STACKED

books

Books that didn’t capture me

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In the midst of my wild streak of Cybils reading, I’ve picked up more than one book that, unfortunately, I’ve stopped at the 75 page mark. Here’s just a sample of some of the ones that didn’t work for me and why — and why they might just work for other readers.

The Julian Game by Adele Griffin: This book’s premise is that two girls create a phony identity for themselves on Facebook in order to get payback on a cute boy who did them wrong. There is certainly appeal here in the contemporary setting, the use of technology, and the use of cliques and insider/outsider feelings therein. But as a reader, I felt distanced from the characters, never quite feeling that they were realistic enough. The slang didn’t click for me either, unfortunately, and I needed to give it up. Fans of Johnny Tucker Must Die will eat this up, as will fans of other stories of revenge and redemption. I bet, too, that the language in this book will appeal to many readers, even though it didn’t work for me — that alone sets it apart from the crowd.

The Kid Table by Andrea Seigel: What initially was the huge appeal of this book for me was the fact it’s a family story; there’s going to be a little romance and a little bit about friendships, but the bulk of it centers on family dynamics and growing up in a huge family. This is precisely what became the downfall for me, though. There were too many characters with the same voice (or no voice) for me to keep up with. For many readers, though, this will be the appeal factor: it’s relatable to those who grew up in large families. Pass this light hearted read to your fans of stories that aren’t the norm for contemporary reads. It’s different enough that it’ll hold shelf life for quite a while, and many readers will think this is their story.

The Not-So-Great Depression by Amy Goldman Koss: Premise-wise, this book held so much promise for me. It’s the story of what happens to a teen who’s mother loses her job because of the economy (and her dad is in the same situation, but he’s living back at home with his mom since her parents are divorced). However, the tone of this book was much too light hearted for me, as was the cover. I think this one had such possibility to be strong and powerful, but the execution didn’t work for me as a reader. I didn’t get the character development I anticipated, either. But, for fans of contemporary stories that do take a lighter approach or fans of books with a humorous tone, this is a great choice. The main character, in my mind, was a perfect rendering of a high school freshman: a little lost in her world but enjoying every minute of it in her naivety.

Jump by Elisa Carbone: P.K. is a runaway and her partner in crime, Critter, has just escaped from a mental institution. The two of them head west, away from their former shared town, in order to forge a new life based on climbing. This book sounded so great: it had athleticism in a different way and it would feature fresh characters. For me, though, I couldn’t get to the whys of either character within the first 75 pages. This is a relatively short book, and I hadn’t gained either sympathy or empathy for either character and I had yet to have any climbing experiences described. I was a little bummed, as I wanted the adrenaline and the excitement of climbing sooner. I think this is one that’s a super easy sell to teens, though: the alternating points of view are distinct and very short, making this a fast paced read. Likewise, the rock climbing theme will resonate with many, and those who are more patient than me will likely be quite rewarded.

Have you read any of these and loved them? Share your thoughts in the comments! Sell ’em to me again.

Love Drugged by James Klise

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It’s rare a book surprises me with what it has to offer. There are a lot of good reads and a lot of interesting, insightful, exciting characters and stories. Don’t get me wrong. But it’s rare when a book hits on a topic that is so rich with something that just feels new, and it’s not just about being new, it’s about being important, too.

James Klise’s debut Love Drugged may make my short list in 2010 for favorite read. The back of the book has a question as its copy: If you could change who you are, would you? Should you? That’s the entire crux of this book.

Jamie Bates, a 15-year-old Chicago native, lives in the same condo as his grandparents do, as his mother and father can’t keep a stable job (though to be fair, they’re working at gift wrapping and shipping at the time). He just wants to get through high school and get on with his life. It’s rough in the high school world, but he’s been lucky: no one knows the biggest secret about him — he’s gay. No, no one knows the secret because he spends a lot of time with Celia Gomez, one of the most attractive girls in school. She has a total crush on him, and he might have one on her too. They might be dating too. It’s not super clear to him, either.

When Jamie spends more time with Celia, he learns that her father is a druggist (by that, he creates pharmaceutical drugs to help with different physical ailments). And eventually, he learns that her father is working on an experimental drug to help cure gay people of their homosexual feelings and beliefs. It changes the brain chemistry — or at least that’s what the goal is. Despite not knowing the side effects, the dosage, or the consequences involved in such a drug, Jamie steals some in an attempt to keep fitting in and sliding by in school.

Love Drugged is a well-paced book and one that almost feels straight out of the headlines. Klise spoke at the Anderson’s YA Conference I attended, and he was told by his editor that the story was funny. He wasn’t so sure about that assessment, and I’m going to agree: I don’t really think that this is a “funny” book. There are certainly funny moments, and I think many teens might get a humorous feeling out of some of the events that happen (not to mention Jamie’s parents and the job situation therein), but this is a book with a lot of depth and a lot of issues with which to grapple.

What really stands out in this book is Jamie as a character. It’s rare to read such a real character, but Jamie here is one. He has all of the feelings of insecurity and the despite to just “slide by” like a typical teenager, but it’s also real that he’s troubled with the knowledge he’s gay. He doesn’t dislike being gay, but he also doesn’t want to be loud and proud about it. That idea scares him, as is seen in an episode where he finds out someone he’s been talking with through a few gay chat rooms is another student in his school. Fear permeates. Likewise, Jamie’s decision to take the drugs is less about the wanting to not be homosexual than it is about just wanting to get by without trouble. Jamie has fantasies and dreams and goals like all other teens, and I think Klise has a rare ability here to make a very real and relatable main character.

Dialog works well in this book, and I particularly found a lot of the character interactions worthy of consideration (and worthy of discussion). When Celia’s dad talks frankly with Jamie about the purpose of the drug, I think there are a million discussion points worthy of being made. Celia’s father is *not* against homosexuals; instead, he said he chooses to work on this project in order to help homosexuals fit in. In the back of my mind as a reader, I could buy that but I could also buy the thought swimming in Jamie’s mind about the potential profit from such a “miraculous” product. Jamie, at the end, thinks back on this but is able to now consider the ethical issue of whether it’s okay to change who he fundamentally is or not.

Is this the perfect book? Of course not. I found some of the characters to be more furniture like than fully fleshed and some were used merely as a way to move along a subplot. However, our three main characters — Jamie, Celia, and Celia’s father — along with the engaging, sometimes enraging, situations make this work so well. I’m not a terribly interactive reader, but I found myself at times talking to Jamie as he did or thought through things. And boy, did this book feel refreshing and different after the string of dead parent stories I’ve read lately.

Love Drugged brings up some politically delicate issues but does so in a manner that allows teens to think for themselves and ones which homosexual teens will understand 150% because they live them every day. This is the kind of book we need to see more of. It’s an empowering book, and one that will linger in the minds of readers for a long, long time.

If you’re a librarian, please add this to your library. The cover will hook readers, but the content will keep their minds hooked.

Kid Lit Con 2010

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After a long car ride and a short few moments of panic at being lost in Minneapolis at 11:30 p.m., I was on my way to Kid Lit Con 2010 at the Open Book. And after a long night of little sleep, the next morning I got up bright and early and met Alea at 7:30 a.m. for a fantastically full and fun day of kid lit.

We got through registration quickly and made our way into the big meeting room, where the first session of the day was Maggie Steifvater‘s keynote. Before she spoke, we got to chatting with the folks sitting in front of us: Blythe Woolston (who wrote The Freak Observer which I’ve recently read) and Michele Corriel (who just released her first novel, Fairview Felines). This was just a taste of how many authors we’d run into or end up talking to without even knowing it!

Maggie was without doubt one of the best speakers I’ve ever heard. She was engaging and hilarious, and the bulk of her talk was about how important blogging is and the eight key things she’s learned in the course of blogging. Those eight things were:
1. The world doesn’t need another blog (and the caveat being that it doesn’t stop her nor does it stop her from doing questionable things — she offered up a signed ARC of Linger to a reader who could help her track down size 7 boots, and someone managed to find them and put them on hold under a pseudonym at a Nordstrom’s across the country from Maggie, which blew her away).
2. Boring people offline are boring people online . . . and sometimes interesting people online are boring people online. You need to be interesting.
3. Blogging is a conversation — it’s essential to comment to others and respond to comments you receive.
4. People will learn your cat’s name. Whatever you say in the blogosphere, people will remember.
5. People will make a connection with you. Nurture them.
6. People can find out everything about you. Maggie emphasized how important it is to be yourself on your blog but to also be extremely careful how much you share — she said she mentions she has 2 children but never uses their name or their school because you never know when someone might be a creep about it.
7. Blog readers are real people. Treat them that way.
8. Blog writers should be blog readers. You need to read other blogs and engage in that conversation.

I thought her talk was perhaps the highlight of a very exciting day. She has an energy in her presentation that was infectious. After her talk, I tracked her down and got my copies of Shiver and Linger signed so I can give them away for the summer reading program at my work.

Alea and I decided we were going to hit all of the same sessions that day, and our first break out session was “Blog Platforms and Best Practices,” by Ryan Bickett, the internet marketing manager for Lerner Publishing. The session focused on the different platforms and tools available for blogging. While it wasn’t the most useful session for me personally, I did learn about some other kind of cool blogging tools I hadn’t known about before, including Posterous. What’s cool about that is that all of your posts can be emailed in; it looks like a bit of a more powerful Tumblr in terms of posting (though it doesn’t have quite the array of design choices). Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the session was the discussion we had about Livejournal. I’ve been using Livejournal as a personal journaling tool since its inception in 1999, so it was interesting to hear everyone’s take on it. The conclusion was sort of mutual – it’s a “gated” community, and while that’s useful for personal journaling or for the social networking aspects embedded in community pages, it’s not as “professional” a blog tool as some of the others out there. Alea and I got a kick out of then pointing out all of the big names who use Livejournal for their blogs.

The second break out session was about blog touring, and it featured Swati Avasthi (who wrote Split which I really loved), Michele Corriel, Janet Fox (who wrote Faithful) and Jacqueline Houtman (who wrote The Invention of Edison Thomas, a middle grade sciencey fiction book recently selected as a Wisconsin Reads title). Each took a turn talking about something related to blog touring and what they’ve found works and doesn’t work.

Michele spoke first about the importance of strong questions in author interviews — she emphasized that after reading many questions from many bloggers, it’s easy to see what stands out and what sort of seems not valuable. The best questions, in her opinion, are those that show the blogger has done a little research on their author and can lead into discussions of future projects or interesting aspects of their background. Weak questions, she said, are those that don’t necessarily have “a greater purpose,” such as those related to favorite movie quotes, favorite foods, or those that ask something like “did you always want to write.”

Although her thoughts were valuable, Alea and I had a nice discussion of how we didn’t necessarily agree with all of the negative questions. As an interviewer and as a person who reads interviews, I quite like knowing a little personal trivia with my “greater purpose” stuff.

THIS is what Kid Lit Con is all about, folks: it’s these discussions.

Swati discussed her lengthy, 26 blog tour she set up herself. In it, she has written a guest post focused on some aspect of domestic violence (a key issue in her book) and for each comment those posts gets, she will donate $1 for a domestic violence organization, up to $250, when she will double her donation to $500. The crux of her talk was about how touring should have something valuable to it, especially on something that large, which keeps readers hooked and interested, as well as keeps the author motivated to do so much work.

Janet talked about how important it is for authors to be social, and she highlighted some of the authors she feels maintain strong social presences and at the same time, “brand” themselves. Some of her top picks include Sarah Dessen (who uses Livejournal to blog), M.T. Anderson (whose website doesn’t seem to be working right now), and Julie Berry. Janet emphasized, though, that it’s important to do it well and not just half it. People can see through it, and if you can’t dedicate to something like they do, you can still be a valuable member of the YA Lit community. She says she’s involved heavily in the Twitter #yalitchat and by participating, she always sees her following and blog hits go up.

Jacqueline’s discussion was one of the most interesting (and enlightening) of the day for me as not just a blogger, but as a librarian. She talked about blogging outside the kidlitosphere, and for her book, which, while a fictional middle grade title, focuses on science, she sought out the science community. She looked into Lego communities and was able to get a nod in the Chemical and Engineering News blog (for those who don’t know, that’s a mega big scholarly journal). She did it by thinking creatively — for her launch party, she made this lovely Periodic Table of Cupcakes. You can see all of the photos here (she also blogs at Livejournal, folks). Jacqueline also talked about how she categorizes her book, which is not a science fiction in the traditional sense, as it’s not speculative but rather based on real science. She’s dubbed it “sciency fiction,” a term I really quite like. I’m going to borrow it.

The third breakout session we attended was called “MG Blogging in the YA Blogosphere.” I won’t go in depth, but basically, it was an opportunity for some middle grade authors to talk about middle grade books. A group of 30 have put together an incredible blog and web resource at From The Mixed Up Files Of . . . Middle Grade Bloggers. It sounds like an awesome resource for book lists, author interviews, and a monthly release calendar for all things middle grade. Get this: they had 1,032 hits on their first day.

After this session, we had a lunch which was generously sponsored by Harper Collins. . . and it was delicious. Alea and I were commenting on and on about how awesome our turkey on foccocia with pesto was the rest of the day. It was nice to spend an hour just chatting about the sessions and about blogging in general. Did I ever mention that when you hang out with bloggers, there is never awkward silence?

When lunch finished, we went to what was perhaps the most interesting — and most heated (debatable) — panel. It was an opportunity for three publishers to talk about their interactions with bloggers, and it featured Flux, Lerner, and Harper Collins. They talked about how they reach out to bloggers and how bloggers can reach out to them. All also discussed the criteria they look for when they choose who to send review materials out to. Some of those criteria include having your bio and email address prominently on your blog, talking with them through Twitter and their Facebook groups, statistics, comments, and quality of posts. This brought up some great questions from the audience, including the one on everyone’s mind: what ARE “good” stats?

It was no surprise, in my mind, none of the publishers could give a real number. They said it’s subjective. But, listening to some of the numbers they discussed were interesting; they seem to like unique hits, as well as followers, as well as comments. And that, my friends, is where fire flew. Audience members talked about how comments aren’t necessarily meaningful because some bloggers have comment contests and all bloggers know that book reviews tend to have a lower number of comments than other posts that perhaps ask for reader input. Another issue brought up was that many who DO read blogs don’t comment since they don’t feel it’s okay to do. The entire discussion was exciting and enlightening, and despite not coming away with a real answer, I did: the real answer is to always be nice, be polite, and be honest. That’s on both the blogger end and on the publisher’s end.

When that panel ended, Alea and I chose to skip the next break out sessions and head to the comic book next door, where both of us spent more money than planned. And when we came back, we decided to finally track down some people. We talked for a while with Liz of A Tea Cozy and then Melissa Wiley of Here in Bonny Glen. Melissa is the person who created the term “KidLitoSphere,” and we happen to both be on the YA Cybils Panel together this year. It was nice to put a face with names!

The next session didn’t quite capture my interest since I went to this program without my librarian cap on, and it focused on school and library media visits with authors. I’m sure some other bloggers will cover it better. The final session of the day, though, was about the KidLitoSphere and the Cybils awards. I knew little about how much the wonderful KidLit people did through their portal, so it was nice to hear about the history of this blogosphere and to see all of what their site has to offer (in short: check it out). There were some nice shout outs to other bloggers, too, including Michelle at GalleySmith. You can also jump onto their listserv at groups.yahoo.com/groups/kidlitosphere. The discussion of Cybils history was also interesting, and to hear some final numbers about the number of nominations in the different categories was eyeopening. Since I am so focused on my panel duties, I’ve kind of blocked out the others. About 1000 titles were nominated this year total and nearly 200 people volunteered to be on a panel.

At the end of the session, it was announced that next year’s KidLitCon would be in Seattle (and co-organized by the lovely Jackie!) and in 2012, it will be in New York City.

When this session ended, there was time for book signing and mingling, but Alea and I knew we wouldn’t make it till 7:30 for dinner. I suggested hitting up a local bar and after she asked if I was being serious, we went. And we may or may not have gone crazy by ordering cheese curds, potato skins, AND tater tots to split. They were delicious, but we may have overdone it a little bit. Walking back to Open Book was a little painful and I won’t even mention how little of dinner we ended up eating later on.

After our pit stop, we headed back to Open Book to listen to Kirstin Cronn-Mills (who wrote The Sky Always Hears Me and the Hills Don’t Mind) and Marina Budhos (who wrote Tell Us We’re Home). When we got there a little late, Steve Brezenoff (of The Absolute Value of -1) introduced himself to me and we sat in to hear Budhos read since we got there too late for Kirstin’s reading. They had time for some questions and answers, where I learned one of the coolest facts of the day — Budhos is married to Mark Aronson. I didn’t have a clue! I’ve been aware of both of their works for some time, despite not having read them yet, and after listening to an awesome reading by Budhos and her passion for the non-fiction her and her husband are putting out soon about the history of sugar, I’m bumping both up my to-read list.

Then it was time to hit up the Town Hall Brewery for dinner, where we ate dinner with a librarian, a teacher, and with Rebecca Johnson, who wrote Journey Into the Deep. It was a lovely dinner and it was nice to have a pumpkin ale along with my meal, but considering how much Alea and I ate just a bit earlier, we didn’t eat much of our dinner. And funny story: while eating, this woman comes up to Alea and asks if she’s Alea of the Pop Culture Blog. It was Erin Downey, who wrote Kiss It; she wasn’t even there for KidLitCon but was at the bar with some friends, and she sought out Alea to say hi. Cute!

Overall, KidLitCon was a fantastic and inspiring adventure, and it sparked not only my ideas for blogging but also brought up so much great discussion fodder. You can read the Twitter feed at the hash tag #kidlitcon, and you should definitely check out the round up of blog posts which will be posted soon on the KidLitCon website. I’m definitely going to go out to it next year in Seattle, as I think that the opportunities to listen to great panels and meet authors and other bloggers in a small venue is so great. This is nothing like BEA or ALA or even Anderson’s day long program. The information I came away with will make me a stronger blogger and may even be incredibly helpful as I slog my way through this book I’m writing for nano (something I spent a few hours plotting out with the help of my husband on the car ride up to Minneapolis). It also was a great celebration of blogging and bloggers and the value that social media has really had on writers and authors. I think too many people ignore the value, and it’s so nice to reaffirm what you’re doing is good to do. Getting to spend the whole day with Alea, too, who I love as a blogger and Twitter friend, was a total blast; we are bad influences on one another!

And for those of you who recall my car incident after Anderson’s will be delighted to know my husband sent me a bunch of frantic text messages during a session telling me my car stalled out while he was driving. Fortunately, it seemed like a fluke incident, as we did make it home all in one piece. Phew!

(The photo on the left of the back of many heads is courtesy of Steve Brezenoff who seeks your tagging skills for it right here — you can see Alea and I: I’m in the yellow and she’s next to me in purple).

Losing Faith by Denise Jaden

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Brie’s life changes the instant she gets the phone call from her father to hurry to the emergency room. Brie’s at a party and is completely clueless as to what awaits her just a few miles away.

Her sister died.

The circumstances were suspicious, too.

Now Brie is on the path to figuring out what really caused her sister’s death. Did she take her own life in a fit of passion or were some of Brie’s new and mysterious friends the cause of her death?

Losing Faith was a quick paced read that blended everything there is to love about a contemporary novel with an element of mystery. This is the kind of book that, as a lover of contemporary, I would hand to those who aren’t as jazzed about the genre; the mystery is the heart and the pulse of the story without making this book a mystery novel.

Brie is one of the more interesting characters I’ve read lately. She had a strong enough voice to lead me to care about her story and her determination to find the cause of Faith’s death. To me, her voice felt authentically high school and her experiences rang true as well. One minute, she’s deeply in love with a guy and ready to lose her virginity with him, and a couple of days later, he has sort of fallen out of her line of sight. The same thing happens with her “best friend.”

A key element of this story is the idea of a religious cult: Faith had been a deeply devoted follower of god, and she had been heavily involved in her church. What didn’t really work for me as a reader, though, was how this wasn’t played up all that much until the end of the story. I wanted more of this element, ala Hush, and I wanted to know a little bit more about Brie’s new friends, Tessa and Alis. The two of them were very shadowed while they were in the book, and both of them had a vault of knowledge associated with this cult. Tessa had a bit of a wickedly criminal mind I would have loved to get to know better.

That said, I thought that the unraveling of Faith’s death was compelling and twisted enough to keep me reading and to leave me feeling satisfied at the end of the book. I thought Jaden walked a fine line with her messages of faith and following beliefs and I think she did some masterfully. The conclusion came together quite nicely and didn’t try to push any message on the reader.

The grief in this book can, at times, be a bit overwhelming for readers; Jaden tempers this quite a bit through her development of Brie and Faith’s mother. Following Faith’s death, mom became withdrawn, distraught, and completely beside herself in life. Rather than let her flounder as a character, she continues to emerge, and at the end, Brie does something to really bring her mother back to life. What she does happens to be precisely what it was that made her fall into her depression in the first place. It was — and I gag at typing the word, trust me — heartwarming. Losing Faith is a story with a strong family structure, and I think that the depiction of a family that fluctuates with its highs and lows does readers a service in a book world full of dysfunctional families (ah but don’t worry, there is a dysfunctional family here, too, it’s just not central).

Hand this off to fans of Sarah Dessen for the relationship aspects, particularly when it comes to families. Those who loved Holly Cupala’s Tell Me a Secret will want to run to this title, as there are many parallels in the story lines (and enough diversions to never feel like the same story). Fans of contemporary fiction will eat this title up, and the mystery will be a bonus.

Display This: The Beat of Teen Read Week

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Welcome to the first of what I hope will become a regular feature here at STACKED: Display This. We’ll pick a topic and throw together a list of books with a short description that you can use for book displays or for reading lists on a given topic. What better week to start with than Teen Read Week?

This year’s theme is Books with Beat. While the theme can go any number of ways, I wanted to offer up this display as an homage to books featuring music as a key element. Here we go:

Stringz by Michael Wenberg: A mixed-race guy with a rough life finds peace through his cello.

Rock Star Superstar by Blake Nelson: Should Pete’s band keep being independent or should they “sell out” to really make a name for themselves?

Harmonic Feedback by Tara Kelly: Drea loves to be a sound master when it comes to music, and that might be how she keeps her asberger’s in sync while finding a little love.

Vinyl Princess By Yvonne Printz: Alli’s got any teen music lover’s dream job — she’s a music seller at a local record joint.

Struts and Frets by Jon Skovron: Sammy’s in an indie band and when they win a Battle of the Bands competition, his dream to make it big might be a closer reality than he thought.

Somebody Everybody Listens To by Suzanne Supplee: Retta Lee Jones is a country singer striking out on her own in Nashville.

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn: When night rolls around, Nick and Norah will have a musical adventure through the big city.

If I Stay by Gayle Foreman: Mia’s life revolved around her talents as a cellist before things changed in an instant.

Adios, Nirvana by Conrad Wesselhoeft: Johnathan’s musical genius might be what helps him overcome the loss of his twin brother. Expect some flaming guitar action in this one.

Lovestruck Summer by Melissa Walker: Quinn graduates high school and takes a chance at working at a music label in Austin, Texas, hoping to explore the truth behind its music capital reputation.

Audrey, Wait by Robin Benway: What happens when you’re the person a top radio hit is about and everybody knows it?

A Little Wanting Song by Cath Crowley: Charlie’s voice and knowledge of music will help her connect with people who she’s never been able to connect with before.

Five Flavors of Dumb by Antony John: Can a deaf girl really manage a band and get them ready for a recording session with record executives?

Just Listen by Sarah Dessen: Music will be the guiding force for Anabelle to better understand weird boy Owen, her aching family, and herself.

Beige by Cecil Castellucci: Katy’s dad’s a punk rocker, and she’s forced to spend the summer with him. How will she survive when they are so different?

Friend is Not a Verb by Daniel Ehrenhaft: Henry’s skills as a bassist may not have been enough to keep his girlfriend but it may help him unravel the secrets of his runaway sister.

So Punk Rock (And Other Ways to Disappoint Your Mother) by Micol Ostow: Ari wants to be a punk rock hipster, but his true calling may be more along the lines of the hired band for local Bar Mitzvahs.

Will by Miranda Boyd: Would your life end if your punishment for doing wrong were to play a role in the high school musical?

This is just a sample of what I’d put on my display for this year’s Teen Read Week. What would you add? Share in the comments, along with a short annotation, and I’ll pop it up on this post for others to see!

Super Librarian offers up this handy .pdf file of rockin’ titles.

*Thanks to my friend Andrea V. for the fantastic graphic at the top for this feature.