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books

Get your Cybils nominations in

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Don’t forget to get your nominations in for this year’s Cybils. All of the details are right here. The deadline for nominations is October 15 so do it today.

I’ve been asked by a few people what books they should nominated for the Young Adult Fiction category, and I thought I’d share a few titles I noticed are still missing from the list. If you’re looking for something to nominate there, maybe pick one of these out! A handful are titles I’ve read and loved but couldn’t nominate myself because I can only choose one and others are titles that sound like they’d make for interesting conversation for the panelists.

Nothing Special by Geoff Herbach (The companion novel to last year’s Cybils winner Stupid Fast)

The Rivals by Daisy Whitney 

A Midsummer’s Nightmare by Kody Keplinger

One Shot Away by T. Glen Coughlin

Freaks Like Us by Susan Vaught

34 Pieces of You by Carmen Rodriguez

I Swear by Lane David

The Waiting Sky by Lara Zielin

Zoe Letting Go by Nora Price

Wanted by Heidi Ayarbe

Thou Shalt Not Road Trip by Antony John

Take a Bow by Elizabeth Eulberg

The Sharp Time by Mary O’Connell

Virtuosity by Jessica Martinez

All You Never Wanted by Adele Griffin

Paradise by Joanna Nadin

Because I’ve stumbled upon some books that fall into the YA Science Fiction/Fantasy category yet to be nominated, I’ll share those too.

The Springsweet by Saundra Mitchell

172 Hours on the Moon by Johan Harstad

Hemlock by Kathleen Peacock

Burn for Burn by Siobhan Vivian and Jenny Han

Remember: anyone can nominate a title. The form is simple and painless, and the more titles there are in a category, the more opportunity the panelists have at making their lists of the BEST titles published in the last year. I hope by the end of the day today, every single one of these titles above ends up on one of the Cybils nomination lists.

Giants Beware! by Jorge Aguirre and Rafael Rosado

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Giants Beware! is another home run for First Second. It’s got lively full-color art, an adventurous plot, and a dash of humor that all add up to a supremely entertaining read for the middle grade set.
Claudette has grown up hearing stories about her father, who lost his legs fighting a fearsome dragon (and survived). She’s also heard stories about how a threatening giant was chased from her town, and she’s very disturbed to learn that no one bothered to kill it – they just let it get away! Claudette decides to fix this mistake. She tricks her younger brother Gaston and her best friend Marie into pursuing the giant from the story, and the three encounter all sorts of danger and cause all sorts of mayhem on their adventure.
I liked how Aguirre played with gender roles. Gaston is your typical scaredy-cat (and also an accomplished pastry chef) while Claudette is the brave one, but neither character is a stereotype. Marie aspires to be a princess when she grows up, and Claudette respects her for it (“Wanting to be a princess is a weird career choice, but if anyone’s smart enough to pull it off, it’s you”). But that doesn’t make Marie a standard fairy tale princess. In fact, each of the supporting characters is given time to shine, since their unique talents help get them out of scrapes. And by the end of the story, all three kids have learned how to be braver, or less impulsive, or more honest. And their friendship has grown and matured, too.
Giants Beware is part of a growing trend of full-color adventure graphic novels, and I’m glad for it. It stands up well with Zita the Spacegirl, Bone, Earthling, Jellaby and the like. It’s its own unique story, too – the French feel makes it stand apart, and Claudette’s energy and bloodthirstiness aren’t matched by any other heroine I’ve read (that’s a good thing).
The art is so good, too. It’s full of terrific facial expressions that add character and make you laugh out loud. Each character is distinctive, even the ancillary ones. And it’s in full color, making the entire thing beautiful and just wonderful to pore over again and again. There’s no cliffhanger, but at least one of the characters hints at further adventures to come, meaning we can hopefully expect a sequel sometime soon.
There were a couple of things that struck me as odd. There were quite a few typos that nagged at me after a while. Unfortunately, these stand out more in a graphic novel than they do in a regular novel, there being fewer words to work with. And Gaston may be a poor choice of name for kids who are probably only familiar with it from Beauty and the Beast (although it is amusing to juxtapose the two characters).
But I’m nitpicking. This is such a fun read, and a great example of what the format can do. Highly recommended.
Book borrowed from the library.

Parallel Worlds

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I’m fascinated by parallel worlds, most likely a result of my early obsession with Pullman’s His Dark Materials. It’s the standard bearer for parallel worlds (or universes, whichever you prefer), but I like to read other books with this same feature when I can. Lately, I’ve noticed more than usual popping up within the last few years or so, and a lot of them have been YA.
I’ve listed a few of them below, with their descriptions from WorldCat and links to Goodreads. I know there are a lot more that are older, but I’m more interested in those that have published within the past five years. A few of these have been on my radar for a while, but some I hadn’t heard of until I started looking. Obviously, my to-read list has grown! I’d love more recommendations.
Note that I make a distinction between parallel worlds and alternate histories, though I think the two can have some overlap. Sometimes a parallel world is “created” when a moment in history happens a different way from ours, making this other world both parallel and alternate history. But while alternate histories intrigue me, they’re usually just stories about a single world. Because of that, they don’t fascinate me as much as parallel worlds existing side by side, where the story involves at least two of these worlds that impact each other in some way.
I’m also deliberately not including purely fantasy worlds in this post (which means stories like Narnia and Alice in Wonderland are out). While I certainly like those stories, what interests me most about parallel worlds is the idea that it could maybe actually happen. Because of science. Well, most stories it’s more like “science” than science, but you get what I mean.
Through to You by Emily Hainsworth: When a teen boy loses the love of his life in a car accident, he’ll do anything to get her back–even travel to another universe. That synopsis is slightly misleading, because Cam ends up in the other universe pretty much by accident. I just finished reading this one recently and enjoyed it. Hainsworth actually doesn’t delve much at all into how the parallel world exists, making it potentially magical or scientific. Kelly reviewed this book last week. 
Fair Coin by E. C. Myers: When evil versions of himself and best friend Nate appear one day,
teenaged Ephraim embarks on a dangerous odyssey through parallel worlds
to make things right. Matthew Jackson reviewed this one for us in July. I read it soon after, and his review is spot-on. In Myers’ multiverse, there are innumerable worlds that his characters can travel to, and the possibilities are so exciting to think about. Its sequel, Quantum Coin, publishes October 23. 
The Shadow Society by Marie Rutkoski: Sixteen-year-old Darcy Jones knows little about her past except that she
was abandoned outside a Chicago firehouse at age five, but when the
mysterious Conn arrives at her high school she begins to discover things
about her past that she is not sure she likes. The synopsis doesn’t tell you that the story involves parallel worlds, but the Goodreads reviews clued me in, and they made me want to read this one. It involves a parallel Chicago that sounds very interesting. I’m currently reading it, but haven’t gotten to the good stuff yet.

Planesrunner by Ian McDonald: When fourteen-year-old Everett Singh’s scientist father is kidnapped
from the streets of London, he leaves a mysterious app on Everett’s
computer giving him access to the Infundibulum–a map of parallel
earths–which is being sought by technologically advanced dark powers
that Everett must somehow elude while he tries to rescue his father. This is one I hadn’t even heard of until I started looking around. Despite the awful cover (in my opinion), this sounds right up my alley.
Gateway by Sharon Shinn: While passing through the Arch in St. Louis, Missouri, a Chinese
American teenager is transported to a parallel world where she is given a
dangerous assignment. This is one I haven’t read, so I’m not sure if it’s more fantasy than science fiction. It seems like it might be. Still, the premise is intriguing, and I adored Sharon Shinn’s Samaria series as a teenager. 
Fringe (tv series): OK, so this isn’t a book, but more of you should be watching this show. The first season is a bit slow to get to the good stuff, and has an annoying bit with a misogynistic character in a position of power that made me stop watching it the first time, but oh, it is so worth it. It’s got parallel worlds and time travel and complex plotting and great characters. It tells small stories each episode, but also tells a huge, over-arching story with worlds at stake. And this season is set in a dystopian future. Be still, my heart. (By the way, Fringe’s dystopia clobbers Revolution’s.)
Are there any more books out there that fit my criteria? I’m also interested in hearing your recommendations for older books and adult books. I know about a lot of them, but you should tell me which ones I should tackle first.

The “next big thing” in contemporary YA fiction at The Hub

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Every day this month, YALSA’s The Hub blog is talking about what the “next big thing” will be in a variety of different genres. It’s a way to tie into YALSA’s YA Lit Symposium theme.

Today, my post on the “next big thing” in contemporary YA fiction went up, and it’s a post I really care about.

Part of why we proposed a panel on the topic of contemporary YA fiction for the symposium last year was because there is not a trendiness to this arena of YA fiction. It’s always been around and it continues to delve into what it means to be a teenager. It explores the struggles, the triumphs, and the whole experience of adolescence.

There’s nothing particularly trendy about it, but that doesn’t make it matter any less.

And that’s exactly how and why I wrote the post at The Hub the way I did. Sure, there are some interesting similarities in topics being written about, but in no way do I think there is a “next big thing” in contemporary fiction. It is and will always be a thing.

Tomorrow I’ll have another post up at YALSA’s blog with October debut titles and wow — I think October might be winning the race for most debuts in a single month.