I like to save links to roundup on a biweekly basis just because it’s easier for me time-wise, and it lets me read more stuff before I share it. But I had a few things that I wrote this week I wanted to share, and I saved a few things from other sources I really wanted to share sooner, rather than later. Thus, a quick links round up.
- This week, I was alerted to this incredible video regarding the allegations of sexual abuse within the DFTBA community. But this is a video that’s about much more than that. It’s about consent, it’s about adult-teen relationships and the necessary boundaries and protections that should be in place, and it’s a plea to be a female and be heard within the male-led community. This is a lengthier video, but it’s worth every minute — I found it really chilling when it hit the 8 to 10 minute mark especially. The girl who made the video is 16, and she has been posting about her efforts to have her voice heard in the community at her tumblr (which is definitely worth checking out). Aside from what the video covers, watching this reminded me why making an effort to not just listen to, but amplify, the voices of girls is so important.
- A number of really great conversations about race happened this week. Spend some time with this article from Rich in Color called Is Eleanor & Park Racist and Other Questions to Ask. Then go read Justina Ireland’s post about writing diverse characters and how to do it (which is relevant, of course, to those who read characters of other races because these same things apply when analyzing and discussing and thinking about the characters in a story).
- To put the diversity discussion into even more context, Malinda Lo looks at diversity within the Publishers Weekly 2013 Young Adult Bestsellers, complete with pie charts.
- At Book Riot, I wrote what might be my favorite thing I’ve written, which is a censored history of ladies in young adult fiction. I don’t tend to get worked up about comments a whole lot, but I found it fascinating how many of the comments thought I was writing an opinion about the history of women in YA fiction, rather than writing an actual history. This piece isn’t in the least discrediting the fine work men have done in YA; it’s instead saying that ladies have done really great work too. Their work has tended, though, to be the most readily challenged, censored, or overlooked. (Also, I heard from a lot of people they didn’t know S. E. Hinton was a woman — it wasn’t just one or two people, it was a pretty impressive number).
- I’ve been having a lot of fun writing the Book Fetish posts every other week for Book Riot. I’m not a shopping person in the least, yet I think looking for really cool bookish things you can buy is a riot. Here’s this week’s round up, which includes comic book boots, a Dr. Seuss charm bracelet, a Library of Congress tote bag, and author pins you can wear.
- Wilda Williams from Library Journal wrote up this really nice piece about the “new adult” fiction conversation starter Sophie Brookover and I put together at PLA earlier this month. Her summary makes me think we got across exactly what we wanted to.
This week in books, I read This One Summer by Jillian and Mariko Tamaki, which was a nice graphic novel though I think maybe better appreciated by adults than most teens (not all, though!) and Wildlife by Fiona Wood, which is out-of-this-world good contemporary realistic fiction coming out this fall.