Tag Archive | books

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

Flawless, by Lara Chapman (book review) – big nose, big love, big problem?

May27
book cover of Flawless by Lara Chapman published by Bloomsbury

Welcome to senior year, time to strive for those scholarships (if you’re Sarah) or coast until graduation (apply to a party-school college like Kristen, yeah). It’s all set for these best friends at their Houston high school, until handsome, brainy Rock arrives… sigh!

Funny and truthful, this debut novel by a Texas author is right on the nose, I mean, right on target. How much should Sarah help her friend as Kristen tries to snag the new guy? Just one text message? Their whole online correspondence?

Grab a big Dr Pepper (make it Diet, if you’re Sarah), ignore the rhinoplasty surgery brochures from her mom, and follow Sarah’s journey as she redefines love, friendship, and her own self-worth.
**kmm

Book info: Flawless / by Lara Chapman. Bloomsbury, 2011. [author’s website ] [publisher site]

My Book Talk: When smart, handsome Rock transfers to their Houston high school, Sarah feels an immediate connection. So does her cute best friend Kristen who does NOT have Sarah’s enormous nose. Sigh…

In fact, the only other person ever burdened with that huge nose is Sarah’s mom, who had plastic surgery on hers before college and is now a popular TV newscaster. No one can believe that they are mother and daughter, because of Sarah’s nose. A career in off-camera journalism is Sarah’s life plan!

When Kristen asks Sarah to help her write ‘smart’ notes and online messages to Rock so that he’ll like her more, Sarah can’t let her feelings for him ruin their friendship, can she? While their English class project brings Sarah and Rock together intellectually, Rock and Kristen become the cutest couple on campus. But can Kris really keep up her pretend love of books and poets when she goes out with Rock? Of course, nothing is easy in high school relationships – does Rock maybe like Sarah a little, too?

Romantic misunderstandings test the bonds of friendship in this fun and funny retelling of Cyrano de Bergerac, as seen from the feminine point of view. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

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

Haiku – editing your thoughts

May10

It’s the ultimate editor’s blue-pencil job: paring down your dreams, thoughts, inspirations, message, and intentions into that oh-so-regimented haiku format (and today’s Wordcount Blogathon theme). Yep, 5-7-5 pattern, no deviations (but no rhyme-requirements either).

‘T ain’t easy, but as an antidote to our these-days tendency toward logorrhea (and blogorrhea), the disciplines of haiku can make us slow down, refocus, edit our writing, pare it down to the essentials.

Zen Ties  is the second of John Muth’s books [YouTube book trailer] about a Zen master panda living in a regular American neighborhood [publisher site] – this time Koo, his haiku-speaking nephew, comes to visit:

Tea was very good
My cup holds emptiness now
Where should I put it?

There can also be a humorous side to haiku’s rigor, as shown by Guyku: a Year of Haiku for Boys,  by Bob Raczka and Peter H. Reynolds [review] [publisher site], which features this summer-related guyku:

Lying on the lawn,
we study the blackboard sky,
connecting the dots.

The GiggleIT Project is a free international online writing project for students, and it includes haiku as one of its 2011 competitions. Once their teacher or librarian registers a class/group, then students’ creative writing and artwork can be showcased to a world audience. I should know, since I’m the GiggleIT publicity chair!

Voices of children,
All colors and all ages,
Lift us with laughter.
**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

Blogathon 2011

May1

badge for WordCount Blogathon 2011 Participant
Yes, I signed up for the Blogathon 2011 challenge as set forth by http://michellerafter.com/the-2011-wordcount-blogathon/ to blog every single day in May.

Why? So we bloggers can make our communication a habit, so we can be intentional about creating that good habit, maybe so we can make sure we really have something to say after all!

But the best thing for me is that nudging from comrades-in-arms who’ve also signed up for Blogathon – we’re all trying to keep each other on track and posting daily.

So, away we go, in the merrie, merrie month of May, with good books just ahead….

The right book for the right reader

May1

Did you ever get a recommendation for a book or movie that was just-right, that struck a chord in your heart, that you quoted from long afterward?

This blog will introduce you to young adult (YA) books of every genre, books that often take place far beyond our own neighborhood, yet show us ourselves in a new light. Many are from smaller publishers or first-time authors. All are worth your consideration.

If you’re in high school or older, every book on this blog is for you. I’ll note any significant situations of violence that may disturb sensitive readers, but will assume that you know yourself well enough to put aside any book that embarrasses or bores you. I agree with Daniel Pennac’s Rights of the Reader, seen with Quentin Blake’s illustrations at http://www.walker.co.uk/UserFiles/file/Rights%20of%20the%20reader/NYOR_ROTR.pdf

I blog about fascinating, underappreciated YA books because I’ve fallen in love with them or the characters won’t let me go or the situation portrayed is so startling that I have to make sure you have a chance to experience it, too. Many publishers send me books, and I am free to review or discard any title.

For starting me on the book recommendation path, I thank Barb Langridge with all my heart; every recommendation posted originally on her wonderful site www.abookandahug.com (where I continue to recommend great books for kids, tweens, and teens) will be tagged as such. All selectors’ notes are new to this blog, but no story spoilers are ever given!!

Please share what you think about the books – talking about what we’ve read just makes it better!