Christina Reads YA

 

Publishing:
Rights Reports 1, 2:

• The One Memory of Flora Banks - Emily Barr (YA debut; a psychological thriller as well as a coming-of-age novel, starring a protagonist with no short-term memory who must navigate the Arctic landscape of Norway. The book will publish simultaneously in the U.S. and U.K. in January 2017. Philomel).
• Aftercare Instructions - Bonnie Pipkin (YA debut; The novel, which Sarah Dotts Barley and Caroline Bleeke will edit, follows a 17-year-old girl who is left at Planned Parenthood by her boyfriend after they agree to abort her unwanted pregnancy. Van Beek calls the book a “format-crushing story” that shifts between a traditional narrative and a play. It's tentatively scheduled for 2017; Flatiron).
• Untitled - Caitlin Sangster (debut YA fantasy and its sequel, both set in a world ravaged by a sleeping sickness, which follows a teen who must escape the only society she's ever known when she's accused of treason. Publication is planned for fall 2017 and fall 2018; Simon Pulse).
• It Started with Good-bye - Christina June (YA debut; a contemporary twist on the Cinderella tale. Under stepmother-imposed house arrest for the summer, 16-year-old Tatum launches a secret graphic design business and starts an unexpected romance with a cute cello player. Publication is slated for spring 2017; Blink).
• Epic Kale: and Other Cleanses for a Broken Heart - Lisa Greenwald (in which a newly dumped high school student and her loyal best friend start a healthy smoothie business out of a mobile snow cone truck while catfishing her ex-boyfriend. Publication is set for summer 2017; Random House).
• Quicksand Pond - Janet Taylor Lisle (a middle grade novel about the summer that 12-year-old Jessie spends with her family on a New England pond, involving a star-crossed friendship, a reclusive old lady with buried secrets, and a decades-old murder. Publication is scheduled for summer 2017; Atheneum).
• Breakout - Kate Messner (standalone MG; in which a small town is rocked when two inmates from the nearby maximum-security prison stage a breakout and a tween reporter is caught in the maelstrom. Publication is slated for spring 2018; Bloomsbury).
• The Stars Beneath Our Feet - David Barclay Moore (the middle grade story of a boy growing up in the projects of Harlem who discovers that creativity and an unlikely friendship – rather than revenge – are the best way to grieve his brother's untimely death. Publication is set for fall 2017; Knopf).
• Walk It Down - Ashley Hope Pérez (Walk It Down concerns the deaths of two teenagers in a corn storage bin in rural Indiana. The boys die – literally drown in grain – doing the dangerous job known as "walking down the corn." A third boy survives, trapped for hours after witnessing the deaths of his brother and best friend. Publication is scheduled for 2018; Dutton Young Readers).
• Press Start! - Thomas Flintham (4 book series; The story features the adventures of retro video game character Super Rabbit Boy as he tries to save his pixillated world, while remaining unaware that he is being played by a real human boy. Publication for the first book is slated for spring 2017; Scholastic/Branches).
• The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett - Chelsea Sedoti (YA debut; a darkly comedic mystery featuring a teenage girl and the disappearance of a classmate. It is scheduled for fall 2016 release; Sourcebooks).
• Frazzled: Everyday Disasters and Impending Doom - Booki Vivat (debut illustrated MG; a humorous, diary-style story of anxious 11-year-old Abbie Wu's middle-school struggles and triumphs. Publication is set for fall 2016; HarperCollins).
• The Skeleton Tree - Kim Ventrella (debut MG; the story of a boy who finds beauty – and possibly a friend – in death with the help of an unusual tree growing in his backyard. Publication is slated for fall 2017; Scholastic Press).
• The Fictional and (Sometimes) Fabulous World of Ruby Starr - Deborah Lytton (MG chapter book series which stars an imaginative fourth grader. The first book is set for spring 2017, with the others scheduled to appear a year apart. Sourcebooks).
• Sea Otter Heroes - Patricia Newman (MG science title shows how sea otters play a critical role in keeping the ecosystem in balance. Millbrook Press. Publication for the first book is slated for spring 2017…)
• Zoo Scientists - Patricia Newman (MG science title profiles what three zoos are doing to help save endangered animals...with the second for fall 2017; Millbrook Press).
• The Adventures of Sherlock Bones - Lauren Baratz-Logsted (a chapter book series; The first two books, to be published simultaneously, are Case File #1: Dogged to Death and Case File #2: Doggone. Each book is a retelling of a different Arthur Conan Doyle tale featuring a dog as Sherlock Holmes. Books one and two will release in September 2016; Month9Books).

 

Nothing from last week.

Awards: The 2016 People’s Choice Awards have a Young Adult category (aka go vote!). Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely won the 2016 Walter Dean Myers award for All American Boys. J.K. Rowling will be receiving the 2016 PEN award for her work against censorship. The 2016 Hans Christian Andersen shortlist was announced. Drum Dream Girl by Margarita Engel won the 2016 Charlotte Zolotow Award.

You can also nominate your favorite teen reads for the Teen Choice Book of the Year Award until February 2, 2016.

Authors: Bookishly Ever After - Isabel Bandeira, The Distance from A to Z - Natalie Blitt, Secrets of the Dragon Tomb - Patrick Samphire, Gemini - Sonya Mukherjee, Poppy Mayberry, the Monday - Jennie K. Brown, The Love That Split the World - Emily Henry (and another), Pull - Anne Riley, Salt to the Sea - Ruta Sepetys, The Dark Days Club - Alison Goodman,Symptoms of Being Human - Jeff Garvin, Lady Midnight - Cassandra Clare, American Ace - Marilyn Nelson

Excerpts: Blackhearts - Nicole Castroman, Glass Sword - Victoria Aveyard (chpt 4-7)

Book Trailers: After the Woods - Kim Savage, Pull - Anne Riley, The Siren - Kiera Cass

Multicultural children’s book day is today!

This eleven year old Jersey girl was tired of not seeing herself in books and is now launching the 1000BlackGirls book drive. As of that article, she was at 400 of her 1,000 books. If you’d like to contribute, there is an address at the bottom of the article;Kelly Jensen is also offering to use her knowledge of books featuring black girls.

Unsurprisingly, the diversity in the publishing industry is not great. (“While the lack of diversity among publishing staff was often spoken about, there was very little hard data about who exactly works in publishing…”). You should definitely read the full article and check out the infographic -- they talk more about the challenges of their survey, including the limitations of the U.S. Census (e.g. racial fluidity vs. ‘check this bubble!’), and questions about how these numbers compare to the rest of the world and whether certain areas of publishing (editorial staff) were more open to diversity than others (marketing/publicity). Really fascinating -- if there’s one link to read, read that.

Apparently some free speech groups condemned Scholastic’s pulling of the George Washington cake book. Daniel Older, among others, discusses those groups’ reactions and why Scholastic’s decision to pull the book was appropriate; no text is sacred and context matters. And, as NPR reports, picture books struggle with teaching kids about slavery (aka a further discussion on the book and others… “So the reality is that while kids are already grappling with some of the world's ugliness, she said, adults are still clinging to a Victorian ideal of an innocent child… We must keep the dirty secrets of our society away from those kids. And I think that kids are seeing those contradictions.”). Here was Scholastic’s response to PEN and NCAC.

I don’t tend to read picture books, but this analysis of Last Stop on Market Street and why it won the Newbery makes me want to reconsider that position.

This week is #ILoveMG week run by Workman (i.e. Algonquin YR), and if you’re on twitter, check out the topics for the next three days and participate!

Similarly on twitter, last week on the 21st Courtney Summers started #TotheGirls2016 as she had last year, only now you can submit posts to the tumblr page included in the link all year round, even if you missed tweeting.

Omg, I want this to be my cover for A Tyranny of Petticoats. Maybe like an alternate slip-on cover? I love the original, and I love this artwork too o.OO.

Likewise, look at the art Jenny Han had done in celebration of the pb release for To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before.

Once J.K. Rowling turned her focus back to Harry Potter (i.e. Cursed Child, Fantastic Beasts), sales of the books more than doubled.

The hot and cold categories of kidlit: what sold in 2015.

Also the bookselling effects of winning the Printz and Newbery: “Print unit sales of Matt de la Peña’s Last Stop on Market Street, illustrated by Christian Robinson, are up 677% over last week, and Bone Gap by Laura Ruby enjoyed a 264% bump.”

Congrats to Matt de la Pena for debuting on the Indie Bestsellers list. And congrats to these 100 bestselling books of 2015, according to USA Today. Lots of YA on that list.

World Read Aloud Day is February 24, 2016. Take Your Child to the Library Day is February 6, 2016. Mark ‘em in your calendars, folks.

The next Rae Carson book in the Gold Seer trilogy is called Like a River Glorious.

Transgender teen star, Jazz Jennings, is publishing her own memoir.

A new Beatrix Potter book will be published this fall.

Kate DiCamillo’s Raymie Nightingale is the first children’s literature book selected for One Book, One South. (In addition to a 20-city author tour and appearances at key trade conferences, Candlewick has partnered with the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance to introduce One Book, One South, Jr.)

Kwame Alexander: the ‘Say-Yes’ Guy (“He described how he went from signing 100 books over the course of a weekend to signing 600 books in two-and-a-half hours at Books & Books in Coral Gables, Fla., to encourage booksellers to become “say yes” people, too.”) -- I loved this article.

And I wish that I had PW access so that I could read about how independent bookstores are hand-selling diverse titles -- how booksellers are key to helping make diversity the new normal.

Curious what publishers will be emphasizing come fall 2016? Here are the fall children’s sneak previews.

Macmillan's Imprint Acquires Digital Tween Property 'SpacePop' (“Imprint, a new imprint of Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group, has acquired the global master publishing rights to SpacePop, a series of digitally distributed animated shorts, from Genius Brands International.”).

Cover Reveals:


Discussion/Other Blogger Posts:

If you’re looking to read more books by or about people of color, here are four coming out in February alone.

Looking for some time-bending books to read in 2016? Or maybe you want to read a YA book featuring a scary Artificial Intelligence villain? How about the top recommended African-American children’s books? Or books to read after you’ve watched the 5th Wave?

If you’re like me, there are probably a lot of books that went under your radar last year. Here are 15 books that you might have missed but that come highly recommended from B&N Teen.

Coming of Age, Universality, and Diverse Reads (“One of the most common rebuttals people hear to publishing or selling or promoting diverse literature is that the stories are too specific, or there aren’t enough of “those people in the community” to warrant selling / having the book, essentially that the stories aren’t universal...It’s a disconnect and a fallacy. What people love so much about coming-of-age stories is their universality. We can all relate to the trials and tribulations of growing up and finding yourself, of being in that state of anxiety and confusion. The only difference is some stories are about straight, white characters growing up, and the “diverse” titles are about everyone else.”) 100% agree.

An article about why posts saying you’re not going to read white men this year are meaningless - I found this interesting because I actually like those posts, I like how they’re challenging me too to be a better ally, but I also think the main point is important here too: “If only it were possible to do something good and rewarding without publicly prioritizing what effect that act has on you...I think that these pieces, now, at the dawn of 2016, are dead in the water. I have yet to read a single one that does not arrive at and nearly reinforce the same conclusions that prompted it. We know that white male writers take up too much literary attention; the solution is not necessarily jamming everyone else into a bottle of social justice cough syrup, standing on a soap box, and gulping it all down.”

8 John Green tropes and what they really mean - I could get on board with some of these but not all. I was discussing this with a friend and we both agreed that we want to see less talk of subverting the MPDG trope; most often “subversion” means realizing that the MPDG is a person. Subversion should mean actually telling the story of the MPDG (with her voice! not having the guy character have more insights in his own life about personhood via the MPDG). But that’s not what really happens, most of the time.

According to Teen Vogue, these are the best new YA books of 2016.

According to Pop Sugar, you’ll love these YA books no matter your age.

The Young Adult Fiction Sexual Revolution Is Necessary - I love that this article mentions the portrayal of sex in The Duff, and uses that as a springboard to look at how portrayals have changed and where they still need to go.

DON’T READ THIS NEXT BIT IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN SEASON 2 OF THE 100! I have blacked out the text in case...

The 100 as the Show That’s Breaking New Ground for Queer Representation (“It’s rare and laudable for a series to embrace diverse sexual identities in a way that puts them at the forefront of the story without making sexuality the dominant theme of the narrative. But, as Rothenberg notes, it’s also a factor of the setting in which the series takes place. The world of The 100 is one without sexual orientation, in part because it’s a world where homophobia doesn’t exist — survivors have bigger concerns than other people’s relationships.”)

(show spoiler)
Are you anticipating reading these books in February?

Dear friends, there is no world outside of books.

Quotes for animal lovers!

If you use Google Friend Connect to follow blogs without a Google account, you will need to refollow those blogs.

A teen blogger on things that she believes only happen in YA books: #OnlyinYA.

'Trendy' books: should we really be following the crowd? Hmm. I know people tend to get sucked in via hype, but I don’t know that I can think of trends that have really dominated YA such that everyone wanted to jump the bandwagon. Maybe a couple years back and John Green though.

Books that empower kids to stand up and speak out. The only YA/teen book I knew of there was Chelsea Clinton’s. I’d love to see more lists like this.

These books always put these women in a good mood. YASSSS to The Thief series! It’s interesting to me to see the number of kidlit books on that list. The stuff you read early, you never forget.

An interesting look at how YA adaptations are changing, becoming potentially more pessisimistic than they previously were.

Favorite teachers in kidlit books. Can we add Umbridge to this list? (Jk).

Movies & TV Shows:

Here’s where I admit to having failed. I did not know that Recovery Road was a book. I actually didn’t hear much at all aboutRecovery Road as a YA tv book adaptation; for all the adaptation news that I’ve covered, not until now has it come to my attention, which is a total shame. How did I miss that adaptation? How was it so rarely on any of the anticipated lists, if not having casting announced? *sigh* Well, you may have missed the premiere but you can still catch up with the show, first season and all.

Heyhey, apparently they’ve started filming for Ashes in the Snow / Between Shades of Gray, and it is cold. Here’s a set of pictures for filming with a sunrise drone and another set on the first day of filming.

In the round-up of photos from continuing tv show adaptations: pictures from The Vampire Diaries 7.10, Pretty Little Liars 6.13, The 100 3.2.

Disney released the first The BFG (by Roald Dahl) poster.

A new trailer has been released for Allegiant Part I (by Veronica Roth). You can check out the character graphic for Caleb as well.

On the set of Before I Fall, the actresses playing Sam and her sister.

The 5th Wave did okay in theaters - not as well as some other YA adaptations but perhaps this is because of the Blizzard??? But you’ve got some sites predicting YA adaptations are done.

A Little House on the Prairie movie is in the works at Paramount.

The Looking for Alaska movie adaptation may never happen.

Giveaways:

Adventures in Children's Publishing giveaway(s).

Giveaways listed at Saturday Situation by Lori of Pure Imagination and Candace of Candace's Book Blog.

Don't forget to enter YABC's giveaways for the month.

Sci-fi and Fantasy Friday {SF/F Reviews and Giveaways}.

If you have a giveaway, you should let me know.

Other:

New YA Releases: The Siren - Kiera Cass (rerelease), The Love That Split the World - Emily Henry, Rise of the Wolf - Jennifer Nielsen, The Possibility of Now - Kim Culbertson, Night Study - Maria Snyder, Front Lines - Michael Grant, I’m from Nowhere - Suzanne Myers, I See Reality: Twelve Short Stories about Real Life, The Morrighan’s Curse - Dianna Salerni, The Year We Fell Apart - Emily Martin, It’s All Your Fault - Paul Rudnick, The Prophecy of Shadows - Michelle Madow, The Mystery of Hollow Places - Rebecca Podos, Arrows - Melissa Gorzelanczyk, Anna and the Swallow Man - Gavriel Savit,Shallow Graves - Kali Wallace, The Memory of Light - Francisco X. Stork, Any Other Girl - Rebecca Phillips, Waiting for Callback - Pedita and Honor Cargill (UK).

PB Releases: I Was Here - Gayle Forman, The Mime Order - Samantha Shannon, Beware the Wild - Natalie Parker, A Cold Legacy - Megan Shepherd, Lies We Tell Ourselves - Robin Talley, Saving June - Hannah Harrington, Unleashed - Sophie Jordan, Model Misfit - Holly Smale, Speechless - Hannah Harrington, Dead Ends - Erin Jade Lange, Quake - Patrick Carman,Can’t Look Away - Donna Cooner, The Fire Horse Girl - Kay Honeyman, The Only Thing to Fear - Caroline Tung Richmond,A Wicked Thing - Rhiannon Thomas.

Recent Recommended Reads: Haven’t gotten to anything yet! But you can read about the 2016 YA books (non-debuts) that I want to read.

Which articles did you like best? Did I miss any news? Did you host a cover reveal or discussion that I should have posted about? A giveaway? Leave the links, and I'll either edit this post or post about 'em next week.