YA Wednesday: King on Hunger, Fat-pol Friendly, and Samurai Girl
In this edition of YA Wednesday (on Thursday), we talk about one new book, some old books made into a new TV show, and a couple of other things.
Stephen King likes The Hunger Games, too.
From this week's EW: King calls out the book for resembling "TV badlands" we've walked before (including two by "a guy named Bachman," The Running Man and The Long Walk), but he recognizes the appeal:
Reading The Hunger Games is as addictive (and as violently simple) as playing one of those shoot-it-if-it-moves videogames in the lobby of the local eightplex; you know it's not real, but you keep plugging in quarters anyway.
Although people have been writing about this book feverishly for the past couple of months, it officially comes out September 14.
Westside Books: All YA, for real
PW and Cynsations both reported this week on Westside Books, a new press dedicated to YA novels. Their focus: realistic stories about teens and real issues. In PW, the publisher describes it as:
“We’re not doing chick lit, we’re not doing fantasy. These are serious books. They’re fun to read and funny but they’re about real things.”
Their website includes a list of all their inaugural titles, due in spring 2009.
Fat-positive YA books
One of Westside's new titles is One Wish, by Leigh Brescia. From the book description: "Overweight Wrenn Scott desperately wants to be popular and snag a hot boyfriend." Apparently, Wrenn is lured into diet tricks and becomes a bit of a jerk, at least for a while.
This reminds me of an interesting post by children's book reviewer Rebecca Rabinowitz on a site called "Shapely Prose: LOL Your Fat." (found via Kristin Cashore's blog)
She recommends the following "fat-pol friendly" books (i.e., with "something to offer in terms of fat politics") for young adults:
This Book Isn’t Fat, It’s Fabulous, by Nina Beck
Fat Kid Rules The World, by K.L. Going
The Earth, My Butt, And Other Big Round Things, by Carolyn Mackler
Fat Hoochie Prom Queen, by Nico Medina
Myrtle Of Willendorf, by Rebecca O’connell
Big Fat Manifesto, by Susan Vaught
Rabinowitz dissects each book, and illuminates instances of fat/skinny stereotypes (like equating emotional growth with weight loss) that seem worth calling out.
I have one more to possibly add (although I probably need Rabinowitz's help to give it a full fat-pol analysis): All About Vee, by C. Leigh Purtill, a light follow-your-dreams story about Veronica May, a 217-lb actress trying to make it in Hollywood. The main character is positive and tenacious, and refuses to let shallow execs make her feel badly about herself. She exercises, but it seems to be for health reasons. From teenbookreview:
C. Leigh Purtill does an awesome job of tackling the tough issue of body image and our culture’s idea of beautiful as unhealthily thin. Veronica is an awesome girl, someone I’d really like to know!
(Purtill also has a cute site, and she worked on The Gilmore Girls, so she's now my personal hero.)
Samurai Girl on TV!
On Friday, ABC Family premiered Samurai Girl, showing three episodes about the girl made famous by the book series. 
Early reactions from fans...
omg jake is safe and hot and the dad is way scary
Please, you have to bring back Samurai Girl!! Its so addicting.
My boyfriend Brenden...He's perfect! I can't breathe...We need to PROTEST! I need to see my boyfriend WEEKLY!...DAILY!*Sigh*
Sign the petition to make Samurai Girl an ABC Family regular series!
Wait. All these posts are about the guy. What about the girl? According to the show's website, the next Samurai Girl marathon starts September 27.--Heidi
Lydia Ned-Jones on October 03, 2008 at 11:46 PM
I commenting on Dr. Zhi Gang Sha's book Soul Wisdom. This is his paper back edition, which is an excellent book, with new spiritual gifts in the book. It teaches ancient wisdom on Soul Language,Soul Song, Soul Tapping,Soul Movement and Soul Dance. I really enjoy reading it. It is a must read book.
Fairy on December 17, 2008 at 08:02 AM
I lost 13 lbs in only two weeks by obeying this one easy rule
http://www.officialacaidiet.com/index.php?id=One+Simple+Dieting+Rule