STACKED

books

When you aren’t allowed in the building

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This isn’t usually a topic I’d talk about on STACKED — I’d take it over to my library-related blog — but this is such an important issue and one that impacts anyone who loves and advocates for ya books, so I’m going to talk about it here.

You know I am fired up this year about making sure books I care about are nominated for any of YALSA’s award and selection lists. And you know I’ve talked about how anyone can nominate books they think are worthy of consideration for those award and selection lists. That’s a huge deal and something not many people knew about. I think I’ve beat this horse pretty well.

Wednesday night, I went to go look at a book list on YALSA’s site and came across something that bothered me (click to enlarge):

What was once an open and freely accessible resource of YALSA book award and book list information was suddenly requiring me to log in to my YALSA account to access. I clicked around for quite a while without logging into my account and realized that not only could I not see any of the award or selection lists without signing in, but I couldn’t even see what the award or book lists were without logging in. That means, I had no idea how many awards there were, what they were called, what the criteria were for books to be considered for any of the lists, nor anything else related to any of YALSA’s award or book lists. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, accessible about the award nor book lists without logging into my account.

Part of my professional responsibility as a librarian, at least in my head, is belonging to my professional association. It’s very pricey, especially since I pay for the membership on my own and don’t have an organization that pays it for me. To be a member of YALSA, you must also be a member of ALA — you can’t just be a member of YALSA. Yearly membership into ALA for me costs $100, and my membership into YALSA costs $50 (I’m also a member of PLA and ALSC, which are also additional costs). I think it’s a steep price to pay each year, but it’s one I make. Paying means I’m a member and I help support the creation and development of these award and selection lists, among a host of other things. It gives me the ability to have a say in the organization, as well. It’s $150 I spend because it supports many things I am passionate about and allows me to have a say in many of these arenas.

When I hit the fire walled screen on Wednesday night and found out I needed to log in to my account to access, I was at first confused. Why would my professional organization hide information about one of the biggest things they do? Why would they require me to log in to see something that’s always been openly accessible and available? I passed along the link to a non-member to see whether it was just me, and I came to find out that no, it wasn’t just me.

No one could access these lists from YALSA’s site without logging into an account of some sort. 

For me, this means another couple of clicks on the screen to log in to my account. It’s not the biggest deal in the world on a practical level. And non-YALSA members can also access the lists and information about the awards by filling out a short form that asks for a name, email address, and what products or services they might be interested in from YALSA. It also opts them into being signed up for YALSA email.

Let’s step back a second here. To access even information about what awards or selection lists YALSA makes each year, you have to log into either your YALSA account or provide your personal information to the organization and be opted in to an email list. No longer can you access these freely from the YALSA site without information being collected about you. No longer can you hop onto YALSA’s site to look at what books were Alex Award winners last year. No longer can you look at the criteria for Printz Award books. No longer do you even know how many award or selection lists there are without logging into some kind of account. No longer can you nominate a book for a list without breaking through the fire wall.

I’m disturbed by this because it chokes access to information. More than that, though, I’m bothered that nothing was said about this change in access. Librarians strive to prove access to information and our goal is always to make it as painless as possible. But here, YALSA, the biggest professional organization for young adult library services, has put up a barrier to information about the biggest honors they bestow upon ya literature each year.

And they did it without telling anyone.

After a little investigation, it was discovered that there was a Board of Directors document discussing a potential change in access to information about these award and selection lists. The document suggests that there should be a change in access so that due-paying YALSA members can access privileged information. More specifically, annotated lists would be put behind a fire wall and made members only, but general information about the award and selection lists, as well as the non-annotated lists, would still be freely accessible for anyone. This change makes sense to me — as someone who pays the dues, getting the benefit of an annotated list, one that not everyone can access, seems fair. It’s a small perk for paying the money each year to keep the organization going.

However, that is not what happened. Rather than hide simply the annotated lists behind a log in screen, YALSA has hidden everything behind a log in screen, and this change in policy was never discussed. It is not in any Board document, it was not discussed with membership, it was not put to vote, and it was certainly not shared on their website nor in any of their communications. This was a decision made behind closed doors somewhere.

Accessing any information about book award and selection lists is now a privilege. 

For me, this means another couple of clicks on the screen to log in to my account. It’s not a big deal, but it’s an extra step in accessing information I need. And people who aren’t members of YALSA can still access the lists by filling out a small form on the website. The problem is, YALSA’s now collecting your information and it’s now forcing you into their email list. This isn’t an opt-out situation but an opt-in. You can’t choose not to be forced into their mailing list. 

Think about it this way: say you’re a library patron whose library has always allowed anyone to use the computers in the building. You don’t need to log into them with a library card, since you can just use one if it’s open. One day, though, there’s a change in the policy. It’s not written down anywhere but you find out when you go sit at a computer and discover you need some kind of ID number and password to sign in. You’re a little frustrated because no one told you there was a change, but you go to the librarian and sign up for a library card to get your log in information. Not a huge deal, but an extra step in the process.

Except in this scenario — with the YALSA list access — you aren’t even allowed in the building without some sort of ID. You aren’t even allowed to see what the library can offer you because you have to have the log in information before you walk inside.

I’m deeply bothered by this change in access to information by YALSA, and I am frustrated that as a member, I wasn’t told about this change. When YALSA was asked about this, their response was that the choking of access to all of this information was a technical glitch and that the Board’s decision about what information would be privileged would be the information fire walled when the glitch was solved.

But in my mind, besides sounding like a really bad excuse, the damage has already been done.

If we’re advocating for books and reading, if we’re advocating for the best of the best, and if the goal in having these awards and selection lists is to provide information, then there is no excuse for cutting it all out of public reach. Yes, I believe there is value in member’s only content — especially for something like annotated lists — but there is no value in blocking off everything about these award lists. What is the value in not letting anyone even see what the award and selection lists ARE? It’s locking out not only information, but valuable promotional opportunities. It puts barriers up to advocacy. Everything I told you about nominating books for awards because it’s important still stands, but now there are extra steps involved in making those nominations. How many people will go through the extra hassle? I know I wouldn’t.

Whether or not you are a YALSA member, you should have access to at least the basic information about these awards. That’s one of the reasons you’d consider joining the organization in the first place — you want to know what your money will be supporting. It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that the reason YALSA took these steps was so it could collect information about non-member behavior in hopes of growing their membership. And it makes sense. There’s money to be made through growing membership, but this is not the way to achieve it. In fact, by developing this fire wall and not telling anyone about it, YALSA’s pushing people away. It’s making it an exclusive club.

Fortunately, there are workarounds to this situation that allow you access to the information without logging in or creating an account with YALSA. The first? Google the lists. You’d have to know what lists you’re looking for, but a Google search of “YALSA Alex Awards” will take you to the information without forcing you to log in.

Now I don’t know about you, but it seems backwards that you should be able to access information available on YALSA’s site without restriction by going through Google, rather than YALSA, but I digress. You can do it this way.

The second means of accessing this information is by asking someone who is a YALSA member to log in and share the link to the list with you. I guess if you’re given a link from a logged in member, you can go directly to it. Again, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, but it works.

What this long post is about is this: YALSA screwed up big time, and they didn’t bother telling any of us about it. Instead, we’re finding out when we’re being locked out of information that’s always been freely available. Information that’s always been freely available and accessible. We’re being forced to share our information with YALSA. We’re being forced to figure out workarounds so we can access and share this information with others.

We’re being pushed away from advocating and promoting these awards, these selection lists, and we’re being pushed away from spreading the information about why these things are important. 

The organization which supports freedom of information and spreading of knowledge is breaking down those very ideas.

This is not okay.

Edited to add this: Liz has also blogged on the topic, and her post is worth thinking about as well.

Later edited to add that YALSA has responded to this issue. For the record, I do not equate collecting email addresses to access this information as any sort of nod toward value but rather a nod toward needing to access the information. I’m a little disappointed this wasn’t addressed with the membership nor was it in any Board documents, but there it is.

So You Want To Read YA?: An Intro To Our Series

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There’s no question we’re passionate young adult fiction readers here at STACKED, and we like to think we offer up a nice mix of genres and styles in our reviews. We have pretty diverse interests and tastes, but more importantly, we are open minded and like to give new things a try.

One of the questions we’re most often asked — both as bloggers and as librarians — comes from those who are new to YA, and it’s simply “Where do I start?” It can be daunting to point out a title or two as starting points to the YA world. You can’t possibly pick one or two titles as essential starting points. You have to know what your reader likes and wants to read in order to feel like you can give them their correct starting point. Yes, I wrote that right: THEIR correct starting point.

So after thinking about this question, we decided we’d address it here at STACKED. But we’re not just addressing it ourselves; we’ve invited 20 (yes, 20) guests to write us a post answering the question “Someone who has never read YA Fiction before is interested in getting their feet wet. Where would you tell them to start?” We told our guest posters the question is open to interpretation, since we wanted to cast as wide a net of answers as possible. The answers we got to this question are fascinating and even for seasoned YA readers, there will be new books to discover.

You might be wondering who our guests are. You’re in for a treat. Our guests range from bloggers who blog because they love YA lit, bloggers who work as teachers and bloggers who work as librarians. We also have posts from a variety of YA authors, as well as folks who edit YA novels, and those who market YA novels. It’s a diverse and exciting group of experts who span the YA book world and every time we got a “yes” response back to our invitation, we were shocked and eager to see what thoughts they had and share them with our readers.

Our response was so phenomenal that our original plan to kick off the series in April changed a little bit.

Starting Monday and running through the end of July, we’ll be posting a “So You Want To Read YA?” response to kick off each week. They’ll range in focus and in length and in recommendations, and some will even include a giveaway or two. Kimberly, Jen, and I will kick it off for the first three weeks, and then we’ll dive into what our brilliant, witty, and insightful guests have to say.

We hope you enjoy! We have certainly loved seeing how our guests answered this question, and we are excited to give new (and veteran) YA readers new books to explore.

A Pair of Cybils Reviews

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Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake
Cas Lowood kills ghosts for a living. Well, he doesn’t really make money at it, so I suppose you’d call it more of a hobby, or a compulsion. His father was a ghost-killer when he was alive, and since his death, Cas carries his deadly athame, the tool used to kill the dead. Cas and his mother have just moved to a new town, and Cas is determined to kill the local ghost, Anna dressed in blood, a teenage girl who was murdered many years ago. Only things with Anna aren’t quite what they seem, and Cas slowly begins to not only sympathize with her, but to fall in love with her as well. He also picks up a couple of good friends who learn about his unusual vocation, and they serve the dual purpose of assisting Cas in his quest to kill Anna as well as adding some interest to the story.
I’ve discovered that I’m not the audience for ghost stories, but Kendare Blake’s book made a valiant effort to change my mind. I thought the pseudo-romantic relationship between Cas and Anna was intriguing, and I appreciated that Blake didn’t shy away from high stakes (there’s a nice body count). The climax was unexpected, but made sense in retrospect. It’s a different sort of ghost story than the norm, and it mostly worked for me.
My main problem with the book was pacing: some parts just really dragged. For these chunks of the novel, it seemed like the troupe of characters wasn’t doing anything in particular, just kind of flailing about. It gets a bit dull to read about after a couple of pages. But then it would pick up nicely and I’d be hooked for another twenty pages, until it got a bit dull again. So overall, it’s a good book, but not an outstanding one.
Angelfall by Susan Ee
The angels of the apocalypse have descended on Earth, and teenage Penryn has become caught in the middle of it. Her wheelchair-bound younger sister has been kidnapped by the angels. She must team up with another angel, Raffe, in order to rescue her. Along the way, the duo experience a significant amount of peril and intrigue, plus some romance (naturally).
I’m kind of flabbergasted by all of the positive feedback Angelfall has received, because I was very unimpressed. I think the skeleton of a good story is there, and I dug how gruesome Ee dared to be near the end of the book. But for most of the book, I was doing some serious mental eye-rolling, and it’s mostly due to the writing – it doesn’t pass muster. The book is full of awkward phrasing, clunky sentences, and cliched dialogue. Part of the reason I had a hard time getting through most of it is because it felt like a romance novel with some fantasy trappings for the first three quarters (rather than a fantasy novel with some romance). The dialogue between Penryn and Raffe tries to be clever repartee, but it just comes across as ridiculous. And I say this as a reader of romance. 
Aside from the writing, I had problems with the world-building and development of ancillary characters. Put all of these lacking elements together and you quickly realize that no amount of fast-paced action can save this book.

Help a librarian out: a survey on teen/ya library services

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I don’t like to talk too much librarian shop over here, but I know we reach a big librarian readership, so I’m taking the opportunity to tap that.

I’ve got a survey about teen/young adult library services on my other blog, and it’s focused on providing reader’s advisory and collection development. If you’re a librarian, can you spare a few minutes and fill it out? And whether you’re a librarian or not, if you know someone who could fill it out for me, please spread the word! 

I appreciate your help so much!

Here it is.

Drowning Instinct by Ilsa J Bick

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Jenna Lord’s given a voice recorder by the detective working on her case. She’s just woken up in the hospital, and he wants her to tell the truth of the story about what happened. Why she’s there. Why and how she almost died. Again.

She agrees, and we’re thrust into something much, much darker than expected.

Jenna’s family life is anything but pretty. Her father’s a surgeon and he’s exceptionally controlling and demanding. Jenna’s mother works long hours at the bookstore she’s in charge of, so she’s not around much. That may or may not have to do with the fact she’s also an alcoholic and avoids her husband. Then there’s Matt — Jenna’s brother — who enlisted in the military to get away from the mess of a family. She and he are close, and she turns to him when she needs an escape. Then there’s grandpa, who is in an institution because he’s unstable, too. That may or may not have something to do with the fire in his house, the one which caused Jenna many of the scars and skin grafts covering her body.

The rest of the scars, though, are her own doing.

It’s those scars which put her into therapy and which eventually lead to her being sent to Turing for school. Her father believes putting her in a new environment like Turing would be good for her and help her adjust to being a normal girl again, whatever that is. But when she starts school, things only become more complicated. She meets Mr. Anderson — Mitch — near immediately on her first day, and she meets him when he’s wearing close to nothing.

It’s the start of a relationship between a teacher and a student that should have clear cut answers. That should be about right and wrong. But it’s so, so not.

Drowning Instinct is the kind of novel I love: it’s character driven, it’s dark, and there are no right or wrong answers. It’s not a clear cut story, and just when I thought I had an idea of how things would progress, I’m not given the break. Because the characters — Jenna, especially — gets absolutely no breaks in this story. Her only break comes in the form of self-mutilation. That’s why she was getting therapy in the first place (or at least that’s how it’s explained and the truth is, that’s not necessarily the whole truth). Jenna cuts to escape the pain from her home, and because it gives her a sense of ownership.

And cuts heal.

The relationship between Jenna and Mitch, one which should cause the reader discomfort because of what it is, challenges expectations. Mitch is so good to Jenna and he’s the first adult who has given Jenna any reason to feel safe and secure. He also gives her opportunities and responsibility, and he believes in her not only as a student, but also as a runner. She’d given up running, but he wants her to go out for the team. He wants her to be his teaching assistant. He goes out of his way to keep an eye on her. While Jenna is at times skeptical about him, she eventually allows herself to see he is being genuinely concerned for her, and that he genuinely cares about her well-being — something she’s never experienced before outside of a therapy office. He knows a lot about her, and he happens to have this knowledge because he’s done his research (and he tells her that much) but also because he stumbles upon some of the same messes she does. He sees how unstable her family is first hand.

Then Mitch maybe delivers the biggest blow Jenna’s ever felt and the one that rattles her awake. He knows the truth to her biggest secret. One she doesn’t believe he could possibly know. But he does.  It almost seals her to him now. He’s ripped open one of her scars and lets it bleed. 

Even though Jenna decides he’s worth trusting, she’s wondering where the faults in his story are, and the closer she gets to him, the more time she spends with him in and outside the classroom, the more cracks she’s finding. His wife is never around and he never talks about her. Then there’s a picture in Mitch’s house that haunts Jenna. And then the time she called his house and his wife — supposedly away taking care of a sick family member — answers. It’s not just the wife situation that makes Jenna nervous though: it’s the fact Mitch appears to have had a relationship with another high school girl, Danielle, and she’s not exactly friendly with Jenna. Then there’s Danielle’s comment about how Mitch always liked the broken girls. These words rub Jenna wrong. They feel like knives on her flesh.

But she hasn’t pressed down yet.

The relationship between Jenna and Mitch is tortured. But it’s also safe. When they’re together, when he’s holding onto her with love and affection she so desperately needs and deserves, everything feels right. And yes, things get sexual. There is something so tender in those moments though that as readers, we almost forget they’re teacher and student. That Mitch is her superior. That he’s married. When they’re apart though, when Jenna’s left alone with her thoughts, that’s when things don’t seem right. That’s when she questions who Mitch is and whether or not he’s good for her. The thing is, she can’t stop herself from staying close to him.

He’s become her new method of cutting.

Bick’s talent is not only in drawing these incredibly complex characters. It’s the fact she has developed a pair of characters who aren’t clear cut on whether they’re victim or predator. It goes both ways. They feed off one another, and their secrets (and the secret of their relationship itself) tread a morally ambiguous line because the way it’s presented makes it feel so right and so wrong at the same time. Jenna deserves this kind of love and even though we aren’t entirely clear what’s going on in Mitch’s life, it just seems like he does too. And the way he treats Jenna makes it feel that way, too. They’re safety nets for one another time and time again. Even if there are suspicious things afloat. Jenna and Mitch are very broken people, as are the other characters in the story. Each character carries immense pain and sadness but never once does it come off as melodramatic. It’s drawn realistically, with a rawness that slices through what could/should be morally straight-forward territory for readers. None of these characters, even the ones with little page time, feels wasted and none of their struggles feel like shortcuts through the story.

What also stood out to me in this book was the use of place and space to tell the story. Bick is a Wisconsin author, and she’s not afraid to set her books here. Drowning Instinct is neat in being set both in suburban Milwaukee (where Jenna attends school) and in the more rural areas outside the suburbs. The rural settings add a haunting feel to the story and they mimic the relationship between Jenna and Mitch well: there’s the safety of the suburban setting but then there’s the questionable nature of nature itself in those more remote areas. In places like the cabin on Mitch’s quiet property. For me, the setting was a crucial layer to developing the story and the characters.

The book is well-paced, starting slower at the beginning as Jenna comes to in the hospital, but it eventually picks up speed until the very end. I had become so invested in the characters and unraveling the truths of these characters that I read through the bulk of it in one sitting. The reveals make use of subtle details woven into the story, but maybe the real power of the reveals is that they’re not necessarily all that settling. They add further shades of gray to the story and to the characters. There are no real answers here, but the feeling I walked away with when I finished the book was worth the uncertainty. I took away what I needed to take away, and I like to think it’s the same take away Jenna has. I also found myself crying near the end of the story, as well. I’d fallen so in love with the characters, their flaws and mistakes and all, that I couldn’t help but feel the full weight of everything crashing around them. Bick made me care enough to not only love the story but also emotionally connect with these hurting and aching characters, despite the endless stream of mistakes they made.

Drowning Instinct will appeal to readers who like their stories dark, realistic, and raw and who like their stories to have real voice behind them. These characters are desperate and broken, and the book is relentless. It’s wholly contemporary, and it’ll appeal to fans of Amy Reed and Courtney Summers with content and character execution, and the set up of the book — the short chapters, the great pacing — will make it quite appealing to fans of Ellen Hopkins, as well. I could also see this novel working for fans of Lucy Christopher’s Stolen and Tabitha Suzuma’s Forbidden for readers interested in novels about elicit and taboo relationships. I’ve read two other novels this year, neither of which I’ve had a chance to review, but it reminded me of a mash up of the two of them, and I’ve found it fascinated how this year’s novels are playing around with the norms of family, of safety, of security, of what it means to love and be loved, and just what survival takes. I have respect and admiration for authors who go for it full out, giving their characters challenge upon challenge, and Bick offers exactly that. 

I wouldn’t say this book doesn’t appeal to reluctant readers because it does, but I think more mature readers will walk away with a lot from this book, especially as it comes to issues of right and wrong. Those who appreciate Laurie Halse Anderson will want to give this one a shot, too. I didn’t touch on the metaphor here, the whole idea of the drowning instinct, but it’s a huge one smartly thread through the story, and readers who want a more literary read will find it here. The back cover summary sums it up really well, I think: this is a fairy tale with teeth and a novel about pain, deception, desperation and love. Without doubt, this book will stick with me for a long time, and it will be one of my 2012 favorites.

Review copy received from the publisher. This book also has one of the best covers around, doesn’t it?