Author: Kelly Jensen

Hey YA Readers!

Let’s March right into some excellent YA ebook deals and load ’em up for some reading Madness. (That’s how this works, right?). Prices as of Friday morning.

• Marie Lu’s Batman: Nightwalker is $2. You can also score Leigh Bardugo’s take on Wonder Woman and Sarah J. Maas’s take on Cat Woman for $2 each.

I haven’t yet read The Wicker King by K. Ancrum but it sounds weird and great and has some excellent reviews. Snag it for $3.

• Want a YA memoir? Pick up How Dare The Sun Rise by Sandra Uwiringiyimana and Abigail Pesta for $2.
• The Miseducation of Cameron Post by emily m. danforth can be yours for $2 and makes for great reading before you watch the adaptation.
• Have you ever read a YA western? You should try Erin Bowman’s Vengeance Road for $3 and change that.
• If you’d like to read a book about basketball that does better at sports talk than I do in this newsletter, Geoff Herbach’s Hooper is $2.
• Geekerella by Ashley Poston is $2 and looks adorkable.

For women’s history month, pick up any of these amazing biographies by Catherine Reef: Queen Victoria, Florence Nightingale, and/or Mary Shelley.

• Grab Jennifer Lynn Barnes’s thriller The Fixer for $1.
• Matt de la Pena’s We Were Here is $2.

 

[Insert a REALLY cheesy line here about how no matter what books you choose, you’ll sink every shot you take by reading].

🏀🏀🏀

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We’ll see you again on Monday!

— Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Instagram and editor of (Don’t) Call Me Crazy and Here We Are.

There’s so much news to catch up on, YA fans!

“What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by Wednesday Books.

An all new paranormal fantasy series from #1 bestselling authors P.C. Cast & Kristin Cast ignites a world of earth-shattering action and romance where a group of teens question their supernatural abilities. Nothing is what it seems as nature’s power takes control. The wind can change everything and everyone.

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The world of YA is never dull, is it? Let’s run down the happenings in this little corner of the book world.

• This Time Magazine profile of Laurie Halse Anderson over her incredible 20 year career is a must-read.
• A peek at The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind adaptation.
• This year’s LA Times Book Prize finalists in YA are excellent.
• Speaking of book prizes, here’s a peek at the shortlist for the UK YA Book Prize.
• Say hello to your friends . . . The Baby-Sitters Club is coming to Netflix.
• Amy Spalding’s next book has a cover, and the book itself sounds so great.
• There’s a Disney series focused on villains in the works, and it’s based on YA books.
• Check out the Stoker Award finalists in the YA category. Looking for good horror reads? This list highlights some of the best of 2018.
• I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter is going to be a stage production at the Steppenwolf next year. If you’re in Chicago, let’s have a YA Riot Date and see it.
• Adaptation news for The Children of Blood and Bone!
• The Marrow Thieves is getting an adaptation.
• Moxie coming to Netflix is awesome.
• Harry Potter Scrabble. Let me reiterate: Harry Potter Scrabble.
• The new Nancy Drew live action show has a lead, and she’s the daughter of YA author Lisa McMann.
• Here’s the Five Feet Apart trailer.
• Fans of Rainbow Rowell will be thrilled to see Wayward Son is hitting shelves in September.
• Has anyone been watching the Netflix adaptation of The Kissing Booth? If so, you’ll be thrilled to know that it’s been renewed.
• Last, but certainly not least, we’re getting an adaptation of Adam Silvera’s They Both Die At The End.

Watch This…

This is usually the part of a newsletter where I share my recent book mail, but my current book mail is in a state of chaos. Part of the reason it’s in chaos is because I’ve been spending my reading time marathoning a show on Hulu that I want to highlight.

I’m positive I had Anna’s tank top in 2000. The braces, too.

If you’ve got Hulu (or a password for someone else’s), you’ve got to check out Pen15. Set in 2000, the series follows two middle school girls — one white, one half Japanese-American — as they navigate the awkwardness of growing up. It definitely hits on the nostalgia factor, but what made this stand out was that it takes on some big, heavy issues of being a middle schooler in a way that doesn’t shy away from reality. There is an episode about first menstruation, as well as an episode about the first time Maya discovers masturbation (and ultimately finds comfort from Anna about it being normal). The ups and downs of friendship, of fitting in, of living with parents who are going through a divorce, and growing up as a girl of color are all approached with humor and heart in equal measure.

Despite the setting, it rings true to what it is to be a middle schooler navigating what it is to be who you are in a world that, well, doesn’t especially encourage that if it means standing out. It’s also hilarious and cringeworthy to see the realities of middle school — Anna just towers over the boys around her.

Anna and Maya are in their early 30s, but they do a pretty solid job of appearing to be in their early teens.

Grab yourself a snack, put down your book for a bit, and snuggle in with this little gem.

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Thanks for hanging out, y’all, and we’ll see you again next week to begin talking about feminism, badass girls, and Women’s History Month.

— Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Instagram and editor of (Don’t) Call Me Crazy and Here We Are.

Hey YA Readers: Let’s check out some fun page-savers.

“What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by Disney Publishing Worldwide.

Best-selling author Rick Riordan presents a brilliant sci-fi romp with Cuban influence that poses this question: What would you do if you had the power to reach through time and space and retrieve anything you want, including your mother, who is no longer living (in this universe, anyway)?

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Sometimes, the inevitable happens: we have to stop reading our book and use something to mark where we left off. Enter some excellent bookmarks. And more specifically, YA-themed bookmarks.

Here are a few fun ones I’ve scoped out at Etsy.

 

Save your place with a lovely quote from Kendare Blake’s Three Dark Crowns. $3.15.

 

 

Love Gail Carriger’s “Finishing School” series? You’ll love this bookmark with a quote from Etiquette and Espionage. $2.50 and up.

 

 

This “Stay Peculiar” bookmark pays homage to Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. $6.

 

 

How gorgeous are these Caraval-inspired bookmarks? $4 and up.

 

 

These magnetic bookmarks feature all of the Hogwarts Houses. $2.34 and up.

 

 

Grab a Children of Blood and Bone bookmark. $3.12.

 

 

This Six of Crows bookmark is gorgeous. $5.

 

 

Carry on with your love of Simon and Baz with this Carry On bookmark. $3.12.

 

 

These Lara Jean bookmarks are so unbearable adorable. $6.

 

 

For fans of Sarah J. Maas, here’s a gorgeous page holder for you. $2.75.

 

 

I’m drooling over these watercolor bookmarks featuring Dimple and Rishi. $4 and up.

 

 

Love Victoria Schwab? You’ll dig this bookmark honoring Our Dark Duet. $7.50.

 

 

This set of Jackaby character bookmarks is great. $2 and up.

 

 

And there’s always space for a little Hocus Pocus. $3.75.

 

 

Last, but not least, a bookmark for fans of Simon. $2.50.

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Thanks for hanging out, and we’ll see you later this week for all of the YA news worth knowing!

— Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Instagram and editor of (Don’t) Call Me Crazy and Here We Are.

Hey YA Fans: I’ve got an awesome interview today with a debut author with a new book you’ll be adding to your TBR so fast you get finger burn.

“What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by An Affair of Poisons by Addie Thorley.

She’s a deadly poisoner. He’s a bastard prince. They are sworn enemies, yet they form a tenuous pact to unite the commoners and former nobility against the Shadow Society. But can a rebellion built on mistrust ever hope to succeed? After Mirabelle helps to poison King Louis XIV, she is forced to see the Shadow Society in a horrifying new light: not heroes of the people, but murderers. Herself included. Josse is more kitchen boy than fils de France. But when the Shadow Society assassinates the King, he must become the prince he was never meant to be.

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I have one semi-strict rule when it comes to my personal reading habits. I don’t like to read the first book in a series before the rest of the series is out. I have a hard time remembering details by the time book two or three rolls around, and more, I just want to devour them all at once if I’m loving the story. I’m okay not reading the series when it’s new and hot.

But I broke that rule accidentally with We Set The Dark on Fire by Tehlor Kay Mejia. I didn’t realize it was a duology until I was half-way through this fierce, fiery feminist fantasy and now I sit, impatiently waiting for book two. I’m not sad I read it. I am just sad now I have to wait for the second book.

Mejia’s book is her debut, and it’s set in a near-future, but recognizable, world. I won’t say too much about it, but it’s about girls helping other girls, it features a queer romance, and it’s about privilege, borders, and the ways the Haves treat the Have Nots.

I asked Tehlor to talk a bit about her book, as well as some of the books and stories that have inspired her. I’m thrilled to share this conversation and to tell you to put this book on your radar right now.

Tell us about We Set The Dark On Fire. What’s the pitch and what inspired the story? For readers who want the fastest summary possible, can you also describe it in three words and three words only?

The pitch! A Latinx-based fantasy world on the brink of a class revolution. Two young women assigned to one sneering upper class man-child of a husband. Spies, forbidden romance, questionable loyalties, destructive secrets galore.

In three words?! How about…Secrets, kissing, patriarchysmashing. (It’s one word now)

 

While Dani is our main character and one torn between an array of loyalties, the secondary characters in this story are not only well-drawn, but they’re as — if not more! — compelling because we aren’t privy to their loyalties except through Dani’s eyes. Who is your favorite character in the story and why?

Thank you so much! Honestly I think Sota was probably my favorite character to write. I loved getting the chance to explore the fact that just because you’re on the right side of history doesn’t mean you can’t still have a lot to learn. And then he’s such a fun character, too. The enigma of him and this sort of mercurial, mischievous front he puts up — plus banter is my favorite thing to write, and he’s so charming he could literally banter with a rock.

 

Your story is a Latinx fantasy/fairy tale. Can you share some of the Latinx stories that inspired you as you were growing up and what stories inspired We Set The Dark On Fire? 

Honestly, sad as it is to say, this book was based more on the lack of Latinx stories I experienced growing up. I’m biracial, and a third generation Latina, so I was really in a place of feeling disconnected from the more traditional folktale type stories my culture had to offer, while still not feeling seen by the speculative stories I loved. That absence is definitely what eventually led to this story.

 

Though the bigger world building in the story focuses on how women become accessories for men — a Primera and a Seguna are offered to a man to serve as essentially guidance and as a beautiful play thing respectively — one of the big moments in the book is the budding romance between Primera Dani and Segunda Carmen. Can you talk a bit to that?

Yes! I knew from the beginning that I wanted Dani to have a transformative love story. I feel like love can affect us so profoundly, whether it’s locking us into remaining the people we are, or enticing us to become the people we’re meant to become. I think Dani’s overall course would be the same with or without Carmen — her growth and radically shifting empathy as a character is based on something deeply personal for her — but because of the repressed way she was raised and trained, I wanted to show the other ways it would change her to turn everything she knew and believed about femininity and womanhood on its head through this big, earth shattering romance with the last person she expected to connect with.

 

That, of course, begs the question: who have been some of your favorite queer couples in YA lit?

Oh there are so many! Top three off the cuff are:

-Sam and Miel from Anna-Marie McLemore’s WHEN THE MOON WAS OURS

-Ari and Dante from Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s ARISTOTLE AND DANTE DISCOVER THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE

-Alex and Rishi from Zoraida Córdova’s LABYRINTH LOST

 

Your book is fiercely feminist for many reasons, but it’d be interesting to hear you explain why and how it’s a feminist read and what some of the best feminist YA titles you’ve read are.

Ahh, thank you again! Pretty sure “fiercely feminist” is my favorite thing anyone has ever said about the book. Personally, I hope people consider this a feminist book because it shows that agency is something you can acquire, even if you’re not born with it, and the world has truly conspired to make sure you don’t ever get it.

So many heroes and heroines in books already seem so powerful in their own ways, but in Dani I wanted to show that you can begin from a powerless place. You can be lost. You can be scared. You can have the wrong idea about the world. And that so many, many people start there. I wanted to show that the inner work of discovering who you are and where you stand and what tools are at your disposal comes first. Before you can organize or march or burn things down, before you can do anything visible, there’s the quiet, deeply personal work of finding out who you are and what part you have to play.

I deeply believe that every one of us has a skill or a voice or a passion that lends itself to the revolutionary work of doing what is right. Even when it seems impossible. I hope young women especially feel empowered by how seemingly unremarkable Dani starts out, and how much inner strength she’s able to muster just by finding out who she is and what she wants.

In terms of feminist books, I could go on all day, but I want to specifically shout out UNDEAD GIRL GANG by Lily Anderson, HOME AND AWAY by Candice Montgomery, as well as the upcoming WITH THE FIRE ON HIGH by Elizabeth Acevedo, and ALL OF US WITH WINGS by Michelle Ruíz Keil.

 

What do you hope readers take away from We Set The Dark On Fire?

It’s probably cliché, but I’m going to say hope? With a hint of responsibility. The feeling that even though things are terrible, what you believe matters. What you do matters. How you treat people matters.

Also, to never let a cruel jerk make himself the center of your story.

 

If you could go back in time and hand your 12-year-old self any book, what would it be and why?

GABI, A GIRL IN PIECES by Isabel Quintero. Probably a little old for most 12-year-olds but I think tiny Tehlor would have been consumed by it in the best way.

 

 

Big thank you to Tehlor for this fantastic interview. I don’t know about you, but MY TBR grew some here, too! 

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Thanks for hanging out, and we’ll see you again next week!

— Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Instagram and editor of (Don’t) Call Me Crazy and Here We Are.

Hey YA Readers! Let’s catch up on all things YA book talk.

“What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by Penguin Teen.

Seventeen-year-old Keralie may seem harmless, but she’s, one of Quadara’s most skilled thieves and a liar. Varin, is an honest, upstanding citizen of Quadara’s most enlightened region, Eonia. They both find themselves entangled in a conspiracy that leaves all four of Quadara’s queens dead. The two decide to join forces to discover who has killed the queens and save their own lives. When their reluctant partnership blooms into a tenuous romance, they must overcome their own dark secrets in hopes of a future together. But first they have to stay alive and untangle the secrets behind the nation’s four dead queens.

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February may be a short month, but does it feel like the longest month to anyone else? Let’s start to wrap up these year-long 28-days with a look back at some of the YA talk we’ve had on Book Riot.

• You’ll be adding these 2019 bisexual YA books to your TBR so fast.
• Check out the 50 states of YA fiction: one book for each state.
• Over 50 must-read YA nonfiction books.
• Enjoy some YA Jane Austen retellings.
• Check out some of these gorgeous YA book cover makeovers. This list isn’t all YA, but there are great ones on there.
• Diverse YA historical fiction reads.
• 9 dark YA fantasy novels.
• Anne of Green Gables is turning into a ballet, and we’ve got some ideas of other books — including YA titles — that’d make for great ballets.
• We’ve got an interview with Gita Trelease about her new book Enchantée.
• Speaking of interviews, we’ve also got one with Katie McGarry.
• Continue with this interview with Tanaz Bhathena on her new novel The Beauty of the Moment.
• Dig into the winners of the first annual Summer Scares horror honor, including a slate of great YA titles (disclosure: I chaired that committee, and these three titles rock).
• Love the enemies-to-lovers trope in your romance reads? Here are some YA titles that fit the bill.
• These YA books pair well with your favorite snack.
• Don’t miss the trailer for The Sun Is Also A Star.
• Have you read any of these underrated YA books?
• An excellent piece on the interfaith message of Katie Henry’s book Heretics Anonymous. Eric and I talked a little bit about this book — specifically its cover — on the latest Hey YA episode.

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Recent Book Mail

Take a peek at the recent titles that have hit my inbox. Listed from top to bottom:

 

If You’re Out There by Katy Loutzenhiser

Chicken Girl by Heather Smith

This Book Is Not Yet Rated by Peter Bognanni

The Art of Breaking Things by Laura Sibson

Fly Girls by Keith O’Brien

The Art of Losing by Lizzy Mason

We Are The Perfect Girl by Ariel Kaplan

Immoral Code by Lillian Clark

These Witches Don’t Burn by Isabel Sterling

Cold Day in the Sun by Sara Biren

No One Here Is Lonely by Sarah Everett

I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sanchez (paperback)

Girl Mogul: Dream It, Do It, Change The World by Tiffany Pham

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Thanks for hanging out, and we’ll see you later this week with a fabulous interview.

— Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Instagram and editor of (Don’t) Call Me Crazy and Here We Are.

Happy weekend, YA fans!

Let’s highlight a handful of outstanding YA ebook deals. All are current as of Friday morning, February 22, and all are $5 or under.

• Looking to kick off a fantasy series? Jennifer A. Neilson’s The False Prince is $5. You can also score the first book in one of her other series, The Traitor’s Game, for $2.
• Annie Sullivan’s A Touch of Gold is $1. This is a riff on King Midas.

Let’s call this the “fantasy YA books are deals” roundup. Makiia Lucier’s Isle of Blood and Stone is $2.

• Want the start of a fairy tale inspired fantasy series? Soman Chainani’s The School of Good and Evil is $2.
• Start a political thriller with Jennifer Lynn Barnes’s The Naturals for $2.
• Spend $5 and get the first book in Robin LaFevers’s “His Fair Assassins” series, Grave Mercy.
• For contemporary fans, Laurie Devore’s How To Break A Boy is $3.
• Want something fun? Try Prince in Disguise by Stephanie Kate Strohm for $3.
• Katie Cotugno’s first book How To Love is $2.

Going to keep sharing this book while it’s such a steal. Pick up Calling My Name by Liara Tamani. $2.

• Don’t miss out on the $2 gem Tell Me Again How A Crush Should Feel by Sara Farizan.
• I like unlikable female characters (whatever that means) and Frankie by Shivaun Plozza offers up a good one. $3.
• And for readers itching for something really different in the YA world, try Sarah Nicole Lemon’s Done Dirt Cheap for $4.50.

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Thanks for hanging out, and we’ll see you next week!

— Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Instagram and editor of (Don’t) Call Me Crazy and Here We Are.

Hey YA Readers: Grab your TBR list and ready your writing implements!

“What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by Soho Teen.

A drunken mistake. A life-changing accident. The bonds of sisterhood are tested by addiction and a crushing betrayal in Lizzy Mason’s debut. When 17-year-old Harley Langston sees her boyfriend kissing her sister Audrey at a house party, she’s furious. But when her boyfriend drunkenly tries to drive Audrey home, he crashes leaving Audrey in a coma. Adrift in a sea of guilt, grief, and anger, Harley is surprised to reconnect with Raf, an old friend just out of rehab. As Audrey recovers, Harley can see a path forward with Raf’s help—one guided by honesty and forgiveness.

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We kicked off Black History Month by looking at some fabulous YA titles hitting shelves by male-identifying black authors. Let’s now highlight some of the YA by black female-identifying authors hitting shelves this year. I’ve used pronouns as found on author websites to make these identifications.

There are a pile of sequels hitting shelves this year, and I’ve not included them below. But that doesn’t mean you should sleep on titles like Children of Virtue and Vice by Tomi Adeyemi, A Dream So Dark by LL McKinney, or The Everlasting Rose by Dhonielle Clayton. This list is also not meant to be comprehensive.

Some of the books below don’t yet have preorder availability, so in those cases, I’ve linked to Goodreads for more detailed descriptions.

Girls Like Us by Randi Pink (October 29)

We’re getting a few books about teen pregnancy and about the challenges of abortion access (thanks, current political climate!). This one follows four girls in 1972 dealing with unwanted pregnancy and what they can — and cannot — do about their situations.

 

I Wanna Be Where You Are by Kristina Forest (June 4)

If you like road trip books, this one will be a winner. It follows a girl whose mom forbids her from trying out for the dance conservatory, but she chooses to hop in the car and attend a tryout anyway…when her neighbor and his dog insist they join along, or he’ll tell Chloe’s mom what she’s up to.

 

If It Makes You Happy by Claire Kann (June 4)

A story about a girl who has graduated from high school, the summer she spends working her grandma’s diner that she hopes to inherit, a fatphobic small town, and a need to make money in order to fulfill her dream. Also, a moment to just !! about that cover.

 

Let Me Hear A Rhyme by Tiffany D. Jackson (May 21)

When Steph is killed, his music career could be buried with him. But his friends come to the rescue, creating a persona for the sound and they have everyone in their Brooklyn neighborhood hooked on his rap style. But when the music catches some bigger attention, the trio of friends have to figure out whether to tell the truth or continue to play the part of The Architect.

On The Come Up by Angie Thomas (available now)

If you haven’t picked up Thomas’s new New York Times Bestselling novel, do it now. It’s about a young teen rap artist navigating her father’s legacy and cutting her own teeth in the industry.

 

 

The Revolution of Birdie Randolph by Brandy Colbert (August 20)

Birdie has always been the perfect daughter, but when she begins dating a boy who has a troubled past and her aunt, who also has a troubled past, shows up at her family’s home, Birdie begins to push her boundaries bit by bit. How will she react, then, when a long-held family secret comes to light, destroying everything she thought she knew about her life?

The Stars and the Blackness Between Them by Junauda Petrus (September 17)

There’s not a cover for this one yet, but get it on your radar. The story follows two very different girls — one in Trinidad and one in Minneapolis — who are brought together and find themselves falling in love with one another.

The Weight of Stars by K. Ancrum (March 19)

If you want a slow-burn romance, featuring space travel, longing, grief, and adventure, you’ll want to pick this one up. This is a queer romance between a girl from a trailer park and a girl whose mother is an astronaut who volunteered to travel one-way to the edge of the solar system.

When The Stars Lead To You by Ronni Davis (November 19)

If you love stories of first love — and first loss — this is a book to get on your radar. After a magical summer of romance with Ashton ends with loss, Devon slowly pulls herself back together. But when Ashton shows up again in her life, will she ever be able to heal? Will she allow herself to fall in love again?

With The Fire On High by Elizabeth Acevedo (May 7)

Emoni Santiago is in charge of her daughter, as well as her abuela, and though she’s only a senior in high school, she’s forced to be an adult. Her comfort? It comes in the kitchen, where she finds herself falling in love with cooking. But can she make a future of it?

 

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Hope you found some excellent new reads here! We’ll see you again next week with some news, some links, and a really fabulous interview.

— Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Instagram and editor of (Don’t) Call Me Crazy and Here We Are.

Let’s dig into anthologies today, YA fans!

“What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by Spectacle by Jodie Lynn Zdrok.

Paris, 1887. Sixteen-year-old Nathalie Baudin writes the daily morgue column for Le Petit Journal. A task she finds both fascinating and routine. That is, until she has a vision of a young woman being murdered—from the perspective of the murderer. Nathalie’s search for answers sends her down a winding road involving her mentally ill aunt, a brilliant but deluded scientist, and eventually into the Parisian Catacombs. As the killer haunts Paris, it becomes clear that Nathalie may be the only one who can discover the killer’s identity—and she’ll have to do it before she becomes a target herself.

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Inspired by a recent cover reveal for an amazing-sounding anthology (it’s below!), I thought it’d be worthwhile to spotlight a handful of great YA short story anthologies. These are inclusive, wide-ranging collections featuring an array of voices.

What I love about anthologies — and why I like editing them myself — is discovering new writers right along side some of my long time favorites. All of the collections below marry the new with the seasoned.

I’ve been asked before, too, whether or not anthologies really appeal to teenagers, and to that I always say: remember the beauty of an anthology is there’s never pressure to read the whole thing nor read it cover to cover. You can read stories here and there. You can skip ones you don’t connect with. And you can read them over the course of months without feeling you’ll miss anything. Anthologies are meant to offer variety, meaning that it’s likely for every reader, some stories will be knockouts and others will fall flat. This is how they’re designed. It’s what makes them such cool books.

These are recent titles, as well as forthcoming titles, and titles from the back list. Get ready to get your read on.

All Out: The No-Longer-Secret Stories of Queer Teens Throughout the Ages edited by Saundra Mitchell

Looking for short historical fiction but from the perspective of queer teens? Then this is the perfect anthology. Contributors include authors like Malinda Lo, Shaun David Hutchinson, Kody Keplinger, Sara Farizan, and more.

 

Black Enough: Stories of Being Young and Black in America edited by Ibi Zoboi

Kekla Magoon, Jason Reynolds, Brandy Colbert, Nic Stone, and a host of other incredible authors write stories about what it’s like to be black in America. The stories span so many topics and settings, with rich, powerful voices.

 

Color Outside The Lines edited by Sangu Mandanna (November 12, 2019)

If you’re into romance and stories about relationships, this collection will be of total interest. Each of the stories are about interracial relationships and the ups, downs, and in betweens of them. Authors include Samira Ahmed, Eric Smith, Adam Silvera, and more.

 

Fresh Ink edited by Lamar Giles

This anthology, done in partnership with the We Need Diverse Books organization, amplifies thirteen voices telling diverse stories. Not only is the array of contributors amazing, but there’s a never-before-seen one act play by Walter Dean Myers as well.

 

 

It’s A Whole Spiel edited by Katherine Locke and Laura Silverman (September 17, 2019)

This anthology is the first all-Jewish centered YA anthology and it’s long past due. The cover looks fabulous, and the contributor list sounds equally as fabulous. Authors include Nova Ren Suma, Adi Alsaid, Alex London, and more.

 

Open Mic: Riffs on Life Between Cultures in Ten Voices edited by Mitali Perkins

An oldie but a goodie! This anthology focuses on teens growing up between cultures and features stories from authors like G. Neri, Gene Luen Yang, Francisco X Stork, and more.

 

 

Take The Mic: Fictional Stories of Everyday Resistance edited by Bethany C. Marrow (October 1, 2019)

This anthology sounds not only awesome but also wildly necessary. It’s a collection of short stories about everyday resistance, including what it’s like to stand up to online trolls, what it’s like to be disabled and cute and own it, and so much more. Authors include Jason Reynolds, Samira Ahmed, Keah Brown, and more.

Unbroken: 13 Stories Starring Disabled Teens edited by Marieke Nijkamp

This #ownvoices anthology gives disabled teens the spotlight and allows them to be the center of their own stories. Authors include Heidi Heilig, Dhonielle Clayton, Kody Keplinger, and more.

 

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Thanks for hanging out & we’ll see you again later this week!

— Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Instagram and editor of (Don’t) Call Me Crazy and Here We Are.

Hey YA Readers: Let’s catch up on the latest YA news.

“What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by Tor Teen.

Raider. Protector. Bloodwitch. Aeduan. Every story has two sides. Fans of Susan Dennard’s New York Times bestselling Witchlands series have fallen in love with the Bloodwitch Aeduan. Now, finally, comes his story.

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Lots of awesome-sounding book cover and descriptions have hit the internet, as has some other great YA news.

• Audiobook Sync, a program that runs from April to July, offers up 2 free audiobooks every week. The list of titles was just released, so get all of these on your calendar. So many great YA books here! (Suddenly, the title of the newsletter makes sense!)
• Here’s a preview of Veronica Roth’s upcoming YA short story collection. I can’t think of many YA authors who’ve released their own short story collections (note to self: potential newsletter topic!).
• Ferryman is an upcoming YA novel getting the adaptation treatment.
• The trailer for The Sun Is Also A Star is here!
• In news for another Yoon, here’s the cover for David Yoon’s upcoming YA novel and a little of what it’s about.
• This anthology of Jewish fiction for YA readers look fantastic.
• I don’t necessarily think Anne of Green Gables is YA (I think it’s middle grade, right on that border), but this news is fun and worth sharing: the US will get to see a ballet adaptation of the story.
• So many gorgeous covers and descriptions for Harper Collins’s Fall 2019 YA books.
• Do you have the new Maggie Stiefvater book on your radar for this fall?
• While we’re on the topic of Fall 2019, check out the previews for many of the titles coming your way.
• The Grimm Legacy might see its way to the screen.
• I wish instead of publishing more of these mini books, that we’d get mass market paperbacks for teen readers.
• Add some YA books to your TBR that explore black history.

 

Recent Book Mail…

From top to bottom, here’s a peek at some of the titles that have hit my inbox lately.

Night Music by Jenn Marie Thorne

StepSister by Jennifer Donnelly

The Wise and the Wicked by Rebecca Podos

Missing, Presumed Dead by Emma Berquist

The Missing Season by Gillian French

With The Fire On High by Elizabeth Acevedo

Let Me Hear A Rhyme by Tiffany D. Jackson

Brave Face by Shaun David Hutchinson

 

A Blast From The Past…

Just for fun, here are a few posts from Book Riot of years past. Discover your next favorite back list read here.

• 10 YA books set in the 90s.
• 10 YA thrillers for fans of One Of Us Is Lying.
• 100 short YA novels under 250 pages.
• 100 must-read books for feminists and feminists-in-training.
• LGBTQ sci-fi and fantasy by #ownvoices authors.
• Excellent under the radar YA fantasy reads.
• Why tough YA books are so important.  
• Enjoy some unique time travel fantasy reads. 
• Physics! YA books that love physics! 
• From 2014 — before it was cool to do this — an apology to Bella Swan. 

 

 

Check out these gorgeous YA tarot cards. Even more are in the shop.

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Thanks for hanging out and we’ll see you next week!

— Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Instagram and editor of (Don’t) Call Me Crazy and Here We Are.

Hey YA Readers! We’ve got a treat today.

“What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by Tor Teen.

Welcome to Vale Hall, the school for aspiring con artists. When Brynn Hilder is recruited to Vale, it seems like the elite academy is her chance to start over, away from her rundown neighborhood. She soon learns that Vale didn’t choose her for her scholastic talent, but for her experience conning rich kids out of their allowances. At first, Brynn jumps at the chance to help the school rid the city of corrupt officials. That’s before she meets her mark—a senator’s son—and before she discovers the school’s headmaster has secrets he’ll stop at nothing to protect.

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The moment I finished reading Watch Us Rise by Renée Watson and Ellen Hagan, I knew I needed to talk with this tremendous duo about their collaboration. The book, out tomorrow (February 12), takes everything that I loved about Jennifer Mathieu’s Moxie and amps it up even more. It’s an intersectional feminist YA anthem in the form of a book, featuring intersections of race, gender, sexuality, body size, class, and more, all woven brilliantly around poetry and performance.

The story is set in a high school that, by all means, should be progressive. And in many ways, it is. But the main characters recognize where the holes are and step forward to enlighten the rest of their community. We as readers cheer, of course, but not everyone in their world does, despite the fact that they should.

Though it doesn’t take on every instance of social justice or feminism — that would be downright impossible — what this book does is showcase the possibility and the breadth of why feminism matters and why it is something for which everyone should advocate. Watson and Hagan get bonus points for highlighting Native women and their erasure, too, as this might be the first time in a book by non-Native writers where I’ve seen such careful attention paid to that, without co-opting those challenges as their own.

Smart, well-written, and will resonate hard, especially with young readers growing up in the Parkland generation. This book is a love song and boost of encouragement to get out there, make change, and embrace being the messy, imperfect humans that make up the movement.

But rather than continue praising this book, I’m excited and honored to turn it over to Renée and Ellen, who offer up insights into the creation of the book and more (bonus: there’s something awesome and exclusive for you to enjoy at the end of this interview). They’re interviewing each other, so this is extra fun as a reader.

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Ellen Hagan: Renée – Watch Us Rise is coming out on February 12th, and I am getting so excited for it to be in the hands of readers – especially young people. I’m looking forward to the conversations, actions, poems that I hope it inspires. When I think about what this book means in the time that we’re living – with the MeToo movement, the Women’s March and so many women rising up – in publishing, media, Hollywood and Congress – I get emotional thinking about the power we have if we work collectively. I think about the women who have inspired and propelled us forward and about the kind of woman I want to be to my daughters. It makes me feel fired up and thrilled to be doing this work with you. As the publication date gets closer, how are you feeling!?

Renée Watson: Well, I’m always nervous when a new book is coming out. But I am excited as well. I’m especially looking forward to having conversations with young girls about the various communities they belong to, the intersections of their identities. This is a time for speaking up and I am ready to listen to what young people have to say. I hope the book ignites something in young people. I hope they write poems and make art and put on record who they are, how they feel. One of the greatest gifts given to me as a teen was poetry. It was such an immediate way for me to express what I was experiencing. I love that more and more we are seeing YA novels that include poetry or are written in verse and are ultimately about girls reclaiming their voices. One book that I think does this so well is Elizabeth Acevedo’s The Poet X. I’m also looking forward to reading Shout by Laurie Halse Anderson.

RW: What were some of the books you read as a teen that really shaped you? Can you talk about some of the feminist poets who inspired you?

EH: In high school I went to this incredible summer program called Governor’s School for the Arts (GSA). Kelly Norman Ellis was the most influential teacher for me. I was already reading Alice Walker, Toni Morrison and Sandra Cisneros, but when I got to GSA, we started reading even more poets and I was introduced to June Jordan’s Poetry for the People: A Revolutionary Blueprint, and there was a chapter called: Rescuing the Canon: Reinventing and Making it Relevant Again (sooo good), and then came Ntozake Shange and Joy Harjo and Marilyn Chin and all of a sudden I started to connect my own feelings about what we were reading in school and what I wanted so desperately to be reading outside of school. I think of Sula by Toni Morrison and how she was creating complex women. I think of Rice by Nikky Finney, which taught me all about writing who you are and where you come from – exploring identity and history. I was also influenced in high school by Crystal Wilkinson and Dorothy Allison and Lee Smith who were writing about the South in a way that really spoke to me – being from Kentucky I was hungry to figure out my place in the world and how to write and create from that space and those writers were doing it.  And then Listen Up: Voices from the Next Feminist Generation, which was on my bedside table for months. I kept returning to the stories in that anthology – stories by Rebecca Walker and Curtis Sittenfeld and how these women from so many different backgrounds were talking about and raging against systems of oppression against them, and they were doing it with stories and words. I was blown away by that. I really identified as a feminist from an early age – 14, 15, and that book was one of the main reasons. It was intersectional feminism and that was transformative for me.

EH: I’m curious to hear what you’re reading currently? As you know I have two young daughters (8 & 5). I’d love to get new ideas for what to read next. And also, I would love to know what you’re working on.

RW: I love that your girls are avid readers. I think they will enjoy the picture book A Song for Gwendolyn Brooks by Alice Faye Duncan and the Jada Jones series by Kelly Starling Lyons. When they’re a little older, I can’t wait for them to read books by Tracey Baptiste, Olugbemisola Rhuday, Nikki Grimes, Jacqueline Woodson and Meg Medina.

After writing Watch Us Rise with you, I finished a middle grade titled Some Places More Than Others. It’s a daddy-daughter story about a girl from Oregon who visits Harlem with her father. The trip uncovers family secrets and a little Harlem history. What I’m most excited about is that this is a story where the main character is a fat girl named Amara but the plot has nothing to do with her weight. Her weight is never described in the story but you see her full body on the cover. I have been thinking a lot about the representation of big bodies. I wanted to push myself to write about a girl who is big but the plot isn’t about that. In Watch Us Rise, Jasmine writes a poem about not having dolls that looked like her. She says, “not even in make believe did girls look like me.” I hope these characters validate fat girls and just as important, I hope people who are not fat take these characters in and walk away with more understanding and compassion. I hope twenty years from now it is more common to have characters in YA and MG that are big with plotlines that go beyond stories about their weight. I hope we continue to see stories about girls who use their voices to resist and that readers not only take in these poems and stories but that they feel compelled to tell their own.

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Exclusive!

Listen to Ellen and Renée perform “Girlhood,” one of the poems from the book. This video is incredible, moving, and such a perfect encapsulation of the book. Click here or on the image below to watch and listen.

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Thank you Ellen, Renée, and to all of you readers. Take the revolution with you, and we’ll see you again later this week!

— Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Instagram and editor of (Don’t) Call Me Crazy and Here We Are.