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Links of Note: May 17, 2014

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Isn’t this “Little House on the Prairie” cake great? 

The last two weeks have been a whirlwind. I got back from the Connecticut Library Association conference to have a small number of days to get my head together and start work for Book Riot, and then I flew out to Virginia to learn more about my Book Riot work. I got back from that trip to a solid week — this past one — to settle into a nice routine, catch up on reading, and take care of personal stuff before I go on another trip starting Monday (this one a vacation for me). It’s been such a blast, but my reading the internet has dipped a bit, so this links roundup is a little skimpy.

Have you read anything great lately around the web I should know about? Let me know in the comments! And also, I’d be remiss not to mention the new and fantastic Book Riot News, which is a reddit-style site for sharing book related news. If you want to share or get caught up on book-related news from around the web, you should check it out.

  • Did you know May is Mental Health Awareness Month? Stephanie Kuehn put together an excellent reading list of YA novels that delve into various mental health issues over on YA Highway. 
  • I haven’t had the chance to play with this a whole lot, so I’ve got no idea how deep it goes, but this database is all about genre fiction by women. 
  • This post by Molly Backes begging for people to stop complaining about Harry Potter — and by extension, children’s and young adult literature more broadly — is excellent. 
  • It is the 9th annual 48 Hour Book Challenge hosted by Mother Reader, and you should sign up to participate. It’s the first weekend in June, and this year, the focus is on diversity. I can’t sign up to participate officially, but I do plan on spending plenty of time that weekend reading. 
  • This piece over at Forbes looking at the meta analysis Common Sense Media did that claimed teens aren’t reading like they used to is pretty good. I especially enjoyed the part at the end, digging into gendered reading. 
  • Can you believe it’s the eighth year for Kid Lit Con? This year, it’s going to be in Sacramento in early October and the focus is on diversity and what bloggers and kid lit enthusiasts can do to make a difference. Here are the early details. I am pretty positive I’ll be able to make it again this year and hope if you’re in the area or are able to, you can, too. 

  • Audiobook fan? Don’t miss the kick off of this summer’s Sync program, where you can download free audiobooks of classics *and* current YA titles every single week. This is such a neat program. 

A few things I’ve written over at Book Riot:
  • I talked about the new Judy Blume covers (I can’t get enough of the middle grade cover for Are You There God).
  • I’m a big fan of the Charlotte’s Web shower curtain you can pick up in Book Fetish. 

Define “Reading”

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A couple of really interesting studies have popped up recently.

First, this survey, done by the Reading Agency, notes that 63% of men feel like they aren’t reading as much as they think they should and a full fifth of men admit to saying reading is difficult or they don’t enjoy it.

NPR wrote about the findings Common Sense Media had when combing through a series of studies that teens aren’t reading like they used to. This one cites a few reasons why this might be, including the rise of tablets and internet-connected devices, as well as the always-present “not enough time” (that’s the big reason for the survey above on why men are reading less).

But before we cry about how no one is reading anymore, perhaps we should examine one of the biggest factors not examined in either of these studies: how is “reading” defined?

It appears in both cases that “reading” is defined as sitting down with a book — print, of course — and reading it cover to cover. This is how we all traditionally perceive reading, and it’s what we’re taught reading is from a very early age. There are different types of reading, including close reading (something that is brought up in Corey Ann Haydu’s Life By Committee in a way that I think all teens “get”: sitting down with a pen and marking reactions, questions, and favorite lines), reading for research (which also includes note taking, whether in the margins or on paper), and skimming/scanning. There are other reading skills taught to us, of course, but those are easily the three biggest ones. All three are taught from early on, and they’re taught via the print medium.

The problem is that in today’s world, this idea of reading is limiting. It defines reading by the medium in which one type of reading occurs, rather than opening up the idea of reading as an activity one can engage in across multiple platforms, devices, and mediums.

A few years ago when I was working the entire youth services program in my small library, I decided I wanted to shake up how our summer reading program looked. For a long time, the program required readers to track the number of books they read in exchange for rewards along the way. While this is an easy tracking system on the end of the library, it’s a very limiting system for readers. Aside from the fact it privileges readers who choose smaller books over larger books and it privileges faster readers over slower ones, it also reinforces the idea of what reading is: a book.

My proposal was that we count time read, rather than books read. After the change was made, when I got into the schools to talk to teens, I asked them specifically what they they thought counted as “reading.”

Many thought graphic novels and comics didn’t count as reading.

Many thought reading anything on the internet — blogs, magazine websites, gaming forums — didn’t count as reading.

Many thought picking up a newspaper or magazine in print didn’t count as reading.

Many thought that listening to audiobooks didn’t count as reading.

When their impressions of “reading” were shared, I told them their perceptions of what counted as reading were very narrow. Why didn’t graphic novels or comics count as reading? Was it because those aren’t typically what’s being read in the classroom? Is it because graphic novels or comics can sometimes have many pages where there’s no text? What made a magazine — either in print or online — not count as reading?

That summer, I told them I wanted them to count those things as reading. I told them I wanted them to count other things that involved reading to be counted toward reading. Do you spend time reading text messages? Then count it. Do you spend time reading the instructions before you dive into playing a game? Then count it. Do you spend time reading Facebook updates? Then count it. I told them to be reasonable — count those things no more than half an hour a day — but that those things absolutely, positively counted as reading.

When summer ended, I saw a marked increase in participation in the reading program, as well an impressive number of hours logged by teen readers. There was nothing inflated and nothing out of the ordinary. Instead, teens saw a redefinition of reading to include the very things they do every single day that require them to be active and engaged readers. You can’t respond to your friend’s text without reading it, processing it, then forming a response to it. Those are the same skills necessary to engage with a novel or a work of non-fiction assigned in school. The responses may be different. The contexts are different. But all require reading.

Reading is a skill set.

Reading is an activity.

Reading is not a format nor a context.

Of course teens aren’t reading like they used to. Of course men aren’t reading like they used to. Why would they? The world of reading is wide and vast and it’s not limited to one thing anymore.

Before panicking about the numbers and what it is teens or men or women or any other group or category of people are or aren’t doing when it comes to reading, or how things were so much better and greater “back in the day,” think about how those researchers have defined reading. Think about how we have defined reading for those groups. Are we limiting them to one idea of reading? Or are we allowing them to think about the fact that nearly every single thing they do in today’s world — online and offline — requires them to engage in reading?

For some more thoughts on this, go read Liz Burn’s post “Teens Today! They Don’t Read!“

Free to Fall by Lauren Miller

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I didn’t expect to like Lauren Miller’s Free to Fall as much as I did. I went in with some preconceived notions – that it would  be very heavy-handed with a message, that it would focus on a romance almost exclusively – and I was very happy to be proven wrong. (But you can forgive me about the romance thing, right? I mean, people talk about “falling” in love…)

What I got instead was a very smart, engaging thriller about a number of things: the pitfalls of technology, the danger of ceding any amount of free will, the nature of trust. It’s also a novel very much for teens, covering first love, parental betrayal, and the high school dance. (Did I mention it also has a secret society and some Da Vinci Code-style puzzles? Be still, my heart.)

Here’s the basic idea: Rory lives in the near future (the 2030s or thereabouts) where everyone has a handheld (think smartphone, supercharged). Gnosis manufactures the handhelds everyone has, and they also produce an app called Lux which helps users determine the best choice to make in any situation, right down to “What should I order for dinner?” Rory, along with most of her peers, relies on Lux pretty heavily.

Rory has just been accepted to Theden Academy, an elite boarding school for teens which pretty much guarantees her a ticket to a prestigious college and the good life afterward. But Theden has a lot of secrets, and Rory finds herself personally caught up in it. Her mother attended Theden, but left abruptly, then died giving birth to her. She passed along a cryptic message to Rory, telling her father to give it to her when Rory entered Theden.

This book has a lot in it – parents’ secret past, a mysterious townie boy, a duplicitous roommate, an evil teacher, strange school tests, Paradise Lost, a secret affair, a secret society, math puzzles, future tech, pop science – and it all leads back to Gnosis and Lux in some way. It’s incredibly fun to watch Rory unravel it all. There’s never a dull moment. It’s a true thriller with a new secret at every turn. I won’t say much more since the joy of reading the story is discovering just what Miller throws at you next.

A couple quibbles: some of the foreshadowing is too heavy-handed, and the denouement is too much of a deus ex machina. But I was having so much fun, I didn’t care much. This is a near-perfect near-future thriller. It’s twisty,
surprising, fast-paced, and very timely. The sketchy boarding school aspect may appeal to fans of The Testing or Variant, the dangerous technology aspect may appeal to fans of Feed, and the sci fi mystery may appeal to fans of Unremembered or Starters (though I think Free to Fall is the smartest of them all). Highly recommended.

Finished copy received from the publisher. Free to Fall is available now.

Get Genrefied: Historical Fantasy

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I love talking about genre fiction, and I’m really loving exploring all of the many subgenres of fantasy and science fiction in our genre guides each month (though we don’t always stick to SFF). This month, we tackle historical fantasy.

I thought I had a pretty good grasp on the definition of historical fantasy, but in doing a bit of searching, I learned that my definition is different from many others’ definitions. Hugo winner Jo Walton gives a good overview at tor.com: What is Historical Fantasy? She (and others) use the term to describe any sort of fantasy that takes place in the past or seems like it might take place in the past – whether that past actually existed or not. I take a much narrower view. For me, historical fantasy is strictly fantasy that takes place in a past that actually existed, not just in a world that seems kind of historical-ish.

So there’s some disagreement. I prefer the narrower definition mainly because I find the more expanded definition nearly useless. So much of fantasy is pseudo-medieval, meaning we’d call almost all fantasy “historical fantasy” in that case. Moreover, these stories are quite clearly and deliberately not set in our own world. There’s no history to be gleaned from stories like that. Part of the appeal of historical fantasy is seeing the ways the author manipulates actual historical events with fantastical elements. I try to be careful in what I call historical fantasy for this reason, and my definition is the definition I’ll be using for this guide. (Read a few of the comments in the Jo Walton piece and you’ll see I’m not alone!)

Some well-known examples of historical fantasy that fit my definition well are Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke, The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley, and Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. On the YA end, Libba Bray’s A Great and Terrible Beauty and Robin LaFevers Grave Mercy are good examples.

We’ve covered awards and resources for fantasy and historical fiction before in our genre guides, so I won’t rehash them here. I did find a few interesting reads, though. The first is this piece by Dan Wohl at The Mary Sue: Is “Historical Accuracy” a Good Defense of Patriarchal Societies in Fantasy Fiction? Make sure you read the first comment as well, which points out a serious flaw in his argument, though the point he’s getting at is valid. If you’re a fan of Game of Thrones (tv series or book series), you’ve likely read defenses of its treatment of women, one of which probably was “But that’s the way women were treated back then!” And here’s another reason I prefer my definition of historical fantasy: Game of Thrones is not historical fantasy. The entire world is invented. Martin and the screenwriters made a choice to create cultures like this, and “historical accuracy” is not a legitimate reason.

Even for books that are clearly historical fantasy (or based on history, as GoT ostensibly is), if an author makes a choice to write about dragons and fairies in 17th century England, what’s stopping that author from making the society gender-equal? We can suspend our disbelief for dragons, but we can’t do the same for gender parity, or even female privilege? Falling back on the myth of historical accuracy demonstrates a supreme lack of creativity. The whole point of historical fantasy is to give the readers a historical time period that is accurate to a point – and then goes off the rails. If it weren’t historically inaccurate in some way, it wouldn’t be historical fantasy. My point is that the author chose to write the story in that way for a reason, and accuracy ain’t it. (I read the Ruins of Ambrai by Melanie Rawn as a teenager, which features a society where women hold all power. It’s really great high fantasy; not historical, but could easily be made so. Let’s see more of this, yes?)

Anyway.

On the YA front, there are a couple of places that review historical fantasy pretty regularly. TeenReads.com has a page devoted to it, as does Charlotte’s Library. Some of the titles mentioned don’t adhere to my strict definition, but that’s inevitable.

Below are a few recently published historical fantasy titles plus some forthcoming ones. I’ve restricted the list to books that fit my narrow definition of historical fantasy, otherwise it would be much, much longer. I omitted steampunk since we’ve covered that already. Descriptions are from Worldcat. What ones have I missed? Let me know in the comments.

The Diviners by Libba Bray
Seventeen-year-old Evie O’Neill is thrilled when she is exiled from
small-town Ohio to New York City in 1926, even when a rash of
occult-based murders thrusts Evie and her uncle, curator of The Museum
of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult, into the thick of
the investigation.

A Great and Terrible Beauty (and sequels) by Libba Bray
After the suspicious death of her mother in 1895, sixteen-year-old Gemma
returns to England, after many years in India, to attend a finishing
school where she becomes aware of her magical powers and ability to see
into the spirit world.

Bewitching Season (and sequels) by Marissa Doyle

In 1837, as seventeen-year-old twins, Persephone and Penelope, are
starting their first London Season they find that their beloved
governess, who has taught them everything they know about magic, has
disappeared.

Monstrous Beauty by Elizabeth Fama
Tells, in alternating chapters, the story of the mermaid Syrenka’s love
for Ezra in 1872 that leads to a series of horrific murders, and
present-day Hester’s encounter with a ghost that reveals her connection
to the murders and to Syrenka. (Kimberly’s review)

Deception’s Princess by Esther M. Friesner

In Iron Age Ireland, Maeve, the fierce, willful youngest daughter of
King Eochu of Connacht, is caught in a web of lies after rebelling to
avoid fosterage with another highborn family and an arranged marriage.

The Red Necklace by Sally Gardner

In the late eighteenth-century, Sido, the twelve-year-old daughter of
a self-indulgent marquis, and Yann, a fourteen-year-old Gypsy orphan
raised to perform in a magic show, face a common enemy at the start of
the French Revolution.

Chantress (and sequel) by Amy Butler Greenfield
Fifteen-year-old Lucy discovers that she is a chantress who can perform
magic by singing, and the only one who can save England from the control
of the dangerous Lord Protector

The Faerie Ring by Kiki Hamilton
The year is 1871, and Tiki has been making a home for herself and her
family of orphans in a deserted hideaway adjoining Charing Cross Station
in central London. They survive by picking pockets. One December night,
Tiki steals a ring, and sets off a chain of events that could lead to
all-out war with the Fey. For the ring belongs to Queen Victoria, and it
binds the rulers of England and the realm of Faerie to peace. With the ring missing, a rebel group of faeries hopes to break the treaty with dark magic and blood–Tiki’s blood.

Grave Mercy (and sequels) by Robin LaFevers

In the fifteenth-century kingdom of Brittany, seventeen-year-old
Ismae escapes from the brutality of an arranged marriage into the
sanctuary of the convent of St. Mortain, where she learns that the god
of Death has blessed her with dangerous gifts–and a violent destiny. (Kimberly’s review)

Witchfall by Victoria Lamb

In order for magic-wielding Meg to keep the outcast Princess
Elizabeth and her secret betrothed, the Spanish priest Alejandro de
Castillo, safe in the court of Queen Mary, she needs to make the
ultimate sacrifice.

The Falconer by Elizabeth May

In 1844 Edinburgh, eighteen-year-old Lady Aileana Kameron is neither
an ordinary debutante, nor a murderess–she is a Falconer, a female
warrior born with the gift for hunting and killing the faeries who prey
on mankind and who killed her mother. (Kimberly’s review)

The Vespertine (and sequels) by Saundra Mitchell

In 1889, when Amelia van den Broek leaves her brother’s strict home
for the freedom of a social season with cousins in Baltimore, she is
surprised by her strong attraction to an unsuitable man, but more so by
the dark visions she has each evening which have some believing that she
is the cause, not merely the seer, of harm. (Kelly’s review)

Dark Mirror (and sequels) by M. J. Putney
When it is discovered that Lady Victoria has magic powers, she is sent
away to school at Lackland Abbey, where she joins a group of young mages
using their powers to protect England, and travels through time from
the early 1800s to the 1940s. (Kelly’s review)

The Burning Sky (and sequel) by Sherry Thomas
A young elemental mage named Iaolanthe Seabourne discovers her shocking
power and destiny when she is thrown together with a deposed prince to
lead a rebellion against a tyrant. (Kimberly’s review)

The Fetch by Laura Whitcomb
After 350 years as a Fetch, or death escort, Calder breaks his vows and
enters the body of Rasputin, whose spirit causes rebellion in the Land
of Lost Souls while Calder struggles to convey Ana and Alexis, orphaned
in the Russian Revolution, to Heaven.

In the Shadows by Kiersten White and Jim Di Bartolo
Minnie and Cora, sisters living in a sleepy Maine town in the nineteenth
century, are intrigued by Arthur, a mysterious boy with no past who has
come to live in their mother’s boarding house–but something sinister
is stirring and the teens must uncover the truth, and unlock the key to
immortality. (Kimberly’s review)

In the Shadow of Blackbirds by Cat Winters

In San Diego in 1918, as deadly influenza and World War I take their
toll, sixteen-year-old Mary Shelley Black watches desperate mourners
flock to séances and spirit photographers for comfort and, despite her
scientific leanings, must consider if ghosts are real when her first
love, killed in battle, returns. (Kimberly’s review)

Dust Girl (and sequels) by Sarah Zettel
On the day in 1935 when her mother vanishes during the worst dust storm
ever recorded in Kansas, Callie learns that she is not actually a human
being.

You Should Watch . . .Guest Post by Mariko Tamaki

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We’re excited to be part of the official blog tour for Jillian and Mariko Tamaki’s This One Summer. I highly recommend checking out the rest of the posts along the way, which are all rounded up right here.

Today, we’ve got Markio to talk about documentaries about the creative process that may be inspiring to other writers, artists, and creatively-driven types.

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To me, there is little more enjoyable and more fascinating than documentaries about the creative process.  Movies, not so much (aside from Broadcast news, which is a stretch).  Docs are my favorite way to pass the time on a Sunday.

I love watching people make art almost as much as I love making it myself.  So much of making art is done behind a black curtain.  At the same time, so much of making art is understanding how people create not just as individuals but as teams.

And so, in addition to encouraging people to read as much as possible, when asked about resources for creators young and old, I heartily recommend the following amazing documentaries about the creative process.

Most of these documentaries I would say are not for kids, if you think that language like the f-word is what makes a documentary not for kids (Beauty is Embarrassing especially).  But I think they’re all incredible portraits of the artistic process so I’m recommending them anyway.  

Indie Game (2012)

A documentary about indie game makers, specifically Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes creators of, Super Meat Boy, Phil Fish, creator of  FEZ, and Jonathan Blow creator of Braid.  A great portrait of not just the frustrations but the philosophy of making art.  For comic fans this is also a great doc for seeing how work goes from a sketch to something fully realized.  Edmund McMillen gives you a little window into the metaphors and nightmares of his childhood and connect up with game experiences he creates today.  See it because, in this movie, nerds win.  BIG.  You can go to the website and watch direct.  Which you should do.  And while you’re there read up on what the filmmakers have to say about how they made the film and how they’re distributing it.  Go. Indie. Game.

There is nothing uninspiring about Diana Vreeland and the way she sees and shapes the world around her.  Just for the pure joy of the visuals Vreeland inspired, moulded, and adored over her career, this documentary is worth watching.

Artist Wayne White is the guy behind so many cool things, it is astounding that he’s just one guy.  This is a great documentary because you get this picture of art as a career, as a commercial venture, and as a passion.  White looks back at his time as a sought after commercial artist, and shows you what it’s like to just fiddle with bits and pieces in his studio until it becomes something tangible.  

Crewdon’s photographs are so haunting, so still and yet complex, they are beyond words. And it takes a massive team to make them.  I loved this picture of behind the scenes looks at all the details that go into making something that feels, to me, pretty close to perfection.