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Via the Brown Bookshelf, John Green discusses the cover issue for Justine Larbalestier's book in a thorough way, taking into account all the changes our industry is going through.

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Also, I've added several books to my POC booklist thanks to all the people who have been suggesting books. There are a number of fantasy books by or about people of color that I've never seen before, including new books just coming out this year. One that just came out last month, Libyrinth, features a black girl right there on the cover (which we have found in the recent discussions is really rare in YA and children's, especially in fantasy) and sounds like a really good read, so perhaps for those of you looking to read and review books for Color Online's Color Me Brown book review challenge, you might want to check it out.

I'll be looking for it myself. I tend not to read new books when they're new, so here's me trying to catch up yet again! I am in the middle of reading Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit and need to get back to Where the Mountain Meets the Moon so I think I'll be meeting that challenge myself. I've got plenty of other books on my TBR list now with the booklist to reach the needed more than three reviews. The only question is whether I'll have enough time to finish these in the month of August, given all the other things on my plate right now. Even if I don't meet the challenge for prizes (and yes, there are prizes, so you guys should try for it!), I definitely will try to meet it to get myself to review books on a more regular basis.

Earlier this month, YALSA extended the deadline to apply to manage its new blog. The new blog (name TBD) will launch in 2010 and will focus young adult literature. We’re seeking candidates to manage the blog and help YALSA develop it further. The goal is to create a website that provides teens a resource – with blog posts and multimedia – for finding reading recommendations.

After the jump, read the original announcement, which includes job requirements, qualifications and information on how to apply. Questions? Contact Beth Yoke at byoke@ala.org.

YALSA is seeking a Member Manager for its upcoming YA literature-focused blog (whose exact name is still to be determined) with the mission to provide an online resource for teens to use to find reading recommendations. This blog will focus solely on young adult literature and will provide teens with a definitive web connection to blog posts, images, booklists, and videos and more all related to teen reading.  The deadline for applications is Nov. 30, 2009.

The Member Manager will lead an advisory board and together the group will be responsible for the content of the site. In addition, the Member Manager and the advisory board will solicit content submissions from the YALSA community.

List of Qualifications:

1. Excellent verbal and written communications skills, in order to develop content and communicate with potential content providers and developers. Experience in web publishing with responsibilities including but not limited to: utilizing video clips and video streaming technology, maintaining a high standard of writing, and ensuring compliance with policies created for the maintenance of the site.
2. HTML proficiency
3. Familiarity with content management software including WordPress used for administration of blog sites
4. Dynamic, self-motivated individual
5. Ability to delegate work and to manage a variety of contributors and volunteers
6. Strong organizational skills
7. Ability to set and meet deadlines
8. Experience in library services to young adults
9. Ability to work well in a team environment
10. Membership in YALSA

General Responsibilities:

• Communicate with the Advisory Board and the YALSA Office on a regular basis in order to generate ideas for content, assign tasks, discuss marketing and sponsorship strategies, and discuss site management
• Work with the Website Advisory Committee and the YALSA Blog Manager to create cross-promotion of all YALSA’s web presences
• Maintain communication with YALSA member groups whose work relates to young adult literature
• Maintain a YALSA channel on Blip.TV and YouTube to host and share video content
• With the Advisory Board review and edit audio and video content submitted to the site to make sure the quality is acceptable and that it includes YALSA branding prior to posting
• With the Advisory Board manage postings regularly to guarantee quality of content and appropriate tagging and category identification
• Manage comments and spam daily in order to guarantee that the blog content is appropriate
• With the Advisory Board recruit contributors on a regular basis, which may include but is not limited to: YALSA members, publishers, authors and teens
• Meet with and provide any necessary training to contributors as needed, including at ALA’s Annual Conference and Midwinter Meeting
• Attend the All Committee
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Summary:
After an irregular childhood and traumatic personal event, Madeline Dare accepts a post at Santangelo Academy, a boarding school for disturbed teenagers. The school is notoriously expensive and experimental and set in gorgeous grounds in the Berkshire Mountains in Massachusetts. Everyone on campus, teachers and students alike, must submit to the founder's bizarre therapeutic treatments and regimen.

Madeline responds to the demands and requirements with humor, cynicism, and good sense. While this doesn't endear her to everyone, it does make her a sympathetic and teacher and an interesting lead character.

When sudden violence erupts on campus, Madeline finds herself right in the middle of it. And as she tries to make sense of what happened and how to protect herself and her students, we get drawn into the mysteries and secrets going on in The Crazy School.

Review:
The Crazy School gives us the quirky, cynical Madeline Dare and her impressions as a new teacher in the dangerous and unusual Santangelo Academy. As a crisis emerges at Santangelo Academy, the story turns into a mystery thriller as Madeline and her students try to discover the truth behind the mysterious deaths. The Crazy School is accessible, engrossing and fun.

ISBN-10: 044619820X - Paperback $13.99
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing; 1 edition (February 12, 2010), 352 pages.
Review copy provided by the publisher.

About the Author, courtesy of the publisher:
Cornelia Read knows old-school WASP culture firsthand, having been born into the tenth (and last) generation of her mother's family to live on Oyster Bay's Centre Island. She was subsequently raised near Big Sur by divorced hippie-renegade parents. Her childhood mentors included Sufis, surfers, single moms, Black Panthers, Ansel Adams, draft dodgers, striking farmworkers, and Henry Miller's toughest ping-pong rival.

At fifteen, Read returned east, attending boarding school and college on full scholarship. While in New York, she did time as a debutante at the Junior Assemblies, worming her way back into the Social Register following her expulsion when a regrettable tantrum on the part of her mother's boyfriend's wife landed them all on "Page Six" of the New York Post.

Today, her Bostonian Great-Grandmother Fabyan's Society of Mayflower Descendants membership parchment is proudly displayed at the back of Read's tiny linen closet in Berkeley, California. She continues to rebel against familial tradition by staying married to a lovely sane man who is gainfully employed. They have twin daughters, the younger of whom has severe autism. Learn more at Cornelia Read's website at http://www.corneliaread.com/

Would you like your own copy? Sign up for the giveaway - ending March 21, 2010!

Reading Group Guide:

1. Maddie is the only Santangelo Academy teacher who lives off campus. How does this affect her views of what is “normal”?

2. Wiesner tells Maddie she is “too whacked to maintain appropriate boundaries” and has issues with authority. Do you agree? Does anyone at Santangelo maintain “appropriate” boundaries?

3. Maddie claims she hates Mindy because she is so shallow. What does this assessment reveal about Maddie herself? How does the generally ne

    My students, well, the female students, were captivated by Nicholas Sparks' novels this year.  What with the movie versions of Dear John and The Last Song coming out recently, and "A Walk to Remember" and "The Notebook" out on DVD, the girls can certainly squeeze out a hanky-ful of tears right about now.  As much as they love The Clique and Alphas and other such schoolgirl fluff, it's sappy romantic fluff that they crave at the end of the day.  And Nicholas Sparks really delivers the romance.  Well, romance and fatal diseases.

    Personally, I have never read a Nicholas Sparks book.  Sure, I dig the romance thing, like all of us chicks do.  I cried my eyes out at "The English Patient."  Of course, that was back in 1996... Oh, and I sobbed during the series finale of Lost.  Does that make me a romantic or just a geek?  Whatever the case, I think I can recognize a heartstrings-puller when I come across one.

    And that's exactly what The Clearing is. This novel by Heather Davis covers all of the territory that Nicholas Sparks covers- the heroine with a rocky past and a chip on her shoulder, the seemingly simple yet tragically complex boy who's hiding secrets from the girl he loves, lots of mist and rain falling on lovers who just don't care how wet they're getting as long as they're together.  The Clearing has all of that fluff. And a bit of substance, too.

    Amy needs a fresh start for her senior year.  Leaving an abusive relationship behind in Seattle, she moves to a tiny town in the Cascade Mountains to live in a run-down trailer with her great-aunt Mae.  On Mae's land Amy finds a clearing shrouded in mist, and she is drawn into the mysterious haze.  It is here that she meets Henry Briggs, a kind, polite young man who doesn't speak or dress or behave like any boy Amy has ever met.  Amy feels safe with Henry, and as he helps her to put her past behind her, the two fall in love in the clearing.

    But there is a reason Henry is so different from the other guys.  On his side of the clearing, Henry and his mother and grandfather are trapped in time, stuck in an endless summer in 1944.  Both Henry and Amy are reluctant to move forward: Amy, who has been hurt so terribly, cannot face her future, and Henry knows that a family tragedy awaits if they see the end of the summer.  Together, Amy and Henry help one another find the courage to move on with their lives, even as the unknown future threatens their love.

    The Clearing is a charming story told from alternating points of view.  Both Amy and Henry are vulnerable and afraid, but they fall hard for one another.  Their love grows in a sweet, old-fashioned way, and Davis creates plenty of very tender moments between them. She also understands the mind of a teenage girl, and she gives Amy a true, believable voice.  There's even a little twist at the end that you won't see coming, a twist that will leave you simultaneously heartbroken and satisfied.

    Is The Clearing the best book I've read recently?  No.  The whole construct of the story feels forced and is never fully e

I have a friend who is the leader of a church group for girls 12-18, and she asks:

I want to set up a little library for our YW. [Young Women] These are multi-cultural girls, low income, some from illegal families. I would love to get your suggestions as to good books to put in the library. Since the library will be at the church, they do need to be on the “clean” side, but the girls range from age 13-17 and I think can handle some more complicated themes.

I have a start of a list here, but would love your additions to the list. “Clean” should include nothing stronger than “darn” or the occasional “crap” or “hell,” and on-screen violence should be kept to a minimum; no sex/sexual conduct beyond kissing/holding hands (at least, not in-scene), though romance is great. That doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t handle tough subjects, though. The Maze Runner, for example, is dystopian, but still a clean read overall. Even a book that tackled rape and its aftermath, or something similarly violent, could be appropriate for a list like this depending on how it’s written.

In general, I’m an advocate for good literature over judging a book by what isn’t in it, and my friend is that kind of reader, too. But given that this is a church-associated library, the suggestions do need to be “appropriate,” if you know what I mean. Feel free to suggest titles that might not be shelved in a church library ONLY if they’re borderline (i.e., something my friend my suggest the girls look up on an individual basis if she feels they’re ready for them).

For example, The Hunger Games may not be for everyone. I love it, and would hand it to any teen I knew who didn’t have a problem with a little violence. But some teens are more sensitive than others, so it might be important in a church context to gauge just how well the reader might welcome the visuals they’d get from that book, especially when it might as easily be picked up by a 12-year-old as a 15-year-old. (Then again, given that we live in a dystopia and modern teens know it, perhaps they’d be just fine with it.) Public library, no problem. But it’s the kind of thing that a conservative church library might not be the best place for.

This is NOT a fantasy-only list. Feel free to add YA-appropriate “clean reads,” particularly but not limited to multicultural books, from any genre. I’m just biased for SFF, that’s all. It is a tough list to assemble, though, because I hate to recommend something as “clean” when I haven’t had a chance to read it myself.

• The Maze Runner, James Dashner


• The Sisters Grimm series, Michael Buckley *


• Conrad’s Fate, Diana Wynne Jones


• The Dalemark Quintet, Diana Wynne Jones


• A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle and its sequels


• Matched, Ally Condie (to be published in Nov. 2010)


• The Princess and the Hound, Mette Ivie Harrison, and its sequels


• Princess of the Midnight Ball, Jessica Day George, and its sequel Princess of Glass


• Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit, 2008, Nahoko Uehashi, and its sequel, Moribito II (this is technically a middle grade book, but the cool thing about it is that it can be appreciated by all ages–the main character is a 29-year-old woman who protects a young king)


• Wildwood Dancing, Juliet Marillier


• Book of a Thousand Days, Shannon Hale


• Flora Segunda, Isabeau S. Wilce, a
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Mary Elizabeth Summer is a Portland, Oregon-based writer who spends her days writing training materials for various companies and her nights racing pell-mell across the keyboard after her rampaging imagination. She writes novel-length stories with occasional forays into shorter fiction, and she writes for young adults, except for when she doesn't. She has a BA in creative writing (she BSes everything else), and she haunts bookstores for fun. Her current writing project is a young adult novel about a girl on the grift. Non-writing interests include volunteering at a horse-therapy program for autistic children and learning the fine art of parenting from her newborn daughter.

interview by Marcia Peterson

WOW: Congratulations on placing as one of the Runners Up in our Spring 2010 competition! What inspired you to enter the contest?

Mary Elizabeth: Thank you! I was very honored to be chosen from among such talented writers. Actually, I was inspired to enter the contest when I read that I could receive a critique of my entry. I didn't expect to actually place in the contest. I was happily surprised when I did, but also happy to get a professional opinion about the story.

WOW: Glad your expectations were exceeded! Can you tell us what encouraged the idea behind your story, "Of Crepes and Constancy?"

Mary Elizabeth: It's kind of a funny story. My writing group decided to try a variation of the exquisite corpse exercise in which each of us put two sentences into a hat and then draw two sentences out. One sentence was to be used as the first sentence of a story, and the second sentence was meant to be the last sentence of the story. The first sentence I drew was "How many times can you burn a crepe before it really does mean something?" In my original version of the story, I managed to end it with the second sentence, but in the revision process, I had to cut it, because it didn't quite work. As for the substance of the piece, at the time I wrote it, I was noticing a pattern in the relationships of people around me--a certain sort of insincerity that led to mind games and dissatisfaction. I had actually meant it to be a comical story, but it didn't turn out that way. Funny how characters sometimes take a story and run in completely the opposite direction with it.

WOW: For writers who may be interested in what you do for a living, could you describe what it’s like writing training materials for various companies?

Mary Elizabeth: It can be challenging at times. I have to take a bunch of information about something I know absolutely nothing about and shape it in a way that makes sense to someone else who knows nothing about it so that they learn. It involves a lot of adult learning theory and subject matter experts and ridiculous budget constraints and unrealistic turn-around times and blah blah blah corporate blah. It is a pretty sweet job, though. I essentially get to write for a living, which is the golden apple, right?

WOW: It sounds like a demanding but interesting job. How do you switch gears to write fiction at