STACKED

books

Guys Read: Resources 101

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Last month, STACKED brought you a week of guys read related posts, and one of the things I didn’t get a chance to do then was offer a list of resources for those interested in a go-to list of current guy friendly books. Lucky for you, I didn’t forget about it, and I’m sharing my resources with you today.

First up, I offer you a link to my tri-fold brochure of guy friendly titles. Although it’s catered to my library’s needs (since it does live there), you are welcome to use the titles, descriptions, and designs to fit your needs or interests. This link will take you to the file, which you can view on screen or download. Please note: I do not include non-fiction or graphic novels on my publication, but they certainly have huge appeal. I keep it at fiction because there is so much I could add and need to give some sort of limitation.

Guy Reads: Books with Killer Guy Voices

If you’re looking for additional resources or want to know where I keep myself up-to-date on guy-friendly books, check out these sites:

Guys Lit Wire: Bloggers share their reviews and insights into books guys will love.

Tales Told Tall: This is Michael Sullivan’s web page. If you aren’t familiar with Sullivan, he’s a leader in discussing issues related to getting guys to read, and I’ve blogged about hearing him speak here, here, and here. I love that his website offers us both his blog, but more importantly, his tried-and-true book recommendations by genre. Book mark this site, as he updates it frequently.

Guys Read: Like Sullivan’s site, this one will offer loads of book titles and descriptions by genre. It’s geared a little younger than Sullivan’s site, but it is extremely helpful for your tweens.

Where the Boys Are: Jennifer Hubbard is the author of the male-voiced love story The Secret Year (January 2010) and shared a huge list of books with males as main characters. Although that doesn’t necessarily guarantee guy appeal, it’s an excellent and valuable list to have access to.

Remember: guys are reading. They have always been reading. But their acts of reading aren’t as public or as open as girls. But what we can do is continue to highlight those books that will appeal to guys and promote them. Their readers will find them.

* A big thanks to Michelle for creating the perfect Guys Read graphic for us.

Take your pick Friday

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In case you ever believed I was a little one sided in my reading, I thought I’d shake things up for this Friday and post two shorter reviews of books I’ve read lately. Not only are they much different than my normal YA fare, but they’re also as different from one another as they could be.

First up, William March’s classic The Bad Seed. You may be familiar with the movie; this is the dark story about a mother raising a child who is a killer. I haven’t seen the movie myself, but after reading the book, you bet I’ll be watching it soon.

Rhoda Penmark’s always been a bit of a strange child, but her mother hasn’t thought much of it. The thing is, it’s becoming harder and harder for her mother to ignore it when the little boy who won an award that Rhoda believes she earned is found dead. His medal is missing as well. When the rest of the class mourns the boy’s loss, Rhoda continues living as though nothing happened, as though the boy himself never existed. And not just that, but she continues insisting she earned the honor and deserves it.

This chilling novel is not for the faint of heart, and it’s not necessarily a quick read. It’s filled to the brim with Freudian psychology, which is something that interests me to no end. As readers, we’re dropped into the mind of the mother, except that we have the knowledge — or at least the great suspicion — that Rhoda’s got a killing streak in her, and we can’t help but want to shake sense into mom. But what do you do in that situation? How do you punish a child who has no remorse? How do you come to terms with yourself as a parent raising a child like that? Are you to blame or is society to blame?

Hand this book to those who like psychological thrillers/horrors that are less on the bloody side and more on the strange side. I think readers who enjoy books like or Flowers in the Attic (for the strangeness) or Mommie Dearest (the family drama) would find this one a worthwhile read. It’s an adult book, but your teen readers will be interested in this book. It’s a classic that shouldn’t be left behind. I know I’ve mentioned I’m not a one-sitting kind of reader, but this was a book I devoted an entire day to because it was that engaging and, well, horrifying.

After reading a heavy book, I thought I would treat myself to something completely sweet, which is why I dove into My Milk Toof by Inhae Lee. Although not a graphic novel, this book is similar in set up, but it uses large photos with captions to tell a few short stories about a pair of milk teeth (baby teeth) who choose to reunite with the person whose mouth they came from years ago.

A knock on the door one day leads the author to discover a small tooth waiting for her. He introduces himself as Ickle, and he’s welcomed into his new (old?) home with a story, a snack, and even a place to sleep. He’s happy getting so much attention, but it’s not too long before Lardee shows up, and like any siblings, the two of them have their fair share of spats. But they don’t fight all the time — the two of them have adventures together, including bath time (probably my favorite story in the book).

What I love most about this book is how sweet the images are. Everything is real, but the focus is on the tiny details of the teeth and their toys. When Ickle begins teething (because, yes, milk teeth can teeth too!), you see him in comparison to the door he’s chewing. The teeth change their facials expressions throughout, as well, so as readers we know exactly what they’re feeling, even without reading the text. This is a cute story without being cloying, and never once did I feel like it was over done or the story got old. These sorts of books usually don’t work for me because they feel phony and overdone, but Lee gets enough emotion behind the stories to make me care about the characters — even if they’re just teeth. In fact, my husband, who is a non-reader of fiction and certainly a non-reader of comics, read this one cover and cover and really liked it, too.

To get a little more background into the project and for more of the cute stories of Ickle and Lardee, check out Lee’s blog. I’d be comfortable handing this book off to older children through adults; it’s perfectly appropriate for all ages, and it’d be enjoyed on different levels. My Milk Toof is one of those books I’ll be picking up after a bad day and one which I hope has more prints made available soon — I’d love to get a copy of Ickle telling Lardee he can’t play because he’s too busy reading.

Long Tail Kitty by Lark Pien

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Long Tail Kitty by Lark Pien officially takes the prize for Cutest Graphic Novel Ever.  Long Tail Kitty (abbreviated LTK) is a kitty with a long tail (surprise!).  He’s got two visible teeth and a red stripe around his middle.  He has a number of friends, including a bee that stings him (they’re still friends, don’t worry), Good Tall Mouse (you guessed it, a tall mouse), and three aliens who come for a visit from their home planet (but they must be back in time for breakfast, Mom’s orders).  
The book is a series of five vignettes, and only two of them have any real conflict.  Usually this would be a death sentence for a book, but it works here.  The illustrations are so delightfully cute without being cloying, and LTK’s facial expressions are hysterical.  There’s a huge amount of energy and humor in every panel, thanks to Pien’s wonderful drawings, and despite the fact that not much happens in a lot of the book, it’s always entertaining.
My favorite part of the book involves LTK and his friend the bee, who stings him on the nose (despite the fact that LTK doesn’t really have a nose).  The bee’s stinger is nowhere to be found afterward, and the bee is distraught.  LTK doesn’t understand why the bee is so upset, since he seems to be flying fine without the stinger.  “Just imagine what it would be like if you lost your tail!” the bee exclaims.  LTK imagines just that, and the results (depicted so cleverly in his thought bubble) are hilarious. 
I don’t tend to read a lot of graphic novels for the very young set, and I’m glad I picked this one up.  I read it through in just a few minutes, but it’s worth poring over closely two or three times more.  Pien’s illustrations are simple, but she expresses so much with just a few lines.  There’s a fold-out page in the center that is especially delicious for the eyes.  Pien also includes one page at the end that teaches the reader how to draw LTK her/himself, plus another page with examples of LTK’s many moods (all hilarious and so expressive with a minimum amount of line).  Directions like these are a wonderful way for budding comic book artists to feel inspired and pick up the pen.
Everything about the look of this book is perfect: the cut-out window where we get our first glimpse of LTK on the front cover, the lettering (playful yet readable), the colors (semi-muted with a water color feel), and the final image of LTK dancing on the back cover.  When we talk about books being works of art, this is the type of book we mean.  Everything – page design, illustrations, lettering, cover and spine design, binding, even the type of paper used – works together so well.  It’s best for readers who appreciate illustration as much or more than they appreciate story, since the story is rather slim throughout, but honestly, I can’t recommend Long Tail Kitty strongly enough.

Double Take: How Much is that Girl in the Window?

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Here’s a cover double — but this one, they’ve mirrored the model’s position.



The Miracle Girls by Anne Dayton and May Vanderbilt was published by FaithWords in September 2008. It’s a pretty distinctive cover, though it comes off a bit blindingly white.

Then I saw this last week and knew immediately it was a cover double:


You Have Seven Messages by Stewart Lewis will be published by Delacorte in September 2011. Notice the girl’s leg and arm are reversed from what they are in the first cover? The title’s in the same position, but instead of feeling blindingly white, the designer chose to add a city building to the outside of the window. I think that really anchors the cover better, as does the fact the girl is cropped a little bit closer than in the first cover. The colors are also a little more bold in the clothes in this cover, which also adds to giving this cover a less blinding quality.

Is it me or does it appear the first cover has air brushed the girl’s leg, as well? It’s a little hard to tell because of the angles and the way the light filters through, but it appears to me that the first cover has taken a few liberties with thinning out the standing leg. It could simply be the fact the second cover is more closely cropped as well.

I think the second cover does it just a little better, given the background in the window, but what do you think? Do you prefer one over the other?

What I’ve Been Reading: Two Mini-Reviews

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What Happened to Goodbye, by Sarah Dessen

Mclean’s father has just moved them to their fourth new house in as many years. After her parents’ bitter divorce, where her mother left her father for the couch of her father’s favorite college basketball team, Mclean and her dad have been constantly on the move, following her father’s job (a consultant for failing restaurants) wherever it takes him. And with each move, Mclean reinvents herself, choosing a new name and a new personality, always trying to escape the person she actually is, the person she doesn’t quite know yet. However, in this new town, Mclean mistakenly gives her own name, and finds herself being real with the friends she meets along the way, especially Dave, her child-prodigy-looking-to-actually-be-a-real-teenager neighbor, who somehow finds his way to the core of Mclean. While on the surface, this seems like a very quiet novel, it is the relationships that Mclean forms throughout the book and the strong characters that give it depth and power. I loved Deb, the timid, unconfident friend who takes charge of the town model that Mclean suddenly is roped into helping build. I loved the details of Luna Blu, the restaurant that Mclean’s father takes over. And I loved the rocky, slowly transforming relationship between Mclean and her mother. This is a book that slowly finds its way into your heart: my favorite Sarah Dessen novel yet. (Release date: May 10, 2011. Review copy borrowed from Janssen at Everyday Reading.)

Skipping a Beat, by Sarah Pekkanen
Julia and Michael were high school sweethearts, rescuing each other from their small town West Virginia life and running to Washington, D.C., where they vowed to escape the legacies of gambling addiction and unhappy marriages that they left behind them. When Michael’s hard work finally pays off and his start-up company selling flavored vitamin water takes off, the life that they had once imagined suddenly pales in comparison to the riches set out before them: a palatial estate in Washington, D.C., another house in Aspen, gardeners, servants, and endless reserves of money are all at their beck and call. Even though the love is gone from their marriage, Julia tries to be content with her life, still scarred from the lack of security in her own childhood. But then Michael’s heart stops. And he dies. Clinically dead for more than four minutes, he wakes up a transformed man, one who gives away all of his money and auctions off his possessions, now concerned with love and personal fulfillment, rather than money. Now Julia must decide whether to leave her husband, who once gave her only a loveless marriage, or stay and try to make it work with this stranger, who promises her love and adoration…but not security. Sarah Pekkannen truly creates a masterfully layered protagonist in this novel, one whom I slightly disliked at the beginning of the novel, yet eventually grew to respect and understand, if not ever love. Julia is complex, and can be both frustrating and sympathetic. Yet all of her actions are firmly rooted in her backstory, and the novel itself is well-plotted. One quibble I did have was with the ending, which seemed to rely a bit upon a deux ex machina. However, the conclusion did still work, in its own way. Recommended for fans of Jennifer Weiner and Emily Giffin.