More about reading for the Cybils

"Why is my backpack so heavy, Mama?" asked my 7 year old plaintively, as we travelled south for the holidays. Because Mama still had 12 more books to read in the next 5 days. And very excitingly on the personal level, this was the first airplane trip in seven years on which I was able to read a book from cover to cover! (It was In Search of Mockingbird, by Loretta Ellsworth, a very topical book for the reader who is travelling, in as much as it is about a bus journey from Minnesota, or somewhere northish like that, to Alabama).

Now the end of the Cybils is in sight, and there are only four book left on my list of must reads...

Reading YA for the Cybils la la la

Seven more books arrived at my house yesterday, and I am realizing that I am flying to D.C. tomorrow, and they plus a few other piles are going to be going with me unless I read them all tonight although what with packing and taking the cat to the vet and getting the car inspected and buying a few more presents I do not think this will happen.

I had a bad dream last night that Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand was nominated for the YA Cybils, and I had to read it by Friday. I woke up sweating.

Link to an interview with Carrie Jones

Tips on Having a Gay (ex) Boyfriend was one of my favorite books this year, so I was happy to learn via this interview with its author, Carrie Jones, that several more books are in the pipeline...including this intriguing one, which has not yet gotten its final title: "After Zara’s dad dies and a strange man keeps appearing around her house, her mother sends her to Maine to live with her grandmother, straight into the territory of a stalking pixie king."

My mind boggles.

There's another great interview with Carrie over at Becky's Book Reviews.

Diana Wynne Jones --a winner!

This oldish news, but still. Diana Wynne Jones, an author I adore, has been given the 2007 World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement (horray!) and here is a link to her acceptance speech.

Give the Gift of 2007's YA Books

I’ve been busily reading as many of the YA fiction books nominated for the Cybils as I can (up at 5:30am today, 1 ½ books read…). It’s not just reading them, which is fairly straightforward, it’s deciding if they are Good. And one of the factors that constitutes Good in this case is Teen Appeal.

I don’t have any teenagers to buy presents for this Christmas, but I thought that making a list of what books I would give, if I did, might help me sort out how appealing I think some of them are. The list that follows isn't my official Top 10 list, and I have left out a bunch of good books because I think they are simply too depressing to give as happy holiday presents (so although there is one Bad Thing in one of the following books, they are, for the most part, cheerful).

For a Seventh or Eight Grader, boy or girl:

The Wednesday Wars, by Gary Schmidt. I laughed and I cried over this one. Boy and teacher start the year out at war with each other (at least in his mind), but after a few escaped rats, a bit of Shakespeare, and some baseball (the Yankees are the team of choice here, so perhaps not the best gift for Red Sox fans), all is well.

Lemonade Mouth, by Mark Peter Hughes. 5 misfit kids form a band and make friends (in that order). It’s told from the perspective of each of the kids (2 boys and 3 girls), hence its cross gender appeal.
My review

For Older Teens

I’m going with the Gendered Recommendation thing here, which I feel ambivalent about, partly because there are fewer “boy” books I’d buy as presents than there are girl books (1 vs 5), and partly because I think girls are expected to read books with boy heroes and accept that as normative, whereas boys are rarely (I think) given books with girl heroes…*

For a teenaged boy:

Peak, by Roland Smith. I think that loosing part of your ear because it has frozen to the outside of a New York skyscraper is a pretty zippy way to begin a book; it goes on to take the hero to the top of Mt. Everest. Good adventure, interesting characters.
My review

For a teenaged girl who is Romantic, and might in general prefer fantasy:

Red Glass, by Laura Resau. I love this magical, beautiful book about a girl’s journey to Mexico and Latin America, where she must find the courage to go on a quest to save the boy she loves. Full of wonderful people and great images, it also provides a perspective on issues of immigration that I think is very valuable.
My review

For a teenaged girl who is smart with a great sense of humor:

Carpe Diem, by Autumn Cornwall. This book takes an uptight, over achieving girl named Vassar Spore and throws her into the jungles of South East Asia with a nutty grandma and a cute Malaysian cowboy wanabe. Lots of fun!
My review

Other books for girls, that are excellent reads but aren’t lending themselves to easy categorization:

Beauty Shop for Rent, by Laura Bowers
Billie Standish Was Here, by Nancy Crocker
Tips on Having a Gay (ex) Boyfriend, by Carrie Jones my review

For just about anyone:

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie. I have already lent my Cybils review copy to several other adults, which I usually don’t feel compelled to do.

Like I said above, these aren’t necessarily the 2007 YA books I think are the Best, but rather the ones I think make good presents! I’ve also only read about half of the 123 nominated books, so I might add more to this list. Other suggestions (from 2007 only) welcome! But please, none of the dark ones. You can give those for birthdays or something.


*Liz at A Chair, A Fireplace and a Tea Cozy is currently gathering a list of YA boy’s books, which makes up a bit for the fact that I'm only recommending one...

Books are being given away...

Lisa Schroeder is giving away 12 YA books for the 12 days of Christmas-- today is Day Three, so there are still lots left.

And today Jo Knowles is offering a signed copy of Lessons from a Dead Girl...

Good luck to all entrants, but especially to me :)

New Paddington Book

From the BBC Website:

"Paddington, the bear from Peru, will be arrested and interrogated over his immigration status in a book marking his 50th birthday. Paddington Here and Now, due to be published in June 2008, is set around the bear's home at 32 Windsor Gardens, Notting Hill, west London.

It will mark the 50th anniversary of his debut in A Bear Called Paddington.

Author Michael Bond, 83, who lives in London, said while the world had changed Paddington remained the same."

Carpe Diem, by Autumn Cornwell

16 year old Vassar Spore takes it for granted that her life will continue on smoothly in its pleasant path of over achieving. She plans to finish high school with a 5.3 gpa (the new 4.0), head off to Vassar (her name is no coincidence) and keep heading on up until she gets a Pulitzer prize, backed all the way by her overachieving (but happily married and supportive) parents.

Then her parents are blackmailed (mysteriously!) by her grandmother, who is off in south east Asia living a wild artistic life, and Vassar finds herself forced onto a plane to join her. She packs (10 matching bags), she plans (think Scaredy Squirrel here), she tries to stay in control, but Grandma Gerd, squat toilets, humongous centipedes, and a quite cute Malaysian cowboy wannabe called Hanks conspire against her. Until one night, trapped in an opium den in a Laotian village beyond any beaten trail, she ... basically, she seizes the day.

This is a very fun romp, verging on farcical, but not so much so as to obscure the nicely written character development and great travel writing!

And nobody dies.

Here's Autumn Cornwell's website. And here's a longer review, written by a Cybil's team-mate, back in August when there was more time...

PS. Scaredy Squirrel, by Melanie Watt, is also a great book.

Reading YA for the Cybills

I have reached a milestone in my YA Cybills reading--of the 123 books nominated, I have now read 50. It's getting to me, though--I had a nightmare last night in which I was trapped in a high school clique of Mean Girls, who savagely tore into a Nice Girl who had been their friend....(which I'm sure had everything to do with reading too much too fast about fictional high schools and nothing to do with my fellow nominating committee members, who are not mean at all. Or at least, they haven't shown it. Yet. But, then again, we haven't started sweetly discussing/ fighting over which books will make the short list...).

Anyway, someday I want to review many of the 50 I've read, but not today. The clock is ticking.

Win a basket of books over at A Readable Feast

For a chance to win a basket of books that is indeed a readable feast for the young, head over here to A Readable Feast (by December 12th). Lots of luscious books from Little Brown...

Owly #4 -- A Time To Be Brave

A Time To Be Brave, the fourth book in Andy Runton's Owly series has just been released! It is just as wonderfully emotionally manipulative (in a good way) as the previous books, as one can see from the cover. Although this is not actually a grave, as I thought at first, but merely a broken tree. But as one who has wept over beloved plants, it is still a wrenching image.

In this book, Owly and Wormy and the gang make a new friend, a possum (I call him "Possumy"), the wonderful lessons from the first Owly book are brought back--don't judge a book by its cover/things you think are fierce can be friends/owls (and possums, in this case), have feelings too/it's ok to cry. Plenty of tears are shed, plenty of courage must be found, and in the end (spoiler) possum is a New Friend.

I love Owly and Wormy, especially the first book. But this new one is my second favorite. And only in part because it is printed on 100% recycled paper!
(how great is that!)

Any Owly fan should visit the Owly Store, where one can buy, among other things, original Owly artwork and Owly and Wormy hats, each hand made by Andy Runton's mom. What a cool mom.

A poetry parlour game

Many Christmases ago, my sister gave me a little book entitled "A Century of Charades," by William Bellamy, published in 1894, followed in later years by "A Second Century of Charades," and then a third. These charades are the old fashioned kind--riddles in poetry, with the clues to the answer given syllable by syllable. A perfect peaceful parlour game for anyone planning a Victorian Christmas, or for those who like riddles.

Here's an example, with the answer:

"That my first is my second, all good people know;
My whole is a sailor who drew a long bow."

The first syllable is sin, the second bad, the whole is Sinbad.

Here are some more, without the answers, taken from "The Second Century of Charades." They are in order of difficulty.

I. My first, the end of riches,
My last, the Irish sea,
And one of the trials of authors
I find my whole to be.

II. If you were my first, and my second were nigh,
You'd acknowledge my whole, though it might seem awry;
And the state of my whole need not cause you alarms,
Though beaten he was by his colleague in arms.

III. My first:
I am the spur to many a Yankee notion.
I cause remittent, not continual, motion.

My second:
Oh Child, who reason for all things wouldst know,
I show not cause, but purpose oft I show.

My whole:
To ease an aching head I cross the sea.
Stern Winter's treasures are looked up in me.

IV. This tale is true beyond dispute:
two fishes joined, and made a fruit.
A fruit that in a garden grew,
And brought great harm to me and you.
The evil serpent coiled without,
The worm of death lay hid within,
Eve brought this dreadful thing about;
When Adam ate with her, no doubt
But you and I committed sin.

All of these charade books can be found online as PDFs if you are intrigued. Here's the first century, here's the second. Mr. Bellamy provided answers encoded as numbers in the back of each book, but with the stern warning that "working backward from the answers is not solving charades." My sister and I did not listen, and being totally stumped by the majority of the charades, spent a lot of time working backward.

Here are the encoded answers for the above, but I'm not telling which anwer goes with which riddle (this is how Mr. Bellamy did it in the Second Century).

1443534
3542442
54415
3131353


Here is the key--the numbers mean that one letter in that column is the correct one:
1 2 3 4 5
A B C D E
F G H I J
K L M N O
P Q R S T
U V W X Y


So then you can see what words you can make with the letters in each given column, and see if any fits the clues!

clue for the fourth one- think of types of fish.

This is my contribution to Poetry Friday--the roundup is at Becky's Book Reviews today!

Another Kind of Cowboy

Today's featured YA book is Another Kind of Cowboy, by Susan Juby. It's a good read, in the best sense of the term.

I like a book that gives me thick description* of something I know little about--with reference to books, I'm thinking really dense and knowledgable descriptions of a craft or practice that is an integral part of the character's experience, not tacked on to add some sort of "color." Reading Peak, I learned about mountain climbing, Dramarama immersed me in the preforming arts, and even Dairy Queen, and its Cybil nominated sequel, The Off Season, taught me quite a bit about football.

With Another Kind of Cowboy, the area of thick description is the art of dressage--the almost telepathic interaction in which a rider sits on horse who progresses gracefully through a series of changes of gait, direction, etc. Alex and Cleo are both students of this art--Alex because it is his passion, Cleo because she has no other passion. For Alex, a gay teen with a dad who wants him to be a Manly Cowboy, this world of costly horses, gear, and lessons is a dream he has to struggle to make real; for Cleo, an entitled rich kid sent off to a horsey boarding school, it is primarily a thing her parents have made easy for her.

Alex's story is told in the third person, Cleo's in the first. This makes it rather ironic that Alex is the character whose portrayal is rich, deep, and compelling. Cleo's light voice natters on, without revealing much depth, but the narrator gives Alex's feelings and focus a gentle weight that makes him a very real person. In a way, how the writer treats each character is a lot like how the characters treat their horses. Cleo has a cavalier attitude to her incredibly talented and expensive horse--she doesn't warm her up in advance of competition, she doesn't look after her gear. The relationship between rider and horse is distant. Alex is the opposite--his horses come first.

I was kind of hooked on this book from the beginning, just from nostalgia. The main character pretends his bike is a horse--grooming it, training it, practicing dressage and horse jumping while riding around and around the driveway. I didn't take it quite as far as he does, but still, the thought was there. This is a book I'd happily recommend to any teen who loves horses, and any teen who just wants a really good book.

Here's another review by a co-Cybilian, at the Ya Ya Yas.




*not the Geertzian type of thick description, although I like that too and at some point I might sit down and write a Geertzian analysis of a scene or two from some of the high school books I've just been reading--alien cultures indeed.

Waterstone's Childrens book prize short list

So it's not the most earth shaking award, but heck. It's always good to know what's happening Over There. Waterstone's, the British book store chain, has announced its shortlist of books nominated for the Waterstone's Children's book prize:

Tumtum and Nutmeg by Emily Bearn (Egmont)
Broken Soup by Jenny Valentine (HarperCollins)
Stone Goblins by David Melling (Hodder Children's Books)
Blue Sky Freedom by Gabrielle Halberstam (Macmillan)
Between Two Seas by Marie-Louise Jensen (OUP)
Shadow Forest by Matt Haig (RHCB)*
Ancient Appetites by Oisín McGann (RHCB)
TIM, Defender of the Earth by Sam Enthoven (RHCB)
Ways to Live Forever by Sally Nicholls (Scholastic)

This award "focuses on emergent authors who have had up to three books published." I guess if you have four books published, you've emerged, and there you are.

I haven't heard of any of these, let alone read them. Probably because they aren't here in the US yet, and I haven't had a chance to run over to the UK for book shopping recently. But I guess its good to know that once the Cybils reading is done (about 75 more books to go) there will be other books to read...

Here's the full article.

*(The US title of this is Samuel Blink and the Forbidden Forest. Not a change for the better, in my opinion. From the website: Samuel "has no idea a giant log is about to fall from the sky and change his life forever."Hmm).

From Toddler Story Time to the YA Section

I was hanging out at the library yesterday, yakking to our children's librarian about getting new shelves for the YA section, so as to have room for the influx of YA books that is coming (I'm handing over the bulk of the review copies I've gotten as a result of being on the YA Cybils nominating committee).

And then a strange thing happened. A grown woman entered the YA section, and found two books to read for herself (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 and 3), and chatted to our librarian briefly about what other books she might enjoy. Apparently the mothers of toddlers that come to the library for story time are discovering the wonders of YA, sharing with each other books they have enjoyed.

When you think about it, mothers of very young children are a prefect audience for a large part of the YA genre- the stories of girls entering a new and stressful period of their lives, not being able to spend time with old friends, or having less in common with them, and having to shoulder new responsibilities and forge new relationships. And there are many YA books of this ilk that focus on, or at least include, very positive female to female relationships-- the sort that new, perhaps lonely, mothers might find comforting. And finally, there's also the fact that a YA book is generally shorter than an A book.

But mothers reading YA books must be very careful, because of the Dark Side of the genre (which goodness knows is out in force with this year's crop of books)--plenty of horrible things happen to kids that are very upsetting to mothers, who (if they are like me) are prone to imagining the same thing happening to their own precious babies...like one book I just read that opens with a poor kid getting kicked in the balls by other boy scouts (This is What I did)*, and this is mild. Sigh.

*I'm not going to be reviewing This is What I Did, because I find it too worrying, and am not sure I can be objective, but here's a review over at Becky's Book Reviews, for those who are curious.

Say Hola to Spanish, Otra Vez (Again!)

My local school system recently introduced a Chinese language program. This inspired one resident to write an editorial to the local newspaper, celebrating the fact that the schools were not teaching a language that encouraged illegal immigration (!!!??!). I'm pretty happy that my kids are learning Spanish at school (and I doubt that statistics on how much Spanish is being taught in the USA is really something that people consider when deciding to cross the border).

My Spanish, however, is pathetic, and I can't help my boys at all, other than by letting them teach me. So I was pleased as punch to find a great book at my library that not only taught us all some new Spanish words, but was fun to read out loud, and charmingly illustrated: Say Hola to Spanish, Otra Vez (Again)! by Susan Middleton Elya and Loretta Lopez (1999). Sadly, the library doesn't have their first collaboration--Say Hola to Spanish (1998), but I'm sure it's good too.

Other first words in Spanish books I've read (around 3) have little textual zest. But Elya manages to swing the words right along, tricky when there's no narrative and the punch words are in Spanish-- "Here is a rata, here's a raton. There in the water! A big tiburon!" (please imagine accents as appropriate). There's a pronunciation guide/translations of the words at the end, for us Spanish challenged In a nutshell, we had a great time reading this book repeatedly, and if the Holiday Mug fundraiser goes well (zero mugs sold to date), I'll be buying the first book for reasons that are not entirely self-less. And if we sell lots of mugs, I'll also buy Hola to Spanish at the Circus (2003), although I can't help but feel that the vocabulary might be less immediately useful.

Any other recommendations for Spanish instructional type books?

Outside the Box, by Dan Allosso

Outside the Box, by Dan Allosso (2007), is a book that I can happily recommend to reluctant teen readers, kids who feel alienated from their peers, who resent mindless consumerism and conformity, who are grappling with the injustices that the bureaucracy perpetuates on kids who are being abused, overmedicated, or judged mentally ill, and finally, kids that like computer games.

Now, I am not any of these things, mainly because I am no longer a kid—I do, however, resent mindless consumerism and conformity, and being a bureaucrat myself, I sometimes chafe against the shackles my job involves. But in short, I am not the target audience as such. So I approached this book doubtfully.

My doubts intensified when a demonic presence appeared in a computer game on page 9. A demonic presence that was not part of the game as marketed, but that appeares specifically to communicate with Reid, the teen-aged protagonist...I wondered if I was in the wrong genre. And at first I was not drawn to Reid--he's a bored, spoiled rich kid with distant parents, and not immediately engaging. However, the plot thickens, more people become involved, and the pace picks up...

And today, there I was, reading it in the car on the way to work (my husband was driving), so that I could finish it (and not just so as to reach my 2.5 YA books a day quota. I was just really interested). And I’m very glad Dan Allosso is working on a sequel, because there are still Unsolved Mysteries (and as yet unrealized Romance—this is not a book about teens falling in love; this is only in the whisperiest bit of sub plot. Which makes a change). And as well as wanting more answers, I quite simply look forward to spending more time with the people in the book.

I’m not going to run through the plot—this book has a mystery at its heart (the demon in the game), and I don’t want to spoil anyone else’s fun. But I will say—there are well-defined characters (including a strong female lead) and an intriguing story line that kept me page turning (it requires slightly more suspension of disbelief than I like, but it’s within the realm of actual possibility, if there is such a thing). Dan Allosso has written a book that has points he wants to make, and at times these points are stated rather baldly, but heck, they’re good points—the importance of committing to friends, the importance of asking questions instead of sidestepping issues, and of course, the value of thinking outside the box, so the didactic aspect did not stop me in my reading tracks.

Outside the Box has been nominated for the YA Cybils Award, and copies duly arrived in all the mailboxes of us nominators, which we appreciate. This book was self-published, and as such, it strikes me as just the sort of thing the Cybils were designed to promote—the really good reads that might otherwise not get the attention they merit. Head over here for more information about the book and its author.

The Cybils--YA Books, plus Holiday Mugs

The final list of books nominated for the YA Cybils Award is up at Interactive Reader, the home of our fearless leader, Jackie. We will be agreeing (one hopes) on our picks for the short list at the end of December. Jackie has assured us folks on the nominating committee that we do not have to read every book. I dunno--it would only be 2 1/2 a day...

However. It is also Holiday Mug making time here in our little corner of Rhode Island, when, in a fit of total insanity, the boys and I fill the dining room with baskets of treats, ornaments, and sundries, and fill mugs ($5 each, for the library). It is their chance to Help the Community, I tell myself, as the chaos mounts. Fortunately, neither of them are candy eaters, which just leaves me. Sigh. So every morning I am faced with difficult decisions--try to organize things, or read YA books. Things remain unorganized.

And please, please, this year let someone buy the mug that plays jingle bells whenever one walks by it...I don't think I can stand having it on the kitchen shelf another year.

New Carnival Up!

The November Carnival of Children's Literature is up and running at Mother Reader! It is a Carnival of Tips about reading, writing, blogging, etc etc...I missed the boat on this one (couldn't think of anything tippish), but it looks like a great collection!

Itty and Bitty -- Rose Mary Berlin

Itty and Bitty are two miniature horses who live in Texas, and who have their own website here. They are cute as buttons in real life, and also as pictured by Rose Mary Berlin in their latest story book --Itty and Bitty, Friends on the Farm (by Nancy Carpenter Czerw, 2006). I recently had the pleasure of reading Itty and Bitty to my boys (7 and 4), thanks to Rose Mary Berlin, who kindly sent us a copy. They were both utterly charmed by the funny pictures of the little horses (and went off and played with their own toy horses, which had been gathering dust for months, so it was all to the good). These are the sort of pictures where the everyday becomes silly--I especially like the picture of Itty and Bitty on their moped, racing to keep up with the big guys. The text appealed to me less than the pictures, being the sort of writing where rhyme and rhythm take precedence over everything else, but it didn't bother the boys.

I first met the work of Rose Mary Berlin when I featured her snowflake for the Robert's Snow Auction (more information at right). Her truly adorable penguin is up for auction RIGHT NOW (until Friday, Nov. 30).