How to use this Page

Over the past few weeks we’ve been posting on the YALSA Blog about the upcoming Booze for Books event on April 12. It’s a fundraising event focused on raising monies for YALSA’s Books for Teens initiative which gets books into the hands of underserved teens.

We’ve posted about planning for the event, moving beyond the booze box, and getting the word out about your event. This time around I want to throw out some ideas about getting some buzz going just before, during, and just after your event whether it be Mocktails for a Mission, Chocolate for a Cause, Booze for Books or something else.

• Use the #b4byalsa hashtag for Twitter posts before, during, and after the event. Make sure to let your attendees know about that hashtag.
• Have people take pictures at your event and then post them on Flickr (or the photo-sharing service of your choice). Make sure to use the #b4byalsa and the #yalsa hashtag. By doing that we’ll be able to put together an album of photos from the variety of events that take place across the country.
• Since so many people have video cameras on phones and iPads and other devices you might shoot short interviews with those at your event. They could talk about their favorite book or what they love about working with teens. Upload the videos to YouTube and tag them with yalsa and yalsab4b. We can then put together a gallery of video too.
• For those using mobile Facebook you can also encourage those attending to post on YALSA’s Books for Teens Facebook wall during the event. That way there will be a live stream on Facebook of the fun (and fundraising) taking place across the country

Those are just a few ideas of what people might do to create buzz just before, during, and just after the April 12 event. What do others think would work?

As you continue to plan your event no matter what the theme, feel free to get in touch with me (Linda W. Braun) with any questions about planning and implementation. Don’t forget that the YALSA Financial Advancement Committee developed a fundraising guide that has a lot of ideas and information that is sure to help in planning your event. There is also a Booze for Books page on the YALSA website.

What’s all the buzz?  There has not been this much tweeting since John Corey Whaley won this year’s Printz and Morris Awards!

The initial announcement about Booze for Books, scheduled for April 12, 2012, sure stirred a heated debate.  While the title says Booze, the event does not have to include booze, and is your opportunity to help raise funds to get books into the hands of needy teens. It’s all a part of YALSA’s Books for Teens initiative.

Options Galore  After reading the initial post about Booze for Books, many YALSA blog readers posted other options for events that don’t incorporate alcohol.  Janene suggested “Burgers for Books!”  Beth mentioned quite a few “Pizza for Pages,” “Tea for Teens,” and “Chocolate for a Cause.” Another Beth wrote “Mocktails for a Mission.”  YALSA’s first Booze for Books fundraiser can be adapted to meet your community’s needs.  The core idea of this fundraiser is to raise money for Books for Teens, which connects at-risk teenagers with books.  A novel idea!

How do you get started?  Check out the brand new fundraising guide that provides a ton of ideas on how to host a fundraising event for YALSA. The guide includes templates, tips, forms, weblinks, and more.  Are you too afraid to do it alone?  Team up with a librarian from another library!

Let’s share some new ideas!  YALSA started a Pinterest Board to have members share photos and recipes.  You can snap a photo of your creation (alcoholic or pizza or chocolate, or whatever).  Another idea is to add a book cover image that inspires your event (I am thinking Cormier’s The Chocolate War).

Thinking Outside the Booze Box  Speaking of chocolate, I may steal Beth’s idea, Chocolate for a Cause.  I am considering hosting an event at a local artisan chocolate café.  I am thinking handcrafted truffles, cocoas and drinking chocolates, chocolate shakes, and chocolate fondue.  I can have a dark vs. milk chocolate competition. Besides Cormier’s The Chocolate War, I can have copies of Klause’s Blood and Chocolate, Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate, or Candyfreak: a journey through the chocolate underbelly of America. I can have a donation bucket where attendees can throw in a few bucks toward Books for Teens.

Another Box (Pizza Box) Option Instead of chocolate, try Pizza for Pages.  You can host a pizza-making dinner at your home.  Have your guests bring their favorite toppings; you can supply the dough and sauce.  Another possibility is to have a no-host Pizza for Pages event at your favorite local pizzeria.  Maybe the pizza business will give you a discount.  Henry Holt has a new book coming out in August, Pizza, Love, and Other Stuff That Made Me Famous by Kathryn Williams.  Remember you can request YALSA swag and a couple of books as part of your event.

Different Events; Same Goal Whatever you decide, remember the goal is still the same to empower the nation’s at-risk teens to achieve more by providing them with free high-quality, new, age-appropriate books.  So put April 12^th on your calendar!

If you would like to donate to Books for Teens outside of a special event, you can do so via the Facebook Books for Teens page or send a donation by check to YALSA, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611, attention: Books for Teens.

If you have any questions

Alexandra Flinn, AKA Alex Flinn, has a lot going on in her writing life. Her newest book, A KISS IN TIME, is getting great reviews, and her book BEASTLY is being made into a movie starring Vanessa Hudgens, Alex Pettyfer and  Mary Kate Olsen.   How cool is that?

I recently read A KISS IN TIME and found that its fascinating premise nestled within the comforting framework of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale made for a read that kept me intrigued. The premise is: what would happen if Sleeping Beauty was kissed by her true love 300 years later, and that true love turned out to be a teenager from modern-day Florida? How would their two worlds collide? How would it end? After all, according to the fairy tale they’re supposed to marry and live happily ever after.  But Jack’s still in high school and not about to be married yet. Now what?

How old were you when you first started seriously writing?

Depends what you mean by “seriously.”  I knew I wanted to be a writer when I was five.  I wrote plays for the kids in the neighborhood to perform when I was 9 or 10.  I started writing a diary and trying to write my novel at 12.  I wrote most of a manuscript for a novel (then lost it) at 19.  I started writing with a real eye toward publication, researching the market, etc., at 29.  My first book was accepted when I was 32.

  What age child do you have in your head?

That is the age I picture myself reading my books.

How do you make up names for your characters?

I love names!  It’s one of my favorite parts of writing.

Sometimes, the characters just tell me their names, which is what happened with Jack in A Kiss in Time.  Other times, I think about it more.  Like with Talia the Sleeping Beauty of A Kiss in Time, I found that Talia was one of the names given to Sleeping Beauty in old stories.   She has a whole slew of middle names, which I got from a list of royal names and also, from other names for Sleeping Beauty (Aurora and Rose).

I often consider the meaning of the name.  For example, Kyle (the Beast in Beastly) is named Kyle because it means “handsome,” and after he becomes a beast, he changes it to Adrian which means dark.  The girl in the story is Linda, which means “pretty.”  Kendra, the name of the witch in that story, means magical. 

I consider impressions that names give me, and if I know anyone with that name.  Charlie Good in my book, Breaking Point, was named Charlie because I knew someone who looked just like him in middle school, and his name was Charlie, and I knew a boy named Alex Good in high school.  He used to say his name was spelled, “No E, just plain good,” which I thought was funny.  I have a book called Baby Name Personality Survey, which tells me what impressions the name gives other people. 

I had a really hard time naming my own kids, so it’s fun to get to name more people.

What’s the earliest childhood memory you can think back to? Does it appear in any of your writing?

I can remember REALLY far back, and I remember a lot.  I remember standing in my crib, biting the sides, waiting for my mother to come in.  But my first vivid memory was from when I was three years old.  I remember my mother coming in and telling me we were going to meet the little boy and girl who had moved in next-door.  I was wearing a white dress with red polka dots.  We went over to their house and sat on their back step.  The boy’s name was Peter, and the girl’s name was Wendy (No, I did not make this up after watching Peter Pan), and they were two and five respectively.  I never used it in my writing, but I’ve used other stuff.

Do you wake up in the night with fantastic ideas for books?

Not in the night.  I usually think up story ideas when I’m supposed to be doing something else.  Like, once, I wrote a short story in my head while watching Piglet’s Big Movie with my kids.

Why write a take off on a fairy tale?

Initially, because part of the story wasn’t fleshed out enough for my liking.  I wanted to know more about the Beast, or it bothered me that Sleeping Beauty just got plunked down in another century.  Now, because kids don’t read fairy tales anymore.   They watch the DVD, and if there is no DVD, if Disney hasn’t done it, it’s dead.  You have no idea how many emails I get, asking who the bear in Beastly was supposed to be.  He’s from Snow White and Rose Red, but none of them have heard of that story.  I’m working on a novel now that is all fairy tales that haven’t been done by Disney.  Some of them, even I hadn’t heard of until I started researching.

What is your favorite fairy tale?

Sleeping Beauty was my favorite as a child.  Now, I sort of like adventure stories like The Brave Little Tailor, Lazy Jack, or The Golden Bird, where the hero has to surmount obstacles to gain the hand of the princess.

What do you have hidden in a dresser drawer? (We won’t tell, will we, everyone?)

Nothing.  It’s not that I’m so organized (I’m not), or that I don’t have hiding places (I do).  That’s just not one of them.  And I’m not going to tell you my hiding places because my kids are old enough to go online.

What do your favorite jammies look like?

Grey short gown with an embroidered pink kitty-cat on it that says, “It’s all about me-ow.”

Who would you rather have a date with (given you weren’t married), Strider from THE LORD OF THE RINGS, Dr. Watson, Wolverine, or Simon Cowell? Why?

Simon.  I was a music major in college, and I pretty much agree with everything he says (except when he ridicules the disabled, but I would try to cure him of that).

Have you ever been abducted by aliens? If so, what color were their jammies? And did they tell you the titles of any of their favorite books?

Well, if they abducted me, they must like my books, right?  And they weren’t wearing jammies.  In fact, they all looked exactly like Simon Cowell and were wearing black Tee-shirts and jeans.

Will you name a character in your next book after me?

Um, maybe.  Do you want me to?  How many other people have you asked to do this?

Thanks, Alex! 

(Who knows, maybe we’ll have a spate of characters named Shutta soon.)

Ciao!

Shutta

* Many of Alex Flinn’s books have made the American Library Association’s Best Books for Young Adults lists, as well as Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers. They have also received such teen-selected honors as the International Reading Association Young Adult Choices list (Breathing Underwater, Nothing to Lose, and Fade to Black). Flinn’s books seem to appeal to teens who might otherwise prefer not to read, which is the charge of the Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers list. Her books have also been nominated for numerous state awards. Breathing Underwater won the Maryland Black-Eyed Susan Award in 2004. Beastly is nominated for the 2009 Lone Star State (Texas) Award.  (Wikipedia entry: Alex Flinn.)

(Alex Flinn author Portrait by J.A. Cabrera.)

i saw this little girl in the arboretum the other day, crouching down to get a closer look at the geraniums. she looked like she was talking to the monarch butterflies. i snapped her and that expression, that serious, yet angelic pose she struck as if she was listening to a butterfly tell her all his troubles and that she could do something to help him. :)

so then i brought her back home and turned her into a faerie princess who could help...

it would be so nice to think heaven has flowers and children and butterflies.

but no wasps or slugs. or um, "road ragey" people or quarterly taxes. or department of motor vehicles.

happy 4th! :)