Back at the end of last year, I posted a link to VOYA’s top adult mysteries for teens. Since, as I said at the time, this blog hadn’t gotten to many (read: almost any) of them, I thought I would take a closer look at the books on VOYA’s list. But since I am somewhat [...]
Thoughts on Alex: One Shot at Forever
By on February 12, 2013
Chris Ballard’s One Shot at Forever is one of the three books on the Alex Awards this year that we declined to review. In the comments of our Alex Reactions post, John Sexton explained why: I believe the last time a sports themed book received Alex recognition was in 2007 when the committee i served [...]
Thoughts on Alex: Quick Picks
By on February 6, 2013
Our astute reviewer Amy Cheney noticed on Facebook that two of the ten Alex Award titles this year were also on the Top Ten Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers, and said: This might be the first year EVER that two books made both the Alex Awards and Quick Picks. Ross’ book [Juvenile in [...]
Weekly Reviews: New Look Snow White
By on February 4, 2013
Today we have two brief books, each a “fractured fairy tale” version of Snow White. First up, Catherynne Valente’s Six-Gun Snow White shares connections with a couple of recent posts on this site. As the first half of the title should make clear, it shares with Six-Gun Tarot a Western setting, but also partakes of the same intense genre-blending [...]
Thoughts on Alex: My Friend Dahmer
By on January 31, 2013
We review a lot of graphic novels around here (thanks in large part to super-reviewer Francisca Goldsmith) so, as we said on Monday, Angela and I were very happy to see a GN on the Alex Awards list this year. As I somewhat embarrassingly indicated, though, I hadn’t read Derf Backderf’s My Friend Dahmer, so I [...]
Alex Award Reactions
By on January 28, 2013
MARK: Congratulations to all of the 2013 Alex Award winners, and to the wonderful committee. Later this week, Angela and I will probably be dissecting the list in a little more detail, but for now, we just want to get up some first reactions. First, and most importantly to me, in your face, Angela! I [...]
More on Nonfiction–Now With (possibly dubious) Statistics!
By on January 22, 2013
Back in December, I wrote a post in which I wondered why we don’t see more nonfiction books recognized in awards for teens, and in particular, why memoirs and biographies are so dominant among the nonfiction titles that do show up. Commenter Meghan suggested: My own experience as a public librarian has shown it’s easier [...]
Extremely Scientific Predictions of the Alex Awards
By on January 17, 2013
MARK: Back before the 2011 Alex Awards were announced, Angela said she “would never presume to predict the Alex winners”, but this year I’ve convinced her to help me go ahead and presume away. So today we offer our combined random guesses, er . . . informed predictions as to what might make the 2013 [...]
Weekly Reviews: 2012 Thrillers
By on January 14, 2013
The Classics, New Adult, and Adult Books for Teens
By on January 7, 2013
Thinking about this idea of “New Adult” books (which Angela discussed here on Thursday), over on my personal blog I took a look at the Modern Library’s list of the 100 best books of the 20th Century, and found that half of the books on the list fit into one or another definition of New Adult. [...]
Fairy Tales
By on December 31, 2012
Adaptations of the fairy tales collected by the Grimm brothers are among my great pleasures in life. They account for one of my favorite picture books, Trina Schart Hyman outrageously gorgeous (and even more outrageously out-of-print) version of “Snow White” (Little, Brown, 1974); one of my favorite YA novels, Margo Lanagan’s Tender Morsels (Knopf, 2008), [...]
Fairy Tales
By on December 31, 2012
Adaptations of the fairy tales collected by the Grimm brothers are among my great pleasures in life. They account for one of my favorite picture books, Trina Schart Hyman outrageously gorgeous (and even more outrageously out-of-print) version of “Snow White” (Little, Brown, 1974); one of my favorite YA novels, Margo Lanagan’s Tender Morsels (Knopf, 2008), [...]
. . . And We’re Back
By on December 26, 2012
Hooray! We’re back online, and the new site looks great, though please let us know if you’re having any problems with it. You may notice that there’s a new url for the site, and it will probably work best to update your RSS feeds with the new one: http://blogs.slj.com/adult4teen. While I play around with the new [...]
Weekly Reviews: Crime
By on December 18, 2012
In this week’s reviews, we delve into three takes on the everlasting American obsession with crime and criminals. We start with Rob Deborde’s Portlandtown, which injects its paranormal underpinnings (and just “what is it with all this paranormal activity occurring in the Pacific Northwest?” asks reviewer Carla Riemer) with classic tropes from Western and Crime fiction [...]
Nostalgia
By on December 13, 2012
Back when I asked our reviewers what they look for in terms of teen appeal, Sarah Flowers said something intriguing that I couldn’t fit in that post, but I’d like to talk about at greater length. Here’s what she said:
“Is there an important teen character or characters, and do they sound like teens? That [...]
Accuracy in Nonfiction
By on December 12, 2012
On Monday, I discussed looking for more diversity in nonfiction for teens, but I didn’t even broach what might be the most important aspect of all when it comes to reviewing and recommending nonfiction: accuracy. While fiction can certainly have factual inaccuracies in it, and errors can even change our evaluation of the book, it [...]
Adult Nonfiction for Teens
By on December 10, 2012
Looking at the New York Times’s list of 100 Notable Books of 2012, I was somewhat surprised and definitely disappointed to see that this blog had reviewed only two of the 47 titles the Times recommended (in contrast, we reviewed 12 of the Times’s 53 fiction titles). To be sure, we reviewed our fair share [...]
Adult Nonfiction for Teens
By on December 10, 2012
Looking at the New York Times’s list of 100 Notable Books of 2012, I was somewhat surprised and definitely disappointed to see that this blog had reviewed only two of the 47 titles the Times recommended (in contrast, we reviewed 12 of the Times’s 53 fiction titles). To be sure, we reviewed our fair [...]
Weekly Reviews: Short Stories
By on December 3, 2012
I love short stories. I generally love anything that makes an effort not to waste my time, but I especially love the special craft of compression and power that short stories demand of their authors. I also admire the fact that short story writers have so many more structural options than novelists. Rather than being [...]
Philip Roth: Teen Novelist?
By on November 27, 2012
