- Walter Dean Myers (Part two of the NPR series on the African-American experience. Writer Richard Wright was discussed last week.)
- Samurai Girl (Not a big hit as a book, but potentially must-see tv. We'll see.) (Wall Street Journal)
- Introducing 'The Twiller'- a thriller written on Twitter (I especially like this quote from a twitter author, "I don't know if the story will catch much attention, but, then again, it doesn't require much attention at all.") (Textually.org)
I'm back from my long journey to Maine, refreshed and so happy to be home. We're planning on bringing a lot of new things to YPulse Books this year and I for one, am very excited.
Because I've spent most of my life in school of some sort, I've always been a fall person. I think of the new year as being September, not January 1st. Well, I'm going back to school again, and I'm feeling very New Year's resolution-y. I'm back librarian-ing at a school here in San Francisco, and I think it will really keep me on my toes as to what is new and exciting in the YA scene. I'm told we've got some awesome rock-star readers so I'm planning on using them as a sounding board and a good source of inspiration and insight. There's nothing better than day-to-day contact with youth to stay in the ever changing teen loop.
Also, this summer I had a lot of time to think about new features I might like to bring to Ypulse Books. I was able to digest our discussion at the Books pre-conference, and I really tried to reach for what I'd like to read about if I were a regular Ypulse Books visitor. Here's what I came up with:
AudioFiles
There are some major audiobook enthusiasts out there, and in light of my new commute, I plan on highlighting whatever audiobook I'm enjoying from month to month. I'm hoping I'll discover some new things about the different ways we process the stories we are "told".
Who Do You Love?
Think Sundance's Iconoclast Series. Think author to author interviews. Authors: which of your peers do you worship and love? Who would you most like to talk to about the process of writing and the love of reading great books. This will be a great way to explore the artist's POV but also build community.
* If you are an author that is interested in interviewing another author please let me know. I might be able to help facilitate contact or simply give you a sense for how I've conducted interviews in the past.
One Single Question
We'll introduce authors and their work and ask them to answer one simple question. This will give authors a chance to tell us who they are in their words and address the common inquiry: Why YA?
"As an artist, what inspires and motivates you most in your role as a writer for Young Adults?"
One question, many answers. I can't wait to see the broad range.
Guest Blogger Series
Like the popular guest blogger feature at Ypulse, we hope to open up the lines of communication in a way that will let other bloggers, folks in the field and our regular readers contribute here, online, at Ypulse Books.
* If you'd like to be a guest blogger, pitch me an idea for a post! From time to time I will be putting ideas out there to which folks can respond.
Note: Another change is that we'll be posting Mondays and Wednesdays from now on. We thought our readers would appreciate starting their week with the latest news and having another hit mid-week. Aren't we all just a little pre-occupied on Fridays anyways?
Editor's Note: Just a reminder that we will not be publishing Ypulse Books Friday due to the Labor Day holiday weekend. We'll be back with more coverage next Wednesday.
Native Son (Richard Wright's life and works discussed on NPR.)
- Book of Lies (Check out Brad Meltzer's new book's star-studded trailer.) (PopCandy)
- On the positive side... (Scholastic has launched a fun election '08 site for teachers and students)
- Random House's 'morality clause' (Cory Doctorow says no way, no how would he sign such a clause, and wasn't asked to, though Random House has added it as part of its standard contract with children's authors) (Boing Boing)
- Who the Hell is Pansy O'Hara (Just got my copy. Can't wait to read this fact/trivia/information filled reference book about 50 of the most beloved books of all time.)
In a post-apocalyptic world where animals and machines struggle for power and control, living far above China in a network of hot-air balloons, Mei discovers a rare special power. She also learns she's able to communicate with Rom, who is far away in a futuristic Las Vegas, through their magic journals. They've never actually met, but they realize they share a similar "kaimira" gene making them animal-machine hybrids. The first in a series of five books, The Sky Village offers complex characters and a rich plot in a dark and complicated new world.
We recently interviewed writer Chris Rettstatt, the heart and mind behind author Monk Ashland, and asked him about his new book and various other book-related things.
YPulse Books readers, let us know what you think are some of the new themes in YA sci-fi. The first three commenters will receive a free copy of Kaimira: The Sky Village.
Ypulse Books: What do you think are the unique challenges specific to writing for young adults?
Chris Rettstatt: So far I haven't encountered any challenges other than the astonishingly competitive market. Beyond that, I see only opportunities: to write about the things I care most about, like villages made of hot air balloons and battling biotech beasties; to feast on my absolute favorite entertainment and call it "research"; and to paint a few cave-wall pictures inside the Olympic-sized imaginations of the most important people on the planet - those young adults who will soon be our overlords.
YPB: What do reluctant readers need most to maintain interest in a book?
CR: We're all reluctant readers when presented with reading material that doesn't connect with us. Reluctant readers need characters they can care about, who feel real; stories that feel like they're going somewhere; and details that show that the author is digging deep to create an authentic and original experience. In short, they need exactly what all readers need: good stories that feel relevant and real.
YPB: What interests you most about reading and writing in the sci-fi/ fantasy genre?
CR: I like reading science fiction and fantasy because the stuff is just so cool. And once I invest the time to get neck-deep in a storyverse, I don't want to come out again anytime soon, and the best immersive series fiction tends to be sci-fi and fantasy.
I like writing science fiction because it gives me a non-preachy way of writing about themes that are important to me, like intolerance and violence. And also because I love making up crazy stuff and then making it feel real.
YPB: Do you think there is new and recent fascination with post-apocalyptic themes among teen books? If so why?
CR: I've heard this a few times recently. I think the trend has less to do with what writers are writing and more to do with what publishers are publishing. Post-apocalyptic fiction has been going strong for as long as I can remember. Just look at how many times Tokyo has been obliterated on TV and film. And in this Golden Age of YA literature, it makes sense that a few of us are going to shake the Etch-a-Sketch, so to speak, and create a fresh start and a new sandbox for our imaginary characters.
That said, when a community experiences a traumatic reminder of its mortality and its vulnerability to destruction, I do think the resulting surge of anxiety tends to erupt in a renewed interest in post-apocalyptic stories. And if there is something in the YA lit Zeitgeist giving a leg up to that sort of fiction, it would be convenient to connect it to modern fears of terrorist attack.
But my gut feeling is that many of today's post-apocalyptic stories have roots that are older than that. I think these more modern fears will be played out in the stories our children write. It scares me to imagine what forms their fictional disasters will take, oozing from primal fears caused by our generation's mistakes.
YPB: What's the best compliment you've ever received as a writer?
CR: When I was in 4th grade I entered two pieces in a statewide
competition. The theme was recycling, and the state was Arkansas. The first piece was a drawing. I spent weeks on it, planning it out, getting all the details right. I was very proud of it.
On deadline day, I found out I could have entered more than one category. So I scribbled out a story in about forty minutes, just for the heck of it. I didn't place in the art category, but I won for the story, resulting in a banquet where then-Governor Bill Clinton gave me a ribbon and shook my hand. From that time on, all my best writing has been at the last minute.
YPB: Where did you come up with the idea for The Sky Village and the entire Kaimira Series?
CR: The lines distinguishing human, animal, and machine are being blurred, and that's happening in our time. It's not fiction. Chimeras and artificial intelligence. Technology as the new leg of human evolution. It's hard to see what you're becoming while it's happening. Future generations, starting with today's young adults, will be faced with issues that most people today would call science fiction.
And there's a bit of the beast in each of us, irrational, relying on instinct, as well as a part that's machine-like, efficient and unrelentingly logical. Finding the balance is what makes us human.
When I visit a new place, and particularly a new culture, I enjoy imagining what it might be like in a few hundred years. And if I do a reading, I like asking teens to look two or three hundred years into the future and share what they see. Writers can create chimerical futures, but creating the real future is up to those teens.
YPB: I recently saw the video for The Sky Village, it's very compelling.
What has it been like marketing your book? What has been helpful? Successful? How do you think authors can best spend their energy when trying to get the word out about a new title?
CR: I'm still finding my way when it comes to marketing. I'm just trying different things to see what works. I'm not terribly good at (or comfortable with) marketing myself directly. But I love participating in discussions about young adult books and youth-targeted entertainment in general, and a nice side effect of engaging in those conversations is that it keeps me on the radar.
My best advice to authors is to make the experience be about more than your book. Attach your efforts to a cause. Use your role as author to support something that matters to teens even more than your book matters to you.
YPB: Tell us about Book 2.
CR: I can't say much about Book 2 without giving away the ending to The Sky Village (Book 1). But I can say that the second book is called The Terrible Everything and that it will continue where The Sky Village left off. In the first book, Mei had to walk in her mother's footsteps, adjusting to life in the Sky Village. In The Terrible Everything, she'll have a chance to walk in her father's footsteps as a member of the warrior-scientist tribe called the Scimurai.
Moral ambiguity (is a big part of Lesley Choyce's realistic narrative The Book of Michael.) (Chronicle Herald)
- 'Screenwriting pair gets 'Goosebumps'' (Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander, the pair behind flicks like "Ed Wood" and "Man on the Moon" are in negotiations to write the live-action big-screen adaptation of "Goosebumps" for Columbia Pictures.) (Reuters)
- 'Tricked out' digital bookmobile (makes the rounds in NYC making sure everyone knows about the NYPL's awesome digital services.) (SLJ)
- 'So Sexy So Soon' (authors take on the "new sexualized childhood"...and what parents can do about it. Speaking of, the YWCA released a disturbing report [.pdf] entitled "Beauty at Any Cost" about how America's "beauty obsession" poses serious health risks for women and girls.)
- Books and Boys (Ypulse reader and former "reluctant reader" Max Elliot Anderson let us know about his work on this issue)
- Blurbs for sale (NYT, reg. required, explores the politics of blurbs and books.)
I just finished The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier and I have to say I'm very depressed. I remember loving all of Cormier's books but I didn't recall any of the details of the stories at all. On this read, I could really see the true darkness in Cormier's vision.
All of Cormier's books deal with the alienation of the human experience, but The Chocolate War is one of those books that leaves you feeling just hopeless. Man, it's bleak. The Trinity School, the Catholic school our main characters attend, is a vision of adolescent male Darwinism--Cormier's interpretation of Golding's Lord of the Flies. It's devoid of women but not sexuality or primal competition. Of course I'm referring to the "masturbation" scenes which have made The Chocolate War the 3rd most banned book ever by the ALA. But this is hardly the most interesting, or disturbing aspect of the novel.
"Bullying 101" would be a good alternate title for The Chocolate War. And it has all the trappings: The headmaster is ill, leaving the twisted Brother Leon in charge of the students. The "Vigils" (a gang of students) bully the others; and on and on and on. They are cruel and extreme, but only as much as their leader Brother Leon, who emotionally abuses his students in humiliating and unethical ways. Centered around his evangelical enterprising zeal for a fundraising student chocolate drive, the novel exposes the essence of corruption, manipulation and malfeasance, and how it infects every layer of the socio-political strata. As the lead character, Jerry, defines himself through a kind of pacifist refusal to sell the chocolates, the novel pushes deep into territory that is, in truth, more adult in its sophistication. That the scene could explode into a near riot as Jerry is beaten bloody and unconscious exposes the lengths to which this (male) society will go to suppress reason and stifle individualism.
There is only one boy that verbalizes the evil, soul-sucking energy at Trinity-- Jerry's friend Goober, and thank God for him. No one else in the book offers any hope for the human race or the ability to choose a different path. Jerry chooses to rebel against selling chocolates, but is violently attacked by ALL of his classmates for it. Goober simply bows out. He stops playing sports, quits the clubs he belongs to, and even stays home from school after participating in a particularly cruel prank on a teacher. We are made to believe that in Cormier's world those are one's only choices: Follow the pack, leave, or die.
Dismal.
I remembered the visceral impact The Chocolate War had on me as a young adult, but like I said, I didn't really remember the story. In the very last pages though it came back to me. (Oh yeaaaaah.) I very vividly recalled the last scene: As all of the students cheer and rejoice in the public beating of Jerry as he is brutally and violently defeated in a fixed boxing match, Brother Leon appears on a hill in the distance. He has been "tipped-off" by one of the students. He watches with joy as Jerry is finally rendered unconscious. As he turns away, satisfied, his image is the last thing Jerry sees.
- Great expectations (for Christopher Paolini's latest in the "Inheritance Cycle" series, Brisingr. Publishers expecting record sales.) (Market Watch)
- 'My Say: When YA is Not OK' (How young is too young for Gossip Girl and Twilight? This libaraian explains her opinion in Publishers Weekly's new Op/Ed column.)
- Breaking Dawn backlash (I haven't really discussed this much, I don't know what to think. Twlight fans want to return the final book because they don't like it.) (Publishers Weekly)
I don't usually do this, but The Cape Cod Witch and the Pirates Treasure got such rave reviews from my two nephews and my sister that I felt like I had to pass it on. What makes my nephews' recommendations so remarkable is that they're sort of reluctant readers. One in particular devours comics but mostly "reads" the illustrations. "Star Wars" Books are their favorites.
And hey, anytime two boys jump up and down (literally) and implore me to read something, I listen.
The other thing that made me pay special attention to their glowing reviews is that to the naked eye, this book would seem to be more attractive to girls. But really, a strong female protagonist and an exciting but not too scary story involving pirates and buried treasure, what's not to love? My nephew said all of the kids in his third grade class love this book, bar none.
Apparently the first of a series, my sister said they read it aloud together as a family and she thought it was fabulous too. Really fabulous, and they all can't wait for the next one.
Of course, I ran out and got a copy, and although it was published by a seemingly small local company, I found it. (Cape Cod. Maine. We're like cousins.)
It's a very fast and fun read. Elsbeth is a sweet character and I think she and her classmates are the reason my nephews and his friends liked it so much. It's like "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" crossed with Sarah Plain and Tall-- sort of. Earthy and homemade feeling, the writing and story read like local folklore but with contemporary characters. I can see why it's a hit with younger readers and I too, liked it a lot. The action occurs a little late, but it's so short it still works.
Reading The Cape Cod Witch and the Pirates Treasure made me wonder -- what exactly made this work for both the girls and boys in my nephew's posse? Is it the fact that Elsbeth's class share the spotlight and together are the main characters? At what age do boys and girls truly part ways in the book department? At what age do they stop sharing interest in the same titles? I wish there were more titles that crossed gender lines. We talk a lot about finding books that boys will like because they are traditionally harder readers to please, but what about books that boys and girls can enjoy together? Maybe books that simply allow girls and boys to share the stage is the answer.
'Discovery Girls' (SLJ writes about the tween mag for girls 8-12, where a lot of the material is written by them. Cool.)
- 'Problem: Boys Don't Like to Read.' (The solution? "Publishers are hawking more gory and gross books to appeal to an elusive market: boys -- many of whom would rather go to the dentist than crack open 'Little House on the Prairie.'") (WSJ)
- 'Quirky Families' (Reviews and such by Colleen Mondor at "Bookslut in Training.") (Bookslut)
- Oh, I love him so (I just saw the William Steig exhibit at the Contemporary Jewish History Museum in San Francisco. Here he is profiled in the Seattle Times.)
- The Vespa Chronicles (Simon and Schuster's YA book series, The Fashion Forward Adventures of Imogene by Lisa Barham, has launched The Vespa Chronicles, a free weekly newsletter following "the exploits of fictional heroine and fashion-forecasting intern, Imogene.")
- Tiger Eyes (is the latest Fine Lines feature over at Jezebel)
One of the things we do as librarians (and book-bloggers) is illuminate the issues that are out there in the publishing world -- What are people talking about and what books are making a splash. An issue that has come up in the past is the new practice of including brand-name marketing in the young adult book sector--literary product placement, if you will. Some titles even begin with product deals worked out first --characters, plot and story all come later.
The issue is: what's the right way to deal with YA product placement. Should the process be transparent to readers - and parents?
I've written about this before and I recently posted about an article in the LA Times about Alloy Entertainment. Primarily a book publisher, Alloy is branching out into new avenues such as television and movies. In the LA Times article Alloy is described rather harshly described as a "book factory" where "editors cook up ideas they think will appeal to teens and then hire writers to follow their outlines, similar to the way dramas and sitcoms are written for TV."
One library science professor was quoted in the article as saying, "The book series itself is about commodities -- brands become a way to identify with the characters." Furthermore she noted, some librarians refuse to buy the books. A bit harsh, perhaps, after all many libraries shelve magazines like Vogue and Elle.
The article points out that "In the first four pages of The Clique, for example, a seventh-grader named Massie kicks off her "3-inch heels" and mentions that she owns a Mac, wears Chanel No. 19 perfume and Yves Saint Laurent lipstick, sleeps on Calvin Klein sheets, shops at Bergdorf Goodman and stays at the Mondrian Hotel in West Hollywood."
So the question is: Will books and other literary content become as much a part of a marketing strategy for brands as we see in other platforms? Is there another approach - another name - for the genre? The more that advertising intermingles with the writing process, the less literary these books become. How can the process become more transparent? That transparency would go a long way with librarians and teens. If teens knew the terms under which the books they love were written, they'd still read them and respect them for what they are.
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (I'm seeing a lot of love for this book. Here's a review at the NYTimes, reg. required.) 
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