This Week at Book Riot

August 28, 2015 |

Over at Book Riot this week…

Looking for book recommendations based on your love (or someone else’s love) of The Perks of Being A Wallflower? I made a big, diverse round-up of next reads and talked a bit about why the book is so beloved.

This week’s “3 on a YA theme” post was about YA takes on Sherlock Holmes. There are some more solid suggestions in the comments for this one, too.

Last weekend, I sent the rest of the big boxes of Some Girls Are / What Goes Around down to South Carolina. I’m going to probably have another small box or two to continue, but Andria started to receive them at the library. Here’s a great photo (and caption!) of the first teens getting the books.

Andria said they were beyond excited that they not only got to read the book, but that they get to keep it:

This Week at Book Riot

August 21, 2015 |

Over at Book Riot this week, a few posts:

Five great questions I got asked as a reference librarian. A little bit of humor, a little bit of seriousness, and a little bit of decoding the mystery of the book that someone saw at a grocery store.

This week’s 3 On A YA Theme looks at 3 recent diverse YA mysteries.

I collected a pile of great bookish art I’ve seen on Tumblr. Along with gallery, I dug up the attributions so artists got their credit (that’s my biggest Tumblr pet peeve).

This was the last week for the donation drive to get Some Girls Are into the hands of teens at West Ashley High School. I spent the bulk of Wednesday packing them up and making various supply runs across town to make sure they were boxed up and taped up well for mailing. Thanks to your incredible generosity for the donations, as well as the incredible support you showed in helping me pay for postage. I’ve made one trip to the post office already and plan two more to mail out the 30 (!!!) boxes of books. My goal, once these are all shipped out, is to take the 830 copies we received as donations and make it a round 1,000 copies. Here’s a look at all of the boxes, for the curious. I cannot wait to see Andria’s photos when she’s giving the books to the kids:

This Week at Book Riot

August 14, 2015 |

I got on a roll this week in terms of writing for Book Riot. Here’s what went up:

This week’s “3 on a YA theme” ended up being more like 11 on a YA theme because I wanted to talk about intersectional feminism in YA. So, here are 11 YA books that showcase intersectionality.

Did you know Ann M. Martin celebrated her 60th birthday this week? I didn’t realize it when I sat down to write this piece, but that worked out pretty nicely. Here’s a look at why the Baby-Sitters Club meant so much to me as a kid.

As of yesterday afternoon, there have been 770 copies of Some Girls Are (and What Goes Around, the bind-up) donated. I’m going to write more about this process after I ship these down to Andria in Charleston next week, but it’s been phenomenal. Thank you.

I’ve been asked numerous times if there’s a way to donate money to help cover the cost of shipping. I am happy to accept donations for this, if you so choose. I’ll take them through paypal only, and the email you can use to send a donation is [redacted]. Thank you in advance for anyone who is doing that, too — this all means a lot, and I’m so overwhelmed with your generosity. These teens are going to know how much their lives and stories matter.

This Week at Book Riot

August 7, 2015 |

Over on Book Riot this week (…and last week, as I totally forgot to round them up):

For 3 On a YA Theme, I talked about rock stars and the rock star life in YA fiction, as well as YA books set in space. For some reason, despite my current obsession with Pluto, two of the three space books are about the moon.

I talked about a handful of books that help me reignite my creativity when I’m feeling like I’m in a lull.

Here’s a look at how the Some Girls Are book donation drive is going so far. I’m…blown away. If you want to help get this book into the hands of the West Ashley High School students, here are all of the details.

I had to have my post office box mail forward to my home address, too, since making the trip every day to carry home boxes and envelopes was getting tricky. That’s a pretty great thing.

Thanks to everyone who generously reached out to help. We’re doing right by these kids, and they’re going to know they have people who care deeply about them in their very own community.

This Week at Book Riot

July 24, 2015 |

Here’s a look at the two pieces I wrote for this week at Book Riot:

Kimberly linked earlier this week to my 3rd quarter preview of YA fiction and I’m going to go ahead and link it again. Your reading list will be getting much, much larger.

This week, I talked about 3 recent(ish) YA books published by indie presses. I am not a big fantasy reader, but after seeing some really great reviews of Archivist Wasp, I grabbed it from the library.

Over at School Library Journal, Shelley Diaz wrote a really great piece about the Size Acceptance in YA project that I’m a part of. I’m really proud of this project and honored to be part of it with three really smart librarians.