Amy Cheney
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The Debut: SLJ Chats with CJ Lyons About 'Broken' and Why Fear is Useless
CJ Lyons is an award-winning, critically acclaimed bestselling author of 21 adult novels. Now she has published her first YA novel. And she found the time to launch the "Buy a Book, Make a Difference" campaign that’s funded 54 scholarships to help fight crime and raised an additional $75,000 for charities.
Uncovering Radical Reads for Tough-to-Reach Teens | YA Underground
YALSA-Lockdown listserv founder Amy Cheney highlights self-published and mainstream book and movie titles. Many of her finds resonate with her incarcerated kids; sometimes it takes a little digging below the surface to uncover these.
Chronicle Spring Kids 2014 | Preview Peek
Chronicle Children’s Books recently welcomed librarians and booksellers to its spring preview in San Francisco, where it celebrated its 25th anniversary and the roaring success—star reviews or bestseller status—of many of its 2013 titles. But the focus remained on spring 2014, and the exciting slate of new titles that the publisher has in store. Here are some of the highlights.
Style or Substance? One Teen Makes the Point | YA Underground
Amy Cheney is constantly on the look-out for books that will engage her incarcerated teens, but estimates that only about one in five that she encounters will pass muster. That's why she is so excited about a new self-published title, From Crack to College & Vice Versa.
Reader Expectations for 'The Art of War,' Snitches, and 50 Cent | YA Underground
How much do our expectations influence our reading? Sometimes it's the cover that throws you off, or maybe the author's back story. And then again, what we think is great may not ring the bell for the teens we serve. Amy Cheney presents several titles that have met her teen readers' expectations, including classics, self-help narratives, and YA novels for reluctant and urban readers.
Books for Teens You Might Have Missed | YA Underground
Amy Cheney rounds up her "underground" picks, perfect for reluctant readers and teens looking for something a little different. From the latest in the Bluford series to a nonfiction title dealing with addiction, this compilation explores a few of the edgier titles being published this season.
YA Underground: A Different Kind of Rating System
After surveying the kids in my facility, I created the following system to rate the books that they're reading: one star = Wack, two stars = Bootsy, three stars = Koo, four stars = Clean, and five stars = That book Go! A book that’s “clean” is “real.” A book that “goes” has action. For my readers, a book is ideally both action-packed and real. What makes a book either or both? As usual, it’s not that straightforward, but here’s one attempt to decipher the question.
YA Underground: Books for Teens You Might Have Missed
Although I didn’t come up with this column's name—YA Underground—I'm appreciating it more and more. The kids I serve are living underground both metaphorically and literally. My library is in a 350-bed lockdown facility Amy Cheney juvenile cellthat serves adolescents ages 11 to 19, and it's in one of three rooms with windows. I have the only room with windows that are at eye level. The sunlight streams in and looking out, you can see trees, grass, clouds, sky, and sunsets beyond the barbwire. When Jonas (not his real name), an avid manga fan, was in the library on his every-other-week visit, I heard him describe the library as “a lonely bright spot.” He was talking about books—but aren’t books windows?
Top Book Choices for Youth in Detention (2013)
I guess we’re going make this an annual thing. Last January, SLJTeen ran my top choices for 2011, and here I am again with my 2012 picks. As you may remember, Coe Booth’s Bronxwood and Simone Elkeles’s Chain Reaction were on last year’s list. In a blog post, Booth wrote that she purposefully deleted the new novel she was working on. That takes courage and commitment. Her novels show her dedication to excellence, and teens respond. Elkeles is working on a new four-book series about football entitled Wild Cards. When I asked if there were also girls and guns in it, she replied, “There are always girls and romance and guys with lots of testosterone! No guns in the first book, but it gets gritty in the second when one of the boys gets caught up in gang activity.”
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