Author: 4956wpczar

I Am Error

Happy end-of-May, YA fans!

This week’s “What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by We Are The Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson from Simon Pulse.

From the “author to watch” (Kirkus Reviews) of The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley comes a novel about a teenage boy who must decide whether the world is worth saving.

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Is it me or has it felt like May has been the never-ending month? Let’s take this US holiday for the opportunity to catch up on all of the YA happenings on Book Riot this last month.

• We’re putting a bird in the title of these YA books.
• While this round-up of non-traditional hero/heroines isn’t entirely YA, YA characters have some great representation here.
• YA Star Wars novelizations. Moderately related: did you know there’s a Runaways novelization coming?
• Priya sat down and talked with YA author Scott Westerfeld about his new comic The Spill Zone, as well as a bunch of other juicy topics.
• Did you see the cover reveal for Whitney Gardner’s sophomore novel, Chaotic Good? Because it’s [insert fire emoji].
• I love a good book list, and this look at YA books that explore gentrification is a *good* book list.
• Continuing with the theme of tough topics done well in YA, a few books that dig into sex trafficking.
• How could you not love a good rebel poet? Yash highlights a few of her favorite YA renegade poets.
• I do love YA sports novels, even for sports that aren’t necessarily my personal favorites. There’s something about the tension of athletics and adolescence that works really well for my reading tastes. Perhaps that’s why as soon as I finished A Season of Daring Greatly, about a girl who is the first draft pick to the major league for baseball, I needed to put together a list of books featuring girls who love playing baseball.
• And let’s end this month’s collection of links with a look at YA novels about first love.

Before signing off, let’s take a moment to dig into the past. A few links from Mays gone by at Book Riot with a YA focus.

• On sex, YA books, and hiding reading from my mom.
• Books you’ll ship . . . because they’re set on boats.
• On reading YA with a lisp and the power of representation.
• Ashlie talks about how she wishes she’d met these three fat YA heroines sooner.
• YA novels that owe their inspiration to Peter Pan.
• Looking for interracial queer YA romance? Gotcha covered.
• Have you read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and want more books kind of like it? Here’s a list of ‘em. Related: if you love this book, make sure Alexie’s memoir You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me, out next month, is on your radar. It’s not YA but does talk a lot about Alexie’s youth and experiences that shaped True Diary.
• Some humor and light: three subgenres of YA that should exist.

A couple of weeks ago, I asked at the very end of a newsletter for readers to share their dream politician-author pairing (in honor of the Bill Clinton-James Patterson novel). There were a few responses, but these two were probably my favorites. The first needs no explanation; the second explanation only makes the pairing even stronger.

• Harvey Milk & Bill Konigsberg.
• President Theodore Roosevelt hook up with Leigh Bardugo: President Roosevelt likes adventure.  His adventures in the Amazon and Africa are well known. According to his biographer, Theodore Roosevelt read countless number of books in one sitting.

Thanks for hanging this week, YA Rioters. We’ll see you again next Monday, when we’ll finally be able to sing the famed Carousel jingle.

— Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars, currently reading & loving Aftercare Instructions by Bonnie Pipkin

Hey Kid Lit Fans!

Welcome to the inaugural issue of The Kids Are All Right, Book Riot’s newsletter for all things kid’s books. I’m Karina Yan Glaser, Book Riot contributing editor and children’s book author and illustrator, and I am thrilled to be writing this weekly newsletter!

Each week we’ll be exploring some aspect of children’s books, plus exciting new titles that are coming out as well as backlist recommendations.

This week, I’d like to talk about children’s literature podcasts! I love listening to podcasts in the morning when I’m getting ready for the day (yay for my bluetooth waterproof shower speaker!) or when I’m cleaning or making dinner.

First up, the Books Between Podcast. This is hosted by Corrina Allen, a fifth grade teacher. She is deeply passionate about children’s books, and she explores interesting topics, like How the Newbery Awards Work and Common Classroom Library Mistakes (And How to Fix Them). She also gives some great middle grade book recommendations at the end of the podcast (which I always put on hold at my local library immediately!).

The Yarn is an excellent School and Library Journal podcast hosted by Colby Sharp, an elementary school teacher, and Travis Jonker, an elementary school librarian. Their podcasts are very author focused, with each show featuring a different author of a newly released book. One of my favorite episodes features Grace Lin and her editor (and best friend) Alvina Ling at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. It was such a touching, behind the scenes story about the dedication of her National Book Award finalist book When the Sea Turned to Silver (and yes, I cried when I listened to it). Another great episode features Jason Reynolds, author of As Brave as You and National Book Award finalist Ghost.

Middle grade author Jack Cheng has an excellent podcast called See You on the Bookshelf. He is the author of See You in the Cosmos, one of my favorite middle grade books that have come out this year. His weekly podcast focuses on the publishing process, from how a book gets acquired by an editor to how it ends up on the shelves on bookstores. There are great interviews with his editors, publicists, audiobook producer, and many more people involved in the publishing journey.

Another podcast I enjoy is the All The Wonders Podcast, hosted by Matthew Winner. Matthew is an elementary library media specialist in Ekridge, Maryland, and this podcast focuses mainly on interviews with esteemed writers such as Nikki Grimes (author of Garvey’s Choice), Raina Telgemeier (author of Ghosts and Smile), Marla Frazee (author of The Boss Baby and The Farmer and the Clown), and Grace Lin (author of Ling and Ting and Where the Mountain Meets the Moon trilogy). There are hundreds of interviews on the podcast, so it’s very likely your favorite children’s book author is interviewed there!

My final pick is the Publisher’s Weekly PW KidsCast, another interview-based podcast hosted by John Sellers, the children’s reviews editor at Publisher’s Weekly. Amazing authors have been interviewed on this podcast, including Ann M. Martin (author of The Baby-Sitter’s Club series and Missy Piggle-Wiggle and the Whatever Cure), Jewell Parker Rhodes (author of Towers Falling), and Linda Urban (author of Weekends with Max and His Dad).

Are there kid lit podcasts that you love? Send a note to karina@bookriot.com and let me know about it!

New Releases!

I just finished Laurel Snyder’s middle grade book Orphan Island, which is a story about nine kids each a year apart who live on an island on their own. Every year, a green boat comes to bring a new child and take away the oldest child. The story begins with the main character Jinny, watching the boat drop off Ess and pick up her best friend Deen. Jinny, now the Elder of the island, must teach Ess how to live and survive. The story is beautifully and hauntingly told, and I read it in one day. This title came out on May 30th.

Puffin Books never fails to delight me with their whimsical reprints, and this collection of classic middle grade titles are no exception. They partnered with Pantone to repackage The Secret Garden, Treasure Island, The Wizard of Oz, Anne of Green Gables, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and Heidi, each with a distinctive Pantone color spectrum. These books will be released on June 6th.

Another new middle grade release I’m super excited about is One Shadow on the Wall (June 6, 2017, Atheneum Books for Young Readers) by Leah Henderson. Set in contemporary Senegal, it is about recently orphaned eleven-year-old Mor who finds himself struggling to honor a promise made to his father: to take care of his sisters and keep his family together. The Senegal sun burns from this book, and I was entranced from the first page.

Jabari Jumps is a delightful new picture book released on May 9th. The illustrations are gorgeous, and the story is so relatable especially as kids get ready for the pool and face that inevitable first jump off of the diving board. Jabari toes that line between wanting to jump and finding every excuse not too, including thinking about what special jump he wants to do and having to do his stretches. I adored this book!

Backlist Bump!

I’m enjoying two backlist titles right now. I am a huge fan of Wicked the Musical, which I recently saw with my nine-year-old daughter, and The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainini reminds me of that with it’s creative way of retelling fairy tales and flipping the hero/villain trope. I’ve been seeing lots of kids reading and enjoying this series lately, and I thought I’d better catch up! The fourth installment in this series releases on September 19, 2017.

And – Katherine Paterson. That lady can write! I read Bridge to Terabithia when I was young, but I had never read Jacob Have I Loved (first published in 1980s). Katherine Paterson weaves a beautiful story, and I cannot wait to get my hands on her new book (!!!) coming out on October 10, 2017, called My Brigadista Year. Check out the cover reveal and synopsis on Publisher’s Weekly here.

Well, that’s it for this week! Next week I will share exciting stories from the floor of Book Expo. Until then, happy reading!

– Karina Yan Glaser
@KarinaIsReadingAndWriting
@KarinaYanGlaser

This is my rabbit, Izzy. She guards my TBR pile.

HELLO Book Riot Insiders!

Welcome to a look behind the scenes with me, Kelly Jensen, associate editor and community manager. I believe I might have the most non-traditional schedule of all of Book Riot, so buckle up!

Above is a shot of my desk. Enjoy feminism, great puns, and what might be the only image of a Book Riot editor who writes down scheduling information on paper.

My week is a little different than the rest of staff, since I cover (part of) the weekend. My own week begins on Tuesdays and it ends on Saturdays, with hours that are split through the day. I tend to get started working super early — 6:30 or 7 AM Central time — and run till 10 or 11, depending on how much I need to get done or how into a project I have fallen. There are periods through the month when I have meetings at 12:30 my time, and I’ll often just work from the morning until the meeting ends.

What are those morning tasks, you ask? A few things! First, I’m the person behind our Tumblr, our Pinterest, and our Goodreads accounts. This means my mornings are all about scheduling posts and pieces of posts up there, as well as putting out any fires that have started. This doesn’t happen a whole lot, though periodically, there are questions that need my attention in the Goodreads Read Harder boards.

Since my schedule is nontraditional, here’s a fun little Insider secret: our Tumblr and Pinterest posts are rarely, if ever, posted the same day as they are on site or on Twitter and Facebook. They tend to be a day or two behind. It’s both because it makes sense to do it that way schedule-wise so I don’t miss sharing Monday posts, but it’s also selfish — I want to read what was posted on my days off that I may have missed.

Scheduling doesn’t take all morning, but sometimes, it can take a good chunk of time. When I do finish that, I have a few less-glamorous tasks behind the scenes. Those include doing some tracking of sponsored posts and also my least favorite thing in the world: reading my email. Most of it is junk, and I hate having to clean it out. It’s like when you know that your life would be easier if you took out the trash bag when it’s full and yet you think it’ll be somehow easier if you just push the trash down further in the bag and keep piling things on top.

Spoiler alert: that doesn’t make it easier. Also, it’s kind of gross.

Other morning tasks for me include writing and plotting out what I’m going to write and taking care of the associated research/contacts with it. I try to allow one or two mornings a week where I give myself plenty of time to brainstorm and write things like my weekly “What’s Up in YA?” newsletter (which really doesn’t take long to write but can sometimes take a bit of time to research or pull together with interviews) and my weekly “3 On A YA Theme” column. I’ve also added a biweekly(ish) post that rounds up sweet bookish goods on a topic — see this one on typewriter fetish or this one on bookish goods for cat lovers. Sometimes I have other writing projects underway that I’ll either do the research for or sit down and write. My goal is trying to have my regular pieces for each week, plus one or two other posts, so there’s always many things going on and I kind of let my mindset dictate which gets my attention that day.

One day of the week, though, is totally different for me, and that’s Fridays. Since I cover weekend work, Friday mornings are when I schedule posts for the weekend, as well as set up the social media posts for Twitter and Facebook for Saturday. I do a little bit of that for Book Riot Comics, as well — back in the day when our little operation was smaller, I used to do all of the weekend scheduling for both Book Riot and Panels…and before that, Book Riot and Food Riot (RIP). That time opening up has given me more writing time and more time to work on other projects.

Then it’s lunch time, and when lunch time rolls around, I am usually out of the office. At least the virtual Book Riot office. By lunch, I’m frequently working on my own projects, my own writing, my own editing. Sometimes I even get the chance to read during this time. Everything I do in the afternoon is my time, since I’m not “on the clock,” and usually, my free hours end after I come home from yoga in the early evening.

Once in awhile — once a week at most, and usually far less — I like to do some work on paper. I’ll go to a local coffee spot that I’ve become obsessed with, where I bring nothing but pen and paper with me and write or plan. The amount of work I can get done in an hour there is pure magic, which is why I don’t like to do it too often. I want it there for when I really need to get things done. (It’s part coffee shop and part greenhouse and in the literal middle of nowhere and therefore, it is the best).

My evening work is different than my morning work in that the pace is different. It’s slower, for one thing, and more, it’s much heavier on the community management aspect. I’m the person keeping an eye on social media, responding to comments, moderating where necessary, and also, I’m pretty much entirely available to contributors for questions, brainstorming, or other needs. I keep this time pretty open and fluid so I can take on anything that pops up the moment that it does, but when it’s quiet, I use the time to also take necessary photos for social media, do some more work with Pinterest or Tumblr, ignore my inbox, or write.

(Above: a photo I took for one of our Book Date posts — there’s a really great arboretum near my house that I tend to get a lot of my outdoor pictures at).

Here’s why you’re here reading this Insiders piece, though. It’s not really a secret that I am an at-home zookeeper in my spare time. I’ve got three cats and, as of last summer, a bunny. This is in addition to whatever is currently taking up residence in the back yard — we’re the only fenced yard in the neighborhood and we’re lazy about cutting the grass (…here’s a life theme), so we often have stray cats, bunnies, frogs, and other sundry creatures habitating back there. This life chose me, and I’ve come to accept it means that I have a consistently messy house. My long furred cat is why we’ve had no fewer than five broken water fountains, a broken refrigerator, and regularly pull heaps of gray stuff out of the bathtub drain. The combination of bunny and cats is why so many of my books have little nibbles on them and why I have to be careful when taking photos of those books to only put the animals in those pictures when I know it’s the last one I need to take.

And I always have to mute my work-related calls on my end because every time I have one, there seems to be Kitty Indy 500 going on up and down the halls, complete with unbelievably loud shrieking and screaming.

That all laid out, here are animals pictures. Some are just animals! Some are animals and books! Enjoy & thanks for being part of Club Insiders.

Stage one of getting a bunny to take a photo with books involves chewing…

Stage two involves a bunny flailing because he was told no.

Stage three is giving up and remembering he’s an animal, not a prop, and will not always want to listen to me.

If you look closely, you’ll see the baby bunny occupying the backyard. This picture is from inside my office and she’s looking up at me and a kitty who is mewing at her. (I named this bunny Clover, if you’re wondering).

Here’s a bunny in a cat mask.

A mid-morning hangout session happening in my office. They’re discussing world economics and the lack of freely available food in the house. I suspect they’re also plotting book destruction.

We do have a shelf cat, too. She loves this set of shelves that my husband built for me. It keeps her away from the bunny, which is a bonus (though she likes the bunny).

This is the couch where I usually am reading, but as you can see, it’s being occupied by animals.

A happy animal in the sun. You’re welcome!

And one last shot of the bunny, who I’m raising to be a comic-loving feminist.