A Belated Song For Earth Day

Thursday YA News

It’s quiet in YAness this week… Blame it on the volcano (I’ve been blaming everything on Eyjafjallajokull this week—perfect excuse). Anyway, here’s some YA newsworthiness:

YA Bookish Stuff

Banned Books Week isn’t until the fall, but here’s a list of 2009’s most challenged books—fascinatingly entertaining, especially when you see the list of classics that get contested. Congrats to Lauren Myracle for snagging the top spot for TTYL.

Debut YA author Sarah Wylie scored herself a great deal for her book All These Lives, about a girl who thinks she has nine lives—sounds interesting, and congrats to Sarah.

SLJ talks school bookfairs, and reasons it might pay to go digital.

Teen Culture

How awesome is this teen: 17 year-old Carissa Moore won the ASP surfing trophy, and then gave her $15k check to her local teen hangout that helps underprivileged kids. Chapeau to Carissa.

And promiscuity is bad according to today’s teens, says this Slate article called Generation Scold.

Publishing Biz

Publishers Weekly talks London Book Fair despite volcano misery and travel woes.

For Writers

GalleyCat interviews literary agent Michael Murphy, who tells writers to do their homework. And here’s another interview, this time with agent Evan Marshall.

If you're going to Pikes Peak Writers Conference, come say hey! I'll be the freckly one, eating all the extra desserts at the table.

Final Fun

How far would you travel for Chicago’s killer pizza (it is really good, to be fair)? Charles (shown below) went 1300 miles, all the way from his home in New Mexico. Get ready for a serious kitty time-out when you get home, Chuck—hope the pizza was worth it.

Interesting Interview

A quick addition to Thursday News: Murderati has an interview up with Neil Nyren, senior V.P., pulisher, and editor-in-chief at Putnam. Very interesting stuff for us publishing folk, so check it out.

Friday Music: Blue On Black

Good song. Nuf said.

Thursday YA News

Thursday YA news! Here it is:

YA Bookish Stuff

PW has an interesting article on the Empire State Book Festival. I thought this observation by graphic novelist Barbara Slate was interesting: “Teenagers are expressing themselves through comics,” noting girls are just as engaged in that genre as boys.

Want a free book? Macmillan is giving away free galleys of some of their latest titles; check it out here.

Suzanne Collins’ Catching Fire won in the YA category of the 2010 Indies Choice Book Award.

Wondering what teens read for fun? Find out in this SLJ article.


Teen Culture

Lunches affect learning, says this SLJ article, tying into Jamie Oliver’s (love him!) mission to get the garbage out of our lunch room. Quelle surprise--corndogs are not a foodgroup, lunch people.

Check out this progressive Illinois librarian who brought Kindles into the classroom. How cool is that?

I thought this NY Times article regarding social media and the classroom was really interesting; this organization called Common Sense Media is teaching kids how to behave online (so as to avoid cyberbullying, etc.).

Publishing Biz

Self-publishing is up, says this PW article. No surprise there; some great stats in this article for you fellow data geeks.

Wonder how a book gets adapted into film? Find out in this interview with Diary of a Wimpy Kid director Thor Freudenthal.

For Writers

MWA puts Harlequin back on its approved publishers list (Harlequin also has some YA lines), so good news there. Read all about it at GalleyCat.

Also at GalleyCat, agent Jason Ashlock (and other agents) talk about life as an agent; read more here.

And finally for fun, meet Kitchi.




This river otter has been missing from Colorado’s Cheyenne Mountain Zoo for a few weeks now. Zoo officials urge you to look in your pond, to make sure Kitchi hasn’t decided to set up shop there.

Kitchi, the rogue river otter. Kinda cool.

Operation Teen Book Drop

You know that feeling you get, when you open up a new book? You know what I'm talking about. The excitement of discovering a new story, new information, whether it's fiction (my favorite), non-fiction, or whatever.

I forget sometimes how lucky I am to able to buy the books I want (be it within the restrictions of my book budget), how lucky I am to have a great library and piles of books waiting for me every day.

Some people don't have that. Like the kids at Ojo Encino Day School in NM Navajo country--librarian Mary Nickless said, "In their lives, they don't really have books." And the teens at Alchesay High School in Whiteriver, AZ, (on the White Mountain Apache Reservation), who have little access to books and want them so dearly.

Breaks. My. Heart.

So what to do, you ask? Simple: buy these kids some books and join Operation Book Drop. You can find out more information at GuysLitWire (including some beautiful pictures), and get the wishlists of these kids so you can send them the books they want. Some of the books run just a few dollars, so a little goes a long way.

These teens want to read. Let's give them the books, huh?

Colorado Teen Literature Conference: A Report

I left early Saturday morning, breakfast and coffee to go, to attend the Colorado Teen Literature Conference in Denver—and of course I forgot my camera, so no pics, sorry…. Anyway, once in Denver, I was greeted by friendly volunteers and pastries (breakfast, round 2 = happy Fleur), and then the morning keynote by author Matt de la Pena. He was funny (talking about the time nobody showed up for his book signing, and about stealing a father-son conversation on the train), humbling (about his simple upbringing in a poor, largely Hispanic town), and honest (about how he didn’t really read much until someone handed him The Color Purple). I had read Ball Don’t Lie, but have now added We Were Here to the TBR pile—nice guy, and hugely popular with the girl readers, too, for obvious reasons.

Next, I attended a session by author Roz Monette, who was talking to teens about ways to get publishing credits. She suggested letters to the editor and book reviews, things I hadn’t even thought of. Great info I’ll be passing on to my teens during next school year’s workshop, so cheers to Roz.

I then attended a session by brilliant Pueblo County Teen Librarian Sarah Wethern, who gave us a mountain of blog links (of book reviewers, mostly) I’ll be checking out this week. Will update you on those… Great stuff.

Then it was lunchtime, with keynote author Ellen Hopkins, who writes her novels in verse (for those of you unfamiliar with her work). She was very open about her reasons for writing Crank, and shared some beautiful poetry and an enraging story about censorship that made my freckles itch. Unfortunately, her keynote ran a little long, and she was rushed of the stage practically mid-sentence (next time, try a little finesse, conference organizers?).

My next session was on censorship (nicely tied in with the keynote), where author Lauren Myracle shared her experiences with censorship by libraries (mostly in Texas, it seemed), and reader mail that she read. Major props to her for the honesty; those letters and censorship can’t be easy on her. I added Peace, Love and Baby Ducks to my pile.

The last session was an author Q&A, with Matt de la Pena and Ellen Hopkins, and a bunch of smart teens who had prepared some really good questions. We learned some more about their writing process (Ms. Hopkins doesn’t outline, and edits as she goes; Mr. de la Pena outlines and changes that as he writes). Fun, and lively, which was such a great ending to the conference.

So I left with a smile into Denver traffic, and with a new list of books to read. I highly recommend this conference for any of you planning to go next year!