Printz Award

(Note: Most of the information in this post  comes from the Michael L. Printz website)

(Seal copyright American Library Association.)

That right there is the award seal for the Michael L. Printz Award — it’s the same seal you see printed on the award-winning books. The Printz Award is an award given out annually for the best literature for young adults by the American Library Association (ALA). The award has been distributed since 2000 in honor of a Topeka, Kansas library member who was a long-time member of the Young Adult Library Service Association (YALSA) run by ALA.

That’s a lot of acronyms, but the Printz Award is regarded as the Pultizer of YA.

Recently, I’ve read three of the books winning the Printz:

Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta (won in 2009)

Looking for Alaska by John Green (won in 2006)

and

How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff (won in 2005)

When I first started reading the books (Looking for Alaska was the first), I decided to go and check out more on the Printz website. The website has a lot of great information — book lists, acceptance speeches, reports from the chairs–and then I had a question.

What makes books award worthy? What makes them “better” then the rest of the books?

I found a quote from the Printz Award chair this year, Erin Downey Howertown, speaking on this year’s winner, Ship Breaker:

“This taut, suspensful novel is a relentless adventure story featuring nuanced characters in thought-provoking conflicts. [Paolo] Bacigalupi artfully intertwines themes of loyalty, family, frendship, truth, and love.”

So, basically, apparently the book is suspensful, a good adventure story, with good characters and conflict. There are themes of loyalty, family, friendship, truth and love.

So what?

There are plenty of books that are suspensful and adventerous with good characters and plotting, and stories that have loyalty, family, friendship, truth and love as their main themes.

So what made the Printz Award committee choose Ship Breaker over all the rest of the books in YA published this year? What made them choose it over the other novels picked as Printz Honor books?

Here are the Printz Honor books for 20ll, with descriptions from the Printz website:

Stolen by Lucy Christopher

“The rugged Australian outback becomes Gemma’s prison after she is drugged and abducted by a handsome, obessive stranger in a first novel filled with searing imagery and archetypal characters”.

Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S King

“Vera Dietz wants to be ignored, but the ghost of her ex-best friend won’t leave her alone in this dark comedy that examines relationships, identity, grief, and flowcharts.”

Revolver by Marcus Sedgewick

“In Sedgwick’s grim, chilling story set in the Arctic Circle, Sig finds his father’s frozen corpse as human predator Wolff arrives seeking retribution and a hidden Gold Rush treasure”.

Nothing by Janne Teller

“Pierre Anthon’s nihilsm causes his classmates to begin a search for life’s meaning in this bold, unsettling parable translated from Danish”.

All of the books are wonderful — I have read a few of them — but it made me wonder. All of the books have gotten impressive reviews (many starred reviews from publications like Publishers Weekly and School Library Journal), become bestsellers, and catapulted the authors into YA fame.

And they all have what the chair mentioned — suspensful adventure stories, filled with wonderful characters and themes of love, loyalty, family, friendship, and truth, not to mention that they’re all written well.

So what makes the book triumph? Obviously the Printz award committee has a difficult job, paging through the thousands or hundreds of YA novels presented to them. And every year they choose wonderful books, many becoming cult classics or bestsellers.

But I think that there’s one reason, one reason that sets the books above over every other book they read and seperates the line between Winner and Honor.

It’s simple, and a bit obvious, but there is one reason that books are published. One reason that the commitee chooses them to win the Printz or the Newbery.

The people who see them love them.

They love the books with all their heart: the characters, the plot, the setting. They’re invested in the story and never let go, engrossed in the writing and story. They gush about it to everyone they know and admire the author more.

They adore the story with all their heart, and just know that it deserves to be a winner.

Ever seen a video of editors discussing their books? The editors are always happy — they’re proud, their excited that the story is out into the world. Editors would never intentionally publish a bad book; they publish books that they’re proud of, books that they know will suceed, books that they love.

Watch the Printz speeches — search up “Printz Award Speeches” on YouTube. The chairs who announce the authors are always excited, proud. They choose the books that they love, the books that they know that teens will like.

There is a reason that everyone adores those Printz books. The reviewers don’t just give them out to everyone: they choose the books that they love, the books that they know that teens will love, every one of them.

And that, folks, is why books are published, why books win awards.

Children’s & YA Listservs: A Primer

Welcome back to the “Primer” series! You can catch up on the two most recent  installments if you’re interested in reading past entries. Today’s topic is going to be about listservs — what they are as well as some recommendations of children’s and YA listservs for those interested.

What is a listserv?

For this one, we’ll pass it off to our old friend Wikipedia, which defines a listserv as:

a special usage of email that allows for widespread distribution of information to many Internet users. It is similar to a traditional mailing list — a list of names and addresses — as might be kept by an organization for sending publications to its members or customers, but typically refers to four things — a list of email addresses, the people (“subscribers”) receiving mail at those addresses, the publications (email messages) sent to those addresses, and a reflector, which is a single email address that, when designated as the recipient of a message, will send a copy of that message to all of the subscribers.

A listserv essentially is an email list that goes out to a large number of users that have subscribed to the list, and allows users to send an email that goes out to everyone that subscribes to the list. It’s not a new idea — the idea has been around since the early 1980s — but they can be useful for connecting, sharing, and learning — and a nice thing to get in your inbox. There are many different listservs — both social and professional — that discuss and deal with different topics.

There are many different children and YA literature listservs — some run by universities, by private owners, by organizations such as ALA, YALSA, and ALSC, and all of them are easy to subscribe and connect to.

What are the “best” listservs?

I’m not going to say what the “best” are. There are plenty of listservs and not all of them are for everyone. I don’t subscribe to all of the listservs on this list. However, all of these lists have been recommended by many different people & and are well used and well-frequented.

A note on this list: all of these lists are for children’s and YA lit, but a couple of these listservs are more bent towards librarians (ie designed for librarians).

The List

child_lit: Run by Rutgers University, child_lit is arguably the most well-known listserv on this list. Running for about fifteen years, the list comprises of a large archive and thousands of members. The purpose of this list is to cultivate discussion about children’s literature in it’s many forms and members discuss all kinds of books, genres, and ideas — from children’s to YA to nonfiction and more. The members are especially notable — the list is diverse, with bloggers and writers and teachers and librarians and scholars all participating, as well as some authors. (Notable authors include Phillip Pullman, Jane Yolen & Patrice Kindl) To subscribe to child_lit you can check out the login page as well as glean more information from the info page.

YALSA-bk: YALSA, or the American Library Association’s young adult division (view their website here), hosts their own listserv, called YALSA-bk, that specializes on young adult literature, it’s many forms, discussion, and ideas. There is also an added component of librarian discussion, with librarians discussing how best to use YA lit with their patrons and how to use it in the library through the listserv. To join YALSA-bk, read the information on the info and login page.

Pub-yac: Pub-yac is another library-related listserv run by the Center for Children’s Books.  This one is designed specifically for librarians in public libraries that work with children and young adults, and focuses on public library issues, as well as touching on all kinds of books (adult, children’s, nonfiction) and discussing books and other current issues in the kidlit fields and the library community. To subscribe to pub-yac, you can view the information on the pubyac subscriber page.

CCBC-Net: A listserv run by the University of Madison, this listserv focuses on issues and ideas of children and YA literature. This list has discussion topics which are discussed by its members each month, and is not a “general” listserv (basically – you can ask whatever you want) like the others on this list. Some current list topics are the books of Mo Williems and a discussion of the Printz Award. To subscribe, you can join here, and to find lists of the topics a list is here.

This isn’t an exhaustive list of any kind, and simply googling “children’s literature listserv” will turn up plenty more listservs. If you’re interested in reading good discussion, or if you want something different and interesting in your inbox, check out these lists. If you’re not so into a flood of emails (and this can be solved using “digest” mode — double check when registering) check out the archives of the lists.

Hopefully there will be something interesting here!

Feed by M.T Anderson

 

Identity crises, consumerism, and star-crossed teenage love in a futuristic society where people connect to the Internet via feeds implanted in their brains.

For Titus and his friends, it started out like any ordinary trip to the moon – a chance to party during spring break and play with some stupid low-grav at the Ricochet Lounge. But that was before the crazy hacker caused all their feeds to malfunction, sending them to the hospital to lie around with nothing inside their heads for days. And it was before Titus met Violet, a beautiful, brainy teenage girl who has decided to fight the feed and its omnipresent ability to categorize human thoughts and desires. Following in the footsteps of George Orwell, Anthony Burgess, and Kurt Vonnegut Jr., M. T. Anderson has created a not-so-brave new world — and a smart, savage satire that has captivated readers with its view of an imagined future that veers unnervingly close to the here and now.

 

My experiences with Feed can be described like this:

People told me to read it. They gushed about M.T Anderson’s writing and pointed out that he won a Printz Honor and showed me funny snippets on his website and blog, pointed me towards gushing reviews of the titles from critical sources, simply told me that I had to read this book, had to.

I ignored them. I read many other (great) books. Then I was at the library and spotted Feed in the shelves. The copy looked well worn and well used. I read the back, saw those many critical sources and read the interview with the author at the back, which indeed did show his humor. I took the book home.

I brought the book to school to read, as I often finish books during study halls or assigned reading times. I finished the book in a day during study hall.

And I adored it.

Now, I must admit, I am almost ashamed I didn’t read it. Is Feed perfect? No, it isn’t. But is it chilling and amazing how much of the future Anderson predicted? (Read this article and you’ll see  how good he predicted different technologies and concepts in the novel.) Heck, yes. And is Feed an impressive book? Yes times a million.

Feed in the essence, is a dystopia though it preceded the influx of dystopian titles by many years. (And this book really shows what a good dystopia can be, and what impressive world building can do.) Titus and his friends are wild, crazy, and adventurous, and always up to a trip to the moon (a vacation hotspot). They interact via feeds, social networking tools in their brain that allow them to communicate with one another, buy things, and get news. While on the moon, their feeds get hacked and malfuctioned. And Titus meets a girl — Violet, who is willing to resist the feed, to not buy into the social culture that their society has created. Their feeds get fixed, and soon enough they are back to Earth and continuing on their wild, crazy lifestyles. Titus and Violet begin to fall in love, but as Violet resists more and more, her life falls into danger.

The plot sounds exceedingly simple. We have all seen this before — people resisting and falling in love — in many different contexts. What really raises the plot above, what makes the book into something that can be critically acclaimed and well-loved, is the satire. The book is a satire. And it is hilarious. Anderson makes fun of our society, of how we act and how we believe and what we are interested in. The satire is really awesome.

But besides this satire, which made me laugh in more than one place, there are the questions. In many critical reviews in professional review journals, the reviewer will state something along the lines of “the author raises many questions on love, life, and religion” (substitute the descriptors of the questions being raised to suit your fancy). Anderson raises many questions, about our media culture and our technology and our over saturated world, how we act and believe and what we think is important. These questions make the book very thoughtprovoking. It took me a while to read the book, and it is fairly short, because of all the questions. I had to stop, think and ponder. The questions make the book fascinating. They make you think and wonder and really think about the media culture that is in our world today.

This combination — a mixture of satire and questions — really elevates Feed up to something that is amazing and deserves the many accolades it has recieved.

If I have a qualm on the plot, even with how wonderful and creative it is, my qualm is that I knew what would happen. I predicted the end of the book early on. And I was right. But I didn’t mind turning through 300 pages or so just to get to an ending that I had already guessed, because the questions and the satire made me engaged. I wanted to get to the end so I could keep reading the hilarious jokes and the many raised questions.

The characters are impressive — Titus is strong and smart and his friends — who really can be counted as one person (and I think that’s how they were intended to be) make sense as teenagers in the future. Violet was my favorite, smart and sweet and willing to resist. I worried that she would be an archetype, nothing more than a “rebeling girl”, but she was truly an impressive character and what happened to her broke my heart.

Anderson’s writing is strong and easy to read, injecting the right amount of humor and seriousness needed for the book. He’s a strong writer and I can see why everyone loves his books. I for one am very interested in reading his other books — I’d tried reading them before and given up. But enjoying this book has made me want to read the rest of his books.

Frankly, I loved this book, and if you are like me and have been holding off on Feed, I have two words for you: READ IT!

4.5 stars.

YALSA Awards

Most people have probably heard of the Newbery and Caldecott. These awards are given out each year in the middle of January (honoring the previous’ years books) and celebrate the “most distinguished contribution to American literature for children”. You can find more information about the Newbery here and more about the Caldecott here.

However, besides these two awards — which may be the most well known — there are plenty more distributed each year. The annual awards ceremony — where all of the ALA awards are given — lasts almost two hours.

Let’s back up a second. ALA  or the American Library Association is a large organization that helps librarians and libraries, and the organization is the one that distributes the awards such as the Newbery and Caldecott. It’s a very big group that many (I wouldn’t say all, but it’s a large number) of librarians are a part of. ALA is the main organization, but through the organization there are a great number of groups that specifically deal with a certain topic.

Now, back to the awards. There are many great awards that they give out each year. Awards for audiobooks and nonfiction and children’s books and YA and distinguished authors and debut awards, every award you could possibly think of that somehow relates to books and literature.

Today I’m specifically going to talk about the YA awards. These awards are distributed by one of the groups of ALA, YALSA. YALSA stands for the Young Adult Library Services Association. You can view their website here.

YALSA distributes all of the YA-related awards. Most–not all–of the awards have one honor and three honor books (sort of like 2nd and 3rd place: you are still a winner and still acknowledged though you aren’t 1st).  Some awards however, do not follow this scheme and instead honor 10 awards or more awards than the “average joe” award.  The awards are selected by committes. All members of the committees must be ALA/YALSA members and librarians. YALSA says that their awards are to honor the best literature for teens.  For each award I’m going to explain what each award is, exactly. For each award there will be a picture of the actual award given and a link to the award’s site if you’re interested in learning more. All statements in quotation marks are direct quotes from the YALSA site. The websites are a great resource and explain more about the award, such as when it was founded and it’s criteria, as well as including lists of past winners of the award and winner’s speeches.

Let’s get started.

Alex Awards: The Alex awards are given to 10 books for adults that “have special appeal to teens ages 12-18”.  These books can be of any genre, as long as the books were published in the previous year (example: 2011 books were honored in 2012). The award has been given annually since 1998. The award was originally given by a special project, the YALSA Adult Books for Young Adults that Margaret Alexander Edwards had sponsored. The award is named after Alexander Edwards, who was a “pioneer in young adult library services”. She was called Alex by her friends, hence the award’s title. YALSA says that the purpose of this award is to provide a list for young adult librarians to share with their teens and increase their teens’ outlook on adult titles. The award is now sponsored by the Margaret A. Edwards Trust.

Margaret A. Edwards Awards: The Margaret A. Edwards Award honors “an author, as well as a specific body of his or her work, for significant and lasting contributions to young adult literature”. This award, instead of simply focusing on one of the author’s titles, honors their entire body of work and all of the achievements that they have done over the course of their career. This award is again named after Margaret A. Edwards, whom the Alex awards are also named for. The Edwards awards have been established since 1988. The purpose of this award is to “honor an author’s work in helping adolescents become aware of themselves and addressing questions about their role and importance in relationships, society, and the world”. Many of the authors honored with this award are very famous, or at least very well known — just a scan down the list proves that. What do S. E Hinton, Judy Blume, and Madeline L’Engle have in common? They all won Edwards Awards. This award is sponsored by School Library Journal. 

William C. Morris YA Debut Awards:This award honors “a debut book published by a first-time author writing for teens”. This award focuses only on debut books. Debut books are books written by authors who have never published a book before; their debut title is their first book. This award is one of the more recent awards (the Alex, Printz, Morris, Nonfiction, and Odyssey awards are the five  most recent) — it was formed in 2009. The award is named for William “Bill” C. Morris, an “influential innovator” and who left an “impressive mark on the field of children and young adult literature”. The books in the award are based on: compelling, high quality writing; the integrity of the work as a whole; and it’s proven or potential appeal to a wide range of readers. This award is the only one to have “potential or proven appeal” (ie, teens will be interested in reading the book) in its guidelines, and the award criteria is a bit more open, though the award is limited to debut titles.

Nonfiction Awards: This is the only YALSA award that focuses specifically on nonfiction. While some of the other awards may have nonfiction titles (and this is specifically mentioned in most award criteria) this award was specifically designated to honor “the best nonfiction book published for young adults ages 12-18”. This award also gives a specific amount of time for the books published: November 1- October 31 of each year. (This is different than most of the other titles, which only require that they be published in the preceding year.) The award’s purpose is to recognize the best in the field of nonfiction for teens and help give recognition to the genre. Interestingly enough, the award also states that it’s purpose is to show YALSA as a strong leader in nonfiction. Hmm. This award is very recent, having started in 2010.

Odyssey Awards: Like the Nonfiction award, this award specifically focuses in on a genre: audiobooks. The awards honor “the producer (not the author or the person who reads the audiobook) of the best audiobook for children and/or young adults, published in English in the United States”. This award is different because it opens the playing field to children’s audiobooks as well. It also removes any audiobook not read in English (for example, an audiobook read in Spanish) from the award. The award is based on the following criteria: literary merit and the quality of the audiobook (narration, sound quality, background etc). This award has existed since 2008.

Okay, I have one more award to talk about. The Printz Award. The Printz is a bit like the Newbery award mentioned at the beginning of the post — the Newbery for young adult literature. Both the Newbery and Printz awards both have very similar goals. This award is the one that is probably the most well known out of all of the awards, and one of the most recent.

Printz Awards: This award honors a book that “exemplifies literary excellence in young adult literature”. The criteria for the award is literary merits such as story, voice, style, setting, theme, accuracy, characters, illustrations and design (how the book is organized). This award is probably the YALSA award that is grounded the most in literary merits and quality. The purpose of this award is to bring quality literature to young adults and showcase the best fiction for young adults. The Printz Award is named for Michael L. Printz, a school librarian who was very active in YALSA and a longtime member of the organization. The award has existed since 2000 and is now considered the most well-known YALSA award. Anyone can nominate a title for this award.

These may be YALSA’s most well known awards, and they are the ones cited as awards on YALSA’s awards page but they are not the only awards and booklists that YALSA creates. There are many more smaller awards and many booklists, such as Amazing Audiobooks for Young Adults, Best Fiction for Young Adults (BFYA), Fabulous Films for Young Adults,Great Graphic Novels for Teens, and many more.

If you have any questions on these awards, comment below. If you are interested in searching and learning more about the awards you can view more information in the links for each award (click on the bold font titles  of each award) or you can view them on theawards page.

Hope that you learned something about YALSA awards 🙂

Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler and Mara Kalman

I’m telling you why we broke up, Ed. I’m writing it in this letter, the whole truth of why it happened.

Min Green and Ed Slaterton are breaking up, so Min is writing Ed a letter and giving him a box. Inside the box is why they broke up. Two bottle caps, a movie ticket, a folded note, a box of matches, a protractor, books, a toy truck, a pair of ugly earrings, a comb from a motel room, and every other item collected over the course of a giddy, intimate, heartbreaking relationship. Item after item is illustrated and accounted for, and then the box, like a girlfriend, will be dumped.

 I need to start this review with a warning. It isn’t a bad warning in particular. The warning simply is this: I didn’t enjoy A Series of Unfortunate Events much when I was younger. I liked the macabre tones of the novels, but I always felt a bit disconnected as I read the entire series. Warning aside, I was eager to read a copy of Handler(aka Lemony Snicket)’s first YA novel, a collaboration with artist Mara Kalman. 

Now onto the specifics. The novel easily could have become gimmicky, and people were very interested in the concept of the novel itself when the book was introduced to the world. But Handler took a gimmicky plot and made it interesting, and it is no wonder the novel was awarded a 2012 Printz Honor. The book essentially resolves around the course of the relationship–the first meetings and dates, the highs and the lows, the fights and eventually the breakup. Min has recently broken up with her boyfriend Ed and the book is written as a letter to explain “why we broke up.” She also attaches a box, filled with memorabilia gathered through the course of the relationship, to accompany the letter. Kalman’s illustrations show the objects.

Now to the characters. As stated at the beginning of this review I could not relate to Handler’s characters. I don’t know if it was my young age, the book, or how different the series and this novel are, but I related to these characters far better. Min I really related to, with her questions of identity and relationships and how everyone finds her “arty”. You really feel her pain and sadness, as it becomes apparent that Ed may not even read the story or look at the objects she has collected. I related to Ed far less, but I think that was the author’s intention : we want to root for Min,not the person who broke her heart. I understood both Ed’s good and bad sides, and he was a very well rounded character. But while his actions represented his character and made sense, it was hard to like him because of what he did to Min and his choices. 

The writing was the one part where I struggled and took off half a star. Handler writes the novel in vignettes, essentially, as Min remembers every event of the relationship and each of the objects’ meaning to the relationship. Because Min is writing directly to Ed she refers to him as ” you” during the writing. This makes sense for the novel but it is very jarring at first. Sometimes I would forget “you” was Ed. Handler also uses very little dialogue tags, with pages and pages devoid of tags. This was hard to read, and sometimes I had no idea who was speaking. Other than those two qualms Handler’s writing was very fresh and fluid.

Side note on the art: I’m no art critic but the drawings were very fresh and fluid. I received an ARC in a giveaway and many of the drawings were missing from the galley. What I saw of the art, however, was very impressive.

Why We Broke Up is a fantastic book. If you enjoyed Handler’s other novels or like epistolary novels this is a book for you, and I think many people would enjoy it. It’s a great novel deserving of awards and I’m glad to have read the book.

Four point five stars(4.5)

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Steifvater

It happens at the start of every November: the Scorpio Races. Riders attempt to keep hold of their water horses long enough to make it to the finish line. Some riders live. Others die. 
At age nineteen, Sean Kendrick is the returning champion. He is a young man of few words, and if he has any fears, he keeps them buried deep, where no one else can see them. 
Puck Connolly is different. She never meant to ride in the Scorpio Races. But fate hasn’t given her much of a chance. So she enters the competition — the first girl ever to do so. She is in no way prepared for what is going to happen.

 I’ve been a fan of Maggie Stiefvater for a while; I enjoyed her Shiver trilogy and her first two novels, Ballad and Lament . With The Scorpio Races I expected more of Maggie’s wonderful writing and stories. 

I wasn’t disapointed, and I certainly wasn’t surprised when the book was announced as a 2012 Printz Honor. 

The story revolves around a legend, this one of the capall uisce or killer horses (and try spelling that). Every November groups of riders gather among the beaches riding the capall uisce and trying to survive riding the horses long enough to make it to the finish line and win a purse of money. The story revolves around two characters, Sean and Kate, nicknamed Puck, who take turns narrating the novel. Sean is an accomplished rider who has won the race four times on his horse, Corr. Still, as November approaches, he feels unsure. Puck has never entered, but when her brother threatens to leave the island, she decides to join the race — becoming the first girl to enter — and ride her old horse, Dove. 

I’ll start first with the plot. The water horses idea is really unique, and I’d never heard of the mythology before. Maggie handles the idea well, creating a unique mythology that’s fresh and interesting, and creepy at the same time. The plot moves very slowly, however, and readers who aren’t as interested in reading slower-moving books may become disinterested. I was a little bored in the beginning but the pace quickens. I did think that the actual race was shorter than it could have been; with so much buildup it could have been expanded on. 

The characters are strong and well developed, their motivations clear and their personalities shining through. I did have an issue with the characters at the beginning of the novel — they all were well developed but so many characters were being introduced I was becoming confused. The characters also often recall to one another by both last names and first names, a tendency that becomes annoying when you can’t remember said character’s last or first name. A lot of characters get introduced in the beginning, and while they all have purposes in the story as well as strong characteristics, I found it challenging at first. The many characters, however, do show the livings of the community and unnamed island. Puck and Sean were well developed with pasts, personalities, and both strengths and weaknesses, as well as their passion for their horses that showed. 

The writing was one would expect from Maggie, and something that has been lauded in many reviews: very beautiful and elegant. I wasn’t surprised by this, and her writing is a pleasure to read, with its elegance and cadence. I honestly have nothing else to mention on the writing other than that it was beautiful and very nice to read. 

I did enjoy the book, if it wasn’t as great as I thought it would be, but it was still a great read and deserving of the Printz Award. If you enjoyed Shiver , any of Maggie’s other books, or books on horses this is a fantastic read. 

Top Ten Tuesday

I’d planned to post a review today but as I am in the middle of reading a book I’m posting in another meme. This one is Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

This week’s question was actually a freebie, so I’m doing my 
Top Ten Contemporary Novels. 


I’m sure this topic has been touched on before but I love contemp and want to discuss it again.


10. Anna and the French Kiss/Lola and the Boy Next Door 
I’m grouping these together because they are in a series but I loved their cute and charming dashes of humor, excitement, and of course romantic interests.


9. Eighth Grade Superzero

This book is really unknown, but essentially it’s about a boy who decides to become a superhero through community service. The description is lame but the book really is fascinating, with hints of spiritualism and questions on romance, faith, family, and the community woven through the narrative. 




 8.  Please Ignore Vera Dietz
A Printz Honor book! This book is so strange and unusual, but it explains grief and death so well, with narratives from dead people and talking pagodas (pluses). 








7. Amy and Roger’s Epic Detour 
Road trip stories certainly can become overused, but this book stays fresh with a great romance and awesome extra features like reciepts and bills woven into the narrative. This is a detour I love taking (sorry, bad pun). 




6. Stargirl/Love Stargirl

This is an older book known as a contemp classic, and one of my favorite older contemporaries. The book celebrates nonconformity and the people who fight against nonconformity. It doesn’t seem too popular in the blogosphere but I still love it. 

5. The Fault in Our Stars

This has been lauded everywhere. I’m going to say one thing only: yes, it did make me cry. 












4 Like Mandarin

Another unappreciated gem about small towns, the people that live there, and a maniac pixie dream girl taken to the extreme. It’s a brilliantly written book and one of my favorite contemp favorites though it is basically under-appreciated and tanked in the market. 






3. Jellicoe Road

Yes, yes, everyone loves this book and everyone says its awesome, blah blah blah we get it. It really is fantastic though. If you enjoy contemp, read this book for its fantastic characters, plot, and amazing writing. People don’t blab it all over the planet for nothing. 




2.  If I Stay/Where She Went
This is a fantastic duology about a broken couple, in the essence, and it is so sweet and charming and sad and beautiful and aghhhh. I really don’t know what to write. Both these books made me cry. (Yes, I’m a crier. Deal with it.) 






And finally, number one is a book that…………………..not many people know. And it remains my favorite contemporary of all time.


1. Red Glass
This book came out in 2007. It’s been critically acclaimed but very few people know it. The book is fantastic, a travel book weaving together the sights and sounds of Mexico as you journey with a heroine that really changes and her adorable love interest, a cute refugee boy, and their chaperones. If you love travel books this is a must read. If you love contemp this is a must read. The writing is goregous and the characters amazing. I could go on about this book forever. But here’s the thing: just read it. 




What’s in your Top Ten? Leave a link in the comments and I’ll try to check it out. 😀

Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta

Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta

2008 Printz Award Winner Melina Marchetta crafts an epic fantasy of ancient magic, exile, feudal intrigue, and romance that rivets from the first page.

Finnikin was only a child during the five days of the unspeakable, when the royal family of Lumatere were brutally murdered, and an imposter seized the throne. Now a curse binds all who remain inside Lumatere’s walls, and those who escaped roam the surrounding lands as exiles, persecuted and despairing, dying by the thousands in fever camps. In a narrative crackling with the tension of an imminent storm, Finnikin, now on the cusp of manhood, is compelled to join forces with an arrogant and enigmatic young novice named Evanjalin, who claims that her dark dreams will lead the exiles to a surviving royal child and a way to pierce the cursed barrier and regain the land of Lumatere. But Evanjalin’s unpredictable behavior suggests that she is not what she seems — and the startling truth will test Finnikin’s faith not only in her, but in all he knows to be true about himself and his destiny.

This is how you write epic fantasy. Writers, if you want to know how to write amazing fantasy, please read this novel. Marchetta skilfully breaks down fantasy cliches and puts them into an amazing, fast-paced and adventurous novel that while hefty, doesn’t feel hefty at all.

Lumatere has been destroyed for the past ten years, since the five days of the unspeakable. During those five days, the royal family was massacred; the religious Forest Dwellers killed; Finnikin’s father was sent to prison and his lover died after giving birth to a stillborn baby. Finnikin and his mentor, Sir Topher, travel the country assisting the exiles and recording all of the data (who died, who lives, sickness, hunger, etc) in their Book of Lumatere . (I keep spelling Lumatere wrong.) Finnikin is sleeping one night when a voice whispers in his ear the name of the dead prince, Bahalzar, and he knows he must go to the cloister of Lagrami. There he meets Evanjalin, a novice, who “walks the sleep” and claims to know where Bahalzar is living.

Okay, let’s start with Evanjalin. She is my new favorite YA heroine. Writers, if you want to write kickass girls, read this book. Marchetta transformed the cliche of a badass girl by giving Evanjalin real feelings . Sometimes you read books with supposedly badass girls, like the amazing number of dystopian novels being released. These books usually have badass girls, but a lot of times they are trying too hard to be badass or don’t end up being badass at all. Marchetta transformed Evanjalin into a real person by giving her flaws, feelings, and sympathy towards other characters. I seriously adore her. (view spoiler)[ Though she is way more of an Evanjalin than an Isaboe in my head. (hide spoiler)]

The rest of the characters were just as developed with flaws and emotions and feelings. Trevanion truly loved Lady Beatriss, and I’m interested to see how that plays out over the next book as supposedly the plot line is resolved. Finnikin really loved Evanjalin/I; Froi really started to redeem himself; and essentially every character was fantastic.

The plot was where I was a bit concerned. Recovering a kingdom isn’t exactly new ground in fantasy. While the description sounded interesting, I was worried that the Bahaltzar storyline would be predictable. But it wasn’t. Marchetta cleverly took tropes — the missing prince, the wise healer, the brave soldier, the thief, the badass — and turned them into real people, real settings, and a real story. Nothing was predictable. If you reread the story you find all the hints, the clues; everything is set up and foreshadowed.

Marchetta’s writing….can I just put every word in the dictionary next to “beautiful” here? Joking aside, it was as beautiful as always, rich and fluid. (There are too many commas in this paragraph moving on).

The one major issue some might have is the heftiness of this book. I’m unsure of the climax (view spoiler)[ either when they reveal Bahalzar is dead or the battle itself (hide spoiler)] but my two ideas happen in the middle of the story, but all the scenes count and they are all very, very interesting.

If you like Marchetta, read this book. If you like fantasy, read it. Nah. Everybody read it.

ALSO.

I AM TOTALLY TEAM EVANJALIN.

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Awards and Generalizations

We’ve been talking about awards a lot lately — at least I think we have — and so I thought I would talk about how people describe award winners.

Usually people say one of three  things:

1. IT’S REALLY GOOD

2. IT MADE ME CRY

3. IT SUCKED

Occasionally they say two of them, but most of the time it is one of them with either a bright grin or a grumpy face. But most of the time, it seems that they say one or the other. So I tried to do research for this topic, and found well, no articles that say that people express the same feelings as me.

So instead, it is story time.

In sixth grade, we read quite a few Newbery books and Newbery Honor books. Our teacher seemed to like them for some reason, so we read them. On Newbery books, the seal is imprinted onto the cover. You can run your hand against the seal and feel the bumps, as well as the imprint on the back of the front cover. And of course, the main purpose is to tell you, Hey! You’re reading a Newbery Book!

I sat with one boy all year. For privacy purposes, we’ll just call him P. P was awfully smart, and a really nice kid. He loved to read, and our teachers would always get mad at him for reading during class. We would do novel units, and so I expected P to get excited.

But this happened instead:

When we read A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park:

P looked right at me and said, “There’s a medal on the cover.” (He also occasionally was very obvious.)
I rolled my eyes and said, “Yeah, there is.”
P nodded and said, “That means someone’s going to die and it’s going to suck.”
“No way,” I said. “Newbery books are always really good.”
“Nope,” P said, “someone always dies.”

I thought it was weird, since I’ve always liked Newbery books and have quite a few of them. I’ve never really cried at one of the books, but they’re always very interesting and usually very good books. The the conversation disappeared from my mind until a few months later.

This time we were reading my personal favorite book of the year, Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli:

I grabbed my copy of the book and said, “This should be good.”
P nodded, and I was surprised.
“I thought you hated the books in LA,” I said.
P nodded again. “Yeah, but this one doesn’t have a sticker on it.”
“So?”
“So it won’t suck and nobody dies.”

So that made me wonder. I moved away at the end of sixth grade, and I asked P just before I left if he liked Stargirl (we had just about finished the book when I moved). He paused and told me, slightly confused, that it didn’t suck. I asked him why and he told me it was because nobody died.

And that got me wondering. (The following section is a spoiler for all of these books,  so don’t read the descriptions if you prefer not to
but I think the message doesn’t work otherwise.)

In A Single Shard, Crane-man dies.

In Moon Over ManifestJ inx nearly dies (I count this because the reader believes that he has died for a substantial amount of time)

In When You Reach Me, the laughing man dies 

But through my small amount of research, I discovered that this rule can apply to other award-winning books as well. For the YA angle, I went with the Printz Award (which I discussed recently).

In How I Live Now, Aunt Penn dies, along with a hoard of animals

In Looking for Alaska, Alaska dies and death becomes the central scene of the novel

Death is also important in Jellicoe Road, which has the biggest wammy of deaths I found: Fitz, Tate, Webb, and Jonah’s father, all sadly pass away. Jessa and Chloe P. also almost die as well.

So what does that show? I don’t know if it really proves P’s point, but the truth is there are a lot of deaths in Newbery and other award-winning novels. Sometimes the death even becomes the central point of the novel.

And the truth is, people say “Newbery winners will make you cry”. It’s a broad generalization that most people know, and when the award winners are announced in January people always comment that the books seem depressing. But the truth is, a lot of books now focus on “depressing” themes, whether it’s death or tragedy or a broken family or relationship.

So really, I’m just going back to the original point I made a few days ago: books win awards because the people who read them love them. And the truth is, a LOT of them involve deaths. But that’s just how it goes.

It’s really just a broad generalization, and most of the kids in my sixth grade LA class hated reading novels because of that. Our teacher was always a bit confused, since she’d always praise the books and say that we would adore them and the rest of us would roll our eyes (admittedly, myself included).

So there are a lot of generalizations for awards. And I think really that is what this post turned into: people believe in the generlizations for award-winning books, like this book will suck or someone will die or it will be amazing. Because that’s what they’ve heard, based on experience, even if they have never bothered to read the books.

So everyone has different opinions, and we all have different generlizations about books, both good and bad.

To end the post, I’ll give you something P told me when we read Stargirl:

“What do you think the literary definition of ‘stargirls’  should be? I think it should be NOBODY CARES GIVE UP TEACHERS.”



Those Books You Just Love

I had planned to do a review today, but it turns out that’s not possible (I’m still reading Paper Towns). Then I planned to do a review of ARCs….but my ARC isn’t in my poessission at the moment. (I am getting it back soon, so wait for that post.)

So instead I’m going to talk about something else. Amazing books.

Recently it seems I’ve read a lot of amazing books.

 Like this one:

And this one:

And:

So I’ve been lucky lately, reading a torrent of books. And I’ve adored all three of those books, and the next few books I have lined up sound just as great. So, I’ve been wondering: what makes these books great? What sets them apart from the rest? What makes them Printz Award winners (Jellicoe Road), New York Times Bestsellers (Looking for Alaska) and books that aren’t released but already filled with hype (Liesl and Po)? I came up with three reasons why. The reasons are simple, but they really truly impact the story.

So,  PAIGE’S TOP THREE REASONS WHY THESE BOOKS WORK:

1. Characters Just thinking about the stories, the characters pop into my mind. Strong, erratic Taylor. Shy, timid, Liesl. Bright, fun loving Po, filled with humor. Sexy babe Alaska, erratic and exciting. Self-deprecatating Miles. Just thinking about those characters, they all pop into my mind fully fledged. And why? The authors took time. They took time to show their characters, bring out their personalities. Just the simple things — Miles’s humor, Liesl’s drawing talents, Taylor’s anxiety — make them different, set them apart from all the other characters in MG and YA now. They’re not simply thrown onto the page and expected to be loved; you learn about the characters and grow to love them that way. The characters are all original and creative: Miles memorizes the last words of famous people; Taylor is the leader of a secret underground community; and Liesl posesses a great magic. In writing, I always hear the same thing over and over: describe your characters, show them, don’t tell or info dump. And these authors truly did that.
2. Plot More and more, it seems, plots are becoming cliche. You know, the same old “girl meets boy, falls in love” or “girl discovers she posesses a power”. And all three of the books — Jellicoe, Alaska, and Liesl — that I’ve read recently fall into those tropes. Liesl has a power; Alaska and Miles fall in love; Taylor and Jonah start a relationship. But it’s more than that. The authors make the story original, twist the cliches into something better. Another saying I hear sometimes is cliche can be good. If used wisely and carefully, cliches can make a story better. Another thing is the originality. These are the plots of the three books: girl leads an underground community in a territory war; girl sets off on a journey with a magical box; boy finds himself attracted to danger. Those descriptions have elements of cliche in them, but they truly become more. There aren’t many stories with those kinds of things in them, making the stories more and more different. Check the recent New York Times Bestseller lists — readers want something more, something new. Recently, I was talking to a few people who said that they thought certain people on a website’s ideas were getting less original. Green, Marchetta, and Oliver surely didn’t fall into those tropes; instead, they triumphed over cliche and made their plots original.
3. Magic This last example is hard to explain. There’s magic in these books — but for different reasons. Oliver’s prose sings, full of lyricism and excitement. Marchetta’s characters are amazingly full-fledged, breaking steroytpes and cliches and becoming poignant and beautiful. Green has a mix of all three: great characters, prose and amazing descriptions. Their magic, their talents make the story sing, make the story rise above tropes and cliches. The author’s talents are truly what makes the story amazing, and it is obvious all three of them worked hard on their novels. Magic is what makes people love the story, what makes it rise above the “good” to “OHMYGOD AMAZING”. Magic is different for every story, for every author, but when you find a book that has magic it is truly something to behold.

So there you have it — what makes me love a book. What makes you love a book? It might be different. I want to know.

Also, I recommend all three books (though Liesl will be released November 2011). They all sing with magic.

Thanks,

Paige