Peering Into the Crystal Ball, Part 2 March 28, 2007

I should really finish going through my Bloglines feeds before posting anything. Oh well.

So apparently agent Kristin Nelson is in New York meeting with editors of Teen and Middle Grade books. (See this post and also this one) Very interesting stuff. “Paranormal YA that’s not vampires or werewolves”? Really? Even with Twilight still going strong? And HarperTeen reprinting The Vampire Diaries? Man, if only romance editors were also looking for non-vampire and/or non-werewolf paranormals. (One of our Library Assistants and I both agree that we like YA vampire books much more than vampire romances, but that’s a topic for another post)

Speaking of romances, Liz B. mentioned that she’d like to see more teen romances in response to this YA Authors Cafe post (to which I say, “Ditto.” Actually, ditto to everything else she’d like to see, especially the minority character who just happens to be a minority–another topic for anther post, because Gayle and I could go on and on about this one), and hey, Penguin would love teen romances, complete with happy endings.

YA psychological thrillers? Folks were having a hard time thinking of examples of it. Diana Peterfreund mentioned What Happened to Cass McBride?, which I actually just read this past weekend, and I’m thinking maybe The Rules of Survival? In any case, both posts are about fiction. But how about some non-fiction ideas? I was talking to a high school teacher/library school student a few weeks ago, and we both agree that we want (and know teens who want) financial management personal finance books for teens. Not books on how to invest in the stock market or how to pay for college, but basic things like how to balance a checkbook, what your credit score is and why it’s so important, how to pay taxes, etc. What other kinds of non-fiction books for teens would you like to see?