If you’re not sick of this topic yet April 18, 2007

Although, how much more can I add to this (and this and this and this)?

But since I didn’t want to hijack Jackie’s review of Tantalize, I thought I should expand on the comments I left, since I had more to say and it was getting so long. Most of my comments were about about this sentence: “Just because I don’t love it, doesn’t mean I can’t recognize those who will.”

What I said there:

I may call my long comments on books “reviews” (and they are in the sense that I make a critical judgment about the book I’m discussing), but that’s mostly because I don’t know what else to call them. Book Ramblings? Book Commentary? Readers Advisory Notes? If I wanted to be known as a reviewer, I would be trying my best to get in as a reviewer for VOYA, at least, and I’d describe the blog as “reviewing Young Adult books” instead of “blather[ing] about Young Adult literature…” I don’t/can’t review in the way reputable print review sources demand, but I try to do my best to discuss books in ways that will help others decide whether or not they’d like to take a chance on Book X or Book Y. And if book news, gossip, and interviews (not that we’ve done any yet) will encourage people to pick up a particular book, what’s the problem with that?

More after the cut, for those who are interested.

Just one more month April 18, 2007

Little Willow interviews Shannon Greenland, whose upcoming book, Model Spy, I am dying (uh, maybe not the best word choice here) to read. Mostly because, among other things, I am a sucker for the color pink and YA spy books. And Greenland also appears to be an Alias fan, which just seals the deal.

There’s a reason I’m not in marketing April 17, 2007

I was flipping through Entertainment Weekly* and saw an ad for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.   Which makes me wonder how many people who read EW need to see an ad to know that it’s coming out this summer.  Calendars counting down the days until the book comes out are cool and all, but aren’t there other books Scholastic could be spending their marketing dollars on?

 * Is it just me, or are this week’s EW and People unusually uninteresting?  Which sounds weird since I managed to blog about both, but this and the Meg Rosoff review in People were the only things that caught my eye.

Harlequin Pink April 16, 2007

Dark Horse Comics has created a Manga division and this one of the fruits of their labor.  The Harlequin Pink Ginger Blossom series comes in a set of 4, romantic tales ‘printed in flirty pink ink.’ (Seriously, they put this on the back cover of the Manga.)  As the series title suggests these are Harlequin Novels turned into Manga format. So if you are a fan of both you will be a fan of this series.

Wasn’t there a big discussion about Meg Rosoff April 16, 2007

and reviewing a few weeks back?  Well, she reviews A Swift Pure Cry by Siobhan Dowd in the new issue of People magazine. 

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like it’s available online.

The Cute Book by Aranzi Aronzo April 15, 2007

I had been planning on reading this weekend, but I borrowed this book instead. This is how I spent my time:

(The red blobs on the bird? They’re supposed to be flowers. And I didn’t have dark brown thread for the monkey, so you can see how bad I am at sewing. Those stitches are so uneven!)

Anyway, until the new issue of Craft: magazine arrives in the mail, I’ll spend my time working on these Japanese crafts. It’s not temari or sashiko, or even origami, but these Aranzi Aronzo felt mascots are, well, so much cuter. (Oh look, there’s a short article on page 53 about it, along with the White Cat/Striped Cat/Black Cat pattern. Ah, the benefits of subscribing to a magazine with an exact digital edition available online.)

The Cute Book is exactly that. It’s cute. Even better, it’s a great craft book, too. You know a craft book is doing something right when, as you flip through the book, you can’t decide which project you want to do first. The table of contents includes a picture of each mascot so you can see all of them at once, but I think it’s more fun to jump from page to page, saying “Oh, that is so cute!” After a brief introductory section describing the general materials and techniques used for all 20+ mascots, you’re ready to get crafting. Each mascot is covered in two pages, as in the Craft: excerpt. The left page has a large picture of the finished project, a cute description of the character, and templates to photocopy or trace. The right side lists the materials required and contains step by step directions. Cutting the templates and felt is the hard part, but once you start putting the toy together, it’s pretty fun. The book is a hardcover and not spiral-bound, but the binding is such that I had no problems getting the pages to lay flat so I could refer to them as needed. The last four pages of the book show how you can use the basic templates and designs in other projects, like making a keychain or on shirts and tote bags. And at only $12.95, the book is very reasonably priced, considering it’s in full color on glossy pages.

The mascots do require a bit of time to make (closer to two hours than to one, if you’re like me and rarely sew), and it can be hard to cut out all the skinny and/or small shapes out of the felt, so if you’re doing this with younger kids or a group, you probably want to have everything cut before you start. That said, the mascots are simple and fun to make. Most of the patterns fall in the “Oh, how cute” category, but there are several with guy appeal.

Get this book! Kids, teens, and adults will all want to borrow it.

Also reviewed at CraftyPod and MangaBlog, the latter complete samples made by a 12 and 14 year old. My library’s copy of The Bad Book is still being processed, so no review of that yet.

And do check out Vertical’s website to share pictures of your finished mascots and for information about other Aranzi Aronzo books. Although they should really include a mention of this in the book, not just list their homepage, so more people can find it.

Have you seen her? April 14, 2007

Jacquelyn Mitchard guestblogging over at Alison Kent’s about Now You See Her:

We decided to make a series of 35 “vlogs” (video blogs) for YouTube, the first time an entire book would be acted out with no editing, in the world of the character exactly as written, using a tripod and a regular video camera, as well as Lauren’s knowledge of light and sound levels.

The Poker Diaries by Liza Conrad April 14, 2007

Lulu’s been playing poker since she was a kid, thanks to her father and grandfather. Her grandfather is an ex-con who now owns a bar, complete with back room gambling, and her father was actually on his way to an illegal poker tournament when he met Lulu’s mother, a museum curator with family money. Although her parents’ marriage didn’t last, Lulu knows they still care for each other, which is more than she can say about many of her friends. Take Dack, for example.

Dack, aka Dalton Angus Charles Kensington III, is the son of an internet millionaire who divorced his wife after making a fortune and ditching her for his “secretary.” Dack’s father basically abandoned him for his new wife, and Dack’s mother is still bitter about her treatment (even if she did score in the divorce settlement). So when Dack loses money and a family heirloom in a poker game, Lulu is the one he turns to.

Lulu and Dack may be best friends, but he has none of her skill at poker. They decide that the only way Dack can get the heirloom, a watch, back is for Lulu to win it back in a poker game with the same guys who won it off Dack. Lulu is a bit apprehensive since this plan requires her to lie to her parents, but they can’t think of a better solution. She ends up getting the watch back for Dack and they think that’s the end of it, until Lulu learns she is being blackmailed. Somehow, she was caught on film at the poker game, which would be bad enough by itself, but there are also clips of her talking about how she learned poker hands and describing some of the illegal games she’s gone to with her father. Her blackmailer claims to be representing a group who wants a “poker-playing phenom” to enter illegal high-stakes games to win them money. If Lulu does not agree to play on their behalf, the clip will be released to the media, which would cause problems for her mother and her mother’s boyfriend, the mayor of New York City.

The Poker Diaries by Liza Conrad is a fast, breezy read. The tough-on-crime-millionaire-Yankee-fan mayor was a bit too reminiscent of certain New York City mayors, I found it hard to believe that Dack only lost $600 before throwing his watch into the pot (you mean his father doesn’t leave him with a load of cash whenever he takes off with the new wife?), and everything was wrapped up a bit too neatly, but whatever. I liked Lulu and how well-adjusted she was. The Poker Diaries was a pleasant enough way to spend an hour, and between its poker-playing narrator, uptown and downtown settings (as the cover copy puts it), and a bad boy romantic interest, will appeal to its audience.

Random thoughts April 13, 2007

about upcoming YA books:

Bloodhound: The Legend of Beka Cooper by Tamora Pierce — $21.99? Are you kidding me?  $18.99 for the regular hardcover; $21.99 for the Library Edition.  My bad.

Primavera by Mary Jane Beaufrand — ooh, Italian Renaissance. Is this J or YA?

A Bridge to the Stars by Henning Mankell — Henning Mankell? Henning Mankell wrote a YA book?

Long May She Reign by Ellen Emerson White — 720 pages? Are you kidding me?

Gert Garibaldi’s Rants and Raves: One Butt Cheek at a Time by Amber Kizer — Well, it’s definitely a memorable title.

My Swordhand Is Singing by Marcus Sedgwick — Now this is a memorable-in-a-good-way title. Makes me want to read it based on the title alone. And the British cover and description make it even more enticing.

It Had to Be You: The Gossip Girl Prequel by Cecily von Ziegesar — Gossip Girl prequel? I only read the first book in the series, and that left me feeling slightly sl–Wait, why Serena left boarding school? (You mean it hasn’t been explained in the other, what, ten or so books?) Can someone read this and tell me, or am I going to have to read it myself?

Clicks by various authors — ooh, interesting.

Secret Santa by John Scognamiglio and Sabrina James — Froggy? I thought the only Froggy I’d ever see was in The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things. John Scognamiglio? As in the Kensington editor John Scognamiglio?

These covers do not belong on YA books.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak — $11.99 for a YA paperback? After discounts you can get the hardcover for less than the cover price of the paperback (only $1.09 more after the paperback discount).

More Booktalking April 10, 2007

I’m going booktalking next month to four 8th grade classes and I just realized that I can’t think of many contemporary realistic fiction titles for guys this age that I can booktalk. Maybe No More Dead Dogs and I’m debating whether or not to take Black and White, but that’s about it. All the other guy fiction I’m planning on taking is fantasy or contemporary-but-not-particularly-realistic (like Stormbreaker).

The reading levels of the students range from 3rd to 12th grade (!), and from what I understand, the teachers prefer newer books. So, any suggestions?