Tag Archive | reading

Time to wander (reflective)

Sep13

Technology seems mighty essential to us these days, but sometimes unplugging is the right thing to do.

The internet access that I hoped to have during our travels through the American West began to vanish as the mountains grew higher and the distances between towns grew longer.

Yellowstone National Park was wonderful, as we watched Old Faithful and other geysers erupt, hiked to waterfalls, and celebrated the forest’s recovery from the huge wildfires of 1988. Elk? yep. Bison? in abundance! but no online access as we camped above quiet Lewis Lake.

Relaxing and enjoying the scenery will be the norm for a while as we travel places that Kelsa went (will go?) in Trickster’s Girl, through the lava-strewn wild country of Craters of the Moon National Monument, just down the road from the 50 (yes, fifty) nuclear reactors of the Idaho National Laboratories…

So it’s on to Seattle for the Kidlitcon bloggers’ convention this weekend, with Scott Westerfeld as keynoter (yay!), then time to tour the Oregon coast (hmm… where Maddie will chafe under the restrictions of DigitalSchool in the future of Awaken) and amazing national parks in several states (hello, Redwoods! hi, Crater Lake! nice to see you, Bryce Canyon!).

It might be a while before I can get new books posted here, but never fear! BooksYALove has lots of outstanding books beyond the bestsellers coming your way!
**kmm

Read around the world (reflective)

Jul31

We’ve circled the globe during July and the Ultimate Blog Challenge, highlighting books set in many countries (and eras).

The Grassland Trilogy reaches back beyond written history, showing the courage of young people trying to Escape the Mask, see Beneath the Mask, and go Beyond the Mask.

Cate of the Lost Colony traveled from the glittering court of Queen Elizabeth I to the desolate sand dunes of Roanoke in the New World, and Plain Kate, driven from her home by superstition, must search for answers down the river, into the mists.

Esty’s Gold took us from famine-stricken Ireland to the Australian goldfields in the 1880s, while The Reformed Vampire Support Group sticks together in today’s Sydney.

Online gamers in China, India, Singapore and the US are fighting For the Win and a fair chance at life.

Annexed and Briar Rose brought us perspectives on the Holocaust – the Netherlands, Germany, Poland – so many bitter sorrows, so many untold tales.

Modern-day Paris hides decades-old secrets in Die For Me, while in Montreal, Mira just wants her own today in Pieces of Me.

And we’ve just begun the Rivers of Time trilogy, as Lia and Gabi go back to 14th century Tuscany in Waterfall.

Oh, the photo up there? That’s me aboard the wooden sailing ship Southern Swan in Sydney Harbour in the 21st century. Ready for more great books in August?
**kmm

The contents, not the container

Jun26

Terry Border makes weird things – Bent Objects, to be exact. And he concocted this still-life at the behest of his publisher. Yep, a book publisher asked for a sculpture that showed eReaders zooming way beyond printed books… anyone else see the ‘huh?’ in that??

Of course, it is the contents of books that we crave – the drama, the emotion, the relationships, the information, the humor – and sometimes the container doesn’t matter at all.

If I’m looking for a map of the Lewis and Clark Trail, I don’t care if it’s online, in a National Park Service guide, or in a library book.

I’ve read numerous books in bite-sized pieces delivered to my email by Daily Lit, as Advance Reader Copies through NetGalley, and in whole works through Project Gutenberg (and have even helped proofread some new digitizations there).

But our brains just don’t read text on the screen the same way that they read text on a page, according to researchers, as Thomas Larson notes in his overview of several recent books and studies on the two methods of reading.

I still love print books best for fiction, curled up in my chair, with a cat or two on my lap. No batteries to run down, no cords or mice (sorry, kitties), no overheating (laptops can be lapscorchers). The tactile experience of turning the pages of a book contributes to our reality of the reading experience.

I like real.
**kmm

A day for this, a day for that (reflective)

Jun12

Time to put a little structure into BooksYALove (but promise me that you’ll try some titles outside your “favorite” genre):

Mysterious Mondays – because there’s not a day that starts with P for paranormal! Books featured on Monday will have elements of the supernatural, mystery, magic, or other paranormal characters and situations. Quite a few recommendations recently in this category, like Awaken (futuristic), House of Dead Maids (ghosts, mystery), and Kat, Incorrigible (magic, alternate history).

World Wednesdays – getting away from the confines of home. Find a different place in the world with every Wednesday book, set in a country outside the USA. Recent recommendations in this group include Mamba Point (Liberia) and Stolen (Australia).

Fun Fridays – going into the weekend with a grin. Friday books will range from humorous ways that characters cope with life (Ten Miles Past Normal) to crafty books (Little Green Dresses) to graphic novels (I Love Him to Pieces).

Oh, Tuesday and Thursday? Gotta have time for books that don’t fit in these three boxes, although sometimes they’ll have books with theme-day elements (especially when a series is covered over successive days). Lots of realistic fiction here, like Zen & Xander Undone and Last Summer of the Death Warriors.

Watch for some Reflective Sundays, like last week’s post on YA Saves! and perhaps the occasional Sneak-in Saturday, where I discuss a book that – dang it – has gone shooting toward the bestseller lists before I got a chance to showcase it here, and I just love it too much to leave it off our lists here.

Think this’ll work? Any “hidden gem” titles that I need to include on BooksYALove?
**kmm

YA saves! YA books cover every subject & emotion

Jun5

I wasn’t gonna post today, but yesterday’s Wall Street Journal article about YA books “Darkness Too Visible” has me and lots of other folks pretty steamed up.

Check the Twitter conversation #YASaves for reaction from authors, readers, and librarians; we gotta wonder about the article author’s qualifications as a book reviewer… (search her name and tell us what you think)

Did she ask any independent bookstore folks about what books they would recommend to the worried mom in paragraph one? How about her child’s school librarian? Or their public librarian?

Maureen Johnson (whose 13 Little Blue Envelopes and The Last Little Blue Envelope are bestsellers and won’t get the full BooksYALove treatment – so just go read them!) has a new favorite picture, by Anastasiy Gorbunov, which illustrates exactly how books lead to new interests and visions and experiences. (The caption translates as “Reading isn’t dangerous. Not reading is.”)

Dr. Teri Lesesne, “the goddess of YA literature” and major expert in the field, was explosively ticked-off by the article, as her LiveJournal today shows. The points that she notes there are exactly why YA books are so important, and why I’m trying to get the word out about the great titles that you’ll miss if you don’t dig past the big display stacks at the big-box bookstores or the “you’ll like this one” lists at the big online retailers.

Too bad that the mom in the WSJ article didn’t have someone to help her find that great book for her 13 year-old daughter… like Smile and Dancing Through the Snow and Sequins, Secrets and Silver Linings… sigh…

At least the #YASaves hashtag is trending high right now (#3) so the conversation continues! C’mon over to Twitter and join in.
**kmm

A glance back at month #1

Jun4

Whew! Time to step back and look at the first month of BooksYALove…

So many firsts = first posting on May 1st as WordCount’s Blogathon2011 gets rolling. Followed by first book recommendation, first comments, first subscribers, first tweets – and lots of friendly feedback from fellow Blogathonners.

Most of my recommendations were for fiction books, with some cool nonfiction thrown in, all books that young adults (and young-at-heart adults) will enjoy reading, but might not find in the big displays at booksellers or on best seller lists.

Worth looking at again:
Scary books: Stolen and The House of Dead Maids
High school drama (but funny): Flawless and Ten Miles Past Normal
Futuristic books: Awaken and Across the Universe
Graphic novels: Smile and My Boyfriend is a Monster
Across the sea: Warriors in the Crossfire and Saraswati’s Way

I have a big stack of books that I;ve read and just cannot wait to share with y’all, this summer I’m planning to post several new book recommendations every week (though perhaps not one a day), with occasional reflective musings and some guest posts that highlight “forgotten gems” of YA lit from earlier years.

So, grab a book and take your mind somewhere else this summer – you’ll be glad you did! And let me know of any books that I need to read and recommend here, too.
**kmm

Blogathon 2011 recap Wordle

May30

A book a day, all through May!
Thanks, WordCount Blogathon 2011 for setting me on this mindful path of daily posting.

Happy Memorial Day, for US readers – and everyone read Dogtag Summer by Elizabeth Partridge, today’s great YA book beyond the bestsellers.

**kmm

My 5 favorite places to write…about

May24

Today’s WordCount Blogathon theme is “My 5 favorite places to write.” And here I am, hands flying across my computer keyboard. But I really don’t do my writing at my desk at all. That’s just where I rearrange the phrases and paragraphs that I’ve mulled over and polished and discarded and remade as I’m out walking in the mornings, crafting my book recommendations so that they’re just right.

And I find that the books I recommend often come from certain places that resonate repeatedly with YA readers. So here are my five favorite YA lit places to write about (with some BooksYALove recent and upcoming featured titles):

1) The future: Whether it’s the just-around-the-corner days of Awaken (5/23/11 post) and Trickster’s Girl (5/7/11 post) or the rocket-ship-in-the-driveway far-future of Ender’s Game (5/19/11 post) and Across the Universe (5/4/11 post), “speculative fiction” can be the ultimate in escapist literature.

2) Fantasy: but no rehashes, please! If the cover blurb is overrun with difficult character names or boy wizards or disparate friends on a quest for an obscure object, then it’ll get passed over. YA fantasy readers want real story in an unreal place (Green Angel and Green Witch), real feelings and questions in possibly unreal beings, like Kristin Cashore’s Fire who is a beautiful monster, and Lenah, a 500-year-old vampire who longs to be human again to end her Infinite Days.

3) Around the corner: realistic fiction that could be happening over on the next block (Zen & Xander Undone 5/8/11 post), where young people and families face difficult questions (Dancing Through the Snow 5/17/11 post), have to live through unfair situations (Blindsided 5/9/11 post), or just put up with everyday life together (Ten Miles Beyond Normal posting on 5/26/11).

4) A long time ago: historical fiction that explores life in another era, especially if young adults are featured, as in Julie Chibbaro’s Deadly typhoid epidemic and Celia Rees’ The Fool’s Girl set in Shakespeare’s day. Warriors in the Crossfire (5/3/11 post) and Heart of a Samurai are amazing, heartstopping.

5) Far away, in another land: fiction that brings us into another culture as an outsider sees it (Mamba Point) or as residents live it (Saraswati’s Way 5/15/11 post), books that give us perspectives on teens’ lives to inform our own, sometimes humorously (Sequins, Secrets & Silver Linings 5/12/11 post) and sometimes as a matter of life and death (This Thing Called the Future).

Hmmm…so my walks aren’t just strolls around the neighborhood; they’re writes and rewrites to invite readers to fascinating places through outstanding YA books.
See y’all later – it’s time for my walk!
**kmm

Why do we read, anyway?

May6

So, why? Why do we read fiction, specifically?

It’s easy to talk about all the reasons that we read informational texts – we need to know how to do something or where to get something or how we got to where we are now.

But fiction fills a different role in our lives. Sometimes we read fiction to affirm our own worldview, selecting authors and titles that we know that we’ll be comfortable with. Series and novels with predictable plots can be soothing, a stable place to escape for a while from an unpredictable real world.

Other times, we’re reading fiction that races in completely the opposite direction, taking us into the life of someone so unlike us that we simply must leave behind a preconception or two so that we can dive into their story as it carries us along. Or we’re suddenly in a place whose rules don’t correspond to what we understand as normal, regular, and routine.

You’ll probably find more of the latter than the former recommended on this blog. After all, don’t the bestsellers usually appeal to the masses? Oh, sometimes a novel from one of the BigName publishers will wander onto this list, but not because it satisfies the majority viewpoint, I promise!

And back to why we read fiction – research reported in Psychological Science notes that “When we read, we psychologically become part of the community described in the narrative—be they wizards or vampires. That mechanism satisfies the deeply human, evolutionarily crucial, need for belonging.” (Becoming a Vampire). (Hat tip to Barking Up the Wrong Tree)

So whether you read for information or escape or belonging, let’s get beyond the bestsellers to the really good stuff, shall we?
**kmm