BEHEMOTH by Scott Westerfeld

2011-11-21T08:00:00.000-08:00

This book is a 2010 (yep, last year, because I can never quite catch up on the TBR pile) Cybils nominee for teen sci-fi/fantasy.

Reader Gut Reaction: The second installment of the steampunk alternate history trilogy by Scott Westerfeld (the first book was Leviathan) continues the friendship of unlikely shipmates Alek, prince and heir of Austria-Hungary, and the young Scottish midshipman Deryn, who is still managing to keep up her masquerade of being the boy Dylan. In the first book, the outbreak of WWI meant the death of Alek's parents and his flight from a mountain stronghold with a few choice men. They hitched a ride on the British fighting airship the Leviathan, where Deryn/Dylan was serving after joining the forces.

Now, the Leviathan has tangled with a new German weapon and must land in the city of Istanbul, which hasn't quite chosen a side in the war, though German Clanker technology has made inroads. The British, of course, plan retaliation with a new weapon of their own. Alek and Deryn realize that it might be up to the two of them to find a way to keep things from escalating.

I have to be honest--though I quite liked the first book, I wasn't as engaged with it as I turned out to be with this second volume. I really enjoyed this one. And, as before, I love the fact that this is an illustrated book, and Keith Thompson's images are a perfect fit for the story.

Concerning Character: The main characters of Deryn and Alek became more developed and fleshed out in Behemoth and that made them more relatable for me. This was especially true for Alek, who I couldn't relate to as much in Leviathan. He felt like a Draco Malfoy type with an insufferable sense of princely entitlement (testament to the author's writing abilities--it was a very convincing portrayal). But in this volume he gets to prove his mettle and show a humbler and also more mature side to his character. He's also helped along by an appealingly cute and intelligent little creature--newly engineered by the British Darwinist Dr. Barlow--called a perspicacious loris. (If you want to see something amazingly cute, just do a Google image search on lorises.)

Deryn, too, gains complexity in this book, but in her case, the stresses of hiding the fact that she's a girl are starting to weigh on her as she proves to be more and more successful as an officer. Not to mention the fact that she's not sure how she might feel about Alek, and the other fact that Count Volger seems to have more than an inkling of her secret. The author does a skillful job of intertwining the character development with the plot so that they progress in a way that feels natural but never loses its tension and suspense. And can I just say how much I love all the strong, smart female characters in this series?

Recommended for Fans Of...: Steampunk books that incorporate alternate history, like Jenny Davidson's The Explosionist (reviewed here) and Invisible Things (reviewed here), or Cherie Priest's Boneshaker (reviewed here).

Themes & Things: These are very much two hero characters who overcome various high-stakes and adventuresome challenges, and develop a sense of individuality, ethics, and social consciousness along the way. The costs of war have been an idea very much at the forefront of this story from the beginning, with both characters having experienced the human cost of war. The often complex nature of relationships, of course, is brought into high relief as Deryn realizes that she might have feelings for Alek, while he has no idea she is even a girl.

Authorial Asides: Scott Westerfeld has a most excellent blog. You should read it.

Review Copy Source: Borders clearance sale.

You can find Behemoth at an independent bookstore near you!

2011 Cybils: Dry Souls, by Denise Geston

2011-11-19T07:19:00.000-08:00

Reader Gut Reaction: A surprisingly hopeful dystopia - not exactly a happy ending, as there are some horrific losses and details not tidily tied up, but a solid debut novel, and the first in a realistic dystopian series.

Kira's life has been spent knowing that water isn't something to play with. It isn't something to wash in too often, either. And forget about plants - it's illegal to grow things for personal use, and nobody can grow flowers. Water is just too precious for that, and is rigidly controlled and rationed.

Concerning Character: Kira is difficult, and a loner -- or so she's always been told. It might be because in the girls' home where she lives, she rarely gets space or privacy, and the rumor persists that her mother was a freak. When Kira discovers a tiny wildflower growing outside, she hoards water for its survival, harvesting even her spit to help keep it alive. This discovery is worth the risk of making a friend, but her change in behavior has other girls circling suspiciously.

And then, Kira makes a terrifying discovery... that leads to a betrayal and a change in her life which forces her to question everything she's ever known. The world has lost water - but it wasn't a loss. The water was polluted and ruined. It might be that the world can be made right again -- but is it Kira who can make it right?
Recommended for Fans Of...: Drought, by Pam Bachorez, Water Wars by Cameron Stracher, or Saci Lloyd's The Carbon Diaries series.

Themes & Things: Traditional dystopian motifs abound, including first being seduced by, then later subverting the power of the state. Kira's eventual escape is a happy surprise, and her decision to partner with those who have suffered to benefit the great good reminds me a lot of Tally Youngblood's determination in Uglies, by Scott Westerfeld.

Cover Chatter: The girl's face in cracked earth makes for a great cover - it works, and though it's been done before - generally for lotion commercials - it makes the points needed.

Amusingly, this book is put out by CBAY Books - and the letters stand for Children's Brains Are Yummy. Sadly, there are no zombies in this novel...

You can find DRY SOULS at an independent bookstore near you!

2011 Cybils: The Hickey of the Beast, Isabel Kunkle

2011-11-18T06:26:00.000-08:00

With a title like that, you knew I'd be dying to read this one, didn't you? Okay, then. On with the review.

Reader Gut Reaction: Here's the recap: Cynical, snarky, fast-talking high school freshman faculty brat who fights evil. That's basically the novel. No Buffy here - but the banter and must-save-the-world thing tells me the author might have watched an episode or two. Lots of love going on for the strong heroine and her unbeatable sidekick friends. Author Isabel Kunkle manages to write a novel which is genuinely like Freshman year - crammed with moments both hilarious and horrible, with a few surprises along the way.

Despite its hilarious name, there are no real hickeys. Sadly. The novel is a little verbose, and slightly predictable, but it's an excellent, original and fresh effort, and I love the way it was first serialized by Candlemark & Gleam. (Also: I LOVE the name of that publishing company!! It just says "spending time by candlelight" to me. Sigh.) This character has verve and energy, and I look forward to reading more from this author & tales of Springden Academy.

Concerning Character: Consuela - Connie - is dreading freshman year. It's not as if the school is new to her - mother has been Head of Springden Academy for years - only now she's in high school, and all of the fun people who came over and hung out with her parents who were just their friends are now her teachers. The school only has three hundred students, and about 85% of them board. There's no privacy, no secrets, and no escape from the gimlet eye of the faculty.

Or Connie's mother.

And yet, it looks like things might not be that bad. She's made a couple of actual friends, and there's a few guys who were sophomores ore juniors last year who now suddenly look fairly decent. Things are going great.

Until the nightmares start, and that one girl goes crazy...

Something is taking out the girls at Connie's school, right and left. It starts off like the nastiest 'flu in the world, and some kids aren't recovering. What's worse, is Connie is somehow... maybe making it happen...

Recommended for Fans Of...: Really? Buffy. Sorry, had to go there. Also recommended for fans of Hermione, fans of Tamora Pierce's Circle of Magic novels, and fans of The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown.

Themes & Things: This is a coming of age novel, yes. It's about a really intelligent main character, dealing with the things, doing what she can to help others, and realizing that sometimes you don't get thanks for it, and you have to take the fall. But it is also clearly a deconstruction of The Hot Brooding Loner trope. I shan't expand on that, or it would lead to spoilers, but it shows some thought on the part of the author.

Cover Chatter: The cover scared me. Clueless looking girl. Stack of books. BIG MASSIVE THING on her neck. I was like, "Eeeeeeeeew!" And to be honest, I pretty much said that in high school whenever I saw hickeys (hickies?) on people. (Looking at you, Tanya H.) CLEARLY, I have no romance within my soul.

The cover gets a reaction. That's exactly what it's supposed to do. It's perfect. Ugh.

You can find THE HICKEY OF THE BEAST at an independent bookstore near you, or in ebook form @ Candlemark & Gleam!

Back To Ballou

2011-11-18T04:56:00.000-08:00

I play Free Rice.
I give to various charitable groups, and give again when there's some catastrophic emergency. I donate clothes and old glasses and do all the little things other people do, and I know I can't solve all of the world's problems...

...but I must admit that I'm pretty galled that a school in D.C. is still below the American Library Associations minimum book recommendation. Most American schools, in their school library, have in excess of eleven books per person. Ballou High School, thanks to the efforts of an earlier book drive, are now at four.

Ballou High School is 98% African American.
*It has an 82% attendance rate.
Most of the students there seem to want to get something out of high school.

Here's your chance to help.

Thank you.

Wikipedia stats, by the way. I'm not calling to check in with the registrar or anything.

Toon Thursday: More Wheels

2011-11-17T08:00:00.000-08:00

I don't know what it is these days, but apparently I'm into the whole wheel/pie chart concept. Two weeks ago was the Query Letter Wheel of Misfortune; this time, something that pretends to be a bit more helpful if you're lacking in inspiration. And if you find that the artwork looks suspiciously similar to the previous toon...uh...all I can say is, uh....Reduce, Reuse, Recycle?

Before I sign off, please go visit Guys Lit Wire and contribute to the Holiday Book Fair, a drive to get 300 more books for the Ballou High School library in D.C. We're trying to make it so their library at least meets, if not exceeds, the ALA recommended minimum number of books per student. They started the year at LESS THAN ONE book per student; thanks to GLW's earlier book fair, they now have four. Help them take it to eleven! Books, that is.

One Shot World Tour: City Living - Adventures in Alternate London

2011-11-16T12:38:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Book City! (Do you not LUUURRRVE that graphic? Tanita made it! It's awesome, isn't it?)

London is one of those cities that will always be particularly meaningful in my life. It's where my parents met and lived for two years before I was born; it's where my dad first immigrated from Pakistan and made his home for more than fifteen years; it's where I spent a memorable summer working various random jobs between my junior and senior year of college. It's where I learned how to mix a gin and tonic, where I got hit on by a Scottish soccer hooligan, where I ran gleefully through a hedge maze and rode my first subway. It was the first overseas place I ever visited, as a baby and then as a four-year-old toddling around after my parents; again as a sullen thirteen-year-old, with my mother. It's a place where I have friends, where I have extended family, where I feel like I have invisible roots, however tenuous.

Maybe that's why books set in London always appeal to me, and as a fantasy fan, I'm particularly drawn to books about alternate Londons—past, present, or future. In this post, though, I wanted to focus on present-day alternate Londons, and take a quick look at two books that bring to life the world that lies just beneath or beside the London we know. If you're a fan of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials books and their version of alternate Oxford, then you'll want to take a look at these.

One of them I've reviewed on this blog in the past: Un Lun Dun by China Miéville. In this book for younger YA/older MG audiences, twelve-year-old Zanna and her best friend Deeba accidentally stumble upon a secret entrance to UnLondon, a fantastical alternate version of the city they know and inhabit: "UnLondon is full of quirky magic, sly humor, and engaging, imaginative personages from the outlandish to the silly--reanimated rubbish that has seeped across the barrier from London, giant flies manned by crews of air-pirates, people with pincushions or diving helmets or occupied birdcages for heads." (from my earlier review) And, one of the things that I loved most about this book was not just that one of the main characters, Deeba, is South Asian, but also that she ends up being the sidekick who steals the show and has to save the day. Readers who've grown up with Wonderland and the Phantom Tollbooth, with Roald Dahl's zany scenarios, are sure to enjoy this one.

For older readers comes a book that's not specifically for YA audiences but will definitely appeal: Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, which is actually a novelization of a BBC miniseries from the mid-90s. Having watched the miniseries as well as read the book, my opinion is that the book is superior, although that might be because I read the book first. In any case, this is another tale of a London that exists beside—in this case, beneath—present-day London. But in London Below, as Richard Mayhew discovers, there are new and unbelievable dangers as well as wonders, and if Richard can't navigate his way through and out (helping the mysterious young woman Door in the process) he may never be able to return to his regular life. What I loved most about this one was how Gaiman takes the old and intriguing names of well-known London locations, like Blackfriars, Knightsbridge, Seven Sisters, and Old Bailey, and gives them lives of their own with magical provenance: the Black Friars are actually a group of friars who hold a key that Richard must retrieve; Knightsbridge becomes the harrowing Night's Bridge. It's imaginative and fun, the kind of setting that you end up wishing really existed somehow.

Books like these end up adding another wonderful layer of story to a place that is already alive and bristling with centuries upon centuries of history and tales. For me, they enrich and inform the way I think about London, the way I experience it each time I'm fortunate enough to find myself there.

Bonus Reads:

Fantastical Past Londons: Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke, The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers, Black Book of Secrets by F.E. Higgins (the first two are written for adult readers, but would be fine for older YA)
Imagined Future Londons: Carbon Diaries by Saci Lloyd, How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff

Also, be sure to check out Jackie's post at Interactive Reader on historical London as well as Tanita's post on Terry Pratchett's truly zany city of Ankh-Morpork. The full One Shot schedule is available and updated throughout the day at Chasing Ray.

One Shot World Tour: Book City - Ankh-Morpork

2011-11-16T02:30:00.000-08:00

Atlantis. Brigadoon. El Dorado. Camelot.

These cities either sink beneath the waves, remain hidden under shrouds of mystery, or melt into the ether. Lost cities - fabled, fantastical hideaways that people go to war over and lose, then spend blood, sweat and tears trying to find again.

Mordor. Charn. R'lyeh.

Perhaps the loss of these places is deliberate. Perhaps it's safer that they remain unseen. Heere Ther Bee Dragonnes. Cthulhu. Sauron.

The cities are lost, all right? Maybe it's better to leave well enough alone.

Right, then, that's decided. We'll leave those places to sink into darkness and obscurity -- after all, who doesn't love a tale of a lost city that stays safely lost? We shall relish the mystery and obscurity... and turn our attention to the all-too-present city-states of Ankh and Morpork, which are now governed together as Ankh-Morpork.

No mystery there.

Just a strangely sludgy river, completely ridiculous inhabitants, and its own peculiar, stunning stink.

"Poets have tried to describe Ankh-Morpork. They have failed. Perhaps it is the sheer zestful vitality of the place, or maybe it's just that a city with a million inhabitants and no sewers is rather robust for poets, who prefer daffodils and no wonder. So let's just say that Ankh-Morpork is as full of life as an old cheese on a hot day, as loud as a curse in a cathedral, as bright as an oil slick, as colourful as a bruise and as full of activity, industry, bustle and sheer exuberant busyness as a dead dog on a termite mound." MORT, by Sir Terry Pratchett

(The city mottos above and below the hippos are "Merus in pectum et in aquam" [Pure in Heart and Water] and, less straightforwardly,"Quanti canicula ille in fenestra" [How Much is That Doggie in the Window], again proving the theorem that anything said in Latin sounds obscure and intelligent.)

Occasionally known as The Big Wahoonie (A fruit the color of earwax with the reek of sick anteater), the combined city-states of Ankh-Morpork are the home of the mildly tyrannical Patrician (who leads the city in a "one man, one vote" type of democracy, only he's the one man with the vote) the City Watch, Death (and his skeletal rat sidekick), and a cast of characters which have carried readers of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels through eight creative and sharply humorous City Guard episodes. Ankh-Morpork is essentially the hub of a wheel in the Discworld universe -- everyone wants to live there, and everything that happens there has some reverberation throughout the Disc.

What is it about Ankh-Morpork that I love? Well, I love its character. It has a vast opera house, on the swanky Ankh side of town, cobblestones you can feel through the (cheap) soles of your shoes in the Shades; it has rains and mists with their own personalities, and stenches which rise up from the river almost bodily. It has -- is -- character. It practically owns its own lines in any of the novels. It has crazy street names like Treacle Mine Road, where you could once dig up real treacle (something which could only excite people who like it, eg., Brits). The city has strange hippos on its bridges, who allegedly will run away if the city is ever threatened by water (which would be a neat trick, since the river is so muddy it's mostly solid). The City has crazy buildings, like The Tower of Art on the campus of Unseen University, which throws off so much ambient thaumatology (aka magic) that it changes the pigeons roosting on its rooftop into somewhat more than nature intended pigeons to be... and explains the talking dog (any of the region around the tower is called Unreal Estate for a reason). Ankh-Morpork has texture and a certain je ne sais quoi that makes it remarkable and distinctive and home to about a million inhabitants - human, dwarf, troll, vampire, gnome, gnoll, werewolf, and "others," including zombies and the monsters that live under the bed and the Tooth Fairy. And Corporal Nobbs. That's the kind of city which simultaneously makes you feel at home, and makes you wonder how the heck you got there.

I would live there - on the Ankh side, but near the University, I think - in a heartbeat.

Ankh-Morpork is allegedly based on the cities of Tallinn (Estonia) and central Prague, but has elements of 18th century London, 19th century Seattle and modern New York City. Since I've been everywhere but Prague thus far (only in our time period... although, with Tallinn, who can be sure), maybe this is why the place feels so comfortable? Ankh-Morpork is a semi-medieval city that... works. Mostly. Except for incursion by the odd dragon, the City Watch does their job, the Patrician ...votes, and the rest of the rabble falls in line. More or less.

A favorite of the early City Guard novels is Men at Arms which begins with a diversity drive for watch...men. "Be a MAN in the City Watch! The City watch needs MEN!" the posters blare. Well, "men" may not be the right word, because the city watch has found a.) a troll, b.) a dwarf, c.) a girl, and d.) incidentally, a werewolf. On top of all of that diversity, there's a serial murderer on the loose, the beginnings of a romance, semi-real pork, and a talking dog. Plus, the watch is going to be stood down and put on leave at noon the following day, for a wedding. As usual, things are a hair away from being ruined for good. Fortunately, the city of Ankh-Morpork doesn't breed timid men. Or, timid talking dogs, assassins, fools, or City Watch personnel, either.

If you've never read any of the Discworld novels, and this just sounds like a geek-ramble to you... well, it is. Other than providing you with story lines, almost anything I say about these books will contain spoilers - which is no fun. The Discworld novels are an acquired taste, but the thing is, it's an easily acquired taste, if you're in a slightly punchy mood and have studied philosophy (which describes half of the British people I know). It crosses easily into American readership because in spite of everything, the characters in the novels really love their city, and make you love it, too. There's patriotism and pride, as the Watchmen defend their city, and when trouble lurks (which really, is every other five minutes), the head of the city watch snarls, "Not in my town!"

I love all of the Watch novels, and to prepare myself for this city salute (and, for no really good reason otherwise except I reread these things about once a year), I started reading Men at Arms. It's a book which includes visits from Death, an invention of Leonard da Quirm (who is obviously a parody of Leonardo da Vinci), a scary clown from The Fool's Guild called Dr. Whiteface, and a visit with the head of The Assassin's Guild.

(Ironically, the clown is the scarier one in this scenario. Certainly he's scarier than Death, which tells you something about clowns.)

This book is one of the many which has modern technology stuck into a semi-Renaissance city. Because of this, it is well-received by its audience, and is one of the Watch books which most often gets written into a play (the one with the dragon might be a bit harder to stage). This poster is from a summer festival play in Wellington, New Zealand.

(This still sounds like a geek-ramble, doesn't it? Oh, well. The nice thing about this geek-ramble is that I'm not alone. Author Sir Terry Pratchett, together with a television personage have gotten together to make a City Watch TV Show. Soon, the geekery will spread...)

These novels are especially fun because they're marketed in Britain to adults - and teens. They cross-over perfectly for a people who have a lot of common experiences (like being required to take philosophy), but they cross the pond just as well, and if you enjoy the Tiffany Aching novels, these will crossover well for you, too.

You could start your foray into the Discworld by getting to now this famed city. Start your reading with the City Watch books (Guards! Guards!, Men at Arms, Feet of Clay, Jingo, The Fifth Elephant, Night Watch, Thud! and Snuff) which will give you a feel for the city which is so beloved - and bedeviled - by so many. It will also give you a taste of Death (an anthropomorphic personification who talks in unquoted small caps), zombies, black-ribboner vampires ("Not one drop! Don't be a stupid sucker!") time travel, and C.M.O.T. Dibbler's sausage-inna-bun (which you should spit out immediately, you don't know where that's been). If you begin now, you can read through the Watch series and then get on with The Hogfather by Christmas...

Whatever cover you choose, you'll find in these books a fabulous city with hidden streets, bizarre people, and a fascinating cast. Enjoy! And please enjoy more Book City salutes today!

New and Upcoming Releases Shout-Out!

2011-11-14T16:02:00.000-08:00

I don't have a review for you today; instead, I wanted to do a quick shout-out to a few longtime blogging and writing friends, perspicacious reviewers all, who have BOOKS OF THEIR OWN getting released in the coming months and whose wonderful writing deserves attention and fame and fortune. :)

First and perhaps foremost to THIS blog is the fact that our very own Tanita has a new book coming out in May of 2012 entitled Happy Families--check out that awesome cover. The book's about a set of fraternal twins, Ysabel and Justin, and the Amazon blurb says "their father has a secret--one that threatens to destroy the twins' happy family and life as they know it." There's already been considerable speculation amongst our blogging friends as to what that secret might be, to which I simply say "NYAH NYAH" because I know what it i-is. But you'll have to read it to find out.

And then, coming out VERY soon--next week, in fact--is a memoir (not YA) by our good friend Colleen Mondor of Chasing Ray entitled The Map of My Dead Pilots: The Dangerous Game of Flying in Alaska. Having just read it, I can definitely tell you that this one is poignant, at times shocking, and always tough to put down. It deserves that Booklist starred review. (Full disclosure: I'm also helping Colleen revamp her website to include info about the book--so I've been extra excited and enthusiastic about it!)

I'm just as excited that our friend Kelly Fineman of Writing and Ruminating has a picture book due out in March of 2012 from Tiger Tales Press called At the Boardwalk. Just look at that adorably wonderful cover illustration--I can hardly wait to force this one on my youngest nephew for his birthday in May. He's got to read SOMETHING that isn't about trucks or trains, after all.

Also coming soon from frequent visitor and kindred blog bud writerjenn--aka Jennifer Hubbard--is a new novel entitled Try Not to Breathe, which sounds dark, difficult, gripping--and important. And, on the topic of not-breathing (uh, kinda) also in January comes the latest from blogging author and kindred spirit Holly Cupala, Don't Breathe a Word. Don't confuse the two, though they promise to be equally important books--the former is about depression, while the latter is about abuse and life on the street. You'll just have to read them both.

Get Discovered!

2011-11-11T01:09:00.000-08:00

It's time once again for the YA Novel Discovery Competition! From Serendipity:

Young Adult Novel Discovery Competition
Get in Front of Top YA Editors and Agents with
ONLY the First 250 Words of Your YA Novel!
No query? No pitch? No problem!
Serendipity Literary Agency, in collaboration with Gotham Writers' Workshop, is hosting its Third Annual Young Adult Novel Discovery Competition for a chance to win a one-on-one consultation with one of New York's leading YA literary agents!

If you've written a novel for young adults—or have an idea for one that you would like to write—we invite you to enter our contest. Simply submit only an enticing title along with the first 250 words from the opening of your original YA novel. Go here: http://bit.ly/YAContest.

GREAT PRIZES
The Grand Prize Winner will have the opportunity to submit an entire manuscript to YA literary agent Regina Brooks and receive a free, 10-week writing course, courtesy of Gotham Writers' Workshop, plus a collection of gourmet teas from Possibili-teas.com.

The Top Five Entrants (including the Grand Prize winner) will receive a 15-minute, one-on-one pitch session with Regina Brooks, one of New York’s premier literary agents for young adult books. They will also receive commentary on their submissions by editors at Scholastic, Disney, Harlequin Teen, Random House, Viking, Roaring Brook Press, Sourcebooks, and Kimani Tru and receive a one-year subscription to The Writer Magazine.

The First 50 Entrants will receive a copy of Writing Great Books for Young Adults by Regina Brooks.

Enter to win http://bit.ly/YAContest - right here. Here's the kicker: the contest ends November 30, 2011, so if you're doing it, DO IT NOW.

Even though sometimes we find that author contests are somehow deceptive - either with hidden costs inside or hidden scams or something else, this one seems to be the real deal. Regina Brooks is an actual agent and this is a way for her agency to find new authors and enjoy tea and the attention of editors at the same time. In fact, we at Wonderland can honestly endorse this contest because we know someone who placed in the Top 5 last year, and she's really enjoyed having an agent and having her work read and critiqued in preparation for publication. We know that someday soon her very nuanced, detailed, and exciting fantasy will burst onto the scene and find itself many more fans.

Go, Writers!

Thursday Review: BLOOD RED ROAD by Moira Young

2011-11-10T08:00:00.000-08:00

This book is a 2011 Cybils nominee for teen sci-fi/fantasy.

Reader Gut Reaction: A dystopian adventure with the feel of Mad Max and a girl who kicks butt--what's not to like? Really, there is a lot to like about this book. The narrator, Saba, lives in a harsh, desolate world already, just eking out a living in dried-out, dusty Silverlake (no relation to the one in L.A., from what I can tell, though that did throw me a little). When her father dies and her twin brother Lugh is kidnapped by scary road warrior types on horseback, she sets off with her pet crow Nero to get him back. Her quest leads her through a set of harrowing adventures that made this book difficult to put down: from cage fighting to dust sailing to confronting insane drug lords.

A few things did throw me, though: the most significant was the fact that the book is written in a sort of dialect that reads like rural speech—dropping the "g" at the end of "-ing" words, saying "I says" and "she don't," etc.--and that took some time to get used to reading and might be the kind of thing that gets on some readers' nerves. Generally speaking, it fits the story, but at times I felt like it got in the way. I also had a minor issue with the realism of having a pet crow (according to what I've been told, they're far more ornery and, er, violently protective than depicted here). Overall, though, this is an action-packed story that's hard to put down. Oh, and this may sound like a spoiler, but it's something I was glad for and others will be happy to know: THE CROW DOESN'T DIE. There. I said it. No dead pets. Thank the gods.

Concerning Character: Saba (which, by the way, means "morning" in Urdu--and, of course, Lugh was the Bright One in Irish/Celtic myth) is the kind of character you want to root for all the way--she's a fighter, she's stubborn and won't give in, and even when she's doing the right thing for the wrong reasons and being hardheaded, her inner core of goodness remains unchanged. Sure, she's rough around the edges--everyone is, in this setting—but she'd do anything for her family, even her annoying little sister Emmi. And by "anything"...well, it means she does a lot of horrific things, but none of them as terrible as the things that the mysterious King is supposedly doing. The bad guys in this one are BAD, and that makes for constant tension throughout the story that keeps you turning the pages. Although some of the characters are a bit over the top--much like a Mad Max movie--fans of the gritter, more post-apocalyptic dystopia genre will probably like this one.

Recommended for Fans Of...: House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer; Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban (an adult book, but suitable as a crossover—anyway, I read it as a teen); A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. (reviewed here; also an adult book) and other post-apocalyptic fiction.

Themes & Things: The strength of family bonds is one of the primary themes driving this book--and what forges those bonds to begin with. Lugh, as Saba's twin, never had to work hard for her love, but Emmi, on the other hand, was just the annoying little sister, something which changes over the course of the story. That dovetails nicely with another major theme: opening one's heart to others, in simple friendship and in times of need. Both of these are things Saba has trouble with, much to the consternation of her potential love interest, Jack. Frankly, love isn't something she's had on her mind much at all, obsessed as she is with getting her brother back. Oh, yes, obsession and its benefits as well as its downside--another driving force in this story, and we're not talking just about Saba but also about those whose obsessions send them down an unsavory path. For me, both theme and character were somewhat subordinate to plot and action in this one, and so I'd suggest it for fans of plot-driven stories with a lot of atmosphere and setting detail, like The Hunger Games.

Review Copy Source: Borders clearance sale.

You can find Blood Red Road at an independent bookstore near you!

Call for Submission, Scary, Scary Booklists, etc.

2011-11-09T01:35:00.000-08:00

Wild Onion Press is offering $500 and publication of a story that fits their mission of Books Starring Kids with Physical Differences. This prize is inspired by Grace Mary McClelland, whose award-winning picture book educates, inspires, entertains and engenders compassion in all readers as it changes perceptions of physical difference.

The Prize Committee is made up of Wild Onion Press editors, illustrators, book designer, educational consultants as well as Grace McClelland and her family who will review the recommended final three.

Manuscripts may be of any length in the genres of picture book, chapter book, middle-grade or young adult memoir or novel. The main character must be in a heroic role in which a physical difference is not a disability but merely an outstanding characteristic. The winning manuscript will be available for sale on the Wild Onion Press website and through online booksellers, including Amazon.com

Deadline January 1, 2012. The winning manuscript will be announced May 1, 2012 with publication following.

Go to www.wildonionpress.com for more information and instructions on how to enter.

Hilariously, via the MarySue, a list of books which made the staff, as young readers, absolutely terrified of puberty. Sylvia Plath? Check. Maya Angelou? Check, check, check. I snickered that they included Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman in there, butchaknowwhat? Yeah. It fits. Any book which includes the girl running away to avoid marriage made me kind of cringe-y back in the day. Read the whole list here.

Would you pay $300K for a wee tiny book... if it were written by Charlotte Brontë? Well, someone one. The book, written when Charlotte was just fourteen, is a teensy replicated men's 'zine with hand-cut and lettered pages, made for fun for her sisters to enjoy. It's adorable, tiny, and the 19-page story is suitably nutso, involving, as it does, Mr. Rochester's first wife, Bertha, murder, and insanity. Good fun, that. It's pre-Jane Eyre Brontë. I'm sure somewhere Edward and Bella are bidding madly.

Hot Times: Summer in the City

2011-11-08T03:03:00.000-08:00

Whether it's the Lost City, the Naked City, the City of Angels or the City that Care Forgot, we're talking city stories here in the kidlitosphere on November 16th, all day. Join us in saluting the cities that form some of the places for our favorite YA and kidlit fictions. This is a great chance to highlight a city at your own blog, and gain a fat and juicy list of some really great books - old, new, and of all genres, and some of which you'll have never heard of before. Colleen @ Chasing Ray will keep an all-day master list, so you'll be easily able to find participating blogs - and you're invited to participate, too!

Join the fun and share your tales of the city on November 16th!

Vampires vs. Unicorns: DRINK, SLAY, LOVE by Sarah Beth Durst

2011-11-07T08:00:00.000-08:00

This book is a 2011 Cybils nominee for teen sci-fi/fantasy.

Reader Gut Reaction: Full disclosure: I'm just about at full capacity when it comes to books about vampires. (Admittedly, it didn't take very long.) But I've read just about everything that Sarah Beth Durst has written so far, and she has such an engaging and funny writing style that I was willing to give this one a shot. Or a nibble.

You've heard, no doubt, of Zombies vs. Unicorns. Well, it wouldn't be inaccurate to describe Drink, Slay, Love as vampires vs. unicorns. Pearl is a vampire—a young vampire—and her primary concerns are hanging out with her hot vampire boyfriend Jadrien, drinking the scrumptiously ice-cream-flavored blood of the Dairy Hut kid, and preparing for the Fealty Ceremony at which she'll become a full-fledged adult vampire. At least, that was all she cared about until the fateful night she got stabbed in the heart by a unicorn. Too bad nobody believes her. After all, unicorns aren't real...

Concerning Character: Pearl is one of those characters who starts off a little more tongue-in-cheek, a little more humor and flash than substance. Then she grows on you. Not just in terms of general appeal, but also with respect to depth of character. And that fits the story—Pearl is just a vampire to start with, but getting stabbed by a unicorn has unexpected side effects, the most notable of which are that she can now walk around in the daylight and she begins to develop...a conscience. What kind of vampire actually starts to feel bad about her potential victims? This ends up being a major complication when she's sent out into the world by her Family (yes, the vampires are a little like the Mafia) to acquire a feast to remember for the upcoming Fealty Ceremony.

When Pearl enrolls in high school (surely an excellent source of deliciously drinkable humans), it isn't quite as easy as it seems to blend in and fulfill her family's directive. What happens when she (gasp) makes actual friends? I love the funny but also sincere what-if questions that drive this story: What if a vampire really did enroll in a high school and it wasn't glamorized and glittery? What if a vampire showed signs of conscience and didn't have an amazing, understanding family to back her up?

Recommended for Fans Of...: This is a fun look at vampire fiction that should appeal to fans of Kimberly Pauley's Sucks to Be Me (reviewed here), Cynthia Leitch Smith's Tantalize (reviewed here), Life Sucks by Jessica Abel (reviewed here), or anyone who's tired of vampire fiction that takes itself too seriously.

Themes & Things: Friendship. Love. What it means to have those, compared to not having them. Learning that friendship and love come in different flavors, and learning that you can find family that are just as valuable and meaningful as the family you were born into. (That seems to be a common theme in the books I'm reading lately, but honestly, it is an important life lesson.)

Review Copy Source: Author/publisher

You can find Drink, Slay, Love at an independent bookstore near you!

Toon Thursday: The Stuff of Nightmares

2011-11-03T08:00:00.000-07:00

In honor of Halloween earlier this week (not really, but hey, it works thematically) I present you with some writerly nightmares via this not-quite-a-handy-pie-chart...it's more of an evil roulette wheel. Enjoy, and pray none of these happen to you. *Cue eeeeevil laughter*

Click the cartoon to view slightly larger in a separate window.

2011 Cybils: ABANDON, by Meg Cabot

2011-11-01T05:27:00.000-07:00

I had to start this novel twice - about eight months ago, I started Insatiable, thought this one was the same one, and went, "Meh." I blame the covers for confusing me. You know how sometimes you're in a weird place mentally? Totally my fault, not the book. Anyway, the second time, I picked up the book, I thought, "Oh, wait. Did I read about this weird family reunion with the guy from prison and the "did-you-see-a-light?" conversation, and kept going - and then, next thing I knew, the book was over.

Reader Gut Reaction: In a genre saturated to swampiness with shapeshifters, zombies, vampires and angels, this book stands out like a solid place to stand. If you like your fiction with a touch of dark gothic drama, and your romance with a lot of bewilderment and confusion, you'll enjoy this.

No, seriously.

Concerning Character: Pierce's family is really larger than life. There's her father, who sells weapons to the military - and whose company is responsible for oil spills, the death of sea birds, and a lot of other crap. There's her Uncle Chris, who served sixteen years for murder. There's her grandmother, who runs a shop called Knuts for Knitting - and yes, it's as unbearable as it sounds. There's Pierce's mother, who is all about saving the birds - which is why she and Pierce's dad are divorced.

And then there's Pierce: the girl who died and came back to life. The girl who allegedly killed a teacher at her last school. The D-wing girl, whom everyone in her new school thinks is both scholastically challenged and flat-out certifiable.

Her family's a prickly, quirky bunch. Her mother's kind of a hippie at heart, her father is definitely the epitome of Montgomery Burns, from "The Simpsons," but Pierce cares about them fiercely. She cares about her friends. She cares about the sea birds, about drowning animals, about everything alive.

She's been like that since before she died... but it just got a lot more serious.

Recommended for Fans Of...:Keturah and Lord Death, by Martine Leavitt, Robin McKinley's Rose Daughter, The Phantom of the Opera, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, etc. etc.

Themes & Things: Meg Cabot has taken an old, old story cycle and revived it. It's the dark prince longing for the princess of light, in leather-clad bad boy gazing with longing at the fresh-faced girl in the library. Light and dark, stippled into a pleasing pattern; Hades and Persephone all over again. It is an old, well-loved, and in this version, darkly romantic tale.

Cover Chatter: Oh, dead girls. Again. Publishing kids. Can we talk about this? I mean, I'm not trying to read something like "violence against women" into this when the plethora of dead girls obviously means nothing, but can we just stop killing waif-y looking teen girls? Please? I mean, I know Pierce dies in this novel, and all. But...

Okay. Let's just talk about the good things. The paperback cover, ferinstance. It's got all the correct elements: a defenseless looking teen, check. A fairy fluffy dress, check. Also: a girl in a leather jacket. Also: a two-worlds theme going on, above/below, light/dark. Now, that works. Actually has something to do with the story, and all parties pictured are alive. Points for a full torso and head, as well!

But, okay, if you like the hardback cover, the ... arabesque-y floral motif and the font and junk are elegant, too. All right? Fine.

You can find ABANDON - in paperback or hardback, if you insist - at an independent bookstore near you!

Monday Review: ALCHEMY AND MEGGY SWANN by Karen Cushman

2011-10-31T08:00:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween, Celtic New Year, Day of the Dead, and so forth!

No matter what your plans are, we hope you enjoy yourself.

This book was a Cybils nominee for Middle Grade Fiction last year, in 2010.

Reader Gut Reaction: I am not necessarily a huge fan of historical fiction--I only read it occasionally--but I've enjoyed every book I've read by Karen Cushman. Alchemy and Meggy Swann is no exception; it joins the other wonderful books she's written about life in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. This one takes place in Renaissance London, the Elizabethan era, just before the time of Shakespeare. The setting is brought to life in vivid detail--not sparing the unpleasant aspects such as, er, defenestration, though not making so much of them that it distracts from the story itself. You can see, smell, and hear the bustle of the streets and gain a sense of what daily life was really like in an era that has inspired many somewhat romanticized portrayals and reenactments. But don't fear--this story has its share of intrigue and dastardly doings, too.

Concerning Character: As one might glean from the title, this is the story of Meggy Swann, a girl in her early teens who comes to London to live with her father. Her gran, who mostly raised her, has died, and her mother has no use in her country tavern for a lame girl who must walk with the aid of sticks, and even then only painfully. So Meggy is sent to the house of Master Ambrose, an alchemist who cares only for his work. Left mostly to fend for herself when not helping in the laboratorium, Meggy learns that, far from being helpless and alone in London, she is quite capable and plenty smart enough to survive, and even thrive. I love stories about plucky heroines; Meggy certainly is one, and comes into her own in characteristically sharp-tongued and determined fashion over the course of the novel.

Recommended for Fans Of...: Historical fiction masters like Ann Rinaldi, Michael Cadnum, and Elizabeth Wein.

Themes & Things: One of the themes I like most in this book is the idea that when we get old enough to do so we make our own families--in contrast to the ones that we're born into and may or may not even get along with, even if we care about them, we also make our own lives and surround ourselves with people we love whom we've chosen to be with. Meggy ultimately finds friends, even family, in her father's erstwhile apprentice Roger, Roger's troupe of fellow players, and the printer Master Allyn. Opening one's heart is also a major theme here—along with the rewards of doing so, as well as the tragedy of not being able to do so. And, of course, Meggy's story also embodies the idea that a physical disability does not define a person or prevent them from accomplishing great things.

Review Copy Source: Purchased from independent bookstore

You can find Alchemy and Meggy Swann at an independent bookstore near you!

2011 Cybils: GLOW, by Amy Kathleen Ryan

2011-10-29T01:53:00.000-07:00

Our Cybils panel doesn't discuss specific books before a certain period, but we have some general exchanges about themes and trends. This novel is another of those "threatened womanhood" dystopias we've discussed, wherein a young woman's fertility is a treasured, protected, envied, and stolen commodity.

Dystopias, according to the Guardian today, reflect the chaos and stress of a young reader's life. A new wave of dystopian fiction at this particular time shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. It's the zeitgeist. Adults write books for teenagers. So anxious adults – worried about the planet, the degradation of civil society and the bitter inheritance we're leaving for the young – write dystopian books." So, perhaps dystopias related to the commodification of female fertility reflects adult writers who are worried about the next generation? Who knows? It's a creepy, creepy topic, one which sets the tone for some very dark and disturbing novels.

Reader Gut Reaction: Utterly. Terrifying. Those are my gut reactions. I'm a private person. I am private about my beliefs, and private about my body, and those privacies would be challenged aboard a space going vessel -- a vessel with fertility issues and plenty of young women coming of age in the midst of a generation of older couples and single men. Even on a ship as large as the Empyréan, aboard which Waverly and Kieran fly, there are problems. A rendezvous with New Horizon should have been simple - an exchange of supplies, or whatever it was they needed. Instead, there's no exchange, but theft. And much, much bigger problems left behind. Suddenly day-to-day survival is all a matter of life and death.

Concerning Character: Waverly and Kieran both are earnest and trying very hard to be the best they can be - but both have working against them lack of experience and age. Kieran is immature and self conscious -- but he's the captain's favorite and he knows it. He expects to take over from him someday. He cuts corners now and then, but knows he'll be forgiven. His family is religious and he expects that his wife will come to that way of thinking. The only problem is Waverly, the girl he expects to marry, is fifteen to his sixteen, and not ready to be marry, no matter the fertility issues, or the concerns for the landing generation of spacers. It's a lot of pressure, and Waverly is a girl with her own opinions. As it turns out in time of crisis, Kieran is more mature than expected, and Waverly has a core of pure steel. Both of them make mistakes - Kieran still doesn't really hear people when they speak, and Waverly, frightened and disgusted by the manipulation of belief, makes a tactical error that could divide the loyalties of everyone, just when they need to stick together. Both characters make tough choices, and come through when it counts.

Recommended for Fans Of...: fiction with strong female characters and major choices made in times of stress. If you enjoyed ACROSS THE UNIVERSE by Beth Revis, this is the more active, running around version.

Themes & Things: Religious faith can seem a big, threatening thing to those people who don't grow up with it. Charismatic or evangelical people who seem to want to proselytize can be kind of terrifying. Faith in this novel is really manipulated by an evil, evil woman, who does all manner of things in the name of God -- or, her lowercase g, false version of said. There are a lot of YA novels which sort of beat the drum of "all religious people are nutters!" I'll be interested to follow this series to see if there can be some sort of middle ground on this - not all nutters, but not all holy and righteous and correct, either. Maybe a "some are, some aren't" balance, that more reflects real life?

Despite the words "heart-stopping adventure!" trumpeted on the cover, this novel is all about good and evil - and what constitutes good, in a tricky, gray area. (Evil here is pretty self-explanatory.) Is there ever a "for your own good," that is really all about good, and just "because I said so?" Is there ever any justification for making your ideas the ideas everyone else should hold?

Authorial Asides: This is Wyoming-ite Amy Kathleeen Ryan's fourth book - but her first foray into SFF. She has come out swinging.

Cover Chatter: The last Sparkly Star Peeps book I read was ACROSS THE UNIVERSE, so I laughed - then groaned - when I saw the hardback's trend-similar cover. Though this book shares some similarities - hey, it's space! - GLOW couldn't be more different...both covers feature couples on the covers in a field of stars, but the model depicting Kieran is on the back, while a bluish Waverly is on the front. The audio book version is much cleaner, with only the letter O depicting a girl who looks slightly despairing or depressed.

Seeing as this book covers a bunch of huge and heavy topics, the cover seems a little downplayed and space-generic, but there's probably no "perfect" cover for "geez, you're going to commodify my fertility, huh?" So, let's just say, "Those stars are sure pretty," and leave it at that.

You can find GLOW and other books by Amy Kathleen Ryan, at an independent bookstore near you!

2011 Cybils: The Gathering, by Kelley Armstrong

2011-10-28T07:07:00.000-07:00

Here's a guilty secret: I will read just about anything by Kelley Armstrong. I started off with one of her older, not-marketed-to-YA novels years ago, picked up at the library to read on a long flight. She made me laugh. She caused me to ignore a layover. She kept me entranced the whole ride, turbulence, annoying fellow passengers, rude airport personnel, weird food, and all. This Was Good. For what I term "entertainment reading," - which is really the whole urban fantasy genre - I was hooked.

Fortunately, her writing has depth and humor and is sometimes pretty thought-provoking. I was actually pleasantly surprised when she started writing for YA. I didn't entirely love her last trilogy - I felt that the second book fell prey to the dreaded Middle of the Trilogy Disorder, and the conclusion was not as strong as it could have been, but -- it's Kelly Armstrong. It's a new trilogy. Am I game to go again? Of course.

Reader Gut Reaction: I want to LIVE where Maya does, in a wee-tiny town on a Vancouver Island. Sixty-eight kids from grades 1-12 at the school? That works. A population of about 200 people, with "town" an hour - and a ferry ride - away? Totally works. Maya has great hobbies like track and chorus, awesome hobbies, like saving battered wildlife, and amazing parents. She also has Serena - her captain-of-the-swim-team best friend who takes a dive in a calm lake -- and, within minutes, drowns.

Wait, what?

So, nothing is really as it seems in this small town. Everyone seems to have moved past Serena's death, and a year later, Maya should have started on that path. But, there are so, so many questions she's never had answered... questions brought up again by the appearance of an alleged "reporter" named Mina Lee.

Maya's questions about her own life - her birth mother, the strangeness of the paw shaped birthmark on her hip, and a nasty run-in with a strange old woman - are not being answered to her satisfaction either. But, soon, what's not right in Maya's life is not something she wants to focus on. An amazingly hot new guy has stumbled into their teeny-tiny school and community. All she'd like to do is have a real boyfriend - for more than a summer fling - without feeling like she's dating a brother, and she's not really excited about fighting off back-stabbing Hayley for him. Maya knows he's a player, and wonders if she should even be interested -- especially now that Daniel's started "sensing" things... like, vibes about how safe everyone is, at a given moment.

Is everything in the safe, slow, poky little town that she's always known going to come apart at the seams?

Concerning Character: Maya is such an easy character to like, characteristic of Armstrong's easy way with writing strong female characters. She grieves - but moves forward. She thinks - always with the snarky internal monologue that makes me smile. She loves - her big heart embraces her three-legged bobcat, the over-familiar cougar that hangs around, and Daniel, who once was Serena's boyfriend, but has now practically moved in with she and her parents. The people in Armstrong's books are why I read them - that, and the sense of community among them that she creates.

Recommended for Fans Of...: the paranormal-meets-the-present novels fronted by strong female characters, like Claudia Gray's Fateful or Witches of the East, by Melissa de la Cruz.

Themes & Things: Once more there's a dystopian feel of Mad Scientists Doing Things, and Reporters Sneaking Around, and ... innocence lost. Plus, romance.

Cover Chatter: The UK cover of this novel is mostly "meh." I'm not quite sure what's going on, with the girl-within-girl thing; it looks like those 80's prom pictures where there are two exposures. The US cover is also weird; a non-Native-looking, blue-faced girl -- I am guessing it's supposed to be nighttime? -- wearing a shiny, dangly earring that I don't recall from the story. The shine on the earring is reminiscent of the prominently displayed jewelry in Armstrong's last series - but while that's great for cover continuity, unlike that pendant, the shiny earrings don't seem to link back to the narrative. Why not some of Maya's animals, or a shot of the town sign with the population, 200 listed? Oh, well. Nobody pays me to be a book designer.

You can find THE GATHERING and the rest of Kelley Armstrong's great-for-airport books at an independent bookstore near you!

Thursday Review: AMERICUS by MK Reed and Jonathan Hill

2011-10-27T11:09:00.000-07:00

This book is a 2011 Cybils nominee for graphic novels.

Reader Gut Reaction: This is a graphic novel about a book challenge, and the valiant readers who fight that challenge. So I was already predisposed to like it. Main character Neil Barton lives in a small town in Middle America, and one of the few things that alleviates his boredom is reading his favorite fantasy book series, The Adventures of Apathea Ravenchilde, a series that inspires rabid fandom. Even the public librarian, Charlotte, is a rabid fan, and therefore one of Neil's few friends. Sadly, his best friend Danny gets sent away to military school by his conservative Christian mom, who thinks that a series of books about a witch is "unholy filth" that shouldn't be in the library to corrupt impressionable youth. Danny's mom sets out to get the books removed from the library--but Neil and Charlotte rise to the challenge.

I think my only reservation about this book is that it did strike me as having an agenda and being a little message-y--not that I didn't totally sympathize with the agenda OR the message, but I don't know whether that's something that will jump out at YA readers. It might not. I just felt that the authors were very much trying to make a point with the story, though it sure is a point that needs making--and I like the idea of using fiction to make that point, too.

With respect to the artwork, the spare, black-and-white line art really suited the story, and worked well for conveying the humor of this piece. It reminded me quite a bit of the artwork in Raina Telgemeier's Smile and Baby-Sitters Club graphic novels, or Chris Schweizer's Crogan Adventures. The use of tone only in the scenes depicting Apathea's adventures gave them a nice contrasting feel, and provided the interesting implication that the fantasy world was more vivid in some ways than real life. And it's got a pretty awesome cover--very striking, with the hands tearing pages.

Concerning Character: As a freshman in high school, Neil is faced with the same old platitudes about high school being the best years of your life, blah blah blah, and is understandably underwhelmed by them, and by the reality of high school life. The authors portrayed the atmosphere of a small-town high school in believable and hilarious fashion, and did a great job of fleshing out Neil against that backdrop. Neil is really kind of a regular kid--a bit bookish, but he's got a few good friends, and new friends flock to his side in defense of the Apathea Ravenchilde books. I liked that Neil is the kind of guy who gets along better with kids who are a little older than he is--he starts to learn about cool bands from his older cousin's boyfriend Devin, who sees it as his duty to enlighten Neil about music. (This seemed like an amazing excuse to come up with hilarious band names.)

As far as side characters go, there are a lot of positive role models in this book without those role models seeming unrealistic. As many ignorant doofuses as there are in Neil's world, there are a lot of just plain NICE people, too: Neil's mom, Devin, Charlotte the librarian (I LOVE that there's a cool librarian!). That helped make this kind of a feel-good story all around.

Recommended for Fans Of...: Chris Schweizer's Crogan Adventures (first two reviewed here) will probably like this one—it's got a similar sense of zany humor and a similar visual storytelling style. Fans of graphic novels about real life will also like it--one with comparable themes is Kevin C. Pyle's Katman (reviewed here).

Themes & Things: This book tackles a LOT of topical issues as far as book challenges and conservative politics are concerned, but don't think that means it isn't a good, engaging story. It approaches the issues in a somewhat over-the-top, satirical way, which, for me, helped lighten what could have been an overly serious tone. I also liked how the themes and plot action were echoed by what was going on in the Apathea Ravenchilde books, but without being painfully obvious about it.

I did have a moment of worry that the depiction of the conservative Christian book challengers might be combining a whole bunch of stereotypes into one person (not that I'm defending anyone here) and that that might hurt the very important messages that this book in fact contains, but ultimately I decided it was part of the satire. After all, the fantasy series that is being challenged is equally over-the-top in its own way—I mean, really: Apathea Ravenchilde? Bwahahaha! I love it. Possibly my favorite theme of all, though, is how the sharing of something like a great book or good music can bring all sorts of people together in lively dialogue—this story isn't saying that books are Neil's friends; rather, it's showing how books (and music, too) can help you MAKE friends.

Review Copy Source: requested from First Second (publisher). Interior images also courtesy of the publisher. (You can read an excerpt and check out media info here.)

You can find Americus at an independent bookstore near you!

2011 Cybils: Divergent, by Veronica Roth

2011-10-26T06:21:00.000-07:00

You know how some novels are like a long nightmare? That's my best description of this one -- a long, claustrophobic nightmare. Factions? Groups that have rules you're supposed to obey, and lifestyles you're supposed to emulate? There are two words for that: high school.

No, seriously.

The claustrophobic factions fascinated and repelled me -- but mostly repelled. I found myself wondering about the factionless - what happens if you don't fit in, anywhere?! - and lo and behold, that's in large part what the whole novel is about. Those of us who are divergent rebels will find this a fast-paced, absorbing, disturbing little trip into an unbearable future.

Reader Gut Reaction: Ah, dystopia. It can make even the nicest concepts into something twisted and completely wrong.

The world in which Beatrice lives is simple - to her, anyway. It's a stratified society, made up of factions which best embody the virtues of dauntlessness, amity, candor, abnegation and erudition - in other words, fearless, friendly, truthful, selfless and wise. All good things -- or, at least, they're supposed to be a society which reflects these good things. In Beatrice's case, it a life in which she feels trapped and not ever at her best. Her family is Abnegation - wearing gray, eschewing mirrors, living quietly, avoiding differences or showiness, and helping others. Their symbol shows open hands - always helping. All of this is supposed to come automatically, but each day for Beatrice is an exercise in self-restraint. Unlike her perfect, patient brother, Caleb, people piss her off. She's supposed to give and give and give, but she'd also like to give some people a swift kick.

Fortunately, she's days from her sixteenth birthday - and Choosing Day. She'll be tested -- surely, she'll find out what faction suits her best, and at last feel at peace.

Except...rarely do things work out simply.

Concerning Character: Beatrice is the reason to read this book. She's real. Even as Tris, clothed in the new colors of her new life, she remains someone true to herself, and seeking answers. I like her because even internally, she goes her own way. Her cohort are intriguing - and surprising, in some respects. although not everything revealed in the narrative came to me as a shock. Though paralleling some typical dystopian storylines, the pacing is good, the romance has zing, and readers will come away wanting to find out what happens in the rest of the trilogy.

Recommended for Fans Of...: teamwork stories, in which kids band together and deal with themselves, like Scott Westerfeld's UGLIES, or Melissa Marr's CLOCKWORK series. If you like the MAZE RUNNER series, by James Dashner, you'll enjoy this.

Authorial Asides: Veronica Roth reportedly finished this novel while in college at Northwestern, and then had the entire series snapped up by film producers. Cheers for her!. The bigger challenge will be to continue the series with the same intensity and drive, and not let the second book - which so often is substandard in a trilogy - sag.

I was practically twitching by the time Beatrice did her testing and made her choice -- and then, I found myself with questions about the factionless who squatted in the city, looking for handouts and simply staying where they were not wanted... surely the whole world wasn't full of "taken" property. Surely a person could strike out and create a family-faction elsewhere, grow a garden, be self-reliant for food...? Artificial constructs are part and parcel of the dystopian experience, however, so I became willing to suspend disbelief in this story - I'll be interested in how some of my questions are later answered.

Cover Chatter: The symbol in fire is the symbol of the Dauntless - which is perfect for this novel - it's clean and refers directly to the narrative. The tagline, "One choice can transform you," is true on a number of levels. Less inspiring for me was the paperback novel, which has the silhouette of a seated girl and three stylized crows, with the dramatic-sounding tagline, "She turns to face the future in a world that's falling apart." Hm. Well, most of us do that each morning, but the crows do have something to do with the narrative, so points for that.

You can find DIVERGENT at an independent bookstore near you!

Monday Reviews: Mystery Mania!

2011-10-24T08:00:00.000-07:00

Today I'm going to take a break from following our usual review format so I can squeeze in a trio of books that crossed my desk recently, all YA mysteries from Kane Miller Publishing.

Firstly, a treat that I devoured rapidly: the next two books in Canadian author Norah McClintock's Chloe & Levesque series (I reviewed the first two here). This would make a great mystery series not only for reluctant readers, but for anyone looking for a fast-paced murder mystery that's also got good ongoing character development. Narrator and budding investigative journalist Chloe Yan (who is, incidentally, half Chinese) is back, along with her police-chief stepfather Louis Levesque, in books 3 and 4: Scared to Death and Break and Enter. In the small town of East Hastings, sometimes it seems like everyone knows everyone else, but when the people you know start acting strangely—or when someone new in town starts stirring up trouble—the potential is ripe for mysterious goings-on. And, somehow, Chloe can't resist getting into the thick of things, even when her stepdad tells her to quit meddling.

In Book 4, this ultimately results in her life being in serious danger--the stakes aren't always minor in these books. And the author doesn't ignore the interpersonal difficulties that sometimes occur when you're the daughter of the chief of police in a small town, nor does she avoid the ongoing discomfort that Chloe feels at referring to Levesque as her father rather than her stepfather, a subtle issue that I really appreciated. While the focus is on plot in this series, issues of family, friendship, and personal growth are not ignored by any means. Though a bit light on backstory, they're very fun, and very skillfully written.

The third mystery I received was from Kane Miller Australia: Dying to Tell Me by Sherryl Clark, an author from Melbourne. This one had a bit of a supernatural element, as narrator Sasha is revealed to have some unusual extrasensory powers. When her family—that is, she, her dad, and her sister—move to the small town of Manna Creek to start their lives over after her mom left, Sasha is hoping she can leave her disturbing past behind her. But then some strange things start happening. Why does that falling-down shed in the backyard, which used to be the town's old jail cell in historic times, give her such a creepy feeling? Who's behind all the break-ins at the fancy rich people's houses? Why do so many people in this town act so weird? And why is Sasha suddenly able to communicate mentally with the new family dog, King? (If you don't care for books where people have a telepathic bond with animals, then this one might not be for you. Just sayin'.)

At first, Sasha thinks it's because, when they first moved to town, she slipped and hit her head. Maybe she's freaking out, or imagining things. Or maybe she really does have an unusual ability that makes her the only one able to really get to the bottom of the nefarious doings in Manna Creek. This one's another quick read with plenty of supernatural suspense for fans of paranormal fiction.

Review Copy Source: Publisher (Kane Miller) via Raab Associates Publicity.

You can find Scared to Death, Break and Enter, and Dying to Tell Me at an independent bookstore near you!

Marc Tyler Nobleman's Edward Ormondroyd Interview

2011-10-23T05:33:00.000-07:00

Some days, you have just GOTTA love the internet.

A random squee I left on Charlotte's blog MONTHS ago garnered me an email from author Marc Tyler Nobleman (BOYS OF STEEL: The Creators of Superman) and a link to his Edward Ormondroyd interview!

Edward Who, you ask?

Edward Ormondroyd (I love that last name) is the author of my favorite 1963 (reissue, Purple House Press, 2003) time travel novel TIME AT THE TOP, which Charlotte so ably reviewed for an August TIMESLIP TUESDAY feature, and to which, I must admit, I wrote a very fangirl-y sequel at about the age of twelve. (And no, you cannot see it, it's undoubtedly dreadful.)

Mr. Ormondroyd's first novel, DAVID AND THE PHOENIX, has seen a resurgence of popularity due to The Boy Wizard -- a lot of boys+magic novels are going into reprint, which is All To The Good -- and as the Phoenix novel is a favorite of Marc's, he tracked the author down. Discovering that somehow Edward Ormondroyd had never before been interviewed, Marc set to it with forty-one questions. Forty-one!! The interview is - for obvious reasons - in two parts; Part the first, here, followed by its conclusion.

Thank you Charlotte, for reviewing an old favorite of mine, and thank you, Marc, for going the extra mile to actually finding the author and letting him know how much his works are loved.

It's the internet: for once using its powers for good.