News

Happy National Library week!  

Teen Lit Day is Thursday!  Celebrate by Rocking the Drop.  From readergirlz.

Should celebrities stop writing children's books?  From The Guardian.

The 10 most notorious parts of famous books.  From PW.

Where's the African-American Harry Potter or the Mexican Katniss?  From CNN.

Madeleine L'Engle on  creativity, censorship, writing, and the duty of children's books.  From brainpickings.

Lauren Myracle on censorship.  From The Huffington Post.

Five slightly more plausible dystopias Quirk Books would like to see as YA novels.

Recent wins on school library positions spark optimism.  From SLJ.

Children's books: a shifting market.  From PW.

9 children's book morals for adulthood.  From Mashable.

Speak turns 15.  From Entertainment Weekly.

Writing middle grade fiction's first boy-boy kiss.  From SLJ.

Waiting on Wednesday: Glory O'Brien's History of the Future by A.S. King

"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 Glory O'Brien's History of the Future by A.S. King.

WOULD YOU TRY TO CHANGE THE WORLD
IF YOU THOUGHT YOU HAD NO FUTURE?

Graduating from high school is a time of limitless possibilities—but not for Glory, who has no plan for what's next. Her mother committed suicide when Glory was only four years old, and she’s never stopped wondering if she will eventually go the same way...until a transformative night when she begins to experience an astonishing new power to see a person’s infinite past and future. From ancient ancestors to many generations forward, Glory is bombarded with visions—and what she sees ahead of her is terrifying.

A tyrannical new leader raises an army. Women’s rights disappear. A violent second civil war breaks out. And young girls vanish daily, sold off or interned in camps. Glory makes it her mission to record everything she sees, hoping her notes will somehow make a difference. She may not see a future for herself, but she’ll do everything in her power to make sure this one doesn’t come to pass.

In this masterpiece about freedom, feminism, and destiny, Printz Honor author A.S. King tells the epic story of a girl coping with devastating loss at long last—a girl who has no idea that the future needs her, and that the present needs her even more.

Glory O'Brien's History of the Future comes out October 14, 2014.

News

New book features unpublished songs by Margaret Wise Brown.  From SLJ.

Bechel reacts to Fun Home controversy in South Caroline.  From PW.

Lost poem of Douglas Adams.  From The Guardian.

Diversity issues in librarianship.  From SLJ.

SLJ talks to Susan Kuklin about her book on transgender teens.

Retelling 12 Years a Slave for a younger audience.  From National Geographic.

It's the 100th birthday of Dr. Seuss

A Dr. Seuss-inspired guide to Twitter.  From HootSource.

What Dr. Seuss can teach an adult about life.  From The Huffington Post.

Principals Know: school librarians are the heart of the school

News

Why are booksellers afraid of children's poetry?  From The Guardian.

Guess what?  Babies can't learn to read.  From The Atlantic.

French booksellers pose naked to support children's book on nudity.  From The Guardian.

An open letter to JK Rowling to not stop writing. From The Huffington Post.

Escapist postcards from YA favorites.  From BookRiot.

This makes me happy: Memorial services for E.L. Konigsburg held at the Metropolitan Museum.  From PW.

Dr. Seuss influenced nearly every American who learned to read.  From The Denver Post.

Children's book villains get sentenced in court.  From Book Patrol.

Ten classic children's books that will never be dated.  From BookRiot.

YA retellings brought to you by Epic Reads.

Harriet the Spy at 50:

Harriet the Spy turns 50.  From The Washington Post.

Contemporary authors reflect on Harriet the Spy.  From BookTribe.

Harriet the Spy: the most unlikeable hero in children's books.  From Salon.

Harriet the Spy turns 50.  From Al Jazeera America.

News

How to write YA.  From PW.

SC legislators plan cuts to college budgets over LGBTQ reading assignments.  From Library Journal.

The concise Roald Dahl.  From The Toast.

Parent's push to end gendered division of boys' and girls' books.  From The Guardian.

Publishers say gendering books make them easier to sell.  From The Independent.

Purim book for children stirs controversy.  From The Boston Globe.

Two California librarians have a goal of reading 9,000 books in one year.  From SLJ.

Picture books about women who made a difference.  From SLJ.

Philip Pullman champions school libraries.  From The Bookseller.

A Monster Calls is going to be a movie.  I don't think I like that idea.  From The Wrap.

Waiting on Wednesday: Greenglass House by Kate Milford

"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 Greenglass House by Kate Milford.
 

A rambling old inn, a strange map, an attic packed with treasures, squabbling guests, theft, friendship, and an unusual haunting mark this smart middle grade mystery in the tradition of the Mysterious Benedict Society books and Blue Balliet’s Chasing Vermeer series.

Greenglass House will be out August 26, 2014.

Navigating Early by Clare Vanderpool

It's shortly after WWII, and Jack Baker finds himself in a boys' boarding school in Main, far away from his home in Kansas.  There he meets Early Auden, a strange boy with a fascination with the number pi.  During school vacation, Jack and Early are the only ones left at school, and they head out onto the Appalachian Trail on a quest.

This reminded me a bit of Francesca Lia Block's Love in the Time of Global Warming.  Not in writing style, of course.  But in both books we have a story, in LITTOFW it was The Odyssey, in Navigating Early it was the story of Pi, and the characters in the book go off on a journey that perfectly mirrors the story they read/heard/told.  I enjoyed Navigating Early much more.

It's an odd little book, one I think that's probably going to have more appeal to adults than middle grade kids, but I could be wrong about that.  It does have some boy appeal in two guys going off on an adventure.

Jack is torn up about the loss of his mother, although he tries not to show it.  He hardly knows his navy father, recently returned from the war, and his father is not the best at comfort and talking.  Jack feels lost and adrift, and the Main boarding school isn't helping to anchor him.

Although Jack is casual friends with the other boys, Early is the only one who really talks to him.  Early is odd.  He's probably has Autism in some form.  That's just my guess, it's not actually said in the book, that wouldn't have been appropriate for the time period.  Early has a number of characteristics that would fit though.  His father is recently dead, and he's living in the school basement, hardly ever going to class, and no one seems to care enough to do anything about it.  Early is adrift too, but in a different way.  What grounds him is the number pi.  In the never-ending numbers, Early can read a story, about a boy called Pi that loses his way, but finds his way home.

Early's brother has died in the war.  But Early is convinced his brother isn't dead, and that he's tied up in the story of Pie.  If only the story can have an ending, if Pi can find his way home, Early's brother will be able to as well.

Jack goes along with Early, mostly to not be left behind and alone.  Their journey mirrors Pi's journey, all the twists and turns, the meeting of strange characters and escaping danger.  Early is unflaggingly determined, Jack is skeptical.  The journey allows both boys to anchor themselves, although perhaps in unexpected ways.

I liked both the characters of Jack and Early.  They were well developed and unique and their actions were always believable.  The story surprised me and kept me interested.  Although there is action and adventure and even pirates, for heaven's sake, it's still overall a very quiet, thoughtful sort of book.