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Lori Goldstein | The Children’s Book Review | July 16, 2015 I grew up on the Jersey Shore and now live outside of Boston, where on the right day, I can smell the sea from my back deck (though it still takes an hour to get to the beach). Maybe that’s why the beach is my happy place. For […]

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This month, the award-winning classic Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen, is The Children’s Book Review’s best selling young adult book.

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Author Libba Bray has announced the title for her next book, Lair of Dreams. According to Bray’s blog post, this sequel to The Diviners has “been moved on the schedule so many times we have lost faith in the old gods of the book pub-scheduling universe.” Little, Brown Books for Young Readers has set the release date for August 25th.

When Bray isn’t using her voice for writing, she puts it to work by singing and standing up for her beliefs. She recently stood with three fellow authors (Gayle Forman, E. Lockhart, and Shannon Hale) to protest against the act of assigning genders to books. Over the weekend, Bray gave a moving speech about this issue at the 2015 NYC Teen Author Festival.

Here’s an excerpt: “Does sexism exist in YA? Abso-fucking-lutely. Everyday we see ourselves reflected back to us in ways that are reductive and foreign. And it’s tough when we are continually dismissed and told that our experiences aren’t real. It makes us doubt our reality; to the point where we have to keep turning to each other and saying, ‘Wait, is this true? Are these my hands? Are these hands worthy?'”

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I'm just saying. @gayleforman @libbabray @HousingWorksBks pic.twitter.com/Har5rG2w4i

— E. Lockhart (@elockhart) February 28, 2015

Gayle Forman, E. Lockhart, and Libba Bray appeared together at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe last week. The trio of young adult authors were celebrating the release of Forman’s new book, I Was Here. When they first presented themselves to the audience, the three women were wearing fake mustaches.

Forman explained that they were protesting against the act of driving young boys away from titles that are considered to be “girl books.” The group strongly agrees with the sentiments that fellow novelist Shannon Hale expresses in a recent blog post. Hale felt compelled to discuss this because of her recent experience during a school visit where only female students were given permission to meet her. Below, we’ve collected several of the writers’ tweets with their opinions on this subject in a Storify post.

Here’s an excerpt from Hale’s blog post: “Let’s be clear: I do not talk about ‘girl’ stuff. I do not talk about body parts. I do not do a ‘Your Menstrual Cycle and You!’ presentation. I talk about books and writing, reading, rejections and moving through them, how to come up with story ideas. But because I’m a woman, because some of my books have pictures of girls on the cover, because some of my books have ‘princess’ in the title, I’m stamped as ‘for girls only.’ However, the male writers who have boys on their covers speak to the entire school.”

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Here are some literary events to pencil in your calendar this week.

To get your event posted on our calendar, visit our Facebook Your Literary Event page. Please post your event at least one week prior to its date.

Two famed authors, Martin Amis and Jeffrey Eugenides, will headline an evening of “Selected Shorts” readings. Hear them on Wednesday, February 25th at Symphony Space starting 7:30 p.m. (New York, NY)

Chef Angelo Sosa and radio personality Angie Martinez will sit for a discussion about their new cookbook. See them on Thursday, February 26th at Barnes & Noble (Tribeca) starting 6 p.m. (New York, NY)

Three young adult writers, Gayle Forman, E. Lockhart, and Libba Bray, will come together for a launch party. Join in on Friday, February 27th at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe starting 7 p.m. (New York, NY)

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Here are some literary events to pencil in your calendar this week.

To get your event posted on our calendar, visit our Facebook Your Literary Event page. Please post your event at least one week prior to its date.

Three young adult authors, Gayle Forman, Libba Bray, and E. Lockhart, will appear together at Barnes & Noble (Tribeca). Meet them on Tuesday, January 27th starting at 6 p.m. (New York, NY)

The next session of the “How I Learned” storytelling session will take place at Union Hall. Join in on Wednesday, January 28th at 7:30 p.m. (Brooklyn, NY)

Writer Marissa Meyer will celebrate the latest book from The Lunar Chronicles series, Fairest: Levana’s Story. Check it out on Thursday, January 29th at the 92Y starting 7 p.m. (New York, NY)

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From the publisher:

A beautiful and distinguished family.
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth.

We Were Liars is a modern, sophisticated suspense novel from National Book Award finalist and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart.

Read it.
And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE.

My thoughts:

Confession time: I almost gave up on this book in the early pages. The story of a bunch of rich kids on an island just wasn't appealing to me, to be honest.

But I kept reading, and then got sucked in when Cadence ends up in a mysterious accident (finally something happened!), and I wanted to know what actually happened.

A good read if you have the patience. I was a bit disappointed at the very end, but the twist was nicely done (though I kinda caught on early).

Recommended for your clever teen girl.

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Time magazine has unveiled the “Top 10 Everything of 2014.” Three of the lists focus solely on books: “Top 10 Fiction Books,” “Top 10 Nonfiction Books” and “Top 10 YA Books.”

The titles that claimed the top spot on each list include The Secret Place by Tana French (fiction), Soldier Girls by Helen Thorpe (nonfiction) and We Were Liars by E. Lockhart (young adult). Did any of your favorite titles make it to the lists?

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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Goodreads has announced the winners of this year’s Goodreads Choice Awards. With 46,154 votes, Landline by Rainbow Rowell has won in the Best Fiction category.

We’ve linked to samples of all the winning titles below. Did your favorite writer make it to the end?

(more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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Publishers Weekly today released its list of the 100 Best Books of 2014, for the first time including three translations among its top 10 books, which were written by Hassam Blasim, Elena Ferrante, Marlon James, Lorrie Moore, Joseph O’Neill, Héctor Tobar, Eula Biss, Leslie Jamison, Lawrence Wright, and Emmanuel Carrère.

The three translations include two works of fiction: The Corpse Exhibition by Hassan Blasim, translated from the Arabic by Jonathan Wright (Penguin), and Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante, translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein (Europa). Limonov: The Outrageous Adventures of the Radical Soviet Poet Who Became a Bum in New York, a Sensation in France, and a Political Antihero in Russia by Emmanuel Carrère, is nonfiction translated from the French by John Lambert (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).

“Every year when we put together our best books list, we understand why we’re in this business,” Publishers Weekly review editor Louisa Ermelino said. “It’s not just about the best books, but the fact that there are so many good books being published that we have to struggle to choose. We consider the game-changers, the brilliantly written pure entertainment, the clever, the well researched.”

Publishers Weekly’s selects for the best Young Adults books include: Meg Wolitzer’s Belzhar, We Were Liars by E. Lockhart, Beyond Magenta by Susan Kuklin, and Half Bad by Sally Green, among other titles.

Plenty More by Yotam Ottolenghi and Redefining Girly by Melissa Atkins Wardy are two of its best Lifestyle books of 2014.

Marlon James, featured on PW’s cover, is author of A Brief History of Seven Killings (Riverhead), a sweeping saga with the attempted assassination of Bob Marley at its center.

Descriptions of Publishers Weekly’s “100 Best Books of 2014” are available here.

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Meg Wolitzer began The Interestings, her acclaimed 2013 novel "for adults" (my quotation marks, because I so dislike/unlike categories) with this convocation of the teenaged young:

On a warm night in early July of that long-evaporated year, the Interestings gathered for the very first time. They were only fifteen, sixteen, and they began to call themselves the name with tentative irony. Julie Jacobson, an outsider and possibly even a freak, had been invited in for obscure reasons, and now she sat in a corner on the unswept floor and attempted to position herself so she would appear unobtrusive yet not pathetic, which was a difficult balance. The teepee, designed ingeniously though built cheaply, was airless on nights like this one, when there was no wind to push in through the screens. Julie Jacobson longed to unfold a leg or do the side-to-side motion with her jaw that sometimes set off a gratifying series of tiny percussive sounds inside her skull. But if she called attention to herself in any way now, someone might start to wonder why she was here; and really, she knew, she had no reason to be here at all....

In Belzhar, Woltizer's new book "for teens," it is not a camp teepee toward which the characters are drawn, but a school for emotionally fragile children called The Wooden Barn. Unknown to each other in the school's early days, the students have arrived bearing secrets. Soon enough the core protagonists will forge camp-like bonds in a miniature English class focused on Sylvia Plath and facilitated by journal writing. They will learn, unlearn, and learn themselves. They will enter a mystical world called Belzhar, a condition or place that Wolitzer explains like this:

Belzhar lets you be with the person you've lost, or in Casey's case, with the thing she's lost, but it keeps you where you were before the loss. So if you desperately want what you once had, you can write it in your red leather journal and go to Belzhar and find it. But apparently you won't find anything new there. Time stops in Belzhar; it hangs suspended.

Wolitzer's theme, in Belzhar, is second chances, and in order to have a second chance, you have to be honest with yourself, you have to know what really happened. Through Belzhar, Wolitzer transports these student-friends to the past. She builds a reckoning mirror and holds it steady.

Whereas The Interestings (which I reviewed for the Chicago Tribune here) was rich with detail and character asides, full of the messy, tangential sprawl of messy life, Belzhar is lean, plot-focused and plot-purposeful. Like We Were Liars, E. Lockhart's summer sensation, it harbors a secret within a secret that will keep readers turning pages.

But perhaps what I liked best was this simple and essential thing: Wolitzer has written a novel that reminds teens how much words matter. A message that must burn eternal.

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If you're looking for a novel that will linger with you for days, The Children's Book Review's number one best selling young adult book is Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira. Our hand selected titles from the nationwide best selling young adult books, as listed by The New York Times, features titles by super-talents John Green, Ransom Riggs, and Markus Zusak.

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The latest book from non-fiction queen Candace Fleming is The Children's Book Review's number one best selling young adult book.

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We Were Liars by E. Lockhart has been added to our best selling young adult books for this month. The rest of the titles have remained the same, proving just how these titles truly are popular books for teens (and many adults, too).

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Lauren Miller is the author of Parallel and FREE TO FALL, both published by HarperTeen. She is an entertainment lawyer and television writer. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two kids.

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and this is one of the many things I love about Jen.

Jen's whole piece, on Hairpin, is here.

Her final words are a sweet, right challenge:

So read, read Y.A., read adult literature, read blog posts, read magazines, read your box of Cheerios in the morning. Read all you can and want to read, acknowledging the easy and unchallenging and the difficult and complicated, and form your own opinions, trying to add a little room for nuance and understanding and openness in all that you do. That’s the best you can do as a reader, a writer, and a human.

And how honored am I to have Going Over included among works by Markus Zusak, Nina LaCour, Andrew Smith, Cammie McGovern, Laurie Halse Anderson, Sherman Alexie, Aaron Hartzler, E. Lockhart, and Matthew Quick on Jen's "10 Contemporary Y.A. Books That Made Me Think (and That I Loved)."

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We Were Liars
E. Lockhart
YA

I had the great pleasure of listening to a panel on which Emily Lockhart spoke at BEA. She is an adroit, strong, well-spoken writer. I was intrigued and decided to end my year of book reviews with one about her latest, We Were Liars.

Lockhart has a style all her own, somewhat reminiscent of Hemingway - parsimonious, yet emotionally sated. Style alone - doing a lot with so few word - is reason enough to read We Were Liars. Plus, there's that whole, it's a "damn fine story" aspect. Is one allowed to curse in book reviews? I wonder. Ah well. This is YA people. Cursing happens.

I very much like Penguin's recap of this book, so I am shamelessly stealing:

A beautiful and distinguished family.
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate,
 political boy.
A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth.

Again, parsimonious, almost free verse.

Lockhart builds in a nice, other worldly experience into the book that the book blurb doesn't reference, and of the four friends, three are cousins, but otherwise, the synopsis captures style and story very well.

I've only met one reader so far who didn't pick up on the other worldly experience early in the story. I'm not sure you're not supposed to pick up on it. In fact, I think you're supposed to sense it but not be sure, paralleling the experience of the main character. There are parallels to M. Night Shyamalan's visual work. 

My oldest has to read two novels for the summer for her Fall Sophomore class English. I've pressed this one on her. Think of all of those coming of age stories you had to read - Lord of the Flies, A Separate Peace, Catcher in the Rye - that's where this book belongs, only written in today's vernacular and thus readily accessible to today's youth without becoming weighty. This could also make a great beach read since it happens in summer, at least partly on a beach.

For other great summer treasures, Barrie Summy's website marks the spot for  reads galore. Have a great summer!

  

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We’ve collected the books debuting on Indiebound’s Indie Bestseller List for the week ending May 18, 2014–a sneak peek at the books everybody will be talking about next month. (Debuted at #2 in Hardcover Nonfiction) Think Like a Freak: The Authors of Freakonomics Offer to Retrain Your Brain by Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner: "Levitt and Dubner offer a blueprint for an entirely new way to solve problems, whether your interest lies in minor lifehacks or major global reforms. As always, no topic is off-limits. They range from business to philanthropy to sports to politics, all with the goal of retraining your brain. Along the way, you’ll learn the secrets of a Japanese hot-dog-eating champion, the reason an Australian doctor swallowed a batch of dangerous bacteria, and why Nigerian e-mail scammers make a point of saying they’re from Nigeria." (May 2014) continued...

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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You thought that title was a tease?  Because when do I ever tease?  And why would I?  And do I even have the shape and general vocabulary of teasing in me?

I do not.

Proof:  In a friendly battle currently being conducted on behalf of Tara Altebrando's distinctly unpathetic new novel, The Best Night of Your (Pathetic) Life (nothing Tara writes is pathetic; she's too clever and language invested and talented for that; read my review here of Dreamland Social Club), I have gone up against true literary greats—Gayle Forman, E. Lockhart, Sarah Miynowski, Arlaina Tibensky, and Lauren Myracle—and been found to be the reigning queen (at least in this hour) of pathetic-ism.

Wait.  Is this a good thing?  A boast-worthy thing?  Should I be trumpeting this all over e-creation?

Oh, never mind.  I am the temporary champ of something.  I can count the times that's happened to me on one hand of five fingers with variously filed fingernails.  I am running with this.

The contest (grueling, requiring months of training and a Michael Phelps diet) all came down to a tricky little Tara questionnaire.  I answered as honestly as I knew how, between gulps of Phelps-style pasta.  I answered, tone and fit.  But of course, I answered imperfectly and do feel the need here to say, about that high school friend, that we found each other years later, and became quite close again, and really, that guy wouldn't have been right for me anyway; my friend was doing me a favor.  I also feel the need to confess, as those of you who follow me on Facebook now know, that I may not have ever purchased Twilight tickets, but I am now ballroom dancing to Twilight music.

(You have no idea what I'm talking about.  That's the point of links like these.  You have to go and find out for yourself.)

Tara's questionnaire, which can be found here, includes the following tidbits. I choose this brief passage to underscore my obsession with winning—anything.  Please check out the entire contest, and Tara herself, who is lovely beyond words (and who has some very exciting co-authoring news, concerning another great, Sara Zarr).

TA:  See now I may give you some Special Points for this, just because it’s so awful and sad! What an evil cow! Do you know what an isocahedron is without Googling? If not, give us your best guess.

BK: I do, I do! I actually have this funky mathematical term in my YA novel YOU ARE MY ONLY, and not just once. This would be thanks to the fact that my brother is a math genius and I wanted to honor him. Can I have triple points for this one, please? I need something here to put me on a fair playing field. I hate losing.

TA: Again with the points!

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In a total game changer for the worlds of toys and technology (Hasbro and Zynga have teamed up to make toys and board games based on Zynga’s popular online video games. Starting with Words With Friends, the partnership will also see FarmVille,... Read the rest of this post

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I wish publishers would buy up rights (or at least rights to it being used on a book cover) so this didn't happen. At least I like the type treatment on Emily's better.

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Welcome to the second installment of the First Book Blogger Book Club, wherein book bloggers share their thoughts about a young adult book that we carry on the First Book Marketplace. It’s a way to let people know about the great titles that schools and programs serving low-income kids can get through First Book, and get people talking about some of the books we love.

This month’s selection was: Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, by E. Lockhart. Read on to find out what our book club members thought:

Roxie’s Blog
Although the setting is a wealthy college-prep high school, Lockhart crafts a likeable elite character who aspires to be more than eye-candy for the latest popular jock. Frankie Landau-Banks is that and more; she is curious, clever, and cheeky – a young adult engaging in the world around her to find her place in a world of rules.

Building a Bookshelf
I think this book is a great way for girls to learn that they should not lose themselves in the boys that they will inevitably have crushes on.

If you read the book and posted about it, please send us the link. Or just share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Check back later this week to find out next month’s book club selection!

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Did you catch our inaugural First Book Blogger Book Club? We asked some of our favorite book bloggers to read ‘Slam’ by Nick Hornby, and tell us what they thought. It’s a great way to let more people know about the young adult titles we carry on the First Book Marketplace, and get people talking about some of the books we love.

And now we want you! You’ve always wanted to join a book club, right? Book bloggers in particular, but anyone with a blog or a website, or even just a Facebook page is welcome to participate. Read the book, think it over, and tell us what you think! We’ll be spotlighting everyone’s posts and reviews on February 19, and then we can discuss the book here on the First Book blog.

This month’s selection is: Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, by E. Lockhart.

Follow Frankie from her 14 year old geeky, shy self to her 16 year old criminal masterminded self her wont take no for an answer, not even from her boyfriend and his secret all-male club. This is the story of how she got that way.

So pick up a copy of the book at your favorite bookstore or library, share your thoughts on Feb. 19th (or a few days before, if you like), and send us the link to your post.

Questions? Just ask them in the comments section of this post, and we’ll get back to you right away.

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Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers (3/22/2005)
Kindle Edition: 240 Pages
Genre: YA Contemporary
Series: Ruby Oliver #1

From Goodreads. Ruby Oliver is 15 and has a shrink. She knows it's unusual, but give her a break—she's had a rough 10 days. In the past 10 days she:

* lost her boyfriend (#13 on the list)
* lost her best friend (Kim)
* lost all her other friends (Nora, Cricket)
* did something suspicious with a boy (#10)
* did something advanced with a boy (#15)
* had an argument with a boy (#14)
* drank her first beer (someone handed it to her)
* got caught by her mom (ag!)
* had a panic attack (scary)
* lost a lacrosse game (she's the goalie)
* failed a math test (she'll make it up)
* hurt Meghan's feelings (even though they aren't really friends)
* became a social outcast (no one to sit with at lunch)
* and had graffiti written about her in the girls' bathroom (who knows what was in the boys'!?!).

But don't worry—Ruby lives to tell the tale. And make more lists.

Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers (9/26/2006)
Kindle Edition: 224 Pages
Genre: YA Contemporary
Series: Ruby Oliver #2

From Goodreads. Here is how things stand at the beginning of newly-licensed driver Ruby Oliver's junior year at Tate Prep:

* Kim: Not speaking. But far away in Tokyo.
* Cricket: Not speaking.
* Nora: Speaking—sort of. Chatted a couple times this summer when * they bumped into each other outside of school—once shopping in the U District, and once in the Elliot Bay Bookstore. But she hadn't called Ruby, or anything.
* Noel: Didn't care what anyone thinks.
* Meghan: Didn't have any other friends.
* Dr. Z: Speaking.
* And Jackson. The big one. Not speaking.

But, by Winter Break, a new job, an unlikely but satisfying friend combo, additional entries to The Boy Book and many difficult decisions help Ruby to see that there is, indeed, life outside the Tate Universe.

Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers (7/23/2009)
Kindle Edition: 256 Pages
Genre: YA Contemporary
Series: Ruby Oliver #3

From Goodreads. Ruby is back at Tate Prep, and it’s her thirty-seventh week in the state of Noboyfriend. Her panic attacks are bad, her love life is even worse, and what’s more: Noel is writing her notes, Jackson is giving her frogs, Gideon is helping her cook, and Finn is making her brownies. Rumors are flying, and Ruby’s already-sucky reputation is heading downhill. Not only that, she’s also: running a bake sale, learning

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