1.  Carnegie Ahoy!

Patrick Ness has won the Carnegie Medal in the UK for the second year in a row – a feat only achieved once before by Peter Dickinson – for A Monster Calls.  It is the first year that the Carnegie Medal and the Kate Greenway medal (for illustration) have been awarded to the same title.  A Monster Calls is a truly collaborative effort as the story originated with Siobhan Dowd prior to her death, written by Ness and visually brought to life by Jim Kay.

You can watch (or listen to Ness and Kay’s speeches here.

2. What’s Fit to Print: Issues in Youth Literature

Kelly Gardiner (An Act of Faith), George Ivanoff (Gamers series), Hazel Edwards (F2M: a story within, co-written with Ryan Kennedy) and our Program Coordinator, Adele Walsh will be tackling this subject matter on a panel at the Bayside Literature Festival on July 7th (2-4pm).  It is bound to be an interesting discussion of a multitude of issues facing YA – more information can be found here.

3. Tropes vs Women, depictions of females in the media

Last week a feminist media critic, Anita Sarkeesian, launched a Kickstarter appeal to support a series of videos she hoped to produce on the shallow depictions of females in video games.  What erupted can only be described as vile eg threats against her persons and life, a rash of insults attacking her looks, culture and gender – as many gamers felt threatened.  Needless to say her project has received funding – +$157K when she was aiming for $6k.

But more interestingly, I went back and watched her video series from last year called Trope vs Women on the decpition of women in the media and it would be an invaluable tool in the classroom.  While I am looking forward to seeing the results of her forthcoming project, her previous series was well worth the watch.

4.  2012 YABBA Awards

This year’s YABBA awards have been announced with the following garnering the shortlist in the Fiction for Years 7-9 category.  Congrats to them all!

• Graffiti Moon (Cath Crowley)
• Thyla (Kate Gordon)
• Midnight Zoo (Sonya Hartnett)
• Boofheads (Mo Johnson)
• After (Sue Lawson)
• Finnikin of the Rock (Melina Marchetta)
• Phoenix Files: Arrival (Chris Morphew)
• Hello God (Moya Simons & Lisa Coutts)
• Six (Karen Tayleur)
• All I Ever Wanted (Vikki Wakefield).

5. Films coming at ya!

Another week another heap of press releases announcing youth literature titles making the transition from print to the big screen.  This morning came the news that the rights to the YA take on The Hangover, From What I Remember (Stacy Kramer & Valerie Thomas) have been snapped up by Fake Empire productions.

Also on the radar, EW has released a set of photos of the key Breaking Dawn cast.  Take in your Edward and Bella (and the Reneesme) photos at your own leisure.