Good Monday, YA Readers!
This week’s edition of “What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by The Impossible Fortress by Jason Rekulak.
Until May 1987, fourteen-year-old Billy Marvin of Wetbridge, New Jersey, is a decidedly happy nerd.
Afternoons are spent with his buddies, watching copious amounts of television, gorging on Pop-Tarts, and programming video games on his Commodore 64. Then Playboy publishes photos of Wheel of Fortune hostess Vanna White, Billy meets expert programmer Mary Zelinsky, and everything changes.
A love letter to the 1980s, to the dawn of the computer age, and to adolescence, The Impossible Fortress will make you laugh, cry, and remember in exquisite detail what it feels like to love something—or someone—for the very first time.
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Let’s take a moment or two to catch up with the latest happenings around ye old YA land. There is a lot of adaptation news, for sure.
- The first trailer for the Everything, Everything adaptation with Amandla Stenberg is out and it looks great.
- Speaking of trailers, Netflix just released one for 13 Reasons Why and shared the date the show will hit streaming screens.
- Philip Pullman is writing more books in his “Dark Materials” series.
- The comic Lumberjanes is getting written as a book by Mariko Tamaki (This One Summer, Saving Montgomery Sole, and more). Awesome.
- Start your Fall TBR with this handy list of titles coming out.
- Yaqui Delgado Wants To Kick Your Ass coming to Hulu with Gina Rodriguez attached to the project.
- Have you heard of the Dead Girls Detective Agency? I haven’t, but I suspect I will since it’s being adapted, too. It looks like it might be one of those multi-platform projects. Huh.
- YA series that ended in 2016, which means you can pick them up now and enjoy the entire story in one big gulp.
- A look at the rise of sensitivity readers for YA books. What does that mean? What do they do? How do they help make books as good as those books can be?
- The Carnegie long list — a UK honor — is out, and there are plenty of familiar YA titles among them. Though let’s take a moment to point out that the long lists are all white. Umm…
- Speaking of awards, the CYBILS winners were announced last week. Check out the winners in the YA categories. I was a first-round judge for the middle grade and YA non-fiction category and think both of the winners are outstanding picks.
- There’s a new Maggie Stiefvater novel coming.
- Wrapping my head around this is tough. Iggy Azalea optioned the adaptation of Temple Mathews’ forthcoming Bad Girl Gone.
- Also, here’s an announcement for an adaptation of a YA book called Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet which…heard of it? I haven’t!
- An excellent interview with YA author Isabel Quintero (Gabi, A Girl In Pieces) on how writing is her activism.
A round-up of what we’ve been talking about when it comes to YA on Book Riot:
- LGBTQ+ scifi and fantasy from #OwnVoices writers.
- A look at well-developed older and elderly adults in YA fiction.
- 10 excellent, under-the-radar YA fantasy reads.
- A digital version of “blind date with a book” with YA reads. Try it!
- 3 YA books about struggles that have plausible, positive endings.
- Three recent posts on mental-health related YA: on starting to talk, agoraphobia and other mental illnesses that are well-rendered, and YA about bipolar disorder.
- And finally, a guide to get you started reading the work of award-winning author Sarah Dessen. My only note on this pathway would be that I think Dreamland is an essential Dessen read and shows how powerfully she can take on hard, heavy issues like relationship violence.
Thanks for hanging out! We’ll see you again next week. In the meantime, hope you’re reading something excellent.