STACKED

books

BEA in review — part two

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As the ribbons were cut, we were ready to dive in. Our first stop was Penguin in search of a handful of really exciting titles, including Scrumble, the sequel to Ingrid Law’s Savvy. We got that, along with a few other forthcoming titles like The Replacement by Brianna Yavanoff. The people at Penguin, despite being overwhelmed, were happy to answer our questions about when they’d be putting out other titles. Don’t worry; we made it back a couple more times to pick up titles like Ally Condie’s Matched and Catherine Fisher’s Sapphique.

I won’t tell you everything we picked up because there was a heck of a lot on that first day. To describe it as a mad rush would be an understatement. It was unbelievable the hoards of people and just how tight it got in some areas (particularly near Little Brown, where Kimberly and I were lucky enough to score a BAG of forthcoming fall titles, including new titles by Gail Giles and Sarah Ockler. Oh, and Wendy Mass’s The Candymakers which just screams mashup of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Gollywhopper Games to me — a good thing!).

My favorite publisher to visit, though, was Bloomsbury. The publicist there was eager to sell all of their forthcoming titles. She sought out one I was really interested in (whose title escapes me as I recap, of course). Egmont was a close second, as their publicist was also great at selling their forthcoming titles. I’m still unsure how to pronounce their name, too — EDGEmont or EGGmont?

Everyone in our group slowly dispersed, going to the individual signings we were interested in. I reconnected with Kim at the Harlequin Teen signing, where I picked up some forthcoming titles and met their authors. The set up was pretty much unorganized, but, we got in and out of there quickly and hit up lunch (I think that was a pretzel for me). We did a bit more wandering around thereafter, acquiring titles that included The Mockingbirds from Little Brown (which sounds like a fantastic readalike to The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks but on a more serious scale) and Lauren Oliver’s 2011 title Delirium.

When 2:30 came around, it was time to hit up the first author signing of the day: Simone Elkeles. She was signing three times at BEA, but this was the only one where she’d be signing her forthcoming sequel to Leaving Paradise. And boy, was she a sweet author! I’m pretty adverse to picking up 2 copies of books, but because I knew Janssen would LOVE this one, I asked if she’d sign two. And without hesitation, she said yes and immediately asked me to spell Janssen’s name for her. I thanked her a million times and she told me to show up to her other signing (which, I did not, due to a few other events, sadly!).

Since we got through that line super quickly, we met up again with Abby and Jen at the Zombies vs. Unicorns signing with Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier. It was a longer and slower line, but it was totally worth it — when I got up there, Justine signed first and asked what team I was on. Being undecided, I said I needed to read the book to make a fair and accurate vote. She LOVED my answer, and I scored both a team unicorn and team zombie button. We’d later discover that Scott Westerfeld had also signed this ARC. Totally fun, and the book sounds like a real hoot.

When we finished the signing, it was time to run back to Little, Brown for the unveiling of a big title: Beautiful Darkness, the sequel to Beautiful Creatures. People here were unbelievable. I will go into more details in our final post of BEA tips and tricks, but needless to say, it was a mob scene. We got our book without a problem and tried to get out quickly because….we were on to a signing of Kody Keplinger’s debut The DUFF.

So here’s where one of the coolest moments of BEA happened. As we’re waiting in the line — which was moving kind of slow — I see someone who looks familiar. I check the badge and it is Melissa Walker. I got her attention to say hi, and she checked my badge and knew who I was too. Uhm, talk about fangirl moment. Almost embarrassingly so. I’d like you to know we talked about arm pit sweat. And how excited we were to read The DUFF. Can you imagine being 18 and being a signing author at BEA?

Since that pretty much made my life complete, Kim and I chose to head out for the day. While Abby and Jen were heading to Kid Lit Drink Night, and our plans to head to Books of Wonder for their author event were dropped, we thought we’d head to the hotel and get a drink at the hotel bar.

Except the bar was outside, and it was 95 degrees out.

Plan b? Burgers & Cupcakes, a delightfully cute restaurant near our hotel. Besides being pretty good and having incredible cupcakes, it was reasonably priced. Then we went to the hotel and admired our books. For hours.

BEA in review — part one

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Imagine a world full of book sellers, publishers, printers, librarians, authors and bloggers, as well as a whole lot of free books. That, my friends, is BEA.

I flew out to New York on Tuesday, bright and early in the morning. I was getting into La Guardia about 11, but because my plane was delayed in Milwaukee, it was more like 12. My goal was to read on the plane — The Cardturner by Louis Sacher — and I did a bit of that then and a little bit of reading while waiting the arrival of Abby (the) Librarian and Jen of Nerd Girl Blogging. Partner-in-crime Kim, from here at STACKED, would be flying into JFK and meeting us at the hotel.

We decided to stay at the Wyndham Garden on 36th, between 8th and 9th avenue. It was really darn close to the convention center, at about half a mile. For those of you planning for next year already, it was a fantastic hotel at a very reasonable price ($189 a night).

After we recombobulated post-flight, we headed off to the AAP/LJ Librarians dinner, which offered some terrible food. While that was nothing worth bragging about, we got the opportunity to meet three New York Librarians and seasoned BEA vets who told us all of the dirty BEA secrets. Let me just say: they SAVED us so much time and money. That alone was worth the dinner.

But, ah, what would a dinner be without some guest speakers? We were serenaded with stories from Cory Doctorow (blogger at boingboing.net author of the fabulous Little Brother and new For the Win) and about the importance of books and libraries and librarians (seriously, this man is an incredible advocate for readers), Rachel Vincent (of the Soul Screamers series reviewed here and pictured at left), Jane Green (who I spent half the dinner thinking I knew her name to realize she is the writer of Jemima J, which I loved when I read the summer after my freshman year in college), Anne Fortier (of the forthcoming and highly buzzed title Juliet — she was a riot!), and Ann Brashares (of Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants fame). Each talked about the value and importance of libraries and reading, and it was just a very nice affair…despite the terrible food (it was free, at least). At the end of the dinner, we walked away with copies of all of their latest books.

We hopped a cab back to our hotel and spent the evening just relaxing. We were all tired from very early mornings and long days of travel. And let me just say this: these were some of the most wonderful people to spend time with. We never were without conversation.

That picture on the top there is what greeted us on our first official day of BEA attendance on Wednesday. The exhibit halls opened at 9, and we were all raring to go by 8 a.m. Yes, this is the line at just a few minutes after 8 a.m. to get inside. While waiting, we pulled out a list of books we were hoping to find or ask about and mapped out the places we’d hit first. Number one on our list? Penguin.

Then the clock clicked 9 a.m., the ribbon was cut and boy, were we in for a surprise with just how many people were in the hall, and how it really was a mass frenzy.

Guys read

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This is the second post in a series to be shared over the next couple of weeks. Today’s topic: why boys don’t read. Before I give the background, make sure you read the first post, and then keep in mind that these comments are about the average boy (not the exceptions you know) and they ARE backed by research. I will post a bibliography in a concluding post.

So, why don’t boys read like we wish they would?

Simple: they’re wired differently.

Boys’ brains work differently than girls because they are hardwired differently. They react differently to stimuli than girls (think of this simple example: a desk chair is in a classroom. Who is making it come off the floor?). And maybe most importantly, boys are taught very different lessons about reading than girls are. When they’re young, reading is fun. They get story time, which allows them to be active and stimulated. The other time they’re read to they’re getting ready for bed. Reading is an activity that energizes and relaxes boys.

But when they get into school, reading is work. You can’t get up and dance and you can’t fall asleep. The way the boy brain works just doesn’t “get” this like a girl brain. So now reading is a chore – but it’s moreso when the boy is nestled between two girls in a classroom, both of the girls reading well and beyond. The boy? He’s struggling because reading is not fun now and he’s struggling because he thinks he’s dumb since Suzy and Sally are reading just fine.

Boys think in a manner we can call “rules and tools” — they want something to do and they want a way to do it (or a way to figure out how to do it). Women think in a manner that seeks information to communicate and connect. Sullivan gave the great example of a man and a woman driving and getting lost. The woman suggests asking for directions while the man pulls out the map and insists the road was supposed to be there. He doesn’t want to ask because he should be able to figure out the solution.

So when the boy sees that Suzy and Sally are reading well and he is not, he’s discouraged. He has no rules nor tools to do it here. And since the majority of teachers are female, particularly in those developmentally important years for reading, boys are taught to read in the same way girls are, but since they don’t learn that way, well, they’re stuck. Boys are trying to read for information, but they’re being taught how to read for communication.

This does not make on type of thinking better than another. It means they are different. This is what we are missing with boys and reading. We are teaching them the way we’ve learned as women — people who have always been catered to in learning reading — and we’re missing that boys learn it in just a different way.

Just to note: a girl’s brain is fully developed at 11 1/2. Boys? 14 1/2. There’s even further disadvantage for them because they’re already starting out behind, but because they aren’t being taught in a manner most advantageous to them, they’re further and further behind.

Now to complicate this information a bit more, here are some scary statistics:

  • Over the last 30 years of standardized testing, girls always outscore boys on reading
  • Boys get 1.5 years behind in reading ability and level (makes sense when you know about their brain development, right?)
  • By 11th grade, the average boy is 3 years behind in reading
  • The Sophomore Study in the U.S. found that boys read 10% less than girls…being 2.3 hours a week on average (that also doesn’t say much for girls).
  • Boys can drag girls down
  • A Kaiser Family study found that boys spend 6.5 hours in front of electronic screen … per day.
  • 35% of the entering males in the freshman class at UCLA said they don’t read
  • 23% of females in that study said they don’t read

Scary stuff, right. Well, it gets scarier:

  • 70% of the Ds and Fs earned in school are from boys
  • 80% of high school dropouts are boys
  • 80% of convicted felons are high school drop outs
  • 85% of special education students are male
  • 85-90% of those diagnosed as ADHD are male
  • 14% of all boys are coded as ADHD
  • 1 out of every 3 boys is in remedial reading by 3rd grade (recall the statistic about boys being 1.5 years behind in reading than girls)

Besides being scary, what do these things all mean?

Being a boy is a disability.

Did you see that part about 35% of UCLA freshman males say they don’t read? This is something important — remember the structured thinking aspect of boy’s brains? Well, for them, admitting failure isn’t okay. Rather, admitting they don’t do something fits with their rules and tools mindset. It’s easier for boys to say they DON’T do something vs. they CAN’T do something. Boys do read. We just need to reach out to them to get them understand they they can.

Thoughts? Comments? Share them. I promise this is my only scary post on this topic. Next installment I will discuss about where and what boys are reading, and then in a final post, I’ll give some of the links to resources from Sullivan’s fantastic program.

Listen up!

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Do you listen to audio books?

I admit to being new to listening to them, afraid my attention span and ability to listen for comprehension of lengthy books would not allow me to get anything out of them. When I moved, though, and my commute went from no time to close to an hour, I gave them a try and am glad I did. Now I’m able to get more reading into each and every day. Moreover, I’m able to dig into books I may otherwise not pick up to read, simply because I’m a captive audience in the car and am willing to give anything a try.

This weekend, I traveled up to Wisconsin to attend a conference on listening for literacy which focused on audio books. As a newbie to audio books, I learned about how naive I’d been and how little I really knew about audio books and what makes them good and bad (though admittedly, I knew there WAS a reason I loved the audios of Al Capone Does My Shirts, Dairy Queen, and Wednesday Wars and was just not crazy about books like The Dead and the Gone and Nineteen Minutes).

Rather than give a blow-by-blow of the entire day, I thought I’d share some of the cool things I learned that might make you a better listener, as well.

First and foremost, I learned there are three types of audio books:

  • Fully voiced — this is when there is a separate voice for each character, and the Harry Potter series would be a good example. It doesn’t necessarily mean that there is a different person doing each voice, but rather, it could be one person who has developed enough voices for each character. I’ll talk more on this in a bit.
  • Partially or semi-voiced — this is when the main character and perhaps 1-2 of the other major characters have separate voices. The rest of the characters are in the general narrator’s voice.
  • Unvoiced — this is when the narrator just reads the story and (hopefully) reads it well.

Although listeners can have a preference for one of these, they can all be done well or all be done poorly. But what makes a good audio book and what makes a bad one? If you’re listening to one and aren’t sure, consider these:

  • Are the words pronounced correctly? Is the narrator using an authentic accent? One of the presenters mentioned a book set in Wisconsin where the narrator had a mid-Atlantic accent and it really killed the book for her as a Wisconsinite. The Dairy Queen, on the other hand, has an authentic Wisconsin accent.
  • Is the book complete with a clear, crisp sound? Is the volume consistent?
  • Do you hear juicy mouth sounds? Is the narrator’s voice hoarse?
  • Has the producer done a good job if material was dubbed not making it obvious? Is the text being repeated or omitted or cut too short? Are chapter breaks awkward or poorly timed?
  • Are names of the title, author, and narrator correct? One of the presenters said that there was one book where the reader mispronounced the name Nguyen and a student with that name was turned off entirely (for those of you unsure, that’s “win,” and the reader said “nah-guy-en”)
  • Does the reader mostly match the age and experience — at least in sound — to the main characters?
  • The readers connect to the text and are generally excited by the reading and discovery in the beauty of the story and the language.
  • Is music used effectively? Walden — the one by Thoreau — apparently has fantastic music interludes and was lauded for that reason.

All of these aspects are what people who listen to audio books begin to understand. They develop a “listening literacy” in a way that readers who read a lot develop about books — pacing, voice, and so forth. Moreover, listeners also gain stronger understanding of cause and effect, predictability, and how language works. During a panel that brought in local teens to talk with us about their listening habits, it was very cool hearing how much they love learning new vocabulary through listening.

Reflecting on my own audio book experiences and thinking about these things, I know exactly what it was about each of my listens that made it enjoyable or less enjoyable.

Back to my earlier comment about fully voiced audio books — have any of you listened to a production by Fullcast Audio? The director and two voice actors (David Kelly who did Kenneth Oppel’s Airborn and Chelsea Mixon of Shannon Hale’s Book of a Thousand Days) came to talk about their company. Rather than depend on one or two narrators, Fullcast hires, well, a voice for each character. Think reader’s theatre on audio. I’ve yet to listen to one, but after seeing a piece about their forthcoming production of Eyes Like Stars and listening to David and Chelsea do a scene from Hale’s book, I can say I plan on hunting out a few of their titles at the library now!

Finally, I wanted to say that listening to teens talk about their favorite audio books was so insightful. I think there were probably 15 or so students there, and the most surprising and exciting thing they said was that audio books are the reason they’re willing to try books they otherwise would never pick up from the shelf. Need I mention the boys ALL said that the Twilight series was one of their favorites to listen to?

So, do you do audio books? What are some of your favorites? What do you listen for? If you haven’t, perhaps you’d love to try your hand at winning a copy of The Dairy Queen from us.

As for me, I’m listening to M. T. Anderson’s Feed, even though it’s a book I’d never pick up. What a fantastically done audio book that has really drawn me in.

YA Lit Conference and Why YA Matters

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This weekend, I got to meet the likes of Ellen Hopkins and Libba Bray, listen to the stories behind the stories of James Owen and Gennier Choldenko, and share lunch and stories with Michelle Zink. The main theme? How YA literature is really the best written material being published these days, how the writing process works, and why book banners are not only bad but that they seem to be increasing in numbers and in anger.

Perhaps it was best stated that the reason so many teens and adults love ya material now is because it’s a fiction of growth and of choice and of change — something we all, regardless of age, always go through. Sure, we aren’t picking out a college when we’re in our 20s, but we can always be making similar life course choices, so we know exactly what that character is going through. We relate to the situations and issues, and age isn’t the determining factor.

To open the event, Judy Blundell and Ellen Hopkins gave thirty minute talks. Judy discussed going from a writer for hire to a National Book Award winner, while Hopkins gave a very moving and provoking speech about those in Norman, Oklahoma who banned her from giving a talk. She then read her Manifesto, written for this year’s Banned Books Week, and she read these incredible letters from readers who were moved by her work.

After the morning talks, we all could choose two of six panels to attend. I went to a panel about local authors that included Cynthea Liu, Claire Zulkey, Susan Fine, and David Kraus. Cynthea made me pumped to finally check out the Students of the Seven Seas series and I was so excited to see Claire since I was reading her book at that moment (more on that in a minute). Susan’s book really excites me, too, as it sounds like such a fantastic book group book. It sounds like a very contemporary Chocolate War. And finally, David’s current book not only excited me, but his talks about a huge book he just submitted sounds like it’s going to be a hit — it’s about modern grave robbers.

Honestly, I should have chosen another session for the next panel; I attended one on new and upcoming books. I chose it over another panel, and I felt like I got nothing out of that one. Alas!

After that panel, we got to get books signed and eat lunch. It was then I met and had my photo taken with Ellen Hopkins:


And sitting next to Ellen was Claire Zulkey. As I mentioned, I bought her book for our library and was reading it — it’s a cute story and one that covers a very interesting topic (that of choosing NOT to attend college right after high school). Her talk during the panel was interesting because I learned about another local author to read about. But, I went up to her and asked if she’d sign the library’s book to the kids. Not only did she do that, but she said it was her first library book. Woo hoo!


Immediately after lunch, James Owen talked about his work as an author/illustrator. He reminded me of those speakers you do listen to in high school and junior high, filled with wisdom and insight. I loved it and couldn’t stop thinking about what a great speaker he’d be, especially for boys.

We had the opportunity for two more break out sessions, and for the first one, I listened to a panel of fantasy writers, including Michelle Zink, James Owen, Kaza Kingsley, and Libba Bray. I don’t know a lot about the genre nor have I read quite enough, but there was a fascinating discussion of female fantasy readers and female-aimed books. Earlier during lunch, Michelle had been talking with my table mates and I about Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series and the role of Bella — that she’s an empty vessel for Edward to be a main role, rather than being a main role herself. Needless to say, they were in agreement that the fantasy coming out now really features enviable, strong, empowered females. And most importantly, it is read and enjoyed — Twilight was really an important gateway for these readers who seek stronger, more literary pieces, too.

My final panel session of the day was on contemporary fiction, featuring Jill Wolfson, Ellen Hopkins, and Lisa Yee. Julia Keller was going to come too, but had to pull out for family reasons at the last minute (keep your eye here for a review of her book very soon, btw!). Perhaps what was most interesting about this panel, aside from accumulating a huge to-read list, was that almost all of the panelists came from journalism backgrounds. I think it shows in their writing and in the topics they tackle — talk about contemporary! I’m very excited to read their titles. If Lisa Yee doesn’t sound familiar, you might know her better as the brains behind the “Pass the old El Paso” slogan.

Finally, the day wrapped up with talks by Gennifer and Libba. Gennifer talked about Alcatraz and writing her book, Al Capone Does My Shirts. I didn’t know how much her book was steeped in reality, so it made my love for it just a little bit stronger. She was very funny and the photos and research she did for the books were right up my alley. Libba’s talk centered on her strange brain (her words, not mine!). She was hysterical but powerful. Right after, I ran up to her and got her to sign my copy of Going Bovine.

All of this is to say that YA will be here a while, and I think it’s going to continue being the most popular area writers want to publish in. The readers aren’t just teenagers; adults continue to be a big market because the writing and the topics are so good and relatable. Perhaps more importantly, we’re going to keep hearing about challenges and struggles from audiences seeking to protect teens from reality in these books — and by trying to do so, limit everyone’s access to such powerful writers and stories. We need to keep fighting and keep promoting, as it will only expand the believers. And we need to keep supporting these authors who care SO MUCH about their readers. The love and utter respect and understanding they have for teenagers is what those teenagers need in their lives and what so many may not have.