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Reader’s Advisory and Contemporary YA Fiction from the CLA Conference

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This morning, I’m in Connecticut, preparing to present at Connecticut Library Association Conference. I’m so thrilled to have been invited, and I’m even more excited to be given the floor to talk about two of my favorite topics: reader’s advisory and contemporary YA fiction.

While I think most of the information here is useful to all readers, those who attended either or both of my sessions will benefit from having heard what some of the information is in context of the bigger discussion. But either way, I thought these would be good resources for any reader interested in either or both topics.

Because I didn’t feel like keeping things consistent, I decided to present on one topic through a Google slideshow and the other through Prezi. Both are embedded below and should be pretty straightforward in their use.

Not Your Mother’s Teen RA


For this discussion, I dove deep into talking about how we can be better readers advisors for teens by being more aware of the digital resources out there for us to take advantage of. You can see the entire presentation at this link.

I believe the notes field is also visible, which is where I pulled some of my sources for further digging. The presentation is chock full of links for further reading, as well, including loads of inspirational sites for making, borrowing, and being inspired by other people’s RA savvy. At the very end, I’ve given some tips for how to not become overwhelmed but instead be motivated by those efforts.

If the notes field isn’t showing up, my biggest point I want to make is that it’s more than worthwhile to read danah boyd’s It’s Complicated, to learn about the context to the statistics when it comes to teens using and growing up with the internet. While we can say that 95% of US teens use it, that number represents teens who are very active on the internet, as well as those who hop on for an hour each week at their public library.

All of my data came from the 2012 PEW Internet research study on teens and technology.

Keeping it Real with Contemporary Realistic YA Fiction


I’m not going to talk about this one a whole lot because I think the Prezi is self-explanatory. This should give you a pretty good overview of contemporary realistic YA fiction, a definition of the genre, and a way to think about this genre in new and creative ways.

There’s also a pretty sizable list of 2014 titles that have been recently released or will be coming out in the future.

For some reason, I can’t get the Prezi to embed properly, but if you click here, you can view it and be able to zoom in and out and around for maximum effect.

Emily Dickinson is the New Black in YA Fiction

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While we’ve talked a bit about poetry this month in honor of April being poetry month, I thought it would be worth talking about an interesting trend that’s popped up over the last couple of years in YA. It’s not a huge trend, it’s stood out to me because it’s an interesting one: Emily Dickinson as inspiration to a main character or a key part of a story’s plot. 

I’ve been thinking about Emily Dickinson and the role her work played in my life growing up. I noted a couple weeks ago that her poetry was one of the few long-term exposures to a female writer I had in high school. In that class, we did a large group project, and I remember doing it with two friends, devoting an entire weekend together to talk about who she was, what she wrote, and putting together a series of explications of her work. It was clearly memorable, and even though I wouldn’t count myself as one of Dickinson’s big fans, her work and the influence of her work can’t be overlooked. 

It’s not a surprise, then, that she can play such a role in YA, especially in female-driven YA. It’s a voice I think teen girls relate to (or want to say they relate to) and it’s one of their first exposures to both a female voice and to poetry. 

Here’s a roundup of a few recently Emily Dickinson flavored YA novels. All descriptions are from WorldCat, and I’m positive I’ll overlook a title or two. I’m interested in books published in the last 5 to 7 years, so if you can think of others, feel free to leave them in the comments. 

Death, Dickinson, and the Demented Life of Frenchie Garcia by Jenny Torres Sanchez: Struggling to come to terms with the suicide of her crush, Andy Cooper, Frenchie obsessively retraces each step of their tumultuous final encounter and looks to the poetry of Emily Dickinson for guidance.

Nobody’s Secret by Michaela MacColl: When fifteen-year-old Emily Dickinson meets a charming, enigmatic young man who playfully refuses to tell her his name, she is intrigued–so when he is found dead in her family’s pond in Amherst she is determined to discover his secret, no matter how dangerous it may prove to be.

And We Stay by Jenny Hubbard: Sent to an Amherst, Massachusetts, boarding school after her ex-boyfriend shoots himself, seventeen-year-old Emily expresses herself through poetry as she relives their relationship, copes with her guilt, and begins to heal.

Emily’s Dress and Other Missing Things by Kathryn Burak: A new girl in Amherst, Massachusetts, comes to terms with her mother’s suicide and her best friend’s disappearance with the help of Emily Dickinson’s poetry–and her dress.

What’s really interesting about these two titles is that in both, a dress of Emily Dickinson’s becomes an important part of each girl’s grieving and healing process. It’s almost as if the two girls in these books were attending the same boarding school a decade or so apart from one another. 

Although this one is a little older, published in 2009, I wanted to include it as well:

A Voice of Her Own: Becoming Emily Dickinson by Barbara Dana: A fictionalized first-person account of revered American poet Emily Dickinson’s girlhood in mid-nineteenth-century Amherst, Massachusetts.

April Debut YA Novels

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It’s time to talk April debut YA novels, and this month, there are quite a few. I’ve rounded them up best as I can, but as usual, it’s likely I’ll miss a title or two and I’m happy to hear of other debuts from traditional publishers in the comments. I define debut as first novel. I’m not including debuts that are an author’s first YA novel; I want them to be first novels. 

All descriptions are from WorldCat. Titles that Kimberly or I may have reviewed we’ll include links to, as well. 

Breakfast Served Anytime by Sarah Combs: Spending the summer before her senior year at a camp for gifted and talented students, Gloria struggles with the recent loss of her grandmother while trying to meet new friends and make the best of her new circumstances.

Burn Out by Kristi Helvig: In the future, when the Earth is no longer easily habitable, seventeen-year-old Tora Reynolds, a girl in hiding, struggles to protect weapons developed by her father that could lead to disaster should they fall into the wrong hands.

Dear Killer by Katherine Ewell: Kit, a seventeen-year-old moral nihilist serial killer, chooses who to kill based on anonymous letters left in a secret mailbox, while simultaneously maintaining a close relationship with the young detective in charge of the murder cases. 



Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige: Amy Gumm, the other girl from Kansas, has been recruited by the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked to stop Dorothy who has found a way to come back to Oz, seizing a power that has gone to her head — so now no one is safe!

Expiration Day by William Campbell Powell: t is the year 2049, and humanity is on the brink of extinction. Tania Deeley has always been told that she’s a rarity: a human child in a world where most children are sophisticated androids manufactured by Oxted Corporation. 

Far From You by Tess Sharpe: After Sophie Winters survives a brutal attack in which her best friend, Mina, is murdered, she sets out to find the killer. At the same time she must prove she is free of her past Oxy addiction and in no way to blame for Mina’s death. 

Learning Not to Drown by Anna Shinoda: Clare, seventeen, has always stood up for her eldest brother, Luke, despite his many jail stints but when her mother takes Clare’s hard-earned savings to post bail for Luke, Clare begins to understand truths about her brother and her family.

Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaria: When Laurel starts writing letters to dead people for a school assignment, she begins to spill about her sister’s mysterious death, her mother’s departure from the family, her new friends, and her first love.

Open Road Summer by Emery Lord: Follows seventeen-year-old Reagan as she tries to escape heartbreak and a bad reputation by going on tour with her country superstar best friend–only to find more trouble as she falls for the surprisingly sweet guy hired to pose as the singer’s boyfriend.

Pointe by Brandy Colbert: Four years after Theo’s best friend, Donovan, disappeared at age thirteen, he is found and brought home and Theo puts her health at risk as she decides whether to tell the truth about the abductor, knowing her revelation could end her life-long dream of becoming a professional ballet dancer. Kelly’s review. 

Prisoner of Night and Fog by Anne Blankman: In 1930s Munich, the favorite niece of rising political leader Adolph Hitler is torn between duty and love after meeting a fearless and handsome young Jewish reporter.

Salvage by Alexandra Duncan: Ava, a teenage girl living aboard the male-dominated, conservative deep space merchant ship Parastrata, faces betrayal, banishment, and death. Taking her fate into her own hands, she flees to the Gyre, a floating continent of garbage and scrap in the Pacific Ocean. How will she build a future on an Earth ravaged by climate change? Kimberly’s review. 

Sekret by Lindsay Smith: A group of psychic teenagers in 1960s Soviet Russia are forced to use their powers to spy for the KGB. Kimberly’s review. 

Stolen Songbird by Danielle L. Jensen: Trolls are said to love gold. They are said to live underground and hate humans, perhaps even eat them. They are said to be evil. When Cécile de Troyes is kidnapped and sold to the trolls, she finds out that there is truth in the rumors, but there is also so much more to trolls than she could have imagined. Cécile has only one thing on her mind after she is brought to Trollus, the city she hadn’t even known existed under Forsaken Mountain: escape. But the trolls are inhumanly strong. And fast. She will have to bide her time, wait for the perfect opportunity. But something strange happens while she’s waiting–she begins to fall in love with the handsome, thoughtful troll prince that she has been bonded and married to. She begins to make friends. And she begins to see that she may be the only hope for the half-bloods–part troll/part human creatures who are slaves to the full-blooded trolls. There is a rebellion brewing. And her prince, Tristan, the future king, is its secret leader.

Talker 25 by Joshua McCune: The fifteen-year-long war between man and dragons seems nearly over until Melissa becomes an unwilling pawn of the government after she–and those driving the beasts to extinction–discover that she can communicate with dragons.





Tease by Amanda Maciel: A teenage girl faces criminal charges for bullying after a classmate commits suicide. 

The Chance You Won’t Return by Annie Cardi: High school student Alex Winchester struggles to hold her life together in the face of her mother’s threatening delusions about being Amelia Earhart.

The Vigilante Poets of Selwyn Academy by Kate Hattemer: When a sleazy reality television show takes over Ethan’s arts academy, he and his friends concoct an artsy plan to take it down. 

Graphic Novel Roundup

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A Flight of Angels by Rebecca Guay and others
This graphic novel is absolutely packed with talent. It’s conceptualized and illustrated by Rebecca Guay, with stories by Holly Black, Bill Willingham, Louise Hawes, Alisa Kwitney, and Todd Mitchell. Even casual fantasy or graphic novel readers will likely recognize one or two of those names.

I love the idea beyond the book. It’s a frame story: a group of fairies and other creatures (fair and foul) discover an injured, unconscious angel in the forest. They each take turns telling a tale that describes how the angel may have gotten there, and the youngest among them will decide the angel’s fate based upon these tales. Each story explores some facet of angel mythology. I particularly enjoyed the first, written by Louise Hawes, which gives us a different version of Adam and Eve, though I think all are pretty strong.

What stands out particularly well, though, is the art. Each story is illustrated in a different style, which led me to initially think they were illustrated by different artists. This is not the case. Rebecca Guay illustrates the whole thing, and each story – including the frame story – looks like it came from a different hand. I’m pretty blown away by that, especially when I consider that the art is top-notch all the way through.

This is a beautiful book, beautifully thought-out and executed. It was selected as one of YALSA’s top 10 graphic novels of 2012, and I’m surprised I hadn’t even heard of it until I came across it in the comics shop. It’s written for an adult audience but could easily cross over to more mature teens, and I highly recommend it.

Fairest vol. 1: Wide Awake by Bill Willingham and Phil Jimenez
Fables’ popularity has brought us a few spinoffs, and this is the latest I’ve discovered. It focuses on the women of Fables. This first volume tells Sleeping Beauty/Briar Rose and the Snow Queen’s stories, which intertwine. Regular Fables readers will recall that Briar Rose was left in a rather precarious position in the main storyline; this volume gives readers an opportunity to find out what happened to her and continue her tale.

Right off the bat it was obvious to me that this was written by Willingham (as opposed to the Cinderella spinoff, reviewed below). The characterization is closer to that in the main Fables story, the humor flows better, and the story is just more interesting. Of the spinoffs I’ve tried (Cinderella, Jack of Fables, and Fairest), this is my favorite. Phil Jimenez gets primary credit for the art, and he does a terrific job. I’m such a sucker for Adam Hughes’ cover illustrations, too, which are phenomenal.

The bonus story at the end is wild. It’s a noir-ish detective story featuring Beast. I can’t say more than that. It kind of blew my mind. I still don’t know if I liked it.

Cinderella vol. 2: Fables are Forever by Chris Roberson and Shawn McManus
I guess the cover on this one should have been a giveaway, but I liked the first volume well enough, I figured I’d enjoy this one equally. It was…just OK. It features Cinderella hunting down Dorothy Gale, an assassin who worked for the shadow Fabletown and has some history with Cindy. That’s basically the extent of the story, aside from an unpleasant twist near the end which made me extremely uncomfortable.

There was a lot of Cinderella and Dorothy fighting in bikinis. As I said, the cover should have clued me in on that. It may sound like I didn’t care for this one much, but I did enjoy it. I just expected more. The idea of Cinderella as a spy is a great one. The first volume played with the traditional Cinderella story in new ways, but I felt like Roberson just phoned it in on this one. Not the best.

The Undertaking of Lily Chen by Danica Novgodoroff
This is a case of “It’s not you, it’s me.” I recognize the technical quality of the book. The art is certainly good. The story is unique and well-developed. I found the premise of ghost brides fascinating. The whole thing just left a bad taste in my mouth.

Deshi’s older brother, the pride of the family, dies, and Deshi’s parents send him out to find a ghost bride for him, so he doesn’t have to be buried and go into the next world alone. A ghost bride is a corpse of a woman – the fresher the better. Deshi lives in modern-day rural China where this very old tradition is still sometimes practiced. He falls in with a young woman named Lily, on the run from problems of her own. Female corpses, especially fresh ones good enough for Deshi’s brother, are in short supply. You see where this is going.

I think my main issue arose when Deshi and Lily started developing romantic feelings for each other. Deshi was romantically involved with Lily even while he was still considering killing her to bring home as a ghost bride. I think Novgodoroff was trying to show how tough parental pressure can be – and Deshi’s parents are certainly awful. But it didn’t work for me. I suppose as a woman, I automatically place myself in the girl’s shoes, which made me consider how I’d feel if a boy was considering killing me while he was kissing me. This is mainly Deshi’s story (despite the title!), but Novgodoroff does tell a good portion of it from Lily’s point of view, so sympathizing with her seems to be intended as much as sympathizing with Deshi is. It just made me feel icky, and not in a nice way.

A Flight of Angels and Cinderella purchased, Fairest borrowed from the library, Undertaking of Lily Chen provided by the publisher. All titles are available now.

Kimberly Interviews Kelly: On 5 years at STACKED

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For our five year blogoversary, Kelly and I thought it would be fun to interview each other about reading, blogging, and our journey together these past years. She interviewed me yesterday, and today I put her on the hot seat for a few questions. We’re also giving away fourteen books – if you haven’t entered to win yet, go forth and do so.

Kimberly: How do you think your blogging style has evolved over the past five years?

Kelly: I think I’ve become a lot bolder and more willing to write about anything that interests me. I think we both have been honest and frank in our reviewing style since the beginning, but I know in the last couple of years, I’ve found myself not so much less interested in writing reviews, but more interested in writing about books in new and different ways. I like talking about big topics and I think when I started blogging, that wasn’t something I felt as confident about doing.

I’m more willing, too, to put posts together that are more about jumpstarting discussions than having them be whole and complete discussions themselves. I forget sometimes the most interesting posts are the ones that raise questions, rather than attempt to answer them.

How do you think blogging about books and kidlit has changed over the past five years?

I talked about this a little bit over at Adele’s blog a couple of months ago. Maybe the biggest thing in the last five years has been the growth of blogging — but I also think a lot of that growth in blogging has become a growth in really becoming an arm of the publicity of new books.

A number of really powerful blog voices I got to know when we started Stacked aren’t doing it anymore. Many have stopped because of other commitments, but others have stopped because being critical and having that platform has conflicted with other things (notably, being published themselves!).

The Kidlitosphere is still going strong, but it’s definitely quieted down. It’s still an excellent community, but I think with other commitments in everyone’s lives, things have just changed a bit. There are certainly still amazing, long-time, well-respected bloggers out there. I think maybe now, five years after we started this, the tremendous growth in blogging about books and kidlit has made it harder for people to find their niche in the same way they did five, seven, or ten years ago.

Has blogging changed your reading style? If so, in what way?

Yes. But not necessarily because I’ve become more critical or because I’m now looking for certain things when I read. The biggest change in my reading style is that now that I’ve been thinking and reading so critically for five years, I have a stronger sense of when a book is going to be a book for me. I have a strong sense of when a book’s going to hit all the right notes for me as a reader, and that’s pretty neat.

What have been some unexpected benefits of blogging?
My writing has become stronger, clearer, and more thoughtful. I’ve always been a strong writer — comes with writing and thinking about writing since the time I could write — but blogging involves writing for an audience, so I have to be a lot more conscious of what I’m saying and how I am saying it.

Beyond the writing, I’ve met some of my best friends blogging. When I think about these last five years and the people who have had a tremendous impact on my life, nearly every one of them I met through blogging in some capacity.

I think you and I have gotten to know each other very well, when we didn’t in grad school, too.

I guess I should mention an unexpected benefit has been getting a job, too. That’s so new and fresh that I haven’t quite wrapped my head around it yet.

What is most frustrating or challenging about blogging?

It’s the most practical thing: I hate formatting posts. I don’t mind writing or rewriting or reworking words until they sing. But I hate when I have to resize, reshape, and fix images, alignments, weird font issues, and so forth.

Another thing that can be frustrating is when something you write is something you think is great and should really ‘hit,’ and it just doesn’t. What can you do though except keep writing?

Which posts were the most fun to write and why?

I find writing every post fun. I think we talked about a long time ago that when blogging wasn’t fun anymore, we wouldn’t do it. So I always remember it’s supposed to be fun, and with that in mind,

Of regular posts I write, I think the cover change posts are the most fun to write, as well as the cover trend posts. I love looking and talking about the visual representations of books because that’s such an interesting topic and it’s so subjective.
  

Which two or three posts would you consider your “greatest hits” and why?

I wrote two posts last June that really stood out to me: the post about girls and representation of girls in fiction, as well as the post about girls and their sexuality. Both really homed in on a topic I’d been thinking about — girls and girl reading — and I didn’t know there were so many other readers who’d been thinking about these issues because this is a topic that doesn’t GET talked about in the same way boys and boy reading do.

I’m also partial to my posts on getting beyond the easy reach with reader’s advisory, as well as what I’ve written about how reductive YA seems to have become.

You seem to have really found your voice in support of high-quality, contemporary, realistic books for teens, particularly those that are often overlooked. What draws you to these kinds of stories, and why are they so important to highlight and advocate for?

These have been the books I’ve always read. I picked up Speak in high school, as well as Perks of Being a Wallflower and Cut. I read more realistic fiction as I went on through college and after, into grad school. It’s a genre I am just drawn to because it’s such a limiting genre — you can’t magic your way out of anything. Every problem has to have a solution that’s plausible.

Unlike many readers, I’m not in realistic fiction for ‘relatability.’ I don’t care if I relate to a character or not. I want to be compelled by them and their stories, and I want to see how they use the limited resources in their world to find their way out of the problem — if
they’re even able to do that. Some of the most satisfying realistic
stories don’t solve all the problems, which is just how the real world
works.

Realistic fiction is important to highlight and advocate because at this point, if it isn’t the next book you can hand to a fan of John Green or Rainbow Rowell, it’s not going to see much marketing or publicity. And frankly, even the books being sold that way aren’t either; they’re instead being reduced to a kind of story which also reduces readers to types of readers. Realistic fiction is rich and complex. I think it’s important to talk about those complexities and richnesses because those reflect the realities of today’s teens and YA readers (teens or not!).

What’s the strangest, most bizarre thing that’s ever happened in your blogging career?

I went to a small publisher dinner at ALA, and I picked up a copy of Veronica Roth’s Insurgent. I didn’t realize she was at the dinner but when I found out she was, I wanted to get her to sign the book for me so I could give it away to one of my teens.

I introduced myself to her, and she knew who I was. That was pretty strange and neat all at once.

If you want bizarre, maybe it was the time someone emailed to tell us that our review policy was wrong, and they proceeded to send a detailed critique of why our review policy was so wrong. Guess it’s only fair that bloggers have their own policies evaluated for them?

Any advice for someone looking to start blogging?

Keep writing, keep reading, and keep working. You’ll find your voice and your passions and your community. It’s not about hits nor about recognition. It’s always about what blogging brings to you on a personal level.

For me, it’s a necessary part of unpacking what I’m thinking and reading.