I’m back! I’ve been back for a couple of weeks, in fact, but then the school year started. Plus there was this hurricane. So the blog posts have rather stacked up. I tried an experiment on this trip: no laptop, just my new Kindle 3, my iPod Touch, a couple of paper books, and a [...]
Operation: Laptop-Free Travel
September 2nd, 2011 · 6 Comments
Tags: technology
“Songs About Books”
July 29th, 2011 · No Comments
Author Carey Wallace‘s website asks you to send her something, anything, handmade, and she’ll send back a copy of her CD Songs About Books. So I sent her a mosaic (well, not one of those specifically), and just got my CD the other day! It has gorgeous songs about Sean Tan’s The Arrival and Ender’s [...]
Tags: Links
Famous for the wrong book?
July 28th, 2011 · 6 Comments
Roger Sutton asks, what authors are famous for the wrong book? The Long Winter is better (he says) than the earlier Little House books; Lois Lowry’s Autumn Street (which I haven’t read) is better than The Giver. I don’t actually have examples of my own yet; I’m pondering. But I love the question! Thoughts?
Tags: Links
Harry Potter, Schmarry Potter
July 20th, 2011 · 11 Comments
As we all know, the books are really about Hermione. Or Neville. (Spoilers for both the books and the last movie behind those links, and below.) Even HP haters might want to read that first link, Sady Doyle’s “In praise of Joanne Rowling’s Hermione Granger series.” In its alternate universe, “strong female character” Hermione got [...]
Tags: Links
Great Graphic Novels for Girls
June 27th, 2011 · No Comments
My badass colleague Arianna and her friend Anna, the Wandering Librarians, wandered to the American Library Association conference in New Orleans this week to present on great graphic novels for girls. I hear everything went well; yay! (Insert ALA-attendee envy here. But I’m sitting in my house without A/C and am not a sweaty puddle?) [...]
Tags: Links
“for each person, a different book is THAT book”
May 9th, 2011 · No Comments
YA Highway just posted an interview with my internet friend Noa Wheeler, an editor at the Macmillan imprint Henry Holt. Can’t wait to meet her (and hopefully lots of other people I only know digitally) in 2 1/2 weeks at BEA!
Tags: Links
Nerds Heart YA shortlist!
May 8th, 2011 · 1 Comment
Nerds Heart YA has announced their shortlist! All books with characters from “under-represented groups” or authors from those groups. Looks like a pretty great roster! Special congrats to: Eighth Grade Superzero – Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich Five Flavors of Dumb – Antony John Last Summer of the Death Warriors – Francisco Stork Tell Us We’re Home – [...]
Tags: Awards & Contests
“We’re missing everything”
May 5th, 2011 · 1 Comment
My friend Rebecca showed me a lovely essay today: “The Sad, Beautiful Fact That We’re Going to Miss Almost Everything”, by Linda Holmes. It’s about the impossibility of being “well-read” (or well-watched, or well-listened), given the vast quantities of writing, theater, movies, music, and TV that have been and are constantly being produced. It’s sad, [...]
One Sentence YA
March 4th, 2011 · No Comments
My colleague the delightful Arianna of Wandering Librarians and I are goofing off this fine Friday afternoon. This Twitter feed is the result: OneSentenceYA. How would you sum up your favorite (or least favorite) novels in a sentence?
News
January 23rd, 2011 · 4 Comments
You guys: Sweet Valley High: The Musical. For reals. Written by Francine Pascal herself, with a guy from Bon Jovi. Erin of Forever Young Adult acquired a demo CD and hooks us up with surprisingly catchy songs to download (and a script she made up). One of them appears to be an Elizabeth-Todd duet in [...]
Tags: Links