STACKED

books

It Happens: A Giveaway

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I have been meaning to do a big link post, since I’ve been not doing the Links of Note with the regularity I’d like to be. Part is that I’ve been doing the Critical Linking posts for the weekend at Book Riot and I don’t want to replicate stuff, and part is just that I have a pile of links saved I want to share and haven’t had time to think about the way I want to yet. Soon! 
But in the mean time, these landed at my door yesterday: 
So how about a giveaway? 
I’ll send one copy of It Happens to a US or Canada resident. I’ll pick a winner at the end of the month. 
And since I’ve been asked a few times, I thought it’d be worth noting that if you’d like to purchase a copy, you can get it at most book retails on the internet, including Book Depository. 

It Happens: It’s Here

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The first copy of my book showed up in the mail yesterday, and I’m really happy with it. I hadn’t seen the finished product — hadn’t seen any steps of the process after going through a set of proof pages months ago to give feedback on design — and getting the chance to page through it was surreal and exciting and a lot of fun yesterday.

It’s neat to see how it came together, and I have to say my favorite part of the book might be this:

There’s a 22-page index in the back of the book. It’s actually three indexes: two of them have locations on them and the one pictured above (obviously) does not.

I plan on doing a giveaway when my personal copies arrive, but I’ve been keeping an eye on where it is available for purchase. And while the publication date is technically August 15, it’s shipping now and available now. You can buy it at VOYA’s site with a 20% subscriber discount. You’re also able to purchase it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Book Depository, all of which have the book discounted. Through Book Depository you can also get free shipping worldwide.  It won’t be in bookstores, since it’s a specialty market title, but if you’re going to ALA next week, you might be able to buy it at VOYA’s booth (or take a picture for me, which would make me so happy).

It’s weird to think this book is 2 years in the making. I put in the proposal in October 2012 after brainstorming what could be a worthwhile project to pursue. I wrote it, edited it, had 2 amazing people read and give me huge and significant feedback on it, did some more revising, then turned it in in June 2013.

Now it’s out there, and that’s neat. I hope it’s a valuable resource and tool to readers who want to know more and learn more about contemporary realistic YA fiction, as well as reader’s advisory. The two things are married in my mind, and so they’re also married in the book.

Between this and finishing a webinar for librarians yesterday, it feels like the end of a chapter in formal librarianship for me. It’s weird, but I feel like I walked away with so much from this field and it’ll never leave me. Like reader’s advisory and YA fiction, librarianship and I will always be married to one another.

I’m excited to take this knowledge and these experiences and apply them and think about them through the next chapters.

It Happens Update

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Just a quick post to say if you are interested in ordering It Happens, you can do that now through VOYA’s online store. If you’re a subscriber to their magazine or to Teacher Librarian, you get a 20% discount, and details on how to take advantage of that are on the site.

I put up a short excerpt last week, too, so you can get a taste of what the book looks like.

I haven’t seen a finished copy yet — I haven’t seen anything since a digital proof a few months ago — so I hope this means there will be some hitting my doorstep soon.

Editing to add you can also get it at Barnes & Noble now, with discount.

Circulating Ideas Interview & Excerpt from “It Happens”

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I’m excited to share the podcast I did with Steve Thomas at Circulating Ideas, which is up now for you to enjoy. We talk about my book, about contemporary realistic fiction, about diversity, and about what makes for good book talking. You can hear it here.

Until the book is up at Amazon/B&N (and I noted yesterday, for people who buy through library vendors like Baker & Taylor and Ingram, you can preorder it now), I won’t talk much more about it. But because I have been talking around the book and have shared the cover, I thought maybe it would be worthwhile to put together a small excerpt from the book to show what it looks like inside.

This excerpt is from the unedited proof, so there may be some minor errors in it. I’ve pulled a passage from Part 1, a section of Part 2, and a section of Part 3, to give a taste of what the entire thing looks like.

If you can’t read the embedded file, you can access it here.

A Million Little Followups (& A Thank You!)

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Kimberly and I are honored to have been named a winning blog in YA Highway’s web awards. Thank you to the amazing community who voted us as the best librarian review blog. 
I also send out a huge thank you to those who named my tumblr a best review tumblr and who named me a runner up in my commitment to feminism in the community. I’m grateful and honored and thrilled by all of this. It was a fantastic way to kick off my Monday.
We appreciate your readership, your feedback, your discussions, and your sharing our work so much. The YA community is such a great one. 
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You may remember earlier this year I wrote about a review I read in School Library Journal about Julie Halpern’s The F-it List and how it missed some key points? 
After the post ran, I was contacted by one of the SLJ editors asking if I’d be willing to writ a 300-word Letter to the Editor summing up my post. So I did. 
That ran today, in conjunction with a response from the original reviewer. I love that they did this — but I will say, I’m disappointed in the response.
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Tomorrow, you can catch me on Steve Thomas’s Circulating Ideas podcast. I’ll link it up here later this week when it’s live, as well. 
I went on the show to talk about my book, about contemporary YA fiction, and about YA reader’s advisory. It was a fun discussion. 
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Speaking of my book, if you have Baker and Taylor or Ingram to do your collection ordering, you can pre-order the book. Information has been submitted to Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and they’ll have it available for ordering soon. 
The second screen shot is from Toronto Public Library, the first library (!!) to have my book on order. Toronto always has a sweet spot in my heart, but this further cements it.   
I thought I wouldn’t be excited about it again until it was in my hands, but seeing it in a library catalog really hit me. I’m thrilled.