Leila of Bookshelves of Doom reports that after the controversy surrounding Ellen Hopkins’ disinvitation from the Humble, Texas Teen Lit Fest, the event has been canceled. There’s more at Chron.com, including this:
“The Teen Lit Fest is for middle and high school, so kids as young as 11 would be attending,” [Karen] Collier [the district's public information director] said. “We could have limited access to Hopkins, but that’s not how we want to set up our event. We want the students to have access to all the authors.”
[...]
But the district doesn’t regret the decision to exclude Hopkins.
“It’s a disappointment when something like this happens,” Collier said. “But if parents are concerned that we overreacted, I suggest that they read some of her work. It’s very graphic.”
But Hopkins, who writes all her novels in free verse, maintains that she’s writing about real issues that affect real kids.
“I don’t understand the district’s fear,” Hopkins said. “Do they think I’m going to stand up there and tell the kids how to do drugs?”
I’m so sad for the teens and librarians and teachers who are going to miss out on this event, but I’m also really disappointed that the school district still thinks it did the right thing in uninviting Hopkins.
What a great example of organizing your personal library how it works for you, even if that means hilariously hyper-specific categories.
YA Fantasy Showdown results
And finally, the YA Fantasy Showdown has concluded! All of the votes have been counted and the final victor, with 51% of the votes, is Eugenides. Huge huge huge thanks to Heather Zundel, Beth Revis, Charlotte Taylor, Danyelle Leafty, Chelsea Swigget, and Lois Moss, the team behind the Showdown. There’s been call for them to put together another Showdown; Heather’s promising some sort of new content soon, and she’ll address whether or not we’ll see another Showdown. Here’s hoping!
THE DUFF
Author: Kody Keplinger
Publisher: Poppy (an imprint of Little, Brown)
Pages: 277
ISBN: 9780316084239
Publication date: 7 September 2010
Review book source: ARC from the publisher
Summary From the publisher: Seventeen-year-old Bianca Piper is cynical and loyal, and she doesn’t think she’s the prettiest of her friends by a long shot. She’s also way too smart to fall for the charms of man-slut and slimy school hottie Wesley Rush. In fact, Bianca hates him. And when he nicknames her “Duffy,” she throws her Coke in his face.
But things aren’t so great at home right now. Desperate for a distraction, Bianca ends up kissing Wesley. And likes it. Eager for escape, she throws herself into a closeted enemies-with-benefits relationship with Wesley.
Until it all goes horribly awry. It turns out that Wesley isn’t such a bad listener, and his life is pretty screwed up, too. Suddenly Bianca realizes with absolute horror that she’s falling for the guy she thought she hated more than anyone.
My thoughts
Before I talk about anything else, I first have to say how bummed I am with how the cover changed from the ARC to the final version.
I think the girl on the final cover looks a lot younger (both younger than the girl on the ARC cover and younger than Bianca herself). I also just don’t think she looks like Bianca–she doesn’t have wavy auburn hair and Bianca doesn’t seem like the bubble-blowing type. The final cover looks a lot more like shallow chick-lit than the ARC cover, and I think that does a disservice to a smart story. And augh, the girl on the cover of the ARC might be fat–but the girl on the final cover is definitely not fat.
But aside from my disappointment with the final cover, everything else I have to say about this book is positive!
What I found most striking about this book was how fresh and real the high school experience seems. This book doesn’t fall back on weird tropes about high school that aren’t true anymore (and maybe never were) and something in the way the characters relate to one another, bounce between school and home and popular places to hang out, and how conversations play out just feels right.
It’s possible that the reason this book felt so accurate is because Keplinger was seventeen when she wrote THE DUFF. Seventeen! Her age belies her skill, because this book is good. Except for the ending feeling almost a little too perfect (to spoil it, it turns out Toby Tucker was just using Bianca to get over his ex, too, so it’s okay that she’s using him and she’s free to get back with the reformed Wesley guilt-free), this book flows well and presents realistic internal struggles and realizations.
THE DUFF does contain plenty of underage sex (though they do use protection–and discuss the use of that protection) and lots of swearing, but it just makes the high school experience feel real. This definitely isn’t a book for middle-grade readers, though–it’s a high school book through and through.
Bianca’s narration is distinct, mostly due to her sarcasm and snarky observations. She’s the girl who’s stuck in high school for now but feels different from everyone else around her, not understanding how they can get wrapped up in petty high school things. She’s disdainful of school dances, doesn’t see the point in teen relationships, and would never show too much enthusiasm for anything. More happy-go-lucky readers may be put off by this, but it gives Bianca a strong voice and makes her a memorable character.
I really enjoyed how openly feminist this book is. In struggling with her label as the Duff and with her interactions with friends and other girls in school, Bianca comes to realize that we all feel like the Duff at times, and that “the Duff” is just another label like slut or bitch or prude that we use to hurt one another–but that we can all be those things at different times, and girls’ sexual and dating behavior is much more nuanced than those labels allow. She also sees how the other girls at her school are whole people with home lives and emotions and motivations that guide what they’re doing–they’re not just the school slut or whatever their label might be. And those realizations don’t feel forced or didactic at all; Bianca’s just figuring things out based on her own experience and her ability to emphasize with others.
But it’s not just sexual behavior and labels that Bianca realizes are subjective. When she finally tells her friends that she’s upset about being the Duff of their group, they’re both surprised that she thought that, and Casey even says that she feels like the ugly one because she’s so tall, calling herself Sasquatch. Bianca realizes through her relationship with her friends and Wesley that beauty is relative and all in the eye of the beholder. Is Bianca really ugly and fat? She might feel that way sometimes in comparison to her friends, but so do they, and no matter how she looks, Wesley’s interested in her. Along these lines, Angie Manfredi examines whether or not Bianca is fat in the first place–and whether it even matters–in her recent post at Fat Girl, Reading.
I really highly recommend this book not just for its feminism but also for Bianca’s sarcastic narrative voice, Keplinger’s spot-on portrayal of high school life, and the way the book examines real issues of self-worth and self-perception in a natural-feeling context. I can’t wait to see what else Keplinger has for us!
THE BIG STINK
Author: David Lubar
Publisher: Starscape
Pages: 164
ISBN: 9780765323439
Publication date: 31 August 2010
Review book source: I requested an ARC from the publisher
Summary From the publisher: It’s a stinky situation when Nathan’s school, Belgosi Upper Elementary, develops a mold problem and his class is forced to share space with the first graders. Soon the eighth graders show up too, including Rodney the bully’s older and meaner brother, Ridley. Could he be the reason for the stinky, putrid, rotten smell that seems to be following Nathan around? It’s up to Nathan, Abigail, and Mookie to solve the mystery of the big stink before it pollutes the entire town.
My thoughts
Nathan’s missions with BUM take a bit of a backseat to what’s going on at the school and in Nathan’s personal life in this fourth installment in the Nathan Abercrombie, Accidental Zombie series. He does a few sessions training in doing dead drops and seeing how guard dogs react to him, and there’s a short mission at the end, but the nefarious doings of RABID aren’t as integrated with the two main problems in Nathan’s life right now: the close quarters at school and the stink that seems to be everywhere Nathan goes.
A spoiler: that stink turns out to be Nathan himself. He discovers that the putrid scent he just can’t seem to escape is actually the rotting of his extremities. He’s had to deal with a lot of different problems with his new zombie physiology–his fragile bones that break too easily but are repaired (painfully!) with custom glue, not being able to digest food and having to feign eating around his parents, and having to hide his lack of a heartbeat from medical professionals–but his body rotting is something new and altogether more dangerous. Abigail and Dr. Cushing set about using science to try to find a cure, and even Mookie helps, delving into comic book zombie lore in search of a cure, but will this be the thing that finally does Nathan in?
In the meantime, there’s plenty of school drama–bullies, kids of all ages crammed into one school, and a sabotaged kindergarten pageant–and family drama to keep Nathan on his stinky, rotting toes. Throughout it all, Mookie and Abigail work with Nathan to solve problems and make the world a safer, happier place.
As in the first three books, this fourth of five books offers plenty of gross-out humor. Nathan’s stink is described in particular detail, and Mookie is always on hand for some sort of bodily function in the face of danger. The vomit levels were especially ramped up in this book–there’s even a double-puking-gym-teachers scene–and Nathan’s mission with BUM has him swimming through massive piles of trash. All of this delightfully gross humor is supplemented with wry observations, puns, and a touch of slapstick that will keep older elementary and younger middle school readers gagging and giggling.
More reviews I actually couldn’t find any other reviews. Maybe we’ll see more on Goodreads after the book is published.
MOCKINGJAY is officially available (in the Eastern time zone at least!) in just an hour and a half. It seems like a lot of places (shame on you, LA Times!) are breaking the street date, so I’m going to be mostly off the Internet until Friday.
Friday?
Yes, MOCKINGJAY comes out on Tuesday and as much as I wanted to go to a midnight release party and spend all night tonight reading, when I found out that Suzanne Collins would be visiting an independent bookstore not super-far from where I live, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to go see her read and get a custom-stamped book! (She’s not signing because of a hand injury, but the stamp she’s using is a custom MOCKINGJAY stamp that won’t be used outside of this promotional tour.)
So I have to wait. I may post reviews for a couple of books I read over the weekend, but I really want to have a spoiler-free experience. We’ll see if I can manage that for three and a half days! I hope you all get copies soon and read it and love it and aren’t too sleepy at work the next day–because you know you’ll be up all night the day you get it!
And for those of you who have copies on hold at a library or might have to wait to read it, too, here’s a video of Collins reading the first chapter of MOCKINGJAY:
The semifinals are over and only two competitors remain! The battles were fierce this round, but someone must emerge victorious. Here’s how the fights turned out:
And with Round 4 finished, that means there’s just one fight left–one fight that will determine the final victor of the YA Fantasy Showdown. Will it be Howl? Will it be Eugenides? Vote (once, please!) and help decide! The poll closes at the end of the day today (Monday), so do it now!
I have to admit that I’m a little disappointed that two strong women got knocked out right at the end, but then again, there were a lot of disappointing knockouts and characters who never got to see each other in battle. Luckily, Heather and the rest of the talented team behind the Showdown have solicited fifteen fan-written battles and posted them for readers to vote on. Remember that here you’re not voting for a particular character; you’re voting for which fight is the best–and you define “best” however you want. Out for blood? Want to see your favorite character triumph? Looking for the most eloquent battle descriptions? Read the following and choose!
Yikes, it looks like Katniss has her work cut out for her–she’s in six of the fifteen fights! You can vote here through the end of the day today (Monday) for your favorite fan fight. Results–and MOCKINGJAY!–will be available tomorrow!
Round 3 of the YA Fantasy Showdown is over and just four competitors remain! They’ve advanced to the semifinals (the previous post was incorrect; I apparently can’t read a tournament chart) and will face off in two final matches to determine who’ll go on to the final match to determine the last character standing. But first, the results of the quarterfinals matches:
Katsa vs. Jace
Predicted winner: Katsa
Voted winner: Katsa (75%)
With Round 3 over, voting for Round 4 is open and will only go through the end of today (Saturday) , so be sure to vote now if you were planning to vote at all.
GIRL, STOLEN
Author: April Henry
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
Pages: 213
ISBN: 9780805090055
Publication date: 28 September 2010
Review book source: ARC from the author1
Summary From the publisher: Sixteen year-old Cheyenne Wilder is asleep in the back of a car while her mom fills her prescription at the pharmacy. Before Cheyenne realizes what’s happening, their car is being stolen—with her inside! Griffin hadn’t meant to kidnap Cheyenne, all he wanted to do was steal a car to impress his low-life dad. But once Griffin’s dad finds out that Cheyenne’s father is the president of a powerful corporation, everything changes—now there’s a reason to keep her. Cheyenne is not only sick with pneumonia, she is also blind. Can Cheyenne survive this nightmare—and at what price?
My thoughts
Having not read any of Henry’s other books, I opened this one with a little trepidation. I was worried that Cheyenne’s blindness would be a gimmick or a crutch or the central point of another “noble disabled person overcomes his or her disability” narrative, but–as far as I can tell as an able-bodied person–Henry doesn’t fall back on tired stereotypes. Cheyenne’s blindness is just another part of who she is. It makes some things more difficult and she has to do some things differently, but she’s still able to live a life with friends and school and family and interests.
And in fact, Henry does more than just avoid stereotypes: she does a great job of explaining some of the different tools and techniques Cheyenne uses to get around or gather information on what’s going on around her, and she touches on a number of disability awareness issues. The reader learns about how Cheyenne’s guide dog helps her navigate a busy street or school hallway, how she uses her cane sometimes, that she has a Braille watch and a computer that can read to her (although she prefers books on CD!), and how she had to relearn things like eating. But we also learn from Cheyenne that it’s okay to say “see you later;” that when she and her guide dog are out in public, the dog is working and shouldn’t be petted or cuddled; and that when Cheyenne goes out to eat with her family, it bothers her if the waiter or waitress asks her parents what Cheyenne will be having, as if Cheyenne can’t decide for herself.
It’s natural–especially for young people–to be curious about people with disabilities, and I think this book handles that curiosity well, answering questions and still making Cheyenne a sympathetic, multi-dimensional character. Her blindness does not define her–her courage in the face of being kidnapped and her compassion and ability to see the good in those around her do. This book isn’t about a blind person. It’s about a girl who is, among other things, blind.
This book sucks you in quickly (the first chapter is only two pages long and introduces a stepmother, an illness, a carjacker, and Cheyenne’s blindness) and the action moves along at a good clip throughout the story. Narration alternates between Cheyenne and Griffin’s points of view, and Henry builds tension well, providing occasional interludes of reflection or quiet conversation between Cheyenne and Griffin that only seem to heighten the danger when Roy returns. This is a very suspenseful narrative, and the ending is especially nerve-wracking with one final twist that legitimately surprised me and made me all the more impressed at Cheyenne’s ability to outsmart her captors and escape.
Henry also blends conflict and drama with characters who have their own detailed backstories that come out as the action progresses. The way Cheyenne and Griffin find common ground and things to respect in one another sort of surprised me: most of the kidnapping narratives I’ve read are only about the emotional trauma the protagonist is suffering, so I liked the mix of action and character development in GIRL, STOLEN. Overall, Henry successfully balances lots of different elements, and it makes for a great story.
1 April Henry is coordinating a couple of traveling ARCs. I emailed her with my name and address, which she put on a list. Once my name got to the top of the list and someone else finished the ARC, she gave that person my address and the other reader sent the book to me. Now that I’m finished, I’ll be sending this copy on to another librarian on April’s list. I really like this ARC sharing circle and I’d like to see more authors (or publicists or fans or librarians?) coordinate things like it in the future!
Update: when I emailed April to get the next person on the list, she and I had a short discussion about her inspiration for GIRL, STOLEN. She wrote,
“I first conceived of the story after the local news talked about a teen girl who was taken in exactly the same fashion. The only difference was the guy forced her out of the car three blocks later. I immediately knew I wanted to write this story. But I worried that it would be untrue. I’m always a little anxious about people who write about someone who is in a minority when the writer him or herself is not. Like blue-eyed blondes writing about Native American spirituality, or inner city black kids. I’ve even read books by men where the main character, a woman, had experiences with pregnancy and birth that didn’t ring true. [...] I just didn’t want to get it wrong!”
While a writer who isn’t blind surely can’t ever completely comprehend what day-to-day life is like for blind people (Cheyenne bristles a little when Griffin tries eating with his eyes closed as if that accurately shows him Cheyenne’s experience), I really appreciate that April wanted to make sure to write a character so different from herself as correctly as possible. The acknowledgements at the back of the book and a conversation she described to me in that email indicate a real commitment to proper research. Yeah, April!
Round 2 of the YA Fantasy Showdown Quarterfinals ended on Monday, meaning eight characters are out and eight others are advancing to the semifinals. This quarterfinal round saw some surprising upsets, an incredibly close vote, and one very clear outcome:
Katsa vs. Hermione
Predicted winner: Hermione
Voted winner: Katsa (50.5% — just 10 votes more!)
Jace vs. Ai Ling
Predicted winner: Ai Ling
Voted winner: Jace (57%)
Alanna vs. Ged
Predicted winner: Ged
Voted winner: Alanna (62%)
I’m starting to wonder if Katniss might take this.
It’s been disappointing to watch worthy contenders fall by the wayside, and there are interesting matchups that were never scheduled but Heather and the rest of the team behind the Showdown have come up with a way for us to see what may have happened had the votes gone another way. Until this Friday, you can write your own mock battle and send it to Heather. Readers will then be able to vote for the best alternate fight between Saturday and next Monday.
Voting for the four semifinal fights in Round 3 are now up, and the polls close on Thursday at 9pm Eastern Time, so make sure to vote soon. And may the odds be ever in your favorite character’s favor!
Hopkins had done high school visits in the area before and they’d gone well, but when a middle school librarian saw Hopkins would be at Teen Lit Fest, she went to some parents and then all of them went to the superintendent to ask that Hopkins be uninvited. The superintendent, Guy Sconzo, hadn’t read any of her books but agreed to remove her from the program. When other area librarians wrote to him in protest, he responded that he’d relied on the librarian’s judgement and that there were plenty of other authors they could invite–too many to ever have them all! Hopkins responded to this on her blog:
I am not just another author. I’m an author who is a voice for a generation that faces real problems every day. An author who tries to dissect those problems, look for reasons, suggest solutions, show outcomes to choices through characters who walk off the page. I’m an author who cares about her readership in a very real way. I am thoughtful, respectful of my readers, and not afraid to tell the truth.
That is what censors fear. The truth. Mr. Sconzo doesn’t “want to jeopardize any possible negative reaction [sic] with what has been to date completely positive for literally all concerned.” (I always wonder about school administrators who can’t write a sentence correctly.) The truth may not always be pretty, but it is positive. What’s negative is hiding truth in a dark closet, pretending it doesn’t exist. And worse, manipulating people with lies.
She then asks that people in the Houston area not attend the festival and that people everywhere who oppose this censorship email the superintendent.
But the other authors involved with Teen Lit Fest are going a step further. Melissa de la Cruz wrote a blog post yesterday about growing up in a dictator-controlled country that banned, among other media, Japanese anime. She writes that “[w]hen I moved to America, I was happy to discover that you could watch ANYTHING here. Censorship was NOT a way of life. The freedom was dizzying.” And then she gets to the heart of censorship of material for young people:
But I want every kid to be able to decide whether they want to read Ellen’s books or my books, or anyone’s books. Kids should be able to choose. (Parents can choose not to let their kids read something, and that’s fine. They can also choose not to let their kids go hear someone speak, but you can’t ruin it for other people’s kids whose parents decided THEY can hear a speaker or read a book.)
I didn’t get to choose when I was nine years old, and I remember being INCREDIBLY UPSET. In fact, the absence of those Japanese cartoons is something I have been MOURNING for twenty-years now. I really missed it when they took it away, and I was HORRIFIED to find out that SOMEONE ELSE decided WHAT I could watch. (Someone who was not my parents.) It really disturbed me. It CONTINUES to disturb me.
So de la Cruz has withdrawn from Teen Lit Fest, and Pete Hautman has, too. In his blog post, he recounts how he’s twice been asked to speak at a library and then had that invitation rescinded after his writing was deemed “inappropriate.” At the time he didn’t make a big deal about it, but now he sees that as a mistake, so he’s withdrawing from Teen Lit Fest to stand against censorship. He also says that Tara Lynn Childs and Matt de la Peña have withdrawn as well.
I think what makes me angriest about this whole situation is that this censorship was begun by a librarian. I know that school librarians walk a narrower line, but all librarians everywhere are supposed to be the defenders of intellectual freedom and the champions of a young person’s right to read. Parents may decide what their own children read, but they shouldn’t be able to decide what everyone’s children read–and libraries should be providing more opportunities, not fewer.
I’m glad that other authors involved in this event are standing in solidarity with Ellen Hopkins and taking a stand against censorship. Even if one librarian in Texas is determined to “protect” teens from “inappropriate” material (material that’s won awards and propelled Hopkins’s books to the New York Times Bestseller list!), there are plenty of other people in Texas and online who value choice and–as Julie Halpern wrote when one of her books was challenged–respect young readers.
Update: I should be clear that while I’m thrilled to see other authors standing in solidarity with Ellen Hopkins, I’m also sad that if the superintendent doesn’t change his mind, Houston-area teens are going to be denied a chance to meet the creators of the books they love. It bites that they’re the ones who are caught in the middle.
Update 2: Ellen Hopkins has written a follow-up blog post in which she acknowledges that authors withdrawing from the Teen Lit Fest is unfair to teens and librarians in Humble, but emphasizes that this is about censorship and the freedom of ideas.
I really feel bad for the students in this situation. All they wanted was the chance to meet some great writers (trust me, Ellen Hopkins, Melissa de la Cruz, Pete Hautman, and Matt de la Pena are great writers) and maybe get some signed books. Instead, they’re missing out because a few adults think they know better.
That’s the problem with censorship, especially the kind that goes along with books. It’s usually couched in a fog of protection. As if keeping you from certain content is for your own good, and it’s really better this way. I’m especially appalled when this is applied to teen readers. Not only are teens generally way smarter and more mature and more experienced than we think, teen readers in particular are among the smartest people I know. It’s just insulting for adults in power (or those seeking power) to try to carry out their agenda waving the Because-They’re-Children and Because-We-Know-Better banners.
I couldn’t just sit by and be a part of this, and neither should you.
The results are in for the first round of the YA Fantasy Showdown! Some of the matches were very close, and there were even a few upsets. Here’s how the first sixteen fights played out:
The next round of fights are up for voting! The polls will only be open through tomorrow, so make sure to vote soon. And Keep in mind that you’re not voting for your favorite character; you’re voting for who’d win in a fight to the death.
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