Author: Kelly Jensen

Hey YA Readers!

This week’s edition of “What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by Rakuten Kobo Inc.

Calling all listeners—audiobooks are now available from Kobo. Find all your eBooks and audiobooks together in the FREE Kobo App for iOS and Android. Save with a subscription for the best deal on audiobooks—your first 30 days are FREE.

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I’ve got a really exciting guest post today from Amber J. Keyser, an author and editor of YA fiction and nonfiction. Keyser recently wrapped up a book tour with fellow YA author and newly-crowned National Book Award long list author Elana K. Arnold. This is the story of what happened when they dared to talk about their books which feature fierce, honest depictions of teen girls and why those stories matter so much.

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Elana K. Arnold and I write angry, uncomfortable, sexual books about teenage girls. We’ve been asked, “When we are going to write a real book?” which means when will we write for adult readers. We’ve been asked, “Why do you mention unsavory
things?” which means menstruation and female masturbation.

And yet Elana and I keep writing “those damn feminist books.”

Recently we toured together to promote What Girls Are Made Of, which was recently long-listed for the National Book Award, and Pointe, Claw. We connected through our shared editor, Alix Reid at Carolrhoda Lab, who describes working on these books like this:

Although entirely different in content, the themes of each book touched on one another and made me ever more aware of how important it is to speak UP and speak OUT about ways in which girls are put in boxes, are silenced, and are made to feel less than.

We asked some of the smartest women working in YA today to join us, and in every city, we engaged with audience members on the importance of feminist literature for young adults and on the way books can be a form of resistance. Stephanie Kuehn,
author of When I Am Through With You, joined us at A Great Good Place for Books in Oakland, and she said this:

One thing that I loved that came up at our discussion was this idea of how, as an adult, having had a childhood defined by feeling alienated or on the fringes of society can leave you without a sense of responsibility for activism and change. But the political atmosphere we are currently living in has made it abundantly clear that it is our responsibility to try and bring about positive change. And continuing to hold onto that outsider identity we may have felt as adolescents and using it as an excuse not to not take ownership of the world we live in, is often an expression of privilege. If we have the means, it’s
our duty to fight for human rights.

Our conversation at Secret Garden Bookshop in Seattle with Martha Brockenbrough, author of Alexander Hamilton, Revolutionary, also turned to the relevance of these books in today’s political climate. She said:

This tour felt like a relief after the bizarre and punishing post-inaugural season. Intelligence, ferocity, and provocative art are what women and girls especially need.

During one of our stops in the Bay Area, a man interrupted. Elana had just finished reading a scene from What Girls Are Made Of in which the main character, Nina, is getting a pap smear. It’s explicit, detailed and clinical. Familiar territory for women, but deeply uncomfortable for this guy.

“Why,” he asked, leaning back in his chair, “would a fifty-year- old man want to read a book about a sixteen-year- old girl?”

I stiffened. There was an audible gasp from several people in the audience. Before I could respond, Elana’s arm swept toward me the way a mother driving a car will slam on the brakes and try to hold her daughter back from impact.

“I’ve got this,” Elana said. To the man in the audience, she said, “Let me ask you, why do we expect sixteen-year- old girls to read books about fifty-year- old men?”

This was the crux of our feminist book tour. No one asks why a girl should care about Holden Caulfield, Captain Ahab, or Hamlet.

The man doubled down and said, “If someone knew I was reading about a girl getting an exam, they’d call me a pedophile.”

This guy was every obstacle that we were writing about. He took the experience of a teenage girl in a doctor’s office and made it sexual. He made her, and us as the authors of these books, consumable.

After we had finished signing, he was one of the last to go. He came up to the table and held a twenty-dollar bill above our books. “I’ll buy the one if falls on,” he said, before releasing the bill, the way he might have dropped it on a stage before a
couple of erotic dancers.

The money drifted down to rest on What Girls Are Made Of.
He slid the twenty to Elana and picked up the book. “I won’t read it,” he said. “I’ll give it to a woman I know.”

And this is why Elana and I write the books we do.

We believe that stories about teenage girls matter deeply, and they should matter to all of readers, regardless of gender. The experiences of young women are rich and compelling in their own right—not simply as ingredients added to stories about men and boys. And in this time of political upheaval, we believe that young women, especially young women of color, are the ones we need leading us into the future.

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Wow. I love this story and love how it highlights just why we keep talking about the importance of girls and their stories.

Thanks for hanging out this week, and we’ll see you again next week right here. We’ll talk YA backlist for Hispanic Heritage Month and get your TBR toppling over.

–Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars

 

PS: I’ll talk more about the brand new YA podcast launching this week in the next newsletter, but for now, make sure you check out Get Recommended, our other newly-launched podcast featuring interesting people recommending interesting books. Tune in here!

Hey YA Fans!

This week’s edition of “What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by Nothing by Annie Barrows from Epic Reads.

#1 New York Times bestselling author Annie Barrows’s teen debut tells the story of Charlotte and Frankie, two high school students and best friends whose lives are nothing like the lives of the girls they read about in their YA novels. But when Charlotte decides to write down everything that happens during their sophomore year, to prove that nothing happens in real life, she’s surprised to find that being fifteen isn’t as boring as she thought. It’s weird, heartbreaking, silly, and complicated. This funny flip on archetypal YA is a great read for fans of Becky Albertalli and Louise Rennison

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It’s really hard for me to believe, but the leaves are starting to change here in ye old upper midwest. As the trees begin their beautiful transformations, it seems only right to use today’s newsletter to catch up on what we’ve been talking about in the YA world at Book Riot this last month.

• Did you see the news about a Sweet Valley High movie? Now you have.
• Excellent Harry Potter enamel pins worth shelling out your Sickles for.
• Reviews of some historical YA fiction and which titles are worth your dollars, your library borrow, or skipping all together.
• YA novels that actually earn their comps to Veronica Mars (see my TBR growing longer!).
• When you’ve finished your Veronica Mars read alikes, how about some Nancy Drew read alikes?
• On pioneering YA writer Robin McKinley.
• A big ole round-up of nonfiction YA titles highlighting social justice.
• How one badass school librarian gets teens into his library.
• 100 must-read inclusive SFF YA books. #SorryNotSorry about your TBR.
• By reader request: YA soccer books.
• YA books titles that will ruin your day. (If you click that, you’ll know that’s a big JK).
• Instead of more Twilight films, how about about adapting these rad books?
• A look at the talk of the Flame Con event in NYC last month, with a special exploration of queer YA.
• Great YA books for your adult book club discussion.
• Mythology-inspired YA books you’ll want to pick up.
• The most banana-pants story you’ll read about a fake New York Times bestseller, YA Twitter, Blues Traveler, N*Sync, and more. Really.
• Leigh Bardugo talks about writing a Wonder Woman YA novel.
• Excellent bookish gifts for YA lovers.
• One reader on how Megan Whalen Turner’s “The Queen’s Thief” series rekindled her love of YA fantasy.

Snap up some cheap YA reads…

These ebooks are super cheap and you’re going to want to drop your pennies on them. If the ebook doesn’t pop up with the link, you can simply toggle over.

Walk on Earth a Stranger by Rae Carson is the first book in a series which will end soon, so no better time to jump in, especially for $1.99.

Adam Silvera’s History is All You Left Me is more than worth this $1.99 price point. A moving, aching story. One of my favorite reads from this year.

Shallow Graves by Kali Wallace is pitched as being great for fans of Holly Black and Nova Ren Suma and looks like the deliciously creepy type of read perfect for this time of year. Pick it up for $1.99.

 

Thanks for hanging out. Next week’s newsletter will be written by colleague and YA experthusiast Eric Smith (expert + enthusiast extraordinaire!). The following week we’ll highlight backlist Hispanic YA authors in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month. September is shaping up to be a great one!

–Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars

Currently reading Vincent and Theo by Deborah Hopkinson

 

 

Hey YA Readers!

This week’s edition of “What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by Body Parts by Jessica Kapp, from Diversion Books.

While kids wait for their ideal adoptive parents at an elite foster center, they believe their trainers’ refrain, that being in top physical condition will lead to their being matched with the perfect forever family. But Tabitha learns the terrifying reality when she’s told she’s been paired with a family, but wakes immobile in a hospital bed, about to be sliced open to have her organs harvested. Rescued by a group of renegade teens, we follow Jessica and her friends through their race to uncover the secrets of the center and the shocking truths behind the foster program.

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As August — and summer — roll to a close, let’s catch up on the latest in YA news from the last month or so.

Let’s start with a host of adaptation news first:

• Nick Jonas is hopping on board the adaptation of Chaos Walking.
• Check out the incredible casting news for Dumplin’. Also? I love that it’s being described as a comedy, which gives me a lot of hope that it’ll be a really fabulous adaptation.
• Common is joining the adaptation of The Hate U Give.
• Lauren Kate’s Fallen hit theaters overseas already, but there’s now been a date set for its US debut. It’s not that far away.
• And news about a CW adaptation of Lesley Livingston’s The Valiant.
• How about Ridley Scott being attached to a YA project for Amazon? I’ve seen The Beast Is An Animal floating around but haven’t picked it up yet.
• Can’t say that Twilight nor Hunger Games theme parks are high on my must-see places, and yet, they’re going to exist.
• Here’s a really great piece about the sorts of hard-hitting, timely, realistic YA that’s being picked up for adaptation and what that might say about the future of YA and YA on the big/small screen.

For some non-adaptation related YA links of note. Seems like the big news at this time of the year is always centered around adaptations, as the summer season is slow in the publishing world:

• Jen Lancaster, who might be best known for her adult memoirs, has a YA novel hitting shelves this fall.
• An excellent round-up of 42 diverse YA titles all libraries should have. This would be a wonderful reading list, for sure.
• The sneak peek of the graphic novel take on Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak is making me so excited.
• The New York Times rounds up some recent and forthcoming children’s and YA books about Muslim refugees.
• I love a book list from outside the US, since it can often highlight titles that wouldn’t see much attention in the states. This one from the Toronto Star has some good-sounding YA picks for the fall (I’ve read the Reed book and it’s *fire emoji here*).
• And let’s round this out with a look at some excellent YA reads for those who are politically engaged.

Great Ebook deals for you this week…

As always, you might need to toggle over to the Kindle edition from these links.

Jenna Evans Welch’s debut Love & Gelato is $1.99. A summer road trip across Tuscany? Sounds like an excellent read for the dwindling days of beach season.

If you’e looking for something a little heavier, Patty Blount’s Some Boys is $1.25 and explores rape culture.

Genius: The Game by Leopoldo Gout is $2.99. I haven’t read this, but know the sequel just came out, so you could start the series on the cheap.

Thanks for hanging out & we’ll see you again here next week.

-Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars

 

PS: There should be some exciting news coming soon about, oh, Book Riot and YA and a project that’ll be underway in less than a month. Get excited!

Hey YA Readers!

What’s Up in YA? is sponsored by In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan

Elliot is smart, just a tiny bit obnoxious (he is thirteen years old), and perhaps not the best person to cross into the Borderlands where there are elves, harpies, and — best of all as far as he’s concerned — mermaids. In Other Lands is an exhilarating a novel about surviving four years in the most unusual of schools, about friendship, falling in love, diplomacy, and finding your own place in the world — even if it means giving up your phone.

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Happy Eclipse Day to those who are able to see this once-in-a-lifetime-but-maybe-twice-in-OUR-lifetime-because-it’ll-happen-again-in-2024 event. Your newsletter scribe is in southern Illinois at a massive party for the occasion.

Last week’s newsletter teased the topic of microtrends. What is a microtrend? Unlike a full-scale trend — think something like the rise in dystopia following The Hunger Games or the mermaid reads trend from years gone by — a microtrend is something that’s not a huge trend but a series of common threads that run among a number of books in any given time. They’re almost like weird coincidences, odd little moments of “huh” that arise when you see book descriptions or read a number of books in a row that all feature a specific thing within them.

Microtrends are fun to look at and think about, particularly because it’s impossible to ever predict what they might be. It takes looking at tons and tons of books to see the commonalities because the things they have in common aren’t necessarily the sorts of things you’d think would have a surge around them.

Let’s take a peek at some of the interesting microtrends that have and continue to emerge in YA lit over the last year. Since not all of the book descriptions highlight the microtrend, I left them off; you can click the links to see them. 

 

Hurricane Katrina

This particular microtrend is interesting in part because it’s been a couple of years since the big anniversary of the storm, so seeing it appear more than once since stands out.

Between Two Skies by Joanne O’Sullivan

Drowned City: Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans by Don Brown

Ramona Blue by Julie Murphy

 

 

Superstorm Sandy

This one makes some more sense to me, as the giant superstorm is coming up on its fifth anniversary.

A Hundred Hours of Night by Anna Woltz

The Summer After You and Me by Jennifer Salvato Doktorski

 

Drug Cartels in Mexico

There’s actually a pretty sizable trend relating to books set in Mexico or along the border this year, but this specific trend is worth noting. These are all books that explore some aspect of the dangerous drug cartels throughout various parts of the country.

Disappeared by Francisco X Stork (September 26)

Juan Pablo and The Butterflies by JJ Flowers

Saint Death by Marcus Sedgwick

 

Compared to Thelma and Louise

Do you pay attention to the comps books get? I do, if only because I’m curious what the flavor of the season is when it comes to them. This year? We’re seeing quite a bit of Thelma and Louise read alikes. I’m not sure how much of a comp this is for teens; it feels like one meant more for adults and those who serve teen readers.

Done Dirt Cheap by Sarah Nicole Lemon

Looking for Group by Rory Harrison

 

Alien Contact

I teased this in a “3 on a YA theme” post earlier this summer. Aliens have always been around in YA lit, but it seems we’re seeing an influx of alien-human encounter titles this year.

Of Jenny and The Aliens by Ryan Gebhart (this cover makes knowing the title near impossible, doesn’t it?)

Landscape With Invisible Hand by MT Anderson (September 12)

What Goes Up by Kate Kennedy

 

Their Fathers Are Shop Owners

This was a commonality between two books I read nearly back-to-back and it’s one that I really love. Both of the girls in these stories have fathers who own stores. . . and those stores and their fathers happen to play good-sized roles in the story.

The Education of Margot Sanchez by Lilliam Rivera 

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Fan Cons

There are a boatload of books about fandom, about fan fiction, about geekery, and more. They’ve been having a moment for a few years now. More recently, though, it’s been the fan convention as backdrop to stories about teen geeks and nerds.

Don’t Cosplay With My Heart by Cecil Castellucci (January 2)

Geekerella by Ashley Poston

The Geek’s Guide to Unrequited Love by Sarvenaz Tash

The Pros of Cons by Alison Cherry, Lindsay Ribar, and Michelle Schusterman (March 27)

Queens of Geek by Jen Wilde

 

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Score Sweet Cheap YA Reads!

If you want a few good reads for few dollars, you might be interested in these.

13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson ($1.99) is a long-standing YA classic.

Suicide Notes from Beautiful Girls by Lynn Weingarten ($1.99) will scratch your itch for a solid thriller.

Tell The Wind and Fire by Sarah Rees Brennan ($1.99) is about magic, romance, and revolution.

 

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Thanks for hanging out this week. We’ll see you again next Monday.

–Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars

Currently reading When I Am Through With You by Stephanie Kuehn.

 

Hey YA readers!

This week’s edition of “What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by PageHabit — use code “RIOT” for 10% off your first box. 

PageHabit is offers a monthly YA book box curated and annotated by authors for the most diehard bookworms. Each box comes with an exclusive, author-annotated new release, a written letter from the author, a bonus short story, fun bookish goods and membership into an active online book community of over 18,000 members. For every box purchased, PageHabit makes a donation to support children’s literacy around the world, so you can read well and do good. Readers can choose from seven genres including Young Adult, Romance, Fantasy, Horror and more. Get 10% off your first box with code “RIOT”.

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Let’s take this lazy, hazy mid-late summer day to catch up on the latest YA talk from Book Riot over the last month. Grab your TBR or pop open your favorite bookish app and get ready to scribble down a ton of titles you’ll want to read.

• A request for YA books about soccer led to a round-up of all things YA soccer books.
• Dig into these 100 must-read inclusive science fiction and fantasy YA reads.
• Time for a little social justice in YA lit, with some nonfiction reads as well as some fiction titles.
• Robin McKinley: an ode to a pioneer of YA lit.
• Historical YA fiction gets the Buy, Borrow, Bypass treatment. Which of these titles are worth your time and which should you leave on the shelf?
• Some of the Book Rioters are enjoying a read along of Tamora Pierce’s Tortall series. Here’s one of the posts to go along with the read along, which links back to the starting post for anyone itching to take part.
• How being a parent led one reader to YA books.
• Chances are if you like Meg Cabot, you’ll also like Jenny Carroll. Or if you like Eva Darrows, you might like Hillary Monahan. Because they’re the same people.
• Yes! Here for as much info as possible about the adaptation of Jenny Han’s To All The Boys. 
• I love this round-up of books for readers in that odd “in-between” stage of middle grade and YA. This is actually something worth thinking about more broadly and, perhaps, digging into in a future newsletter. Why is that 12-14 age group so underserved? Or is it that they have so many options because they fall between middle grad and YA reading that it can be hard to find that right segment of books for them?
• If you love Sansa Stark, then these books should be up your alley.
• Lift your spirits with these YA rom coms.
• A huge and awesome round-up of Asian American protagonists in YA lit.
• Amazon let me have at some of their data (!) and from it, I pulled together a list of the most popular books in each state and US territory that was published last year. It was kind of surprising to see what came out on top again and again and again.
• 5 contemporary Jane Austen YA retellings.
• And finally, a guest post on the topic of political resistance in teen lit.

 

Want a good YA book deal? I dug through Kindle’s monthly deals to find a few worth picking up.

Note that you may need to toggle your format to “ebook” when you click the links below.

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo is a whopping $1.99.

Georgia Peaches and Other Forbidden Fruit by Jaye Robin Brown is $1.99. This has had so many tremendous positive reviews that if it weren’t already sitting on my shelf, I’d one click so fast.

Entwined by Heather Dixon is $1.99 and a retelling of “Twelve Dancing Princesses.”

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Thanks for hanging out and we’ll see you again next week. Perhaps we’ll even talk about one of my favorite things: microtrends. AKA, the weird coincidences that keep popping up in books that aren’t enough to constitute a full-on trend but that are too odd not to talk about.

 

–Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars

currently reading The Nowhere Girls by Amy Reed and just finished (and adored!) Like Water by Rebecca Podos.

 

 

We’ve got something special this week, YA lovers!

This week’s “What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by Textrovert by Lindsey Summers from KCP Loft. 

It’s bad enough when high-school senior Keeley mistakenly swaps cell phones with a stranger. It’s even worse when the stranger turns out to be an obnoxious boy named Talon … who’s just left for football camp with her phone. Reluctantly, the two agree to forward messages for a week. As Keeley gets to know Talon through their texts, she finds out he’s more than just an egocentric jock. In fact, the two fall for each other, hard. But Talon has been keeping a secret. One that makes their relationship all but impossible. Will Keeley ever be able to trust him?

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I’m really excited to share a guest post for this week’s newsletter. Knowing how wildly popular the recent crop of Star Wars YA novels has been, I had an idea it was something worth talking about with some more depth.

This week’s newsletter is a guest post from author Beth Revis. You might know her from her books Across the Universe (her first trilogy), A World Without You, and the recent Star Wars: Rebel Rising.

Beth Revis is a NY Times bestselling author with books available in more than 20 languages. Her latest title, Star Wars: Rebel Rising, tells the story of Jyn Erso before the movie Rogue One takes place. A World Without You is a semi-autobiographical story blending the supernatural with mental illness. Beth is also the author of the Across the Universe series, The Body Electric, numerous short stories, and the nonfiction Paper Hearts series, which aids aspiring writers. A native of North Carolina, Beth is currently working on a new novel for teens. She lives in rural NC with her boys: one husband, one small son, and two massive dogs.

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I was not expecting a call from my agent that day. I was in a bit of a downtime in terms of projects—one thing turned in, another thing too new to turn in—so when her name flashed up on my iPhone, I had no idea what it was about.

It was about Star Wars.

I still remember the way my heart started pounding, a tight thrumming of excitement. Before she could even finish telling me about the project Star Wars was pitching me, I was saying yes. I didn’t care about any of the details: I wanted in.

I honestly had no idea what to expect, but within about a week of initially hearing about the offer, I was on a plane to San Francisco, where I and other authors who were writing works linked to Rogue One would find out details about the movie and start the process of writing. It was incredibly fast timing, but I was so eager to dive in, all I could think about was how grateful I was that I could start immediately.

I was given directions to the offices, nestled in the Presidio National Park of San Francisco, and told to look out for the Yoda Fountain—which, frankly, “turn left at Yoda” is so serendipitously awesome that I still can’t get over how cool even directions to this dream job was. My eyes drank in everything—the lobby with Boba Fett and Darth Vader costumes on display, the halls lined with movie posters from around the world throughout history, the alcoves with shining display cases that highlighted the Holy Grail of Indiana Jones’s fame alongside awards and knickknacks, the windows that all seemed to perfectly frame the Golden Gate Bridge.

The very first thing I and the other authors did was read the script for Rogue One. This project was for Star Wars, so I knew it was going to be special. But I cannot describe the moment when I read the end (that ending!) to the movie. I could picture Scarif so vividly, and as the final moments for the main characters ticked down, I kept thinking, Will they do it? Will that actually happen? It was so beautiful and perfect for that story—and for me. Rogue One is the kind of Star Wars story that I love not just because it’s Star Wars, but because it has everything in a story that I adore. Complex characters who aren’t black-and-white, conflicting goals even among friends, and a jaw-droppingly perfect ending to a story I never saw coming.

My novel—Rebel Rising—gives the background of the main character, Jyn Erso, from the moment she’s orphaned as a child to when the movie starts with her as a young woman in an Imperial prison.  From the moment I read the script, I knew I had to do whatever it took to showcase this character to the best of my abilities. I threw myself into the project, writing quicker than I’d ever written before, but also reading, reading, reading. I was able to get my hands on early copies of other novels coming that dealt with Jyn or her time period. And I scoured the comics and novels that had already been published, looking for details that I could add to my story to make it more real.

Weirdly, in many ways, writing Rebel Rising was similar to writing a historical biography—except it’s fiction and takes place in the future (or at least in a galaxy far, far away). The details I researched are the same sort of details I’d research for history. People are people, across time and space, but how they do things, the tools they use, the histories they react to—that’s what changes, and that’s what I had to research. And, like in a biography, the character’s life was already established. There are books that are set before my own—most notably Catalyst—that already defined some of her past. And the movie itself encompassed what happened to Jyn after. So while I had total freedom to do with her what I wanted, there was a definite Point A where she started and a Point B where I had to get her.

Some people ask me about the work that goes into this sort of novel, but to me, it never felt like work. In the same way I’d research NASA or Russian cosmonaut articles while writing the Across the Universe trilogy, I’d throw myself at Star Wars comics and novels and shows. It was never work because it was always fun and interesting.

For example, I’d seen The Clone Wars cartoon when it was released when I was in high school. But I rewatched it in anticipation of Rebel Rising, paying close attention to Saw Gerrera. While my novel was about Jyn, she spends a significant part of her life with this veteran of the Clone Wars. He had such a lasting impact in the show, but relatively few episodes focused on him. When I watched it the first time as a kid, I didn’t spend hours scrutinizing his face, parsing out everything he said, considering what happened to him after. His appearance in that show and the way he became in Rogue One forced me to be a detective, following the tiny breadcrumb trails to figure out not just who he was, but why he was.

This is exactly the kind of thing I love about writing—any writing, not just in Star Wars. Digging deep into the characters, discovering their stories that shaped their lives…that’s the kind of thing I love to write about and read about and watch in the theater.

As I said before, this was definitely a dream job. Star Wars was one of the major constants of my childhood, a rare movie that my brother and I could agree on, and a story that, to this day, fills me with wonder. Being able to be a part of that galaxy, even a small one, is an honor I will never forget. I couldn’t have been prouder than if Princess Leia herself had placed a medal around my neck on Yavin 4.

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Thanks for hanging out, YA Riot fans, and we’ll see you next Monday.

–Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars

Hey YA Friends!

This week’s “What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by Sovereign by April Daniels, from Diversion Books.

Pick up Sovereign, the highly anticipated sequel to Dreadnought, featuring “the most exciting new superheroes in decades.” (Kirkus, starred review).  

Danielle Tozer is a scarred but enthusiastic veteran cape protecting the city of New Port all on her own.  When she crosses a new supervillain with unexpected methods to destroy capes like her, she’ll be forced to confront parts of herself she never wanted to acknowledge.

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July has been a long, hot, and very wet month in my part of the world. But despite the feeling of a never-ending month, it has been peppered with some great YA news. Let’s take this week to catch up on the haps around the YA world.

• “A game I like to play is to find any story with a male lead, flip the genders, and try to pitch it to friends. 9/10 times they’ll say that it’s unbelievable or that the “main female character” would never act like that. I mean. Just imagine a genderswapped Wolf of Wall Street or The Great Gatsby (Both with men that we wouldn’t necessarily call “heroes” but we would certainly call protagonists). As awesome as I think both of those would be, I do have to say, they probably wouldn’t be smash hits.” I love this interview with author and creator of Brooding YA Hero Carrie DiRisio on YA tropes and why we should take the category more seriously. If you’ve never played this swap-the-genders game on YA titles, give it a shot.
• This book looks amazing, got a great advance, will see tons of publicity, and I really, really hope it’s outstanding.
• Rainbow Rowell on writing The Runaways.
• I was never super into Sweet Valley High as a young reader, but I know so many people in my generation (and before!) loved the series. Here are 14 things you may not have known about the books.
• A Spanish-influenced fantasy duology from Zoraida Cordova? Sign me up.
• “From the very beginning. She’s one of the few characters who came to me fully formed, from her appearance to personality to sexual identity. And that initial inspiration didn’t change throughout my drafting [process]. Tash’s character remained implacably true to herself — which was so very like her. Tash’s asexuality didn’t come out of a vacuum, either. Throughout high school, I wasn’t interested in sex, and that was an oftentimes isolating experience — especially when there were no popular books or television shows that normalized the way I felt. Though I don’t personally identify like Tash does, I needed a story like hers when I was a teen, and I think there are teen readers who need her story now.” A nice interview with author Kathryn Ormsbee on her latest book and the asexual lead character of the story.
• Chaos Walking has a star cast attached to the adaptation…and a release date of March 2019.
• “The purpose of young-adult fiction is “not to teach,” she said. “It’s to show you you’re not alone.”” And even more than that, the purpose is to tell a story, however the story is meant to be told. But yes, all of the yes, to this article about whether or not YA has an obligation to teach lessons. I think there’s a whole dissertation’s worth of thought to give to pieces like this and the pieces we see about how adults are the largest consumers of YA lit.
• A thought-provoking piece about what YA characters of color are not allowed to do in YA lit.
• “Essentially, I wrote the book I needed when I was young: about a complex girl of color with goals and dreams. The publishing industry has really caught on in recent years that, one, we read and, two, we buy things. When I was trying to get this book published, people were like, “Why don’t you try a small indie press?” Absolutely not. I insist that we become part of the big mainstream American publishing houses.” Another solid interview to share, this time with debut author Erika L. Sanchez. If you haven’t put her forthcoming book I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter on your TBR for the fall, this should convince you.
• There’s a TV adaptation of The Raven Boys underway. 
• I could not be more excited by the news that we’re getting an adaptation of To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before and that it’ll feature Asian leads. And a little more about who’ll be in the adaptation.
• Peep the cover for Marie Lu’s Batman YA novel.
• We’re getting 3 RL Stine Fear Street films.
• Ruta Sepetys won the Carnegie — an incredibly high honor for children’s literature — for her recent YA Salt To The Sea.
• And finally, since I don’t have television, I didn’t get a chance to watch this one, but if you have Lifetime, keep your eyes peeled for reruns of the adaptation of Sara Zarr’s The Story of a Girl. It’s an excellent example of a YA book that was cutting edge in terms of topic 10 years ago that still holds up.

 

Thanks for hanging out this week. We’ll be back in your inbox next Monday, with a guest newsletter writer who (!) you (!) will (!) be (!) so (!) excited (!) to (!) hear (!) from (!). Think: fandom, YA books, science fiction, and more.

— Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars

Heyyyy YA Readers!

This week’s edition of “What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by Annotated.

Annotated, presented by Hachette Book Group, is Book Riot’s new audio documentary series about books, reading, and language. Check out the latest episode, “Why Aren’t Bookstores Extinct?”: In 1995, there were more than 7000 independent bookstores in the U.S. By 2008, there were just over 1400. Everyone was proclaiming the death of bookstores, and independent bookstores. But then something strange happened. Over the last nine years, the number of indie bookstores has risen 64%. This episode of Annotated looks at how independent bookstores first survived, then figured out how to thrive, in the age of Amazon.

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I mentioned in last week’s newsletter that I wanted to do more with YA backlist titles. A number of readers emailed with some of their favorite titles — many of which, I think, are fairly well-known, either because of the awards they’ve won or because they had strong sales. That doesn’t mean they’re not worth talking about, of course, but I’m hoping we can go even deeper, into those small gems that maybe were overlooked at the time of their publication and yet still resonate today. Or, perhaps, they resonate even more today than they did upon original release.

Let’s start with something that doesn’t get the attention it deserves: black authors of YA fiction from the backlist. While we’ve been seeing more titles by black authors earning much-deserved accolades lately — including The Hate U Give still sitting on the New York Times Bestsellers list (as it should) and books like March earning huge YA prizes and honors — there is a back list of black YA authors more than worth digging into. Some of these will be obvious ones, while others might be new titles to many readers.

And that is part of the fun.

Some of the authors here have published far and wide and will have more than the title list as one worth picking up. Others have maybe only published one YA novel among other books or have only published one single novel in their careers. Still other authors here are publishing still, meaning you might find something by them on your local new releases shelf.

Backlist, if you’re curious, is defined as books that hit shelves a year or more ago. But for me personally, I find backlist to be something that goes even further back. All of the titles listed below were published five or more years ago. So without further ado, let’s get our black authors of backlist reading on.

 

The Death of Jayson Porter by Jaime Adoff

Sixteen-year-old Jayson Porter wants to believe things will get better. But the harsh realities of his life never seem to change. Living in the inland-Florida projects with his abusive mother, he tries unsuccessfully to fit in at his predominately white school, while struggling to maintain even a thread of a relationship with his drug-addicted father. As the pressure mounts, there’s only one thing Jayson feels he has control over—the choice of whether to live or die.

 

Tyrell (series) by Coe Booth

Tyrell is a young, African American teen who can’t get a break. He’s living (for now) with his spaced-out mother and little brother in a homeless shelter. His father’s in jail. His girlfriend supports him, but he doesn’t feel good enough for her – and seems to be always on the verge of doing the wrong thing around her. There’s another girl at the homeless shelter who is also after him, although the desires there are complicated. Tyrell feels he needs to score some money to make things better. Will he end up following in his father’s footsteps?

 

So Not The Drama (series) by Paula Chase

In exactly one hour, eighteen minutes, and thirty-five seconds, Mina Mooney will be dipping her pink Nellie timbs into the infamous frosh pit. . .

Hoping Del Rio Bay High will live up to her greatest expectations, Mina has big plans for infiltrating the school’s social glitterati. After all, she’s been mad popular for as long as she can remember–and she isn’t about to go from Middle School Royalty to High School Ambiguity. But Del Rio Bay is a big school, so it’ll take some plotting to avoid getting lost in the crowd. Good thing she isn’t afraid of a little hard work and that her playground peeps–Lizzie, Michael, and JZ–have got her back.

But it isn’t long before Mina’s big plans for securing her social status take a back seat to some drama that was so not expected. Lizzie’s scored an invite from the beautiful people that Mina can only dream about, and not only is Michael tripping about being back in school, but now he’s beefing with JZ. Worst of all, Mina’s sociology class experiment to rid the world–or at least Del Rio Bay High–of prejudice is about to backfire. . .because it might just mean she’ll have to rid herself of her very best friend.

Bucking The Sarge by Christopher Paul Curtis

Luther T. Farrell has got to get out of Flint, Michigan.

As his best friend Sparky says, “Flint’s nothing but the Titanic.”

And his mother, a.k.a. the Sarge, says, “Take my advice and stay off the sucker path.”

The Sarge milked the system to build an empire of slum housing and group homes. Luther’s just one of the many people trapped in the Sarge’s Evil Empire—but he’s about to bust out.

If Luther wins the science fair this year, he’ll be on track for college and a future as America’s best-known and best-loved philosopher. All he’s got to do is beat his arch rival Shayla Patrick, the beautiful daughter of Flint’s finest undertaker—and the love of Luther’s life.

Sparky’s escape plans involve a pit bull named Poofy and the world’s scariest rat. Oh, and Luther. Add to the mix Chester X., Luther’s mysterious roommate; Dontay Gaddy, a lawyer whose phone number is 1-800-SUE’M ALL; and Darnell Dixon, the Sarge’s go-to guy who knows how to break all the rules.

 

A La Carte by Tanita S. Davis

SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD LAINEY DREAMS of becoming a world famous chef one day and maybe even having her own cooking show. (Do you know how many African American female chefs there aren’t? And how many vegetarian chefs have their own shows? The field is wide open for stardom!) But when her best friend—and secret crush—suddenly leaves town, Lainey finds herself alone in the kitchen. With a little help from Saint Julia (Child, of course), Lainey finds solace in her cooking as she comes to terms with the past and begins a new recipe for the future.

Peppered with recipes from Lainey’s notebooks, this delicious debut novel finishes the same way one feels finishing a good meal—satiated, content, and hopeful.

The Skin I’m In by Sharon Flake

Miss Saunders, whose skin is blotched with a rare skin condition, serves as a mirror to Maleeka Madison’s struggle against the burden of low self-esteem that many black girls face when they’re darker skinned. Miss Saunders is tough and through this, Maleeka learns to stand up to tough-talking Charlese.

 

Heaven (series) by Angela Johnson

Marley has lived in Heaven since she was two years old, when her mother found a postcard postmarked HEAVEN, OH on a park bench and decided that was where she wanted to raise her family.

And for twelve years, Marley’s hometown has lived up to its name. She lives in a house by the river, has loving parents, a funny younger brother, good friends, and receives frequent letters from her mysterious Uncle Jack. Then one day a letter arrives form Alabama, and Marley’s life is turned upside down. Marley doesn’t even know who she is anymore — but where can she go for answers, when she’s been deceived by the very people she should be able to trust the most?

 

His Own Where by June Jordan

Nominated for a National Book Award in 1971, His Own Where is the story of Buddy, a fifteen-year-old boy whose world is spinning out of control. He meets Angela, whose angry parents accuse her of being “wild.” When life falls apart for Buddy and his father, and when Angela is attacked at home, they take action to create their own way of staying alive in Brooklyn. In the process, the two find refuge in one another and learn that love is real and necessary. His Own Where was one of The New York Times‘ Most Outstanding Books and was on the American Library Association’s list of Best Books in 1971.

 

A Friendship for Today by Patricia McKissack

The year is 1954, the place is Missouri, and twelve-year-old Rosemary Patterson is about to make history. She is one of the first African American students to enter the white school in her town. Headstrong, smart Rosemary welcomes the challenge, but starting this new school gets more daunting when her best friend is hospitalized for polio. Suddenly, Rosemary must face all the stares and whispers alone. But when the girl who has shown her the most cruelty becomes an unlikely confidante, Rosemary learns important truths about the power of friendship to overcome prejudice.

 

47 by Walter Mosley

The story you are about to read concerns certain events that occurred in the early days of my life. It all happened over a hundred and seventy years ago. For many of you it might sound like a tall tale because I am no older today than I was back in the year 1832. But this is no whopper I’m telling; it is a story about my boyhood as a slave and my fated encounter with the amazing Tall John from beyond Africa, who could read dreams, fly between galaxies, and make friends with any animal no matter how wild.

In his first book for young adults, bestselling author Walter Mosley weaves historical and speculative fiction into a powerful narrative about the nature of freedom. 47 is a young slave boy living under the watchful eye of a brutal slave master. His life seems doomed until he meets a mysterious runaway slave, Tall John. 47 soon finds himself swept up in an otherworldly battle and a personal struggle for his own liberation.

 

Slam by Walter Dean Myers

Seventeen-year-old Greg “Slam” Harris can do it all on the basketball court. He’s seen ballplayers come and go, and he knows he could be one of the lucky ones. Maybe he’ll make it to the top. Or maybe he’ll stumble along the way. Slam’s grades aren’t that hot. And when his teachers jam his troubles in his face, he blows up.

Slam never doubted himself on the court until he found himself going one-on-one with his own future, and he didn’t have the ball.

 

The Kayla Chronicles by Sherri Winston

Kayla Dean, junior feminist and future journalist, is about the break the story of a lifetime. She is auditioning for the Lady Lions dance team to prove they discriminate against the not-so-well endowed. But when she makes the team, her best friend and fellow feminist, Rosalie, is not happy.

Now a Lady Lion, Kayla is transformed from bushy-haired fashion victim to glammed-up dance diva. But does looking good and having fun mean turning her back on the cause? Can you be a strong woman and still wear really cute shoes? Soon Kayla is forced to challenge her views, coming to terms with who she is and what girl power really means.

Narrated with sharp language and just the right amount of attitude, The Kayla Chronicles is the story of a girl’s struggle for self-identity despite pressure from family, friends and her own conscience. Kayla’s story is snappy, fun and inspiring, sure to appeal to anyone who’s every questioned who they really are.

 

Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson

“Hope is the thing with feathers,” starts the poem Frannie is reading in school. Frannie hasn’t thought much about hope. There are so many other things to think about. Each day, her friend Samantha seems a bit more holy.”There is a new boy in class everyone is calling the Jesus Boy. And although the new boy looks like a white kid, he says he’is not white. Who is he?

During a winter full of surprises, good and bad, Frannie starts seeing a lot of things in a new light:—her brother Sean’s deafness, her mother’s fear, the class bully’s anger, her best friend’s faith and her own desire for the thing with feathers.”

 

Sunday You Learn How To Box by Bil Wright

Fourteen-year-old Louis Bowman is in a boxing ring — a housing project circa 1968 — fighting “just to get to the end of the round.” Sharing the ring is his mother, Jeanette Stamps, a ferociously stubborn woman battling for her own dreams to be realized; his stepfather, Ben Stamps, the would-be savior, who becomes the sparring partner to them both; and the enigmatic Ray Anthony Robinson, the neighborhood “hoodlum,” in purple polyester pants, who sets young Louis’s heart spinning with the first stirrings of sexual longing. Bil Wright deftly evokes an unrelenting world with quirky humor and clear-eyed unsentimentality.

 

Want more black YA reading in your life, both of the front and back list varieties? I cannot recommend The Brown Bookshelf enough as a tremendous resource. You’ll also want to know Zetta Elliott’s blog, as she’s been a prolific advocate for authors of color, and many of her books would be great fits on this very list. 

 

Hope you’ve found a great read or several here, and we’ll see you back again next week!

–Kelly Jensen @veronikellymars

Welcome to Mid-July, YA Fans!

This week’s edition of “What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by Generation One by Pittacus Lore from Epic Reads.

The first book in a new I Am Number Four spin-off series! It’s been over a year since the invasion of Earth was thwarted. But now human teenagers have developed incredible powers of their own, known as Legacies. To help these incredible and potentially dangerous individuals, the Garde created an academy to train humans to control their powers and help mankind. But not everyone thinks that’s the best use of their talents. And the teens may need to use their Legacies sooner than they thought. The war may be over—but for the next generation, the battle has just begun!

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I don’t know about you all, but as much as I love summer, this is about the time things feel like they’re dragging a bit. One of the ways I seem to perk back up, though, is reading a lot of older YA titles. There’s something about picking up a great backlist title or two or three to really help those long, lazy days.

A goal of mine over the second half of this year is to do a little more talk of backlist YA in this space. As much as it’s exciting to highlight and feature new books, there’s power in also picking up an older book and discovering something great. For those who are newer to YA books, too, it’s a nice reminder that this category of books is at least 50 years old and has been full and vibrant through many periods of time, not just the present or due to a few Mega Blockbuster series or authors.

Which is to say, I’d love to hear what you as readers might find worthwhile. Do you want more booklists popping up here? More backlist bumps to new titles as they come up — in my mind, this might be noting that if you love Blair Thornburgh’s recently-released Who’s That Girl you’ll definitely want to pick up Robin Benway’s Audrey, Wait!  

Worth simply spotlighting recommended backlist reads from authors, writers, and other YA fans? If you have ideas or things you’d like to see as they relate to backlist YA — and I’m talking books more than a year old here, even beyond that since I see backlist as being more than a few years of a book being available — hit reply. I’ll keep a list and pull from it to put something special and engaging together as we journey through the world or YA. I want to keep this newsletter as useful to you, the readers, as possible, so your input and suggestions are part of how I do that.

And, of course, those backlist features, whatever they look like, will have a hearty dose of inclusive titles. I’ve also encouraged the cadre of Book Rioters who love YA to poke around a bit more and build some resources for talking about older, but still excellent, books.

That’s my sweet lead-in for this week’s newsletter, which is a round-up of what we’ve been writing on site and what you may have missed.

• Sun-themed YA titles for your solstice fun reading. Obviously, the solstice is past, but this one will do well again when the total solar eclipse happens next month.
• The longest YA books that you can read. In the event you need a huge book to read right now or in the future.
• We’ve got your teen photographers right here.
• And we’ve got some queer YA superheroes right here.
• YA books about aliens. Y’all, the microtrend of alien contact in YA this fall is real. Aliens have always been around, but it has usually been pretty patchy. This fall, though. Alien fun! All over!
• Did you read and love When Dimple Met Rishi? You’ll want to dig into these Bollywood films (I know what I’m putting on my rainy day/can’t read anymore to beat the summer blahs list!).
• 170 YA books hitting shelves over the next three months. Surely, there’s something of interest here.
• These 10 YA books will destroy you and you’ll love every. second. of. the. pain.
• Let’s talk about what YA books featuring reality TV are worth the cash, the stop to the library, or skipping.
• If you love Wonder Woman, here are 8 YA heroines you’ll also love.
• I always love reading these sorts of pieces because they give such insight into what teens are reading. The most frequently stolen books from my classroom.
• And let’s round this out with some YA memoirs that are totally worth your time. Nonfiction for YA readers keeps on getting better and better.

 

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

— Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars