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I love it, Tanita. Happy 2013!

(Kelly, who is setting up a blog reader again.)

Thanks for these, especially the Brown Book Shelf shout out.

Cheers for Banned Books Week!

Hi Tanita!

Thanks for the mention; my post is up! Justice is actually 1978, earlier than the edition you were looking at. I am surprised you'd never heard of it before! I feel that it has been haunting my peripheral book vision for decades, and I'm really glad I finally took the plunge and read it.

Ah. I thought the date seemed weirdly later - I don't recall the year she died, but I thought it was prior to '89. I didn't like the author's work particularly, mainly because people pushed her on me - as one of the few girls of color in my school, I OBVIOUSLY had to read/love Virginia Hamilton. I avoided her like the plague, and wished people would just let me choose my own interests, which veered much further toward Diana Wynne Jones than Hamilton's dreadful realism.

I had NO idea she wrote magical realism/spec fic. Will check it out!

You are so right! And I'm trying to do just that, now that my MFA is done!

CONGRATULATIONS on that completion, Lin!

Thank you! :D

Great post, Tanita.

I was baffled by the title of the Macmillan blog post; the word "Disappearance" implies that something is gone that was once there. As someone who writes about Jewish children's literature, I don't see any huge change in the number of books published in which religion plays a part. Hey, you named a ton of them! (Some other YA authors who've published books in just the last 3 years dealing with religion: Anne Voorhoeve, Margarita Engle, Veera Hiranandani, Amy Fellner Dominy, Chris Moriarty, Andrea Alban, Julie Chibbaro, Robert Sharenow, Haya Leah Molnar, Kathryn Lasky, Jacqueline Davies, Robin Friedman and Leanne Lieberman.)

Terrific post, Tanita - thank you!

I've read a bunch of the ones you and Marjorie listed, but I'll put the rest on my list to read soon. Glad to see you countering this theory with some facts, and names of good books.

Great recs... thanks for a level-headed response to the "alarm." Also, ahem, HAPPY FAMILIES?

@ Marjorie -- Thank you, thank you. I had heard of Kathryn Lasky - must now look up each of these listed, and excited to do so!

@ Genevieve -- Thanks for dropping by!

@ Ashley -- Oh. Duh. Well, not to blow my own horn or anything, but yeah. I guess HAPPY FAMILIES (out May 12! Eek!) counts. ☺

lol yes. I see this come up all the time, and I'm always like...what? I actually feel like the YA market has more such books than the adult market does. So thanks for the post and the recs!

@ Amy - Thanks for dropping by!

I am so grateful for this post!!! I wondered the same thing! Thank you!

"No wonder we're friends...♥" indeed.

I love you both - and now I just love ya that much more! (It always strikes me as so amazing when I discover that friends are as deeply connected to certain books and music as I am. It's like we've been fated our whole lives to find each other...)

Ah, now I'm teary - but seriously, Collen: EXACTLY.

And it is a better world. We have Dalemark. We have the Chrestomanci. We have Howl and Calcifer and The Dark Lord. And we can never unhave them.

That made me all teary, too.

@ rockinlibrarian - That is my mantra - it makes me feel much better. There are always and forever the stories.

There is something about sharing the same beloved books that, I feel, links people together at the level of the heart and the imagination...more strongly, almost, than any words that could be spoken aloud. Maybe that sounds melodramatic, but it feels true.

Anyway, T, I think I'd like to go back and read all the DWJ books, too, especially since there are plenty I've never read. Maybe we can plan a couple of joint reviews, if our re-reads coincide...

I'm in if you do it. I loved rereading F&H so much last month - must do all the others (and the ones I missed).

What a beautifully-written tribute, to Diana and to the power of books...love it!

This is such a lovely tribute to Diana Wynne Jones! I wish I discovered her books earlier, when I was a kid. But I don't think they were available here in the Philippines? In any case, I need to catch up and read the rest of her titles because I love Howl's Moving Castle (and really enjoyed reading the companion novels and the first two Chrestomanci books).

Happy DWJ Week! :)

@ Colleen & AF: After SBBT, yes?
@ Cheryl: thank you, and thanks for dropping by.
@ Chachic: They might not have been available in the Philippines - but now she's EVERYWHERE, so do read!! You will find not only fantasy and adventure and humor, but a thoughtfulness and a cleverness that will still appeal to your adult side.

What a lovely tribute. I was shocked to hear the news! How sad! I remember the first book of hers that I read: Dragonsdawn.

I still remember my mom handing me Dragonflight when I was about 12. My favorites were the Harper Hall dragon books, too, but I also really liked the Crystal Singer books.

Funny, I was never into horses the way I was into dragons. And I think it was probably Michael Whelan--who did many of her cover illustrations--who really made me want to be a cover illustrator in particular. I spent SO many hours copying his images of dragons from Anne McCaffrey's books as well as Melanie Rawn's dragon books (which I didn't like as well but of course I loved the covers!).

I read a lot of the Dragonriders books when I was a teenager, although I missed the Ship books entirely. I may have to read one. I mean, if you say it's one of the best books EVER...

You gave me chills when you said...and thus an era ends. So true and very much what I thought. Dragon Song is an all time favorite book, Menolly an all time favorite character. An amazing body of work she has left us with...so appreciated.

Heh. You give me too much credit. I asked questions because I want to know what others think. So come one come all and tell me what you think!

I am going over to check out the revised HP. I stopped after Book 3 but my daughter, Rowling's target audience, read everything twice and insists the later books are just as awesome as the earlier ones. So what does that say?

Thanks, Tanita, for getting the ball rolling again on talking about writing. My main problem is, every time I think about blogging about writing, I come back to the same annoying voice that says "what do *I* know??" Or "what can I say that hasn't already been said better by someone else?" I need to get over that...for some reason that's not usually a problem with my fiction writing, but it sure is with my blogging.

Yat-Yee, interesting that your daughter was just as enthused about the later HP books. I definitely enjoyed them, but I think I would have enjoyed them more if they'd had a similar pacing to the first three (or even four--Goblet of Fire, albeit LOOONG, moved quickly).

Yat Yee, the questions are worth pursuing!!

Indeed they are, Tanita. And I have been pondering these past few days (while hiking and hot-springing in the mountains.)

Sarah: For my daughter, I think, it's because she likes the overall story and all the imaginative details so much that she really doesn't care too much about whether the writing is tight or pacing is good. She's just taking it all in as it's written. And I think this ties into the thread I'm on with Tanita right now, about when is a reader willing to be so fully trusting that very few things matter. angri

When I see this thing where writers suddenly become less well-edited, I find it terrifying. I mean, I count on an editor to tell me The Truth, especially the stuff I don't want to know about. Because I'd rather she was telling me than some reviewer or letter-writer.

Coincidentally, I just reread HP #6 and #7 as part of our lead-up to the final movie (we're taking Lucas to his first-ever midnight movie for it--I am absurdly excited about this). I enjoyed rereading the sixth book a lot, but the seventh book... the editing issues really stood out on the reread.

I followed the HP revision link, and learned something new-- the term "play fair mystery," whereby the clues are laid out for the reader, but the reader may not put them all together until the end of the story. I have a low tolerance for "Had I but known" mysteries... in literature and in life! I don't get much of a say in the latter, though.

Off-topic question: Are you venturing north this summer, AF?

Love your poem!

At my children's school, they have DEAR time every day. Isn't that great?

I love Drop Everything And Read! Wish I could have that every day, too...

My own poor little picture book (Chicken Little told with dinosaurs) ended with the approach of the killer asteroid (the sky really was about to fall, and any kid worth their dino salt would know what was going to happen to the protaganists), and sadly, although my agent did her darndest, no one wanted it. Sigh.

But it might have had other things working against it besides the violence.

Moving away from Me, it seems to me that there are violences
and violences. I have no trouble with my boys reading Edward Gory's Alphabet of ghastly death, because it's so emotionally removed, and therefore untraumatic. But I have no intention of letting my 10 year old read The Hunger Games (he's asked for it)--I don't want that particular brand in his head.

I hadn't come across Susie Townsend's response yet, but I disagree utterly (based on my on limited experience). My boys are moved by the small and the immediate--both have wept over Owly. But probably by "kids" she means "teenagers," and I have no experience with those yet.

For the moment, I'm happy for my oldest to (repeatedly) ask me to tell him the story of To Kill a Mockingbird...and I can only assume that when he reads the book it will knock his socks off.

It really depends so much on the way it's told. As a six-year-old I could casually read my way past all sorts of nail-barreled, head-severing grue in the Grimms and other collections of fairy tales and mythology without batting an eyelash. But show me a single picture of a skull or a horror movie poster like this and I'd have screaming nightmares for weeks. It didn't trouble me to have horrific things *mentioned* in a book, but not lovingly described a la Stephen King, and definitely not if there were visuals involved.

And in any case, I didn't read the fairy tales FOR the gore; I read them in spite of it. So yes, I think it's very much a mistake to assume that all children relish buckets of blood & guts. Even my 8 year old son who loves robots, aliens and monsters was shaken and sickened to the point of tears by a book of how to make your own horror makeup that he found at school.

Like you, R.J., I could read fairy-tale/mythological gruesomeness no problem, but was so easily terrified to the point of nightmares by horror TV/movies that I made my parents despair. (Even Twilight Zone was too scary sometimes.) For me, it wasn't so much gore or violence that disturbed me, but the uncanny or freakish. I can't tell you how much sleep I lost around age 11-12 over Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising books--which, incidentally, I LOVED even though they scared the crap out of me.

More to the point, I can't say I gravitated specifically toward or away from violence as a kid. It really depended on the context. I thought Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes (and everything else Dahl) was the funniest thing ever. I thought my dad's favorite Chuck Norris movies were stupid. Put the TV series "V" on (the old one) and I was scared s***less. And, since it was the 1980s, put the news on and I was also scared s***less that we might die in a nuclear war. That was NOT violence I wanted to hear about.

Like you, I think it's impossible to make generalizations about what "all kids" want to read. While I agree that not every classic book is going to appeal to every kid (in fact, I'm often unmoved by classics everybody else loves), I don't think you can jump from that statement to assuming that kids today want to read about sex, drugs and violence.

Thanks for conversing, peeps.
Charlotte:, I agree with the idea of unemotional violence -- the "morals" of the story in the old Folk & Fairy Tales book that I read and reread as a child were what I call Gentled Grimm, so it wasn't until I was older that I read the original -- but I did read Aesop's, and those Moral Tales had all kinds of cause-and-effect types of things happening which ended up with death and being lost forever, etc. etc. And that was ...I don't know, understandable, because it was caused, and was simply the effect. It was far removed from reality for me, because it was a Moral, like a parable, and just a teaching story.

R.J., I think what most bugged me about that statement is the implied idea that children seek out gore. I was like, "Huh. Really?" My students didn't seek it out, and even my older students didn't all care for, say, the Goosebumps books, or to watch Tales from the Crypt reruns. And, some kids are definitely into that. Different strokes, different folks, etc.

A.F., I remember seeing part of Children of the Corn, when I was about five or six -- and I couldn't look at scarecrows, cornfields, or dried corn for a long time without horrific nightmares. Or grain silos, oh my word, the silos. (Can you imagine if I'd lived in Ohio??) For the most part, it was visual stuff that was bad - book covers or illustrations, movie posters or TV shows -- but there were a number of books which were scary. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow -- while merely a bit of Americana for most people was for YEARS to me was a source of terror -- I couldn't stand that story, and even seeing a hunchbacked man freaked me out. And, oddly, Kaa from the Jungle Book was quite scary, because he could hypnotize people -- even his friends.

Weird what gets us, huh? And yet, none of that is truly gory (except for Children of the Corn. ::shudder::) Hmm.

Wow, so many good points here.

I have lost all tolerance for generalizations. In kidlit I think it happens most often with the gender divide, that boys want this kind of book and girls want that kind of book and I'm tired of fighting that battle, since the same points get made over and over. Anyway, that's a tangent here, so--

I'm a pretty peaceful person, in my life and in my artistic tastes. Yet when I was around ten, I developed a taste for some gruesome horror novels, of a kind I could not even stomach now as an adult. Now I think part of it might have been a reaction to the bullying I was undergoing at the time. As a good little girl, I was not allowed to express anger or fight back, and there may have been something very satisfying in the violence I was reading.

I agree that gatekeepers are far more worried about sex than violence. I think the stats kept on book challenges and bans show that very clearly. My personal theory on that: sex makes people feel vulnerable, while violence makes people feel powerful. So most people in society are far more scared of sex.

Which is sad. Sex brings all sorts of consequences that are worth thinking about and talking about; it's not a light subject. But violence is far more damaging to people; it hurts, it kills.

Having said that, do I think books should be censored for violence? I'm not a fan of censorship. Literature may even be a safe place to explore the consequences of violence. I don't choose to read much violent content myself, but I don't know if I should be the arbiter for others (except perhaps my own minor children, if they existed).

I thought that was an excellent piece on The Hunger Games in this weekend's magazine. In my work with children, I have observed a lot of kids and teens who have experience trauma of one kind of another. What some of them really seem to need is an escape. They read The Babysitter's Club and the like because they need to feel like somebody's life is normal and calm somewhere, that maybe something like that might be possible for them someday. Sometimes they just want to laugh. Others need to read about the darkest, worst things in the world and characters who triumph over them because they want to feel like they, too, can overcome their trauma and that they are not alone, that other people see the darkness in the world that they see. That isn't what I'd call a "craving." We send so many messages to kids that say the world is a sunny place where everyone shares and is nice to each other. Kids who experience something else are often left with a disconnect and not many resources to deal with the realities of their existence. Books, particularly fantasy, can fill that gap.

There are other kinds of readers, of course, and lots of other reasons for reading. A lot of children who read dark things still have very specific things they avoid that freak them out. They might be able to read the most frightening ghost stories but be completely undone by a spider, for instance. Some are disturbed more by characters with ill intent than the actual harm they do. I've met several who cannot stand to watch protagonists who make terrible decisions. I have talked to kids and teens who were upset over something sexual they read in a book, but it is always something that is violent and sexual.

These are not easy questions. Whenever I have a parent who asks me if something's going to upset their child, unless I know the child, I tell them I have no idea. And I don't run around recommending A Tale Dark and Grimm (which I LOVED) to every kid I meet, although I've recommended it to several who loved The Graveyard Book and Roald Dahl and A Series of Unfortunate Events--and I've had good reports back. One of my favorite readers, a fifth grader who asks me often for recommendations, dubbed A Tale Dark and Grimm "really funny." And he's the calmest, sweetest child you'd ever want to meet. What a person reads and responds to is just so psychologically complex, and when it comes to kids and teens, I think the most important thing is that they have some adults in their lives who are paying attention to what they're reading (and seeing--whether on TV, in movies, or in their day-to-day lives) and talking to them about it. The world can just be so confusing.

Thanks for making me think this morning, Tanita.

"I agree that gatekeepers are far more worried about sex than violence. I think the stats kept on book challenges and bans show that very clearly. My personal theory on that: sex makes people feel vulnerable, while violence makes people feel powerful. So most people in society are far more scared of sex."

Jen: That. Is. Brilliant. I know I should have thought of that before, but I never have. That opens up a whole 'nother mess of thoughts I'll now be thinking. Thank you.

Adrienne: I agree - I very much see how my reading was, many times during my adolescence, responsive -- Mathilda filled a need to lash out against my parents - but as an adult, seeing it in film form was sort of chilling. As a tween, I hated reading about characters who made bad choices because I knew too much about consequences; now I realize that the poor choices are often necessary. It really is a complex thought - which is why I definitely have no conclusions...

Happy Birthday, AF!

Happy Birthday!

Look at me, using my actual fingers to type an actual comment! Happy happy birthday, Sarah! And Tanita, the floating head description made me LOL. You are so right. :)

Happy birthday, Sarah!!! *throws confetti* *sends cabana boy to clean up confetti mess*

Yay! Thanks, you guys! Not only does it look like a floating head, but it looks like she has teeny little Tyrannosaurus Rex arms.

Wish we could celebrate together in person!

Oh, and yes, I'll be posting a bit later...

Love this post! We're in the process of moving and yes, I will definitely be moving some boxes I've never unpacked. Now that I've read this post, I just might have to take a look to see what some of them have inside.

I LOVE "quagmire of futility." I really do.

My younger college self wrote some stuff like this, too. Sadly, a lot of it is trapped on 3.5-inch disks. It probably doesn't need to see the light of day anyway...

Tanita,

I thought I'd stop by to say hello!

I haven't come across things from my young adulthood lately. We had to clean out my mother's house before we sold it last fall. I brought home some boxes she had stored in her attack. I went through them a few days ago and found my christening dress and my baby book.

Melissa: I hope you find something amazing. Even a story start...

Aquafortis, I have since then decided to insert "quagmire of futility" into pretty much every conversation I have...

Elaine: Okay, you trump us all. Your christening gown!? I have zero idea where any kind of that sort of thing might have gone -- but how lovely that you still have it, and can pass it along to your daughter, maybe, when the time comes ... good to hear from you, m'dear!

Great! I think that this is an important one, too.

And, re: your YALSA speed date, hmm--do some people feel like they have to win EVERY award? What a weird reaction. At this point I'll be happy with some positive reviews!!

It really is important. Aside from increasing awareness and encouraging publication, awards help when books with GLBT characters are challenged, which is a frequent issue. There are a disturbing number of people who think the presence of any character who is homosexual is a reason to limit a book's access; most of the challenges I've dealt with are over this.

Really, really interesting for sure...I, too, wonder about the YA audience. It strikes me more as a promotion for the reviewing audience, perhaps even a test at this point to see how it affects their (the publishers') bottom line. I'll be curious to see how it plays out.

Thank you so much for this post! I just got my free electric copies. I am most interested in According to Kit and Warriors in the Crossfire. :o)

Wow, thanks for the heads-up! I went and grabbed my copies too. I don't generally read on my iPod, although I do have a few books stored in there for long lines. I guess the test of the book is whether I want to keep reading it when I'm at home on my couch. :) Interesting to see how this plays out as a promo.

Thank you, Tanita, for posting this unusual way of announcing four new YA books. Stephen Roxburgh is known for pushing many different envelopes besides being a brilliant editor. Would you be interested in participating in a Blog Tour? As author of Warriors in the Crossfire I am organizing one for mid-April which could include an interview with Mr. Roxburgh. Please let me know - I hope to hear from you, Nancy Bo Flood [email protected]

Ditto from me! YAAAY!

That does say it all, doesn't it :-)

lol...oh my, so true so true. :) That's a cute comic strip. :) I definitely need that. haha...there's just those paragraphs that are so whimsy and flowing, but they don't contribute...I hate that. :)

God bless and thanks for posting this!

Taylor J. Beisler

www.taylorbeisler.com
http://www.eloquentbooks.com/ArintSaratir-WarriorsLight.html

I love the poster! Seems to hit home in a way that a Do This poster would not.

And thanks for the Yay! which made my day!

That's a great list. I wouldn't have guessed necessarily that rewards and lots of activities are a bad thing; I guess it's all in how it works together in a particular family dynamic. I was a really active child athlete and a voracious reader both.

The TV and computer in every room totally made me think of "Extreme Home Makeover" because that seems to be something they do -- flat screens lurking behind every painting, etc etc. Not that I watch that show anymore (still on, even?) but I'd love to see them do a book-centric design!

Oh, I'm just seeing this! How fun!

That is a True Story about dropping another library's book in the bathtub. Shocking behavior on my part, I know. The shoes help me get away with it.

Thanks for writing about this, Tanita! I think it's going be really fun.

Thanks so much, all three of you, for the great discussion...which has left me with much to think about and a strong desire to read Fly Girl!

SO very glad you've enjoyed it! We always have really great discussions with Sherri.

Hmm. Hi TadMack, hi Aquafortis and Charlotte. I've enjoyed the questions you ladies have raised today. I just wonder at the silence from your usual readers. Did we bite off more than anyone else wanted to chew today? I get the sense that either Groundhog Day is a national holiday or there's an uncomfortable, throat clearing silence in the room. Readers, prove me wrong! What's your take on identity? I really would love to know.

Charlotte's right -- so much to think about, and on account of it being midnight, I'm not capable of an articulate thought at the moment. But I have to quickly add: This is one hell of a booktalk. Gonna go find my copy now.

Very interesting topic and one I really hadn't thought of much until I read Flygirl last month.

Superb interview. I'm thinking back to when my great-grandparents changed their too-Polish surname when they came to the U.S. And how as a Northern Catholic, I had to pass in the Evangelical South. And how I've been assumed to be "conservative" because my husband's in the military and thus, been privy to jaw-droppingly insulting rants about "liberals." Even the fact that I once pretended that we owned a TV comes to mind.

Can't wait to read this.

Now it's morning, and I have coffee, so I'm very much awake.

I'm going to tack on to Sara's interesting points here my own kind of having-to-pass: Being a rather confused and agnostic/spiritually-searching person in the South. I grew up here, too, and I *still* feel closeted about it (except, obviously, online). I don't pretend to go to church, but when people ask me about it, which inevitably happens around here when you meet someone, I point out that I was raised Methodist, married in the Episcopal church, and "looking for a new church," even if I'm really not doing the latter at the moment -- all instead of just saying the whole truth and nothing but the truth, that I don't know if church is really for me.

For this reason, I totally get what Sarah means when she says, "even if you don't mean to, you're hiding something about yourself simply because it's not immediately apparent."

Really interesting discussion. Again, wonderful booktalk (but is that a geeky librarian term? It occurred to me last night after I typed it that it might be)

So glad this discussion was posted and can't wait to read the book. I found this interview fascinating and very timely, in light of current events in our new administration.

Race will ALWAYS be an issue in this country (US) as this country was was built on race. Accepting your ethnicity in any time during our history led many to have to choose between going "mainstream", if they could get away with it, or hating themselves for not being able to.

Sadly, people still call those they feel who act a certain way "too ethnic" or trying to "act white"...and this is 2009!

Kudos for shedding light on a touchy topic. I hope more people join in the discussion. This is an important topic which gives us a lot to think about.

Hi, I have a question about reviews on your site and would appreciate if you'd contact me. Fran at francannonslayton dot com

Thanks!

Re: passing religiously - Passing goes the other direction as well -- trying to pass as someone who doesn't care one way or the other about God, because the friends around you are openly contemptuous and think you're insane -- that's no easier, and unfortunately, too.

I think the antithesis of happiness is having someone try and tell you who/what you are. If only we could leave each other alone, there would be no such need for pretense...

Wow, ladies, what an amazing conversation. (And I'm joining in late because I'm still catching up after being out of town - why did people have to write such great stuff while I was in Salt Lake?)

I had my own "reverse-passing" moments in college, where I was active in some Latina student groups, worked for the Latina advisor, spoke Spanish with a Puerto Rican accent - but was a US-born white girl.

I never claimed I was Latina, and whenever someone asked I managed to come up with a short answer that didn't make me sound like too much of a freak - but I never went out of my way to identify myself as non-Latina.

It was, at that point, how I found my community.

First time to this blog,GREAT topic that must be talked about in all aspects. My maternal grandmother (Ukrainian)was ostracized by her family for marrying a Sicilian-oh my goodness, "not even a regular Italian" (1929). They in turn were horrified when their eldest daughter, my mother, married a Jewish man (1950). If we don't talk,and write,we won't learn. Can't wait to read the book!

Thanks, Sarah and Anonymous, for stopping by to comment! It really is a great, thought-provoking book--but also just a really absorbing story.

Great discussion! I am definitely looking forward to reading the books now.

I am white mother to three sons: one white and two African American. I am wondering how my youngest sons (who are Black) will grow into their identities as Black men with a white mom and (mostly) white family. I can only wonder what transitions they will have to make as Black men moving between cultures and communities. I hope I can manage to give them enough resources and significant relationships in a wide community to give them the tools they will need. I spend a lot of time thinking and studying and talking about what that means for us as a family. I think they have many potential losses and gains anyway I look at it.

I'm coming in late because I'm behind on my blog reading. However, I did just request Flygirl from the library. I was so glad to read this conversation and the comments.

Cloudscome, I agree that your sons have many potential losses and gains, but the scale tips in favor of gains. They have you, when they might have had no one, and you will teach them acceptance, and they will learn on their own what it means to be a person of one nation made out of many.

Theodosia is on my bookshelf, waiting for me to finish my report to the state department. She's been staring at me for over a week, and I am weakening! Must get report done ...

Well, at least you have a really wonderful treat waiting! It was just as much fun as the first one.

Oh, dang! I can hardly wait to read it. I don't have a copy yet--will have to check the library. I was lucky enough to get a review copy for the Cybils last year--this year I'm in a different category, though.

So glad to know someone else works on the bribe system too. Hmm. Perhaps Aretha bribes herself with hats.

Nah.

I bribe myself with books and chocolate and coffee, help!

I totally get bribing yourself with a great book. I hope it's worth it. Something tells me it will be.

This is one of those book covers that immediately entices me.