Princeless: Raven the Pirate Princess Book 1: Captain Raven and the All-Girl Pirate Crew by Jeremy Whitley, Ted Brandt, and Rosy Higgins

March 16, 2016 |

I wrote about how much I loved Princeless before. I didn’t think it would be possible to love its spin-off more, but I think I do. Raven the Pirate Princess follows Raven, a pirate princess who was due to inherit her father’s ship – until her brothers betrayed her, locking her in a tower to be “rescued.” The girls in Princeless don’t wait around for a rescuer, though, and when Raven escapes, she sets about hiring her own pirate crew to get revenge. This first volume chronicles her attempts to do this, and it’s funny and exciting and entertaining the whole way through.

The cast is diverse (at most, three out of the five main crew are white, with varying body types and sexual orientations, and Raven herself is Asian) and the social commentary is pure genius. I literally laughed out loud during the interview process in the bar, where man after man walks up to Raven, hoping to be hired with pitches like “I’ve always been really into Eastern Pirate culture” and “I always thought it would be cool to work for a female captain…you know, she could be all stern but sexy” and “You’re probably not even a real pirate girl. I bet you don’t even know what Captain Fraction’s name was before he changed it!” And more. It’s like a bingo card of every tired, offensive, “innocuous” thing ever said to nerd girls, Asian girls, powerful girls…girls in general. Oh god, I love this whole scene so much, I want to hug it. Whitley manages to give each of the five main characters distinct personalities in a limited number of pages, and the art by Brandt and Higgins is expressive and builds these characters just as much as the writing does. Flashbacks are at times a little hard to pick up on right away – I didn’t notice anything artistically that marked a flashback, and there are no dates or “three years earlier” or anything like that. Still, context eventually got me there. For well-read comics fans, there are a few cameos, too, which are unnecessary to understand the story, but are nice little Easter eggs for those who notice them.

I’d say this book is for an audience a bit older than that of Princeless proper. I opted to place it in our teen section in the library, whereas Princeless is in our juvenile section. There’s nothing hugely objectionable, but a lot of the jokes would go over the heads of tweens and younger kids, and they’d likely not understand much of anything that happens in the bar scene, which takes up a big chunk of the book. There’s a bit more violence, too, and the characters are all 16 and up. Highly recommended.

Historical Fiction Roundup

March 9, 2016 |

The Diviners by Libba Bray

Libba Bray’s books are really hit and miss for me. I liked the Great and Terrible Beauty series at first and then lost interest. I loathed the Printz-winning Going Bovine; it’s probably the worst book I ever finished (I really should have given up on it but I persevered, to my misery). But many acquaintances loved The Diviners and I myself love some historical fiction, so I gave this a try, with the promise to myself that I’d give up on it if it was more Going Bovine than Great and Terrible Beauty. To my delight, it wasn’t either. The main character is Evie O’Neill, a spoiled and headstrong teen who embraces the flapper life of 1920s New York, where she’s sent from Ohio after accidentally-on-purpose (alcohol was involved) revealing that she has the ability to learn things about people by holding objects that belong to them. Of course, people think it was just a party trick, but Evie knows better. She’s sent to live with her uncle, who runs an occult museum and who is soon tasked by the police to help solve murders that have occult overtones. Evie becomes involved, naturally, as she’s not about to let her uncle have all the “fun.”

I loved Evie a lot as a character, though I’m not sure I could handle being her friend. She’s outspoken and stands up for herself and her friends. She’s energetic and embraces life, but she uses a lot of that energy to hide significant unhappiness. The story is told in third person and occasionally switches perspectives to other “diviners” like Evie who have supernatural powers and are connected to the murders in some way. It also occasionally switches to the murderer, and these sections are truly creepy (the murders themselves are paranormal in nature as well). Whereas in Going Bovine, I felt like Bray just threw a bunch of things together and hoped it would stick (it didn’t), The Diviners was planned and executed so well, with sophisticated writing, multiple interesting subplots, layered characters, and extraordinary period detail, plus a good dose of humor. The 1920s aren’t my favorite years to read about, but I was fascinated with the New York Bray portrayed. This is a winner and the first book by Libba Bray that I truly loved.

A Madness so Discreet by Mindy McGinnis

I usually avoid stories about insane asylums since I find them really depressing (yet I still love reading dystopias, go figure). But I’m working my way through all of my library’s YA audiobooks rather quickly and this one at least involved historical crime-fighting and, more to the point, was currently available, so I checked it out. I’m glad I did – it was excellent, though certainly not a happy read. It’s the late 19th century and Grace’s family has put her in the “care” of an insane asylum because she’s pregnant – by her own father. The asylum is a miserable place that regularly abuses its patients, dispensing dubious “treatment” that’s more like torture. Such treatment was common at the time, though as McGinnis writes in her author’s note at the end, better asylums did exist. Such an asylum is where Grace lands after she’s rescued by a doctor – a psychologist – who is pioneering what we now regard as criminal profiling. He noticed Grace’s sharp observational skills and that she does not belong in an asylum and takes her on as an apprentice. In order to keep her away from her sociopathic father, they fake her death. Of course, she’s still living in an asylum, since it’s where Dr. Thornhollow practices, but she has a purpose to her life and a reason to live, something she thought she’d never have – she would have been handed right back to her father after giving birth.

There’s a lot going on in this book, but it’s all tied together so well. There’s the historical aspects: the infancy of criminal profiling, treatment for the insane, how asylums were often used as a way of disposing of “inconvenient” women (pregnant, outspoken, or odd). There’s a central murder mystery which Grace and Dr. Thornhollow work together to solve. And there’s Grace’s personal story, which comes to a head at the end and combines elements of the murder mystery and criminal profiling, pulling everything together. It’s a dark book with a dark ending, though ultimately hopeful as well. It’s feminist throughout, marked by deep and meaningful female friendships, unconventional justice, and a feminist man in Dr. Thornhollow, who doesn’t demand recognition for simply being decent. Not gory, but also not for the faint of heart due to its disturbing subject matter, this is well-written historical fiction, a stellar example of its genre.

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi

This was a re-read from my childhood. I remember being delighted by the mystery when I was a kid (sometime in late elementary school, probably); it was likely one of the first mysteries I ever read aside from Nancy Drew, and it was a much more dangerous one with much more risk than Nancy ever encountered. This time around, I was curious to see if the story as a whole held up (it did) and I was fascinated much more by the historical aspects and Charlotte’s character arc. Charlotte is not particularly likable at first. She’s naive and snobbish and buys completely into the worldview she’s been taught, even when it goes against her own instincts. But she changes, she grows, and by the end of the story, she’s taken her life entirely into her own hands, not to mention made amends for her previous actions. This is perfectly written for its target age group of late elementary/middle school kids, with plenty of twists and turns and enough clues for a savvy kid to pick up on what’s going on – just before Charlotte does. Still a winner.

The Fandom Flurry: A YA Reading List

March 7, 2016 |

I haven’t talked a whole lot about trends in YA this year. I talked about the dream trend last fall, which is still holding strong this year thanks to books like the upcoming Dreamology by Lucy Keating and Places No One Knows by Brenna Yovanoff. I’ve also talked about how one of this year’s cover trends is teenagers falling, which has seen more books added to the collection since I wrote the post.

But there’s been a big trend this year that’s been impossible not to notice: fandom.

We’re talking books where the feels are unashamed, where the fandom lingo is loud and proud, and where fangirls get to be unabashedly fannish. I thought I’d do a round-up of the recent and forthcoming YA fandom titles. I’ve only read one of these so far, so I cannot vouch for how well they do many things in them, but for readers who want to indulge in fandom and fan culture, these are books to keep an eye out for, for sure.

Know others hitting shelves in 2016? Leave the title in the comments, since I’d love to make this a nice, big trend resource. All descriptions are from Goodreads, as some of these titles didn’t yet have WorldCat entries.

Kill The Boy Band by Goldy Moldavsky (Point, available now)

Okay, so just know from the start that it wasn’t supposed to go like this. All we wanted was to get near The Ruperts, our favorite boy band.

We didn’t mean to kidnap one of the guys. It kind of, sort of happened that way. But now he’s tied up in our hotel room. And the worst part of all, it’s Rupert P. All four members of The Ruperts might have the same first name, but they couldn’t be more different. And Rupert P. is the biggest flop out of the whole group.

We didn’t mean to hold hostage a member of The Ruperts, I swear. At least, I didn’t. We are fans. Okay, superfans who spend all of our free time tweeting about the boys and updating our fan tumblrs. But so what, that’s what you do when you love a group so much it hurts.

How did it get this far? Who knows. I mean midterms are coming up. I really do not have time to go to hell.

Scarlett Epstein Hates It Here by Anna Breslaw (Razorbill, April 19)

Meet Scarlett Epstein, BNF (Big Name Fan) in her online community of fanfiction writers, world-class nobody at Melville High. Her best (read: only) IRL friends are Avery, a painfully shy and annoyingly attractive bookworm, and Ruth, her pot-smoking, possibly insane seventy-three-year-old neighbor.

When Scarlett’s beloved TV show is canceled and her longtime crush, Gideon, is sucked out of her orbit and into the dark and distant world of Populars, Scarlett turns to the fanfic message boards for comfort. This time, though, her subjects aren’t the swoon-worthy stars of her fave series—they’re the real-life kids from her high school. Scarlett never considers what might happen if they were to find out what she truly thinks about them…until a dramatic series of events exposes a very different reality than Scarlett’s stories, forever transforming her approach to relationships—both online and off.

Gena/Finn by Hannah Moskowitz and Kat Helgeson (Chronicle, May 17)

Gena (short for Genevieve) and Finn (short for Stephanie) have little in common. Book-smart Gena is preparing to leave her posh boarding school for college; down-to-earth Finn is a twenty-something struggling to make ends meet in the big city. Gena’s romantic life is a series of reluctant one-night-stands; Finn is making a go of it with long-term boyfriend Charlie. But they share a passion for Up Below, a buddy cop TV show with a cult fan following. Gena is a darling of the fangirl scene, keeping a popular blog and writing fan fiction. Finn’s online life is a secret, even from Charlie. The pair spark an unlikely online friendship that deepens quickly (so quickly it scares them both), and as their individual “real” lives begin to fall apart, they increasingly seek shelter online, and with each other.

All The Feels by Danika Stone (Swoon Reads, June 7)

College freshman Liv is more than just a fangirl: The Starveil movies are her life… So, when her favorite character, Captain Matt Spartan, is killed off at the end of the last movie, Liv Just. Can’t. Deal.

Tired of sitting in her room sobbing, Liv decides to launch an online campaign to bring her beloved hero back to life. With the help of her best friend, Xander, actor and steampunk cosplayer extraordinaire, she creates #SpartanSurvived, a campaign to ignite the fandom. But as her online life succeeds beyond her wildest dreams, Liv is forced to balance that with the pressures of school, her mother’s disapproval, and her (mostly nonexistent and entirely traumatic) romantic life. A trip to DragonCon with Xander might be exactly what she needs to figure out what she really wants.

Girls Like Me by Lola St.Vil (HMH Books, October 4 — there’s a fat girl on this cover!)

Fifteen-year-old Shay Summers is trying to cope with the death of her father, being overweight, and threats from a girl bully in schooll. When she falls in love with Blake, a mysterious boy online, insecure Shay doesn’t want to tell him who she is. But with the help of her two best friends, as well as an assist by Kermit and Miss Piggy, ultimately Shay and Blake’s love prevails.

The Divine (in) Every Body: A Guest Post from Tanita S. Davis

February 8, 2016 |

I’m so excited to share this guest post today from Tanita S. Davis, author of several books, including Mare’s War, Happy Families, and Peas and Carrots (out tomorrow, February 9). After I read Peas and Carrots, I couldn’t stop thinking about the interesting elements about body representation brought up in the story and I asked if Tanita would talk to that. This post will rerun over on the Size Acceptance in YA Tumblr, as well, because it is so good.

My first teaching job out of college took me to a group home where I worked one-on-one with students ages 12-18. As part of their extended classroom, I often accompanied the female students to after-hours community sponsored outings intended to give them wider life experiences. One day I accompanied them to a yoga studio in a tony winery town. Enthusiastic about the trip, I initially urged the girls to try and take the yogic instruction seriously, to appreciate the opportunity to get in touch with their bodies in a new and different way. All of us were strangers to yoga practice, but I read them a few explanations and descriptions of it, and thought we were prepared. However, I found that when we got to the studio I, and the twelve young women with me, seemed vastly, wildly out of place. The instructors and volunteers for that night were in dedicated yoga clothing, young, sylph-bodied and white. I became hyperaware of my own heavy belly and ponderous breasts camouflaged in my 4x T-shirt, of the round butts and full thighs of the girls with me displayed in tank tops and cut-off sweats. The majority of my girls were full-bodied and curvy, and of African American ancestry. And despite yoga’s claims of inclusiveness and openness and the instructor’s I-salute-the-oneness-of-whatever-goddess-within-you, it was clear that we weren’t part of the oneness, the whiteness, of everyone else who was there.

Aware my girls were watching, I shelved my discomfort and …yogaed. Or, tried. It was, by some standards, a pretty thorough disaster. The instructor seemed unable to simply describe the poses we were meant to take, but kept on calling them by name – as if we knew what a cow or a cobra was supposed to be. Her distress at our perceived lack of fitness was evident, as she continued to repeat, “Our bodies are made to move, but don’t force them, girls, don’t force them.” There were thuds and snorts as one after the other, the girls attempted poses, fell out of them, and lay on the floor in cheerful defeat. “Okay, this is wack,” someone announced, and our quiet snickers turned to guffaws as we got up and tried again. The instructor tried to enable us to find our composure, periodically chiming a calming bell, but we couldn’t get our stuff together to save our lives. We laughed, fell, got up, laughed, and laughed again. “Don’t hurt yourself,” the instructor murmured to me as I struggled to continue to model “mature adult” behavior and hold the required poses. At my disbelieving huff – surely I wasn’t that bad – one of my students comforted me, “That’s okay. Black people don’t really do yoga anyway.”

“We’re black, though, and we’re doing yoga,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, but we’re just playing,” she assured me. “This doesn’t count.”

Huh.

Suddenly I stopped laughing.

This does count, I wanted to insist. We can do this, too.

But… I didn’t quite believe it.

“I didn’t think black people really did yoga.”

Foster Lady inhales slowly and then breathes out. “Black people are just people, Dess. People of all kinds do whatever they feel like doing.” She exhales and smiles, bringing her arms and legs down again, standing still. “I feel like doing yoga.” – PEAS AND CARROTS, by Tanita S. Davis, Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2016

In PEAS AND CARROTS Dess encounters her foster mother’s size the moment they meet, but it is seeing her big legs holding that large body in strong stillness on a yoga mat that creates, for Dess, an instant of shocking, anomalous behavior that demands explanation. Dess is full of vaguely authoritarian beliefs on the capabilities of black bodies, the limits of behavior for black people, and those beliefs don’t extend to swimming or yoga, or working with weights, or even eating vegetables for breakfast, despite what she discovers in her new foster family. She finds the Carters beyond belief, and their unswerving dedication to being just who they are, regardless of expectation, is nothing she’s ever experienced before. There is power in being who you are, and owning it – a power and a comfort I wish I could bequeath to every young reader.

A lot of first-person voices in young adult lit voice character assumptions and beliefs but writers don’t always find ways to comprehensively deconstruct those beliefs in a way that feels organic to the narrative. I wanted to be thorough with all of the opinions that Dess expressed. I wanted to give the reader space to turn over each and examine it – through observation, but also more directly through conversations Dess had with Foster Lady, I wanted to make sure that the reader could come away saying, specifically, yes, black bodies, every body, CAN.

It was, in some ways, an incomplete accomplishment. Writers control little but their words in the publishing process, and I gave what input I could on the cover, which went through many iterations before arriving at the brightly engaging hardcover image, depicting two relatively slim-bodied girls. I’m happy with it on a number of levels, even as I hope someday that acceptance of black female bodies, even in a work intended for young readers, will better illustrate the normalized inclusion of big bodies, and black bodies as part of the whole – as different as peas and carrots, but taken as a normal part of the diverse whole that makes up who we are.

***

Tanita grew up with foster siblings, worked at a summer camp, and taught at a group home school and an elementary classroom, so she’s frequently hung around a mob of kids and teens. A bookworm, introvert, and a tea addict, you can usually find her hiding behind a mug as big as her head. She was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Mare’s War, which was a Coretta Scott King Honor Book. Her most recent novel, Peas and Carrots, is out from Knopf this month. Tanita lives in Northern California with her Tech Boy and feels rather queenly referring to herself in the third person.

5 Reasons To Pick Up The V Word (Out Today!)

February 2, 2016 |

I’m so, so excited to share that today is the big day that The V-Word: True Stories About First Time Sex, edited by Amber J. Keyser is out in the world. It was two years ago, almost exactly, I got the email that it would be happening, and I was honored when Amber asked me to take part in this collection.

I’ve read the entire book cover-to-cover and think it’s a powerful look at virginity and sexuality for teen girls. It’s mature and honest and raw, but it’s not explicit or sensationalized by any means. Not only are the stories themselves good and cover a wide range of experiences, voices, and sexualities, but the back matter on this book is killer (I say that not just because I contributed to part of that).

In honor of The V-Word‘s release, here are my top five reasons why you should pick it up and put it on your shelves, especially if you work in a library, a school, or with teenagers in some capacity.

1. You can read about the first time I had sex (unless you’re family and I am telling you don’t do it).

Writing this essay was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. And it wasn’t so much hard from the standpoint of knowing that a lot of people would know about the first time I had sex and all of the details of it, but more, it was scary because I unpacked a lot of baggage surrounding sex and more specifically my body.

My essay is about the importance of choice and choosing when it is you’re ready to have sex. It’s about how when you think you’ve made a decision and then deciding it’s not the decision you really want to make. It’s also about how you can believe you’ll never be a person who has sex and then one day … you do.

I’ve been told that my essay is “unexpectedly funny,” which might be the best phrasing I’ve ever heard used to describe my writing. I’m proud of this piece, and I like to think it’s going to be relatable to many, many girls; it’s a piece of work I wish I could have given to my 14 or 15 year old self and in many ways, it’s a love letter to me as a teenager saying that things will be good and work out.

2. A Question & Answer section about female sexuality and the media, especially YA books.

I’m so proud of this contribution I got to make to the back matter of this book. Amber and I had a great back-and-forth exchange about how sex is represented in the media, and I talked at length about the kinds of books that are showcasing female sexuality well, as well as what we might be missing.

These were not easy questions, and I spent a lot of time researching, reading, and writing at length about what we’re doing well and what we suck at when it comes to talking about teen girls and sexuality. I spent a good chunk of time talking about choice (and how it’s just as valid to choose not to have sex as it is to have it), about masturbation (can we talk about why it’s “female masturbation” when referring to girls doing it and just “masturbation” when referring to boys?), and much, much more.

3. This is a female space.

Something I am passionate about is girls stories and girls voices. No one would say otherwise, of course, but this book truly highlights the importance of both. I grew up without any kind of resources like this, and one of the things I talked about in my essay was how a lot of my sex education came from living in a dorm room. I met girls and guys who knew way more than me, who were much more experienced than me, and who also opened my eyes to how girls are viewed sexually (my piece, not to give too much away, begins with a male friend and I coming close to having an experience and him talking to me about how he valued me too much as a virgin to take that from me — so much to unpack in that statement, right?).

Here’s the thing: we don’t talk with and to girls about sex enough, and when we do, it’s too often from the context of “do it and be safe” or “don’t do it at all.” This book explores the nuances, as well as the variety of experiences, sensations, and questions girls have about sex and their bodies. This is a million times more informative, insightful, and truthful than a sex ed class is because all of the women in this collection are sharing their own stories.

None — zero — of the stories are at all the same.

I have a confession to make here, and maybe it’s one I shouldn’t make because it offers a glimpse into a side of me I don’t share often and one that I fight so hard against. When Amber began talking with me about this anthology, she shared two sample essays. As I read them, I thought to myself my story is so boring and no one will be interested and wow, I am as boring as I thought I was and why do all of these other women have such fascinating, wild accounts to share?

But those questions are why my story is important. And of course, with as many stories as there are in here, those thoughts I had have no merit except that they showcase the very reasons why The V-Word is important. All of our stories are valid, no matter what they look like or don’t look like.

4. Excellent reviews, including a star from Publishers Weekly!

This book has gotten a ton of great reviews. I’m particularly taken with the star it got from Publishers Weekly, and I also appreciate the thoughtful comments about my Q&A with Amber in the SLJ review. (There’s also a great BCCB review, which isn’t available online).

5. Teen-centric non-fiction is where diversity is at.

I’ll never forget when Malinda Lo posted a picture of the non-fiction section at Barnes & Noble and noted that it was the most diverse section in the YA category. Not only is that still a reality, but that diversity in non-fiction is also reflected within the collection itself.

I’m making an effort this year not to call things “diverse,” but instead use the term “inclusive.” And this book is utterly inclusive, not only across the racial and gender spectrums, but also across sexualities. This is a collection teens will see themselves in in so many powerful and important ways.

Likewise, a collection of essays that’s inclusive is a way for teen readers to know that all of their voices and stories matter.

I’m honored to be part of this collection and thrilled it’s a real thing on shelves. Thank you, Amber, for extending an invitation to me so early on and all of your hard work making this book a reality.

You can pick up The V-Word from any of your favorite booksellers.