Monthly Giving: ProPublica

April 26, 2017 |

The Pulitzer Prizes were announced earlier this month, and ProPublica won the Pulitzer Gold Medal for Public Service for their work with the New York Daily News “uncovering, primarily through the work of reporter Sarah Ryley, widespread abuse of eviction rules by the [New York] police to oust hundreds of people, most of them poor minorities.” If you haven’t dug through the series highlighted on the Pulitzer Prize website, I highly recommend it. It’s an example of the ongoing importance of investigative journalism – when it’s done right. This is ProPublica’s fourth Pulitzer Prize.

Journalism is rapidly changing, and many of us have become disillusioned with the traditional news sources, particularly with the way the presidential campaign was covered. ProPublica is a bit different from the rest: they’re non-profit and independent, focusing solely on “investigative journalism in the public interest…stories with ‘moral force.'”

I donated to ProPublica this month, and if you haven’t yet given anything this month and are able, I encourage you to do so as well. With “alternative facts” proliferating, it’s more and more important that we support high-quality journalism in any way we can.

In honor of the Pulitzer prizes and ProPublica, the book list for this month features kids and teens who are journalists (aspiring or otherwise) themselves – kids and teens who may grow up to work for an organization like ProPublica one day. I’ve also highlighted a few nonfiction titles about real-world journalists. If there are any additional titles you’d like to recommend, please let me know in the comments.

Young Adult Fiction

Fallout by Gwenda Bond

Lois Lane is the new girl at East Metropolis High, and her instinct to ask questions brings her and her online friend, Smallville Guy, into conflict with some bullying video gamers called the Warheads, who are being used in a dangerous virtual reality experiment. | Sequel: Triple Threat

Payback Time by Carl Deuker

Overweight, somewhat timid Mitch reluctantly agrees to be the sports reporter for the Lincoln High newspaper because he’s determined to be a writer, but he senses a real story in Angel, a talented football player who refuses to stand out on the field–or to discuss his past.

Last Shot by John Feinstein

After winning a basketball reporting contest, eighth graders Stevie and Susan are sent to cover the Final Four tournament, where they discover that a talented player is being blackmailed into throwing the final game. | Sequels: Vanishing Act, Cover-Up, Change-Up, The Rivalry, Rush for the Gold

Hattie Ever After by Kirby Larson

In 1919, seventeen-year-old Hattie leaves the Montana prairie–and her sweetheart Charlie–to become a female reporter in San Francisco. | Sequel to Hattie Big Sky

The Secrets of Tree Taylor by Dandi Daley Mackall

In small-town Missouri in tumultuous 1963, Tree Taylor, thirteen, wants to write an important story to secure a spot on the high school newspaper staff, but when a neighbor is shot, she investigates and learns that some secrets should be kept.

Keeper by Mal Peet

In an interview with a young journalist, World Cup hero, El Gato, describes his youth in the Brazilian rain forest and the events, experiences, and people that helped make him a great goalkeeper and renowned soccer star. | Sequels: The Penalty, Exposure

The Intern by Gabrielle Tozer

Josie Browning dreams of having it all. A perfect academic record, an amazing journalism career – and for her crush to realise she exists. The only problem? Josie can’t stop embarrassing her little sister or her best friend, let alone herself. Josie’s luck changes when she lands an internship at Sash magazine. A coveted columnist job is up for grabs, but Josie quickly learns making her mark will be far from easy, especially under the reign of editor Rae Swanson. From the lows of photocopying and coffee-fetching, to the highs of celebrities, beauty products and by-lines, this is one internship Josie will never forget. | Sequel: Faking It

Middle Grade Fiction

Isabel Feeney, Star Reporter by Beth Fantaskey

In the 1920s, a ten-year-old newsgirl who aspires to be a reporter at the Chicago Tribune investigates the murder of a gangster.

Emma is on the Air: Big News! by Ida Siegal

Traces young Emma Perez’s journey into journalism, mystery solving, and fame when she investigates a worm found in a friend’s hamburger. | Sequels: Party Drama!, Showtime!, Undercover!

Meet Kit: An American Girl, 1934 by Valerie Tripp

Kit longs for a big story to write in her daily newspaper for her Dad—that is, until she’s faced with news that’s really bad. When Mother’s friends lose their house and come to stay with her family, it’s nothing but trouble for Kit. Then Kit’s dad loses his business, and things go from bad to worse. Will life ever be the same again? | Sequels: Kit Learns a Lesson, Kit’s Surprise, Happy Birthday Kit, Kit Saves the Day, Changes for Kit

Uncertain Glory by Lea Wait

Joe Wood has big dreams. He wants to be a newspaperman, and though he’s only thirteen, he’s already borrowed money for the equipment to start his own press. But it’s April 1861, and the young nation is teetering on the brink of a civil war. He has to help Owen, his young assistant, deal with the challenges of being black in a white world torn apart by color. He needs to talk his best friend, Charlie, out of enlisting. He wants to help a young spiritualist, Nell, whose uncle claims can she speak to the dead. And when Owen disappears, it’s up to Joe to save him.

Nonfiction

Yours for Justice, Ida B. Wells: The Daring Life of a Crusading Journalist by Philip Dray

Biography of Ida B. Wells-Barnett, a journalist and teacher who wrote about and spoke against the injustices suffered by African-Americans.

Reporting Under Fire: 16 Daring Women War Correspondents and Photojournalists by Kerrie Logan Hollihan

A profile of 16 courageous women, Reporting Under Fire tells the story of journalists who risked their lives to bring back scoops from the front lines. Each woman experiences her own journey, both personally and professionally, and each draws her own conclusions. Yet without exception, these war correspondents share a singular ambition: to answer an inner call driving them to witness war firsthand, and to share what they learn via words or images.

Ida M. Tarbell: The Woman Who Challenged Big Business – and Won! by Emily Arnold McCully

Biography of Ida Minerva Tarbell, arguably one of the first journalists to regularly write exposés, and through them exposed the shady business practices of businessman John D. Rockefeller.

Ten Days a Madwoman: The Daring Life and Turbulent Times of the Original “Girl” Reporter, Nellie Bly by Deborah Noyes

A biography of Nellie Bly, the pioneering journalist whose showy but substantive stunts skyrocketed her to fame.

Reporter in Disguise: The Intrepid Vic Steinberg by Christine Welldon

Over 100 years ago, Vic Steinberg was breaking ground. She was one of the New Women, a bachelor girl who pursued a career in investigative journalism–hardly the type of lifestyle for an upper-middle class young lady. But she had to be stealthy, secretive, and cunning if she wanted her scoop.

Young Readers’ Editions of Novels

March 22, 2017 |

Young readers’ editions (usually for teens or tweens) of adult nonfiction titles are pretty common, and run the gamut from mediocre knock-offs to standouts that improve on the originals. What haven’t been particularly common are young readers’ editions of novels – until now, perhaps? In my collection management duties, I’ve come across three recently that may signal a trend. What do you think – are these worthwhile, or are they simply failed attempts to extend the life of bestsellers that are now fading in popularity?

The Da Vinci Code (the Young Adult Adaptation) by Dan Brown

Y’all, I still really love this book. I never got into any of his other novels featuring Robert Langdon, but I’ve re-read this one a few times and I think it holds up. It’s a fun thriller, a superb page-turner, and I’m always befuddled by people who trash it for featuring a conspiracy plotline that is obviously untrue. It’s a novel, not a treatise on religion.

That said, is a teen adaptation really necessary? There’s no content in the original unsuitable for teens (a bit of sex, but it’s glossed over; no explicit violence; not much swearing that I can recall, if any). There are other things that could be done to make the story more appealing (vs. suitable) for teen readers, such as somehow making a teen the protagonist, but I don’t think that would necessarily add anything, and this book was so huge I think teens would want to read the original anyway. The language certainly doesn’t need to be dumbed down any – not to say that it’s dumb already, that’s just never a good way to reach teenagers generally.

The publisher marketing says this new edition “includes over twenty color photos showing important locations, landmarks, and artwork, taking readers from Paris to London and beyond,” which may help teen readers better contextualize the action of the story, particularly if they’re unfamiliar with some of the locations or artwork mentioned. But this sort of thing is helpful for adult readers too. Our five copies have circulated 16 times since they were added in November 2016.

Cradle and All by James Patterson

At first this appeared to be simply a reissue of the book for the YA market with no changes, much like Tor did with Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series a few years ago. It’s published under James Patterson’s youth imprint, Jimmy Patterson, and includes an excerpt from one of the first YA titles from that line, Stalking Jack the Ripper by Kerri Maniscalco, which makes me think the reissue is mainly a marketing tool for the Jimmy Patterson line of YA books. The book was originally published in 1980 under the title Virgin, but renamed Cradle and All in 2000, still published for the adult market. The teen edition has a new cover, but the publisher marketing is the same as for the 2000 edition. The new cover doesn’t even state that it’s a young readers edition anywhere.

It has an ensemble cast of characters, two of whom are teenagers (not a requirement for a YA novel, but a general rule). The main investigator and the first person POV character, however, is an adult. A couple of the Goodreads reviews indicate this edition has a few changes from the adult edition, such as this one which states “It was a much quicker read than the ‘adult’ version” and this one which states “tweeting and social media play a part in this story now.” But since the publisher blurb is identical to the adult edition, it’s hard to really tell what changes have been made – just updates to make it more contemporary, or more significant changes to make it more appealing to teens? Our 11 copies have circulated 23 times so far since they were added in November 2016.

Orphan Train Girl by Christina Baker Kline

Out May 2, this is a young readers’ edition of Kline’s bestselling Orphan Train. This is the first of the young readers’ editions of adult novels I’ve seen that actually changes the title, rather than just appending “young readers’ edition” or something similar to it. Thankfully, the publisher marketing explicitly addresses the ways in which this edition differs from the adult edition: “Adapted and condensed for a young audience, Orphan Train Girl includes an author’s note and archival photos from the orphan train era.” So it’s basically shorter and has a couple extras. The cover uses the same basic design as the adult edition, which makes sense, since it features a young girl.

I actually think this may be well-suited to a young readers’ edition since a teenage (or perhaps pre-teen) girl is one of the two main characters in the original, and the relationship between her and the 91-year-old woman she meets while forced to do community service is the central plotline (and the novel explores the older woman’s childhood as well). So shifting the focus to the young girl’s thoughts and feelings may indeed breathe new life into this novel for younger readers. HarperCollins is publishing this version for the middle grade market, ages 8-12.

Cybils 2016 – Elementary & Middle Grade Graphic Novels

March 8, 2017 |

Lowriders to the Center of the Earth by Cathy Camper and Raul the Third

This is such a great example of a Cybils book. An impala (Lupe Impala), a mosquito (Elirio Malaria), and an octopus (El Chavo Octopus) are three friends who own a garage together. When their pet cat goes missing, they climb into their lowrider and set out to rescue him. What follows is a fast-paced adventure to the center of the Earth, involving Aztec gods, La Llorona, and even a bit of lucha libre. Camper weaves Mexican and Latin American culture seamlessly into the storyline, and her characters pepper their language with Spanish words and phrases (translated for non-Spanish speakers in footnotes at the bottom of each page). The story is rife with wordplay and puns, including some that take advantage of both languages at once. Raul the Third’s pen and ink art is unique and a delight to look at – I can picture kids spending long moments poring over the frequent double-page spreads, picking out every last detail.

The Wolves of Currumpaw by William Grill

This is a graphic adaptation of a story originally published in 1898 by Ernest Thompson Seton (who helped found the Boy Scouts of America), about a wolf named Lobo and various attempts to trap or kill it. I’m not sure how much the text itself was modified by Grill, but it still feels very old-fashioned in its syntax and word choice. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, it did make it a bit of a dry read for me. The art, on the other hand, is phenomenal. I would describe this as a cross between a standard picture book and a graphic novel, because there are no panels, really, though the art is mostly sequential and necessary to the story, as opposed to being merely illustrative. It looks like it was done in colored pencil, a deviation from what most people think of when they picture a comic book. While I didn’t love the text, the art makes this a treasure of a book. In fact, the whole package is gorgeous and a stellar example of bookmaking – thick, somewhat rough pages, a textured cover, oversized. This kind of bookmaking is a hallmark of Flying Eye books and I always look forward to what they publish for this very reason.

Mighty Jack by Ben Hatke

I’m a big fan of Hatke’s work. His stories are so kid-friendly, and he’s a major double threat: great writing, great art. Zita the Spacegirl is one of my favorite graphic novel series and I recommend it all the time. Mighty Jack is his re-telling of Jack and the Beanstalk, and it’s a solid start. Jack’s family consists of his sister Maddy, who has autism and doesn’t speak, and his mom, who is taking a second job over the summer to help make ends meet. The setting appears to be pretty rural and Jack’s family also appears to be pretty poor, both elements you don’t see very explicitly in much kidlit. At the flea market one day, Jack is persuaded to hand over the keys to his mom’s car in exchange for some seeds…by Maddy, who speaks for the first time in Jack’s experience. It’s astonishing enough that Jack makes the trade, though of course he gets in hot water for it (luckily, the car is recovered). But when the seeds are planted, the story deviates from its source material pretty significantly. All sorts of different things grow, not just a beanstalk, and there aren’t really giants to speak of. Plus there’s a neighbor girl and some swordplay and possibly a dragon…it’s imaginative and fun and sensitive to its characters. It ends a bit abruptly and feels very much like a first installment, but I look forward to reading the next.

The Nameless City by Faith Erin Hicks

Faith Erin Hicks is another graphic novel creator I consider a double threat. I liked both Brain Camp and Friends With Boys (the latter was a 2012 Cybils winner I helped choose as a round 2 judge). I thought the concept of The Nameless City was really intriguing – a fictional city reminiscent of feudal China that is conquered every 20 years or so by a different group of people due to its strategic location. The two main characters each belong to a separate group – one a member of the conquering, the other a member of the conquered. The characters feel real and the art is expressive and lovely, as is always the case with Hicks’ work. That said, Angie Manfredi brought up some thoughtful points about the problematic aspects of the book’s premise and execution, thoughts echoed by another of our round 2 judges. These points are worth considering as we (particularly white and non-Asian) readers absorb stories like these, which draw inspiration from cultures that are not our own.

Compass South by Hope Larson and Rebecca Mock

I really enjoyed this story of a pair of identical twins whose adoptive father has gone missing (presumed dead) and decide to impersonate another man’s missing twin sons, who also happen to have red hair, in order to benefit from his wealth. There are a couple of problems: they’re in New York and the man is in San Francisco, and these twins are a girl and a boy named Cleo and Alex. This is a historical adventure set in the 1860s that involves stowing away on a ship, gangs of street kids, mysterious artifacts, another pair of twins pulling the same con, reluctant cross-dressing, and hints of lost pirate treasure. There’s also a significant amount of emotional heft to the really fun storyline: the relationship between Cleo and Alex is fraught but loving, and their friendship with the other set of twins they meet – who have different motivations for their con entirely – adds another layer. Mock’s art is clean, colorful, and expressive. I’ll definitely be reading the sequel.

Princess Princess Ever After by Katie O’Neill

I love this book to pieces. It’s more on the elementary side than the middle grade side – a bit shorter, a bit more simplistic than the others on the shortlist. It’s a sort of retelling of Rapunzel, but this time it’s a headstrong black princess, Amira, who rescues a white princess, Sadie, in the tower. They then go on a series of fun, small adventures, culminating in a bigger adventure where they confront the person who put Sadie in the tower in the first place. And yes, they fall in love, and there’s a sweet lesbian wedding in the epilogue, where the two girls are now adults and have accomplished much in their lives – and have come back to each other to live happily ever after. The mini adventures are cute and funny, subverting gender roles along the way (including the proscribed role of men in traditional fairy tales), and the ending is a joy and a gift. (One note: Sadie is frequently described as fat, and refers to herself this way too, but another judge pointed out the art doesn’t do a great job of depicting her this way, which is true. So, there’s definitely a body positivity message, but whether it’s executed successfully or not is up for debate.)

Bera the One-Headed Troll by Eric Orchard

Bera finds a human baby one day and decides to save its life, when all the other creatures in the land of trolls would like it dead, or to use it for their own ends. In her quest to return it to its parents in the land of humans, she encounters all manner of creatures who pose a threat to either Bera or the baby – or both. This is a cute, imaginative story, but ultimately I found it mostly forgettable. That is partly due to the art, which is mostly browns and grays (I wish it had all been colored like the cover). It fits the mood of the story but also feels a bit repetitive. Worth a read, but not my favorite.

For reviews of titles on the Young Adult shortlist, see this post.

Find YA Books On Any Topic: A Resource Guide

January 16, 2017 |

Some of the best questions that land in my inbox or show up in my social media feed relate to finding YA books. Where can someone find books are X or Y or Z, or books that are about X or Y or Z written by people of color, queer writers, disabled writers, and so on. Often, those questions come with the (sometimes unspoken) caveat that the recommendations be vetted by those marginalized groups to ensure that good, solid representation shows up in the books that will ultimately end up in a young reader’s hands.

Many times, I can give the answer to these questions. Other times, I peruse some of the excellent resources out there in order to check and double check my recommendations. I realized rounding up the resources I use would be invaluable to fellow readers, both those who ware looking for book lists and those who may be looking for a good book.

This isn’t a comprehensive resource, and certainly, I’ll be missing some great stuff. I’d love more recommended resources in the comments if there are sites you use to look for YA books and book recommendations. I’ve broken this down by category, though please note there are plenty of crossover lists and intersectional explorations among these resources. Some of these are long-running resources and some are newer but look extremely promising. It’s also worth noting many of these sites don’t stick to YA alone, so there might be further resources available for those interested in books for older or younger readers.

A huge, huge thank you to those who work tirelessly to keep these resources excellent tools in furthering discussion and knowledge of young adult literature.

General Resources

The Ultimate List of YA Book Lists: I keep this guide on my Tumblr that rounds up the booklists many might find interesting or useful that I’ve written or that Kimberly has written.

YA Lit: This is an excellent tool for keeping on top of releases as they hit shelves, as well as those which will be publishing in the future.

Diversity: Race & Ethnicity

Diversity in YA: Book lists on about any topic that are completely stacked with diverse/inclusive titles.

We Need Diverse Books: WNDB’s summer reading series is an excellent place to go for read alike suggestions of inclusive titles from popular titles you may already know.

Edi Campbell: Edi keeps track of the inclusive titles published in any given year. She’s got the book lists on the side bar of her website, including a list of POC authors of YA and New Adult fiction.

Debbie Reese: Her American Indians in Children’s Literature site has a host of excellent resources and book recommendations by and about Natives.

Cynthia Leitich-Smith: She has been keeping incredible bibliographies for children’s list for ages and these resources are a treasure trove.

Rich in Color: They track the weekly new releases by authors of color and/or featuring inclusivity.

The Brown Bookshelf: I’ve been reading this site for a long, long time, and it continues to be a great resource for books by and about black writers and characters. They have a nice round-up of authors of color, and their 28 Days series, which happens every February, is a must-read.

Asian YA Lit: This one is not only new to me, but it’s pretty new all together. This Tumblr has round-ups and other posts of interest relating to Asian YA lit. Their intro post makes me so excited to see what all they highlight.

Latinxs in Kid Lit: If you’re looking for YA, middle grade, or other resources relating to Latinx books, writers, or readers, you can do no better than here.

Diversity: LGBTQIA+

Gay YA: This tumblr, started by two teenagers, is one of the best YA resources out there about queer YA lit and representation.

LGBTQ Reads: Book lists galore. This is a fabulous and ever-growing resource for queer YA (and sometimes “New Adult”) lit.

Lee Wind: Lee has been an advocate for LGBTQ+ children’s lit for a long, long time and the resources and booklists on his website are so useful.

Diversity: Disability

Disability in Kid Lit: Any and everything you ever wanted to know or learn about disability and disability representation in kid lit. Book reviews, book lists, and fabulous discussion posts.

Cybils Shortlists Are Here!

January 1, 2017 |

It’s the first of the year, meaning that it’s not only time for a fresh start, but it’s also the day that Cybils shortlists are announced. I took part in a totally new-to-me category this year: middle grade and young adult nonfiction. For the last three months, I read a lot of nonfiction. I managed to get my hands on nearly every nominated title; just a few didn’t get read! It was a lot of fun and a lot of work and I learned a ridiculous amount about great nonfiction for young readers.

Here’s our roundup of middle grade short listed titles:

The titles include A Storm Too Soon, Fashion Rebels, This Land Is Our Land, Bubonic Panic, Sachiko, Ten Days A Madwoman, and We Will Not Be Silent. You can read the blurbs about why these were the selected titles right here (and you should!). Each of these titles I found to be great, engaging reads and the range of topics, writing styles, and layouts is really fascinating to see.

Here’s the Young Adult nonfiction list:

The titles include The Borden Murders, The Plot to Kill Hitler, Radioactive: How Irene Curie and Lise Meitner Revolutionized Science and Changed The World, Blood Brother, Every Falling Star, Blood Bullets Bones, and In The Shadow of Liberty. Again, you can read the reasons why each title was selected here.

I have to say that I’m a fan of every title selected and don’t feel there’s anything that I read that I wish had made it instead of any of these. A couple of other titles I read and thought were good and would make good reads, especially for readers who seek out nonfiction, include Women in Science by Rachel Ignotofsky (the only collective biography we read that I felt had merit from beginning to end — I found a lot of them to be written poorly and/or overlooked facts that should have been mentioned and/or had errors and/or were just not high on the appeal factor), The Totally Gross History of Ancient Rome by Jeremy Klar (I love social histories of ancient Rome, so this was a case of appealing to me!), All Better Now by Emily Wing Smith (which is a medical/mental health memoir with one of the most unfortunate and unappealing covers out there — you would have a hard time getting someone to pick that one up and know anything about it!), and Forward by Abby Wambach (it’s about her life pre- and post-soccer life and even though I knew nothing about her at all, her writing style and honesty in telling her ups and downs through life was engaging).

Some other interesting things of note from this year’s nonfiction reading: the feminist-angled nonfiction is not only very white, but when it attempts to be more intersectional, it has half-facts and overlooks other big issues (The F-Word title we read, for example, notes how some women of color fought for equal rights and suffrage, but then doesn’t note that the voting Amendment for women was limited to white women). The collective biographies, including the two fashion books, mined a lot of similar material and it was so interesting to see the biases and writing styles shine through each of them. And as noted before, many were not particularly great. I also found myself liking some of the titles in a bigger trim size and not being put off by it, though there was a lot of time spent these last three months thinking about the design of nonfiction and how information can be conveyed well or poorly depending on choices made in the design process.

Fun tidbit from this year’s cybils work on my committee was that we finished our discussion very quickly. Like, land speed record quickly. The setup for discussion throughout the reading period made the conversation happen efficiently, but also, there were a lot of clear-cut great reads and clear-cut not-great reads. More, one of the things Jennie, our organizer, mentioned to me was that often, literary merit and reader appeal can work against one another in nonfiction, and that seemed to be really evident in these titles.

I’m glad I took the leap and did this this year. You can catch up on all of the shortlisted titles for “best in kid lit” over on the Cybils blog. Now that my work is done, Kimberly gets to be on the super-secret judging side of round two for graphic novels.