Controversial

In this edition of YA Wednesday, we make it easy for you to find banned books, talk about a revolution, and continue our obsession with the Twilight debates.

How do you get teens to read a book? Ban it.
The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) and the American Library Association (ALA) launched a Banned Books Week website this week. Censorship is no laughing matter, but it still cracks me up that the people who work so hard to ban books don't seem to get how much banning helps a book. During Banned Books Week (September 27 - October 4) bookstores and librarians will display these books, and bloggers will list them and link to them for people to buy--while all the lonely non-banned titles sit on the shelves, wishing they were just a little more controversial.

So, I'm doing my part now for the continued success of the following books, YA and adult titles for teens among the 10 most challenged in 2007:

The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
TTYL by Lauren Myracle
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

You can see the full list with the reasons for the bans, plus more stats from 1990-2007, on the ALA website. (Reported yesterday by SLJ)

What I'm Reading Now: The Revolution of Sabine
Beth Levine Ain's The Revolution of Sabine came to me just at the right time. I watched HBO's John Adams a couple of weeks ago, devouring the whole series DVD-style in a couple of days--so I'm pretty into Ben Franklin and powdered wigs. It's a great idea: what better setting for a rebellious teen than an actual revolution? (Sabine is from a French aristocratic family in the 1770s.) The early scenes have a slight Edith Wharton-like sensibility, with strict fashion rules and an overbearing, social-climbing mother who is devastated when Ben Franklin fails to show up at her ball: "How will they manage to run a whole country when their leaders behave this way?"

Quick links...
ALAN (Assembly for Literature of Adolescents) has posted a preliminary schedule for their 2008 ALAN Workshop, coming up in November. With titles like "Gods, Foods, and Tattoos: The Mixed Mythos of Urban Fantasy" and "Advice for the Lovelorn: Dating Faux Pas and Successes in Young Adult Literature," it looks pretty intriguing. 

Yesterday, Alison Morris on PW's ShelfTalker blog linked to Flux ("A new imprint dedicated to fiction for teens"), complimenting them on their teen-friendly covers. Then Flux linked to ShelfTalker complimenting Alison Morris on her "awesome post." Ah, blog love.

In the Salt Lake Tribune, columnist Rebecca Walsh talks about how Breaking Dawn author Stephenie Meyer is now getting it from all sides (with one LDS blogger even calling for her to be excommunicated). Walsh's take? Lighten up, people.
--Heidi

Choosing a single quotation from Cintra Wilson is like having the objects of all your desires laid out in front of you--food, sex, friendship, music, ideas--and being told you can only have one. How do you choose?

In case you haven't happened upon any of the products of this screamingly funny, intensely brilliant writer, Cintra Wilson is a pop-culture critic and author whose first book, A Massive Swelling: Celebrity Re-Examined as a Grotesque Crippling Disease, is one of the most funny, damning, merciless books I've ever read. And--frankly--one of the best.

Capable of skyscraping praise for the art and music she celebrates, Wilson also wields a lethal arsenal of critical savvy, usually put to the page in side-splitting prose and imagery that's impossible not to react to. Viscerally.

A Massive Swelling boasts such incendiary chapter titles as "Las Vegas--The Death Star of Entertainment," "Crossing Boundaries: Towards a New Hermeneutics of Dumb Pimps Like Bruce Willis," and "As a Dog Returneth to its Own Vomit, So Doth L.A." But Wilson is no mere shock-jock, and while her revelations about pop culture occasionally restate the obvious, they do so in terms so hilariously biting as to render them almost canonical. To wit, this nugget about boy-bands from "Cock Rock for the Twelve-and-Under":

"[A]ll a savvy promoter with the naked greed of a pederast Svengali needs to do is find some mildly talented teens all lousy with fresh libido and stuck in some lame section of America, promise them a bucking, eight-second ride on the Magic Bull of Fame, and he or she can forge a sensational golden windfall as long as the kid stays on. After all that happens successfully, the stars might figure out that are giving 90 percent of their salary away to some carpet-chested cigar aficionado who tells them what they can and can't wear all the time, and decide they'd like to try their hand at 'going solo,' a career move that has only really worked , so far, for ... ex-New Edition R&B guy Bobby Brown, and now for Ricky Martin, ex Menudo-boy. [Keep in mind that this was published in 2000.] The managers of the new breed of band coming out must have the whole clause in the contract that says when the boys are too old and fat for the metallic plastic jumpsuits, and have squandered all 10 percent they owned of their careers, they are not allowed to appeal to any human tendencies in the manager and beg them for more cash to get back on their feet. There ought to be a Child-Corruption Czar in government, maybe. Somebody who can keep the pop machine honest, if not clean."

The above comes after five or so pages of real love letters--by women ranging in age from teens to a late-20s mother of two--penned to the New Kids on the Block during their hey-day as singer/sex-objects. Now that they're back, the New Kids--who, it should be noted, are neither new nor kids--have once again put aside such niggling roadblocks to stardom as shame and self-respect, all for the glorious opportunity to perform pre-packaged material for (presumably) the sad, sexually frustrated kids who have finally grown up to be the sad, sexually frustrated adults they were destined to be. Sure, it's been awhile, but we knew they had it in them.

The music is, of course, beside the point, because if there's one thing NKOTB is good at, it's proving that the captains of (this) industry can shuck just about anything at us, and as long as that anything has a glossy, easily digestible sheen around its rotten core of pure celebrity-as-product, we'll buy it.

Ultimately, I think judging people for what they consume is a useless endeavor, at best. But for those of us who revel in the sound of a brilliant mind as it skewers easy targets with percussive fervor and no reservations, the good news is that Cintra Wilson has a new book coming out in September. Yes, the same month as the new NKOTB offering. Ain't life grand?

     --Jason Kirk

In this week's roundup, I'm filling in for Paul as we go back to the UK for more controversy and demonstrate our uber-Ameri-sentimentality about Lady Liberty and something all kids love--play!

No naughtiness at Random House
On Thursday, the Guardian reported that Random House was removing the word "twat" from Jacqueline Wilson's boarding school book for 10+ year-olds, My Sister Jodie. Because of three complaints, the publisher and author have decided on a less offensive replacement:

"The word 'twat' was used in context. It was meant to be a nasty word on purpose, because this is a nasty character," said a spokesperson for Random House. "However, Jacqueline doesn't want to offend her readers or her readers' parents, so when the book comes to be reprinted the word will be replaced with twit."

Amazon.uk has a charming video of Wilson talking about the book. Could this lady possibly be offensive? Please!

This comes on the heels of Sian Pattenden's report earlier this month that Random House was adding a "morality clause" to their author's contracts. (reported by Cory Doctorow in BoingBoing last week)

Even Americans aren't this gooey
I still haven't seen Meghan McCain's picture book, My Dad, John McCain, but these words from Derek Draper in the Guardian don't necessarily inspire me to pick it up:

It's easy for us Brits to assume that such sentimental spin will backfire but, having lived in the US for three years, I can assure you that Americans are made of gooier stuff. There, a commitment to "family values" isn't seen as a devalued political soundbite but the sine qua non of a politician's suitability for office.

Where did Draper live in America? I don't think it was Seattle. (found via Read Roger's "Fighting Words..." post)

O.K., well, we are gooey about our national landmarks
A Patchwork of Books posted a review last Monday of Lady Liberty, by Doreen Rappaport and illustrated by Matt Tavares--one of my favorite picture books of the year.

One thing I loved about this book, besides seeing the whole history of how the statue was conceived and built, was learning about how it was paid for. Basically, when sculptor Auguste Bartholdi visited the U.S. "everyone was polite and seemed interested. But no one offered to raise money to build her." So they got donations from French citizens to help build the statue, then Joseph Pulitzer asked his readers to chip in with the donations for the base (including one girl who sent her two pet roosters).

And we're not alone in loving the book. It got starred reviews from Booklist and The Horn Book. Here are a few more reviews from earlier this year:

Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast
YA and Kids Book Central
I.N.K. (Interesting Nonfiction for Kids)

It's time to play!
Speaking of I.N.K., contributor Anna M. Lewis posted Friday about her favorite book of the summer, The Case for Make Believe by Susan Linn, a book that's also been a favorite at our house, especially as we've watched 16-mo-old Silas begin to make up games of his own.

Lewis adds a list of books that encourage or celebrate play, such as Smart Play, Smart Toys and Unplugged Play: No Batteries. No Plugs. Pure Fun. One of her commenters also recommends the The Big Book for Little Hands, which looks really cute and fun. We'll be checking it out, for sure. --Heidi

---

In the 90's there was the Linda McCartney board tape. [thanks, WFMU]

And today, this...

via videosift.com

It's a great time for a new Don Caballero album. But--whoops!---fans of this band's precise, aggressively dissonant, instrumental oeuvre, may be surprised that, with Punkgasm, the Don sings and, like Linda and Britney, its voice is not hindered by shackles of melody and harmony. Until track number five all goes as expected, with drummer Damon Che and his latest team mates ducking under and around overdriven ostinatoes and tweaked-out tunings. Then comes "Celestial Dusty Groove": singing. Some fans may be aghast but I find the modest addition a welcome, new textural element to the Don's efficiently brute ruckus. Don Caballero's sense of humor is untempered, its polyrhythmic spine stronger than ever. A challenge to fans and welcoming to new ears, Punkgasm may perhaps serve to inspire further vocal experimentation among the the band's more commercially successful peers.

Top 10 Ultimate Post-Punk Mostly Instrumental Bands of all Time
1. Tortoise
2. Savage Rebublic
3. Don Cabellero
4. Dirty Three
5. Battles
6. Pell Mell
7. To Rococo Rot
8. Blind Idiot God
9. Rachels
10. The Fucking Champs

-- Patrick Whalen

In this edition of YA Wednesday, Heidi is taking a break while I root around for noteworthy YA news (but watch for her this weekend, when she compiles the End-o'-the-Week Kid-Lit Roundup).

More reviews by kids. This was fun to see after writing about Storytubes last week. The Chicago Tribune just published a whole passel of reviews by kids between 5 and 15, talking about their favorite books as part of the Trib's "Read & Write" series. From a Kid-Lit vs. YA perspective, it's especially fun to see where the kids break and self-select into YA and beyond--from the likes of Tales of Animal Heroes moving onto 24 Girls in 7 Days and then Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Plus, you get to hear about some books you might never have noticed, like The Hardy Boyz: Exist 2 Inspire. (Found via Big A little a.)

"Young Adult" classification possibly good; also, possibly bad. Science-fiction site io9 has a couple of essays up on YA SF, pro and con. ("Young Adult Books Will Save Science Fiction" and "Stop Writing Young Adult Science Fiction", respectively.) Kid-lit cognoscente Colleen Mondor calls them "two of the silliest pieces I have read on YA literature in ages." Take that! You've got to love her advice: "Here's an idea - why doesn't everyone just grow up and stop talking about this and let teens read what they want; whether a publisher designates it YA or not. (And really, that is what they are quite happily doing anyway.)"

Violence! Swears! Kids' book awards!. Elsewhere in the world of controversy, we found out from achockablog that Matt Ottley's Requiem for a Beast was named the Children's Book Council of Australia's "Picture Book of the Year"--despite having swears and "illustrations of a bloody axe," among other things. By many accounts, the book--explicitly intended for "adults and young adults"--is dark, complex, and also fairly awesome. But one former Book Council president isn't happy: "I really have a problem with this book. It shouldn't be on the shortlist, let alone win."

Some obligatory Twilight. I now believe Heidi that when you're reading about YA on the Web, you can't help but read about the Twilight Saga, whether it's funny Robert Pattinson interviews or commentary in the Washington Post from the author of Why Gender Matters. My favorite (sorry, I'm sure I'm getting to this late) was the cute Twilight trailer spoof:

Advice from college guys for high school guys. Guys Lit Wire is a great site for teen guys--or anyone who recommends books to teen guys--to find new ideas on what to read. (You can even find ideas from me there from time to time.) Kelly Herold's "Higher Learning" interviews are especially good, in which "college guys talk about what they're reading, what they read in high school, and what books are important to them now." She just posted her third, with Ben, a second-year student at Grinnell College, who cut his teeth on the likes of Lois Lowry's The Giver and Jack London's Martin Eden.

Show your librarian some love! Okay, this isn't specific to YA, but everyone should know that nominations just opened last Friday for the "I Love My Librarian!" awards....

--Paul

In this edition of YA Wednesday, we walk the blurry lines between kids and YA, and YA and grown-ups.

The Kids want YA: What's a librarian to do?
Last week, Publisher's Weekly kicked off a new column, Talkback, with kid-lit opinion pieces submitted by readers. In "My Say: When YA Books May not be OK," a children's librarian explains her process of interviewing too-young children who ask about YA titles, to make sure they're ready for the YA room:

"In recent years, the trend in YA fiction has been toward a proliferation of darker, edgier fare, aimed at a more mature audience. As a result, I don’t ever send younger kids to browse “over there” unaccompanied. It feels too much like throwing them into the deep end of the pool."

Roger Sutton questions her tactics, and wonders if they even work: 

"What we don't know from the essay is how easily kids are allowed to dodge the librarian's best intentions entirely and simply go to the YA or adult books by themselves. That would have been my own strategy as a sixth-grader, particularly if I had had a previous encounter with a librarian that made me feel snooped upon or deflected."

The bright lights of Beijing
If watching synchronized diving, impossible gymnastics contortions, and cross-country biking in the rain inspires you (to contort or dive or... read!), check out School Library Journal's YA-recommended list (posted in early summer) of books by or about Olympic champions including: 

Letters to a Young Gymnast by Nadia Comaneci. (Was there any girl in the 70s who didn't want to be Nadia Comaneci, the first perfect 10?)

Venus to the Hoop: A Gold Medal Year in Women’s Basketball by Sara Corbett, which follows the 1996 U.S. Women's Basketball Team all the way to Atlanta.

Gold in the Water: The True Story of Ordinary Men and Their Extraordinary Dream of Olympic Glory by P.H. Mullen, Jr., an "adrenaline-charged account" of the Santa Clara Swim Club in 2000. 

All American: The Rise and Fall of Jim Thorpe by Bill Crawford

Triumph: The Untold Story of Jesse Owens and Hitler’s Olympics by Jeremy Schaap 

(The video here is Beijing Welcomes You, a music-video-style promotion with welcoming messages: "Flowing charms are filled with vigor and enthusiasm." I also highly recommend Stand up, a history of China's Olympic teams, sung primarily by Jackie Chan.)

Still weighing in on Breaking Dawn
Gail Gauthier speculates on one possible reason that Breaking Dawn disappointed some fans--the characters grew up too much:

"Bella and Edward are no longer in high school. They're dealing with grown-up, family problems, not teen problems. When young readers were reading about people they could relate to in the earlier books, they were willing to ignore the way so many characters roll their eyes, chuckle, and snore, the improbabilities regarding plot, and the scenes that went on way too long. But Bella becomes matronly in Breaking Dawn, and Edward seems as if he ought to be out playing golf."

And a few quick links...
The YALSA blog posted this video encouraging people to register for the first ever Young Adult Literature Symposium, "How We Read Now," coming up this November in Nashville. 

Cynthia Leitich Smith (Cynsations) interviewed Zu Vincent, author of The Lucky Place. Vincent talked about influences, challenges, and her experience at the Vermont College MFA Program in Writing for Children and Young Adults (responding to a question that must have been awkward coming from CLS, who's a faculty member there):
"The Vermont College writers' community is so caring and the faculty amazing, you can't help but dig in."

Is Colleen Mondor the busiest blogger in YA-dom? I think so. Her August 2008 Bookslut column, Bookslut in Training, features a wide coming-of-age variety. She particularly recommends Barbara Shoup's Wish You Were Here. 

She also moderates Guy's Litwire, which reminds me that I totally forgot to plug Paul's post there two weeks ago, with three guys from Fantagraphics Books talking about their early comics influences.

Speaking of Seattle-based comics folks, David Lasky signed with Abrams to publish his graphic novel about the Carter Family. It's not YA, but Lasky's earned serious teen cred by teaching at the nonprofit kids' writing center 826 Seattle, where he helped budding teen comic artists create and publish three 826 Seattle Comic Books: All Systems Go!, Family Portraits, and Happiness?. Oh yeah, and it's all volunteer. --Heidi

Japanese consumers love to pay high prices for high-end fruit. Their square watermelons go for about $100; musk melons go for about $70; and strawberries are about $2 each. Now a new premium fruit on the block is about to hit Japanese shelves.

Under development since 1994, bunches of the new Ruby Roman variety grapes sold for as high as $910 at a Japanese auction. The top-priced bunch had 35 grapes.

"Fruit is generally expensive in Japan, and people often buy grapes, peaches and melons as luxury gifts. Japanese are often willing to pay top prices for high-end fruits, especially for the prestige of owning the very first ones of the year."

While it could be months (or never) before you see Ruby Roman grapes at your local supermarket--if you're itching to over-pay for fruit you could aways visit your local Whole Foods.

Too easy?

Read more about these gilded grapes at