Parenthetical

If you could make all the students in grades 8-12 (plus faculty) at an all-girls prep school read one book, what would it be? Rules: It can be fiction or non-, all one author or essays by multiple authors, on just about any subject. It should be available in paperback by May, to keep costs [...]

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In February I wrote about Bitch Magazine’s 100 YA Books for the Feminist Reader. A week and a half ago, Arianna of Wandering Librarians and I went to a response discussion at Simmons College (our library school alma mater), entitled “What Is a Feminist Reader?” Here’s her far more prompt write-up. Christy Lusiak, counselor and [...]

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Remember when I asked you for summer reading list suggestions? I finished the list a long time ago, of course, but it’s finally on our website. (That link will open a PDF.) The middle school section at the beginning is the part you helped with. (And those yellow highlighted books, by the way? Are links [...]

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YA novels: the perfect choice for everyone on your list! (Um, maybe not the babies. You’re on your own there.) Here’s my handy list of suggestions — you just have to promise to buy them from your local independent bookstore. For the grown-up who wants something packaged as Actual Literature: Marcelo in the Real World, [...]

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Happy New Year! We get a new President in a few weeks, I’m now officially 30, and I just got home from celebrating my nth New Year’s in a row with dear friends in snowy New Hampshire. All else is immaterial. Except books, of course! The new year is traditionally a time for “best-of” lists, [...]

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Guess what, everyone? The Cybils finalists have been posted! The fruits of my personal labor are here: Graphic Novels Finalists. There’s some truly fabulous stuff in there for all ages and tastes. I also can’t wait to read the Fantasy & Science Fiction, YA, and Middle Grade lists — and then start foisting them on [...]

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Remember how I said yesterday that you should nominate books for the Cybil awards? Well, now that goes double, ’cause now I’m a panelist! I’m a member of the Graphic Novel Panel! Squee! Could not be more excited, seriously. And now y’all need to go nominate graphic novels, especially, so that I have good stuff [...]

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I just finished a wonderful book called Graceling, by Kristin Cashore. I’ll wait on the review, because the book doesn’t come out until October, and I don’t want you to forget about it because you can’t read it right now. (I don’t have a lending copy, unfortunately.) But I was talking with Rebecca (who lent [...]

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I wrote recently about the fact that my mental picture of “apocalypse” is stuck in the Cold War — instantaneous disaster, as opposed to the currently more likely slow(-ish) environmental collapse. I mused about what current YA readers of science fiction will picture, which made me wonder: other than Uglies, what’s being written in the [...]

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Happy Valentine’s Day (and happy birthday, Parenthetical)! In honor of the occasion, I give you five YA love stories guaranteed to make you feel all warm and snuggly inside: 1. Witch of Blackbird Pond, by Elizabeth George Speare — When you think “romance,” you probably don’t think “Puritan New England.” But Blackbird Pond was the [...]

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