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Other stories, other poets (book reviews) – novels-in-verse

Jun1

Much like eclipse-viewers look indirectly at the sun, we can get a glimpse into life situations which may or may not mirror our own through novels-in-verse.

Click each title link to open my no-spoilers recommendation in a new window/tab for each of these BooksYALove favorites.
**kmm

book cover of After the Kiss by Terra Elen McVoy published by Simon PulseCamille and Becca don’t realize that they share a school, a coffeehouse, and one boy’s kiss… until an ill-timed cellphone photo makes all the connections fall into place.

Told in alternating chapters by each teen, their free verse ranges through the emotions that they must deal with as they try to reconcile what they thought was true with what reality is, After the Kiss  of Alec, the haiku-writing baseball star.

book cover of Audition by Stasia Ward Kehoe published by VikingSara feels like her life at the ballet academy, far from her small New England hometown, is a never-ending Audition, as the dancers constantly compete for lead roles, for advanced classes, for the eye of handsome student assistant Remington.

Is he really interested in Sara? Can she continue to keep up with her schoolwork and her dance lessons and her hidden relationship with Remington? Only her poetry journal hears her fears and dreams.

book cover of Karma by Cathy Ostlere published by Razorbill

Religious turmoil becomes armed warfare in 1980s India, and Maya is caught in the upheaval almost as soon as she arrives with her father and the ashes of her mother, brought “home” to the family which disowned them when they married, a Sikh and a Hindu who thought that love would overcome all.

Is it Karma  that brought their only child to a place she’s only heard of, far from her birthplace on the Canadian prairies, that separates her from her Bapu, that makes her versified memories a clouded mirror?

(all review copies and cover images courtesy of their respective publishers)

"We now return to our regular programming" (reflective) – BooksYALove posting schedule update

May31
drawing of black cat reading a paper original from Diamond Dye advertisement
from Library of Congress *

We did it!

I wrote and y’all read every BooksYALove post through April’s AtoZ Blog Challenge and May’s WordCount 2012 Blogathon (at least, I hope you read them all).

Highlighting so many great YA books in a such a short time has indeed been challenging. I read books quickly, but really take my time writing recommendations to give readers a good taste of the book without revealing any vital plot twists or the ending (I personally hate spoilers in reviews!).

So BooksYALove goes back to its normal posting pattern on June 1; you’ll get lots of great books to choose from, but on a more-relaxed summertime schedule.

Watch for Mysterious Mondays and tales of the paranormal, fantasy, whodunits, and such – like Wizard of Dark Street, Between Sea and Sky,  and Hereafter.

We’ll have World Wednesdays, with historical and contemporary books set in places outside the United States, including Australia (Butterflies  and Dying to Tell Me), Africa (Now is the Time for Running  and Mamba Point), and Southeast Asia (Nowhere Girl  and Dogtag Summer).

Fun Fridays can bring humorous books, crazy settings, and non-fiction faves, from yummy Insanewiches  and Ask Elizabeth about anything, to the summertime wackiness of Withering Tights  and Boys, Bears, and a Serious Pair of Hiking Boots.

Occasionally, books will slip in on other days of the week, especially for “book birthdays” (marking their first day of sale) and holidays. So many great books being published this summer and fall – just you wait!

So, which BooksYALove titles have been your favorites? What sorts of young adult books do you want to see more of? Which upcoming titles have you bouncing on the edge of your seat, anxiously awaiting their publication? Let me know, and I’ll see what I can wrangle from the publishers…
**kmm

* Black Cat reading, from vintage Diamond Dye advertisement, Public Domain image uploaded to http://openclipart.org, available for creative reuse with no fees or restrictions.

Word Cloud Day! (reflective) – important words and the big picture

May28
heart shaped word cloud of BooksYALove blogpost words made using Tagxedo

Making word clouds is so much fun!

Today’s WordCount Blogathon challenge was to create a word cloud using our recent blog posts.

The more often that a word is used in the text selection submitted to the word cloud generator, the larger that the word appears in the word cloud. You can omit extra-common or extraneous words from the word list, choose one or more fonts to use, horizontal or vertical or mixed-up word orientation, and other creative options.

LOVE shaped word cloud of words used on BooksYALove blog created with Tagxedo
Using the free online Tagxedo word cloud generator allowed me to go past the original cloud-shaped display that Wordle makes and select from dozens of shapes, including four different hearts and the iconic LOVE graphic.

I couldn’t choose only one Tagxedo, just like I can’t limit myself to just one YA book beyond the bestsellers to recommend per week!
**kmm

Advice to Graduates & all of us (reflective) – in which Neil Gaiman is quoted, because he said it best

May26

Dear friends who are graduating (and everyone else, too),
I hope you’ve already seen this video of author Neil Gaiman addressing the University of the Arts Class of 2012 at their graduation.

I hope you’ve listened to it more than once, especially if you’re finishing school (at any level) and are about to go out into the big wide world of work and responsibility and joy and distress and the chance to make a difference.

“Make. Good. Art,” says Gaiman. Even if you don’t have an artistic bone in your body, those words are meant for you: whatever it is that you are passionate about, do it well, and keep on doing it – through good times or bad, whether it’s your vocation or avocation.

It may be your “day job” which fulfills you (like Maggie in Paper Daughter) or something after hours (like Haven in Illuminate).

It may be the first thing you try which makes the biggest impact in the lives of others (like Lex in Croak) or maybe the tenth (like Mercy).

It may be something that you’ve studied and trained for which turns out to be your best gift to those around you (like Sage in The False Prince) or perhaps not (like Ismae in Grave Mercy).

I hope you’ll listen to this talk again when you need a reminder of what you can do to make the world better – just one person, doing whatever it is that you love to do best, finding satisfaction in the doing, not just the result (like Mitch in Payback Time).

Listen well – Make good art, in whatever manner your talent for increasing the world’s happiness leads you.
Whether you’re a new graduate or older and worldly-wise, remember that every sunrise brings you a new chance to begin to make good art.
**kmm

If BooksYALove started today… (reflective) – blogging lessons learned in a year

May23
old catalog drawing of manual typewriter

not my typewriter

Today, the 2012 WordCount Blogathon theme asks us to consider what we’d do differently with our blogs: “If I started blogging today I would….”

Hmmm… I’d compare WordPress and Blogger more closely before deciding which one to use. I started BooksYALove just hours before the 2011 Blogathon began, so I went with Blogger where I already had a personal blog for an online technology update course and it was a snap to add another blog.

From reading other bloggers’ experiences with plugins, going to self-hosted blog platform, etc., it sounds like WordPress has an edge over Blogger once it’s time to take off the blogging-training-wheels. But I have gotten used to Blogger’s interface (even when it changed right in the middle of a blog challenge for me) and really like the theme colors and layout that I selected, so I’m staying with Blogger for now.

I wish I’d had enough time and confidence to register my domain name from day one so that all my outreach, publicity, and business cards had pointed to that web address from the very start. I probably will go self-hosted soon to give me more control over my own writings, since BooksYALove is meant to be a searchable archive of great books for young adult book fans.

Some things that I wouldn’t change: I was immensely fortunate in finding my first choice of blog name available; the “YA” in the middle can mean “young adult” which is the book category that I cover or “ya” like the casual “you” since I’m writing recommendations directly to young adult book readers (rather than to librarians or those who purchase books for others).  And every book has to be one that a significant group of readers will love – I don’t review every YA book that I read – so only the books that would rank 4-5 stars get the nod for BooksYALove.

During my first month of blogging in May 2011, I settled on a blog format that suited my writing style, taking some of my YA recommendations posted on Barb Langridge’s www.abookandahug.com website and adding commentary with relevant subject links. Since I hate reading reviews that give away the ending or significant plot twists, I vowed to never do that to my readers – so, no spoilers, ever!

Longtime followers/subscribers have probably noticed some stylistic changes on BooksYALove in recent weeks, as I adjusted font sizes for better readability, added a new logo and blog background (courtesy of my talented daughter, the graphic designer), and started some easy-click book lists in tabs at the top of the page.

And I’ll continue to participate each May in WordCount Blogathons, where I’ve found community (some of us posted in the Blogathon GoogleGroup for an entire year, not just the month of May!), advice, support, and the spark that set me off on this blogging adventure in the first place. Thanks, Michelle & the whole Blogathon crew!
**kmm

(clipart of antique typewriter courtesy of Florida Center for Instructional Technology, University of South Florida)

Haiku (reflective) – the sun and not-the-sun

May21
2012 annular solar eclipse seen at sunset near buildings

courtesy of techeblog.com

It’s Haiku Day for the WordCount 2012 Blogathon, so I took yesterday’s (invisible-from-Florida) annular eclipse as inspiration:

Strangest afternoon,
Sun-disk nibbled by the moon –
Hiding in plain sight.

Yes, I know that haiku isn’t supposed to rhyme – it just happened…
**kmm

(annular solar eclipse photo (c) http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/solar-eclipse-2012-ring-of-fire-pictures)

Getting lost in the story (reflective) – why reading can make us better people

May19
young man sitting on top of bookshelves reading a book

You’ve probably heard readers say things like “Reading that book was like being in that world myself” or

“I was so wrapped up in the story that I lost track of time” or

“That’s the last book in the series?
I want to know more about those characters!”

In the very best sort of books, we lose sight of ourselves, our surroundings, our own troubles, as we immerse ourselves in someone else’s world and struggles and victories. It can be a realistic book or the highest fantasy, a short story or a tome as thick as your leg – if the story and characters feel real to us, then we are transported away from our own existence without moving at all.

A recent research study† also showed that reading a compelling story can also improve our own behavior and attitudes, even after our reading is done! “Feeling the emotions, thoughts, beliefs and internal responses of one of the characters as if they were their own,” also known as “experience-taking” was studied by Ohio State University researchers in several reading experiments with college students.

OSU assistant professor Lisa Libby noted the difference between  experience-taking and perspective-taking, which is more like looking through a window at someone else’s situation. “Experience-taking is much more immersive — you’ve replaced yourself with the other,” she said. With the right story, readers don’t feel like they are manipulated into being inside the character’s head. “Experience-taking can be very powerful because people don’t even realize it is happening to them. It is an unconscious process,” Libby said.

As you choose to read books with characters who are different from you, you’re giving yourself more ways become a more empathic person, more understanding of differences, more able to see other viewpoints than your own.

And what about reading books filled with people much like you? Then you have opportunities to “try on” their reactions to situations you may not have faced, to take their experiences and learn from them – without having to live through the troubles, trials, and joys yourself.

Here’s to “getting lost in a good book” and to finding our better selves along the way!
**kmm

†Ohio State University (2012, May 7). ‘Losing yourself’ in a fictional character can affect your real life. ScienceDaily. Retrieved May 19, 2012, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2012/05/120507131948.htm

Photo of man sitting on bookshelves reading a book: (c) Microsoft Office clipart.

Happy Mother’s Day (reflective)

May13
photo of toddler boy and newborn baby sister napping

This small boy in his “I’m the big brother” shirt is a grown man now.
His tiny baby sister recently became a bride.

These days, their worklife involves communication, crafting word pictures, using pictures to tell stories.

I read aloud to them before they were born, on long car trips, before bedtime, and just because, the way that my mother the creative writer read to me and my siblings, the way that her mother the journalist read to her and her brothers.

A house full of books, a house full of stories, a home full of memories.
Happy Mother’s Day!

**kmm

A to Z Blogging Challenge – done and done (reflective)

May7

Today’s bonus post is about my recent experiences with the A to Z Blogging Challenge, so please skip over if you wish. Be sure to visit BooksYALove tomorrow to see why Myra firmly believes that Girls Don’t Fly.

cartoon of woman chained to teacher desk stacked with papers
Clip art  © 1998 Mark A. Hicks*

Questions in bold were asked by the A to Z Challenge organizers (bless their hearts for putting up with hundreds and hundreds of random bloggers), with my reflections following each one.

How did your journey through the alphabet go? Doing 26 posts in April was difficult because I promised all-new content and didn’t fudge along the way, despite hectic travel and conference schedule.

Did you meet new bloggers with similar interests? Not really, because there was no categorization of the blogs in the challenge & finding potentially worthwhile blogs was very hit-or-miss, based often on how well the blog name reflected its content and focus.

What were the highlights for you? (lowlights too…we want to hear it all) By posting all-new content twice as often as usual, I went through my To-Be-Reviewed shelf of books twice as fast as normal, but received fewer subscribers/followers than during other challenges. Many visitors were “drive-by” commenters who (like me) had landed on my blog even though it wasn’t in their interest area. A glitch in Google Analytics wiped out my statistics for 3 weeks of the Challenge, so I couldn’t even see if people visited other posts on my blog after landing there.

Did you enjoy posting daily? I wish that I hadn’t chosen to do this Challenge during a hectic travel and conference month for me – I was delighted when April was over.
What was your biggest hurdle? Staying true to my commitment to provide 26 new book recommendations in April when I saw that others had opted for a different level and could use repeat posts, cute photos, short poems, and still feel satisfied.
What was your easiest task? The writing itself.

Was time management an issue? (I know, silly question, when isn’t time management an issue – but, it is worth reflecting on) Having to pre-schedule and write 10 days of posts in advance prior to travel and conference was stressful.

And what about your content – did you have a theme or did you wing it? BooksYALove is recommendations of young adult books beyond the bestsellers; A to Z Challenge didn’t change that.
Was it easy to come up with ideas for each letter, or were some harder? Finding the right book for each letter was a pain. Being stuck weeks in advance with writing about those particular books when others came along – but didn’t fit the alphabetic pattern – was an even bigger pain.

How about commenting – did you stumble upon lots of sites still using word verification? yes.
Did this prevent you from leaving a comment? Absolutely yes. If your blog is so popular that you insist on having word verification enabled to protect yourself from a spam deluge, then why are you in a blog challenge?
What worked for your blog? I don’t use word verification or other sign-in stuff. Oddly, the first comment-spam that I ever received came during A to Z Challenge.

What will you do different next year? (Yes, you are doing this next year, you know you are, even if your brain is telling you to run for the hills – it appreciates the exercise) IF (big if) I decide to do A to Z next year, I will recycle some content instead of doing 26 new books. And I will be very, very selective about which personal creative writing blogs to follow.

What pearls of wisdom do you want to share with the Co-Hosts of this event? (We would love to hear from you and know what you think would make this awesome event even better) – (1) Have bloggers self-select into a category & list blogs under those categories (crafts, kids, health, books, writing, personal creative writing, art, etc) at A to Z.
(2) Provide brief description of each blog (written by submitting blogger) so we know what it’s about! For instance, Michelle Rafter (WordCount Blogathon sponsor) had Jan Udlock help her make this useful list of 2012 Blogathon participants.

I know that it’s TONS of work to organize and run a blog challenge, and I appreciate the A to Z folks for freely providing this opportunity to bloggers. For me, it was probably just not the right time to lock myself into such a rigid structure.
**kmm

*Clip art licensed from the Clip Art Gallery on DiscoverySchool.com – clip art image of woman chained to desk Copyright © 1998 Mark A. Hicks

Lessons in blogging from classic movies (reflective)

May7

Today’s Blogathon2012 theme is “5 movies that have inspired my blogging,” so here are 5 classic movies that remind me of what to do and what NOT to do on BooksYALove – the movie title links go to Internet Movie Database.

Coincidentally, these movie-based lessons also reminded me of Ranganathan’s Five Laws of Library Science, the pithy truths that underpin everything I do as a “librarian-at-large” on BooksYALove, as a contributor to www.abookandahug.com, and when I recommend books to family and friends.

image of old movie film reel
Clipart courtesy of webweaver.nu

1) Blue Hawaii – yes, the Elvis movie. During a family visit in spring 1969, all the kids got packed off to see this movie so the grownups could have some time without us. It didn’t matter if we liked Elvis or not, we had to go. Decades later, I still regret those 102 minutes spent at the Saturday bargain matinee when I could have been reading! So I want to make sure that I never say that “everyone will just love this book” on BooksYALove – because it just isn’t possible! Ranganathan’s Second Law states “Every reader his/her book.”

2) Planet of the Apes – wow! Seeing this movie as a young teen in the late 1960s was powerful and disturbing- because I had absolutely no idea of what it was about until we were in the theater watching it (another well-meaning extended family outing with all the kids, regardless of their ages). Ranganathan’s Fourth Law is “Save the time of the reader,” so BooksYALove aims to give enough taste of each book that readers can decide whether or not it’s one they’ll want to try.

3) Star Wars – the first one, the real one, the one that I saw 7 times (twice in French!), and I still have the 1970s t-shirt. The power of story was evident in this movie (known as A New Hope to youngsters)- classic struggle between good and evil, between doing the expedient thing and the right thing, choosing friendship and loyalty over the easy way out. Hmmm… sounds like the best themes in young adult books today. Ranganathan’s Fourth Law = “Every book, its reader.”

4) The Empire Strikes Back – We took my youngest brother to see this movie for his birthday during its first theatrical release (long ago…). As the opening  filled the screen, he leaned over and whispered “You know that Darth Vader is Luke’s daddy.” No, I did not! Why would I want to know the ending? Ruined the whole movie for me (at the time, it was the last in the Star Wars saga). So I will never give away special plot twists or the ending in any book recommendation on BooksYALove – a no-spoiler site by design and choice! “Books are for use” says Ranganathan’s First Law, not to stay on a shelf or be locked away – and I never want to make a book stay unopened because I spoiled that delicious journey of discovery for even one reader.

5) The Sound of Music – My Girl Scout troop went to see it on the big screen in the mid-1960s (and broke into song during meetings regularly thereafter – “the HILLS are aLIVE with the sound of muuuuuuusic”) – we thought we were just going to see a nice musical. But we also got a glimpse into war’s perils, not graphically or violently, but at age ten began seeing that there were many unfair things that happened to good people, that there was a big world outside our Air Force base housing, and that ordinary people can make a difference. “The library is a growing organism” is Ranganathan’s Fifth Law, and I hope to help readers grow their personal libraries through BooksYALove, as we discover other worlds and other lives through books together.
**kmm