Yet another chance for me to use the word "kerfuffle"

So.  The National Book Awards.  Wow.  Way to royally screw things up.  In case you're just joining us, five books were released as nominees for the "Young People's Literature" category.  When first released, the list consisted of the following books: Shine by Lauren Myracle, My Name Is Not Easy by Debby Dhal Edwardson, Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai, Flesh and Blood So Cheap: The Triangle Fire and Its Legacy and Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt. 

Then it turned out that it wasn't supposed to be Shine by Lauren Myracle at all, but Chime by Franny Billingsley.  Awkward.  Also, it leads me to my first question: how the hell did they make that mistake?  Supposedly it was a mishearing over a telephone call, but, like, wouldn't you also say the author's name too when giving a list of books that you were nominating for an award?  Apparently you should.  And then no one caught this mistake for days.  Embarrassing, but people make mistakes, etc. 

So the National Book Awards decided that they would go with six nominations, since it was their fault and Lauren Myracle had already been notified that her book had been nominated.  Totally reasonable, we all understand.  Except then they changed their minds.  Lauren Myracle was asked to withdraw her book (See!  It's OK!  They didn't remove her!  She asked to be withdrawn) which she did.  Because Lauren Myracle is classy unlike some other people/organizations we could mention.

So suck it National Book Awards people.  Why the frack did you have to pull that?  "Preserve the integrity of the award and the judges’ work" my ass.  You made a mistake, you owned up to it, you were doing just fine and then you had to go pull a total dick move and now all the book people are mad at you.  And since you're in the book business, that's a bad thing.

BBF - Second and third panel

That time of year is upon us, when Boston devotes itself to a day celebrating books. You might remember that Arianna, Jamie and I went last year and saw some pretty decent panels. There was a larger group of us that met up at random points during the day, Arianna and I went to all the same panels. I am hoping that Alana will post something about Mo Willems as she said he was amazing. Ari, will post about our first panel we went to and I'm going to chat about the young adult panel and the graphic novel panel we went to.

YA Fiction: On the Edge
I would first like to state that my main motivator for going to the young adult panel, as I hadn't heard of any of the panelists, was the fact that Amy Pattee was hosting it. Amy was my professor of two of my courses while in library school. I love her. Not quite a creepy love, but bordering. Anyway, the topic of the panel was what made young adult fiction edgy which I think they meant as potentially controversial.

Ellen Levine spoke first, poor lady was sick with laryngitis and had a croaky voice. Her new book In Trouble is a companion to Catch a Tiger by the Toe, it deals with family and friends and is pre-Roe v. Wade in which the character of Jamie has an abortion. It has been labelled a 'political' book, and she had to shop it around to more than a dozen publisher before someone took a chance on it. She realized that she had stumbled upon self-imposed censorship in publication. In media right now it doesn't matter if a girl is raped, brutalized, or it's consensual the fetus must be seen carried to term. Currently one in three women will have an abortion, and yet this statistic isn't reflected in any medium - young adult or adult. She also talked about the label of being political and how that assumes that the writer has an agenda and labeling them as political silences the them. She feels that if a writer is truly passionate about writing then the plot is organic and what develops is absolutely necessary. She ended with a fantastic quote by Philip Pullman:
No one has the right to live without being shocked. No one has the right to spend their life without being offended. Nobody has to read this book. Nobody has to pick it up. Nobody has to open it. And if you open it and read it, you don’t have to like it. And if you read it and you dislike it, you don’t have to remain silent about it. You can write to me, you can complain about it, you can write to the publisher, you can write to the papers, you can write your own book. You can do all those things, but there your rights stop. No one has the right to stop me writing this book. No one has the right to stop it being published, or bought, or sold or read. That’s all I have to say on that subject.

Daniel Nayeri is an editor at Houghton Mifflin, writer, extremely fast talker, and hilarious! He has a new book of four short stories called Straw House, Wood House, Brick House, Blow! It developed out of his own childhood experience of moving here when he was eight and teaching himself to read. He feels that more reluctant readers would be enthusiastic about reading if they could find the right genre for them. His book samples from different genres: Western, science fiction, detective mystery, and romantic comedy. I think what was supposed to make this 'edgy' was the fact the book makes the assumption that boys aren't reluctant readers, they just haven't found the right book for them. I wish I could tell you more because he was so funny and riveting but he talked to freaking fast!

Danica Novgorodoff has just finished a graphic novel called Refresh, Refresh. It's about three seventeen year old boys from Portland. Their fathers are Marines currently serving in Iraq, the boys are forced to grow up too fast as they try to fill the shoes that their fathers left them. They want to please their fathers even after they've abandoned them. The graphic novel is based off of a screenplay which was developed off of short story by Ben Percy. This looks like a powerful story, the artwork wasn't my favorite but it fits. She brought up an interesting point that it wasn't the violence of her book that made it edgy but rather the words. Crazy huh?

Amy then asked a couple of awesome questions, which all of the panelists responded to.

Where does edginess develop from?
They all agreed that it wasn't in the writing stage but rather marketing.

What issues make a book 'controversial'?
-Abortions
-Language
-Native Americans (If the book isn't written by a Native American)
-Violence (though I would argue that visual violence like in graphic novels makes it worse)

Generally experiences that we don't want young adults to have. We don't want children to have real experiences and we like to assume that they aren't behaving badly. It's hard to write about an issue that is controversial at the time, and the publishers because they're so close to the education of kids look for role-models not controversy. Thank God for bake sales.

Marzi: a memior by Marzena Sowa

Marzi was born in Poland in 1979.  For the first ten years of her life, Marzi grows up under Communist rule.  Waiting in long lines for food is the norm, and Marzi doesn't really understand why things are the way they are.  She can tell the adults are unhappy, but no one will bother to explain what's really going on.

This was excellent.  The story is told through a series of vignettes.  Marzi recalls many different events from her childhood, and they all blend together to give us an excellent picture of what life was like.  The confusion of a child is perfectly captured, as Marzi struggles to understand what is going on in her country and what her parents are talking about.  Marzi is draw with huge eyes, which reflects her innocent understanding of everything that's happening.

Aside from what's happening politically, we see Marzi's difficult relationship with her mother, and what was expected of children in Poland during the 80s.  It was so interesting for me, because Marzi is only a few years older than I am.  As I was reading about her standing on lines for food with her parents, wishing for color television, working on farms with her grandparents and chewing window putty because she couldn't get gum, I was thinking about my childhood in the 80s in the United States and how incredibly different it was.

Marzi notes that no one really talks about the fall of Communism in Poland, because it was done quietly.  There was no dramatic breaking down of a wall.  But it was the first.  I love how the stories are seen through a child's eyes, but the voice is of older Marzi looking back and remembering.  So there was a mixture of innocence and wisdom.

Since I had an ARC, it wasn't finished being inked, so only the first few pages were in color. Having the illustrations in black, white and gray certainly gave the stories a certain feel.  I'd like to read it again when it comes out in full color.  Will it make things feel less desperate and lonely?  It was kind of effective like that actually.

I didn't want the story to end.  At the end, Marzi is only 10, and Poland still has a long way to go to being completely free.  Tell us more!

Marzi will be available October 25.

News

How fabulous is it that Occupy Wall Street and other Occupation cities have libraries?  Love it.

Barnes and Nobel pulls 100 DC graphic novels after DC makes an "exclusive" deal with Kindle Fire.  From PW.

You guys...there's a Men of the Stacks 2012 calendar featuring male librarians.

Do libraries really destroy books?  Well, I don't think "destroy" is exactly the right word.  But...yeah...we get rid of books.  Can you imagine what a library would be like that never weeded their collection? From WBUR.

GeekGirl Con was this past weekend.  It sounds great.  Maybe next year it won't be the same weekend as Yom Kippur and I'll be able to go!  From PW.

Pottermore has pushed back the release of its digital books and pulled a popular game because of high user use they couldn't deal with.  Kind of would have thought they'd be better prepared.  From The Guardian.

Bitterblue is coming out in May!  So excited!  I think the cover looks great.  From PW.

A personal look at Maurice Sendak.  From The Guardian.

According to TechCrunch, in less than 15 year print books will be basically extinct, even in the developing world, and replaced with e-readers and e-books.  I'm skeptical.  So is Jonathan Liu at Wired.  He raises the question, "How will people who can't afford e-readers read books?"  Are things really going to change so dramatically that everyone will be able to afford one?  Even in places that don't currently have electricity?  


New books from Gail Carriger!  Heart.  I can't wait to read her YA series.  It's not coming out until 2013 though.

Waiting on Wednesday: Tuesdays at the Castle by Jessica Day George

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Breaking the Spine to spotlight an upcoming release that we're excited about. This week I'm waiting on Tuesdays at the Castle by Jessica Day George. 

Tuesdays at Castle Glower are Princess Celie's favorite days. That's because on Tuesdays the castle adds a new room, a turret, or sometimes even an entire wing. No one ever knows what the castle will do next, and no one-other than Celie, that is-takes the time to map out the new additions. But when King and Queen Glower are ambushed and their fate is unknown, it's up to Celie, with her secret knowledge of the castle's never-ending twists and turns, to protect their home and save their kingdom. This delightful book from a fan- and bookseller-favorite kicks off a brand-new series sure to become a modern classic.

 

Tuesdays at the Castle will be available October 25.

Need a Sci Fi or Fantasy Recommendation?

NPR's got you covered. This gives you a the Top 100 books as chosen by 60,000 participants, and cut down by a panel of nerdy experts. They've left out young adult and horror, but I'm kind of OK with it. If it's too much to read through, they also have a handy chart. (For the full view)

Ashfall by Mike Mullin

One weekend, Alex decides to stay home while his mom, dad and sister travel to Warren, Illinois to visit his aunt and uncle.  That afternoon, everything changes.  A giant volcano erupts in Yellowstone National Park, and the consequences stretch across the entire United States.  Heavy ash falls, blotting out the sun and causing dramatic temperature changes.  Alex is determined to journey to Warren and reunite with his family.  On an old pair of his father's cross country skies, Alex starts out into a world that has totally changed.

This reminded me a lot of Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer.   In both cases, a serious natural disaster occurs that changes everything, and then the rest of the book is about how every day becomes a struggle just to survive.  Personally I liked Life As We Knew It better.  For most of Ashfall, Alex is traveling, trying to get to his family.  He encounters various problems on the road, many of them being the basic how to find food and water and travel without exhausting himself.  Life As We Knew It really got in to how the family lived their day to day life.  What they had to do every single day to survive and plan and hope that things would get better.  There were no big adventures, which is why I can see, actually, some people enjoying Ashfall more.  There's more adventure.