Omnivoracious: YA Wednesday: Reviews by Kids, Librarian Love, and the Requisite Weekly Twilight Miscellany

YA Wednesday: Reviews by Kids, Librarian Love, and the Requisite Weekly Twilight Miscellany

by Paul on August 20, 2008

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....