Author: booknutgirls

booknutgirls http://thebooknutdotcom.wordpress.com I read. I blog. I sell books. I chauffeur my kids. What more do you need to know?

Five Reasons Why Reading YA Books Makes Me a Better Parent

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I’ve been thinking about this post for a long, long time, ever since Kelly @ Stacked‘s post at Huffington Post titled “What Are Grown-ups Afraid of in YA Books?”  (I saw it via Liz B.) I kind of put my thoughts on the back burner until this week, when I was doing a Banned Books Week display and I got to thinking about what I read and why I read it, and what my kids read.

I don’t think I’m one of the adults that Kelly talks about, those who read YA to take it away from the kids. I read the books for work, yes, because someone has to weed out the good and the not-so-good, and someone has to be able to recommend to a grandparent a book that their Ranger’s Apprentice-loving grandson will like. But I also read it for personal enjoyment; I have found for years, and continue to find, that some of the best writing and storytelling out there is in the books written for elementary, middle, and high-school-age kids.

But, most importantly, as my oldest has graduated and is leaving, I have realized I am a better parent because I read a lot of middle grade/YA fiction.

Here’s why:

1. What I read helps me develop empathy, in general.  One of the things that has struck me most about Shannon Hale’s crusade against sexism has been a comment she made in a conversation we had over the Mortal Instruments movie. She said: “I always expect more from those in the arts — those who read or dive into stories — to have the capacity for more empathy.” So, so true. I dislike it when people ask me if I read MG and YA books to weed out ones for my kids. NO. Actually, if there was only one reason I could give a parent to read MG and YA book it would be this: the more you read, the more you will empathize with what your children experience. The same goes for reading books about and by people of color, or nationalities, or disabilities, or GLBTQ. The more you read, the more you can experience the world from differing perspectives. And in this age of widening divisions, any reason for more unity — especially with my own children — is a good one.

Which leads to:

2. It gets me in the head of my teenagers and their friends. One of the keys to empathy is understanding, which is why I value this. Especially when it comes to boys, since I don’t have any. It’s not always a comfortable place for me (no parent of a daughter wants to realize how much boys think about sex, I think), but I feel better not only for knowing on an intellectual level, but for having experienced a boy’s story through his own eyes and to realize that really, deep down, all anyone wants is to be accepted and liked. And that we’re all just humans going through this human experience together.

It also means that:

3. It helps me helps me keep a channel of communication open. Because my only “rule” for reading is that they talk to me when there’s something they don’t understand or are uncomfortable with, I’ve been able to have many conversations with them about lots and lots of issues, from dating and relationships to underage drinking and rape. I’ve been able to help my kids learn to think about characters and people, to put aside snap judgments and to look past those to find acceptance and understanding. In short, because we both read the same books, we’re able to talk about them more, and I’m able to help them find empathy, as well as see consequences to life decisions, both good and bad. But it’s not just the issues.

In addition:

4. It helps me share their interests and likes. This is not only because I know what they think is “cool”. (Though in our house it’s more nerdy/geeky that reigns supreme.) Because I read what they read, we’re able to share in the experience, fangirling over Hale (well, that’s just me, and they laugh at me) or Percy Jackson (I’m as excited as they are to see Rick Riordan); being excited in the anticipation of the next release, or thrilled at an author event at my bookstore. We have a common ground, my girls and I, and I think our relationship is stronger because of that.

But, perhaps this is the most important one:

5. It allows me to allow my kids space and allows them to make their own decisions and mistakes and shows me what NOT to do. I know this sounds pretty cliche and like something I should be doing anyway, but I’m not sure that this is a natural parenting choice. Most parents — myself included — want to protect their kids, want to make sure they are safe. But, in doing so, the kids aren’t allowed to grow and learn. And, after reading adventure after adventure where the kids are forced to make decisions and mistakes, I have learned that sometimes parents get in the way. And reading about all the missing moms, controlling moms, and flat-out bad moms, I have learned to trust that my daughters’ judgement, while invariably flawed, is valid and that her life is her own. I need to be there as a guide, but not as a controlling force.

So, there you have it. My thoughts. What are yours?

Frozen

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by Melissa de la Cruz and Michael Johnston
ages: 12+
First sentence: “They were coming for her.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy snagged off the ARC shelves at my place of employment.

I’ve come up with a tagline for this: It’s what’d you get if you smashed an environmental dystopian novel with Firefly. And I’m not just saying that because of my Nathan Filion crush. Promise.

It’s a future where due to environmental changes, the world flooded and then froze, and those who survived did so by either stubbornness or by selling their soul to the military that controls the government of the RSA — the Remaining States of America. It’s a tough world, one where you get by on luck and with a quick wit and a faster gun.

Nat is one of the survivors in this world, and she’s found herself in New Vegas, working as a blackjack dealer. Except she’s one of the Marked: a race of people with special powers, who have been marked on their body some way. That makes them ripe for persecution; the military, especially seems hell-bent on exterminating them. Nat was caught, once, but managed to escape. And now her powers — voices in her head, really — have her set on finding the Blue: a place where the sun shines and the grass grows.

For that, she enlists Wes, a captain of a crew and a ship, a mercenary with a heart of gold. Why, yes: he is Captain Mal and Han Solo rolled into one. He’s charming and captivating, saucy and sly; everything you’d expect a 19-year-old mercenary in a dystopian world to be. And yeah, there is a romance. But I didn’t mind that.

Oh, one more thing and it’s a little bit of a spoiler: that dragon in the O? It means something. And it makes the book that much better.

Considering my last outing with Melissa de la Cruz ended in a Did Not Finish, I consider this a win. It’s not a amazing book, but it is a lot of fun.

As a bonus: pictures from the event last night. They were really fun, and talked a lot about collaborating and selling the rights to their stuff. The girls had a good time.

I think out of all of them, Alison was the most interested in the book. We picked it up, she got it signed to her, and started reading it. Pretty cool.

A Brief Personal Interlude

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We said goodbye to my oldest, M, today. She’s off to Durgapur, West Bengal, for the next 8 months. And after 3 1/2 years of prepping and working to get to this point, she’s undeniably both really nervous and really excited. She said, as we were driving her to the airport, that this will be an Awesome Experience, even if she has to make it so by the sheer force of her will.

I hope so.

If you’re interested in following her adventures, she’ll be posting here once she arrives and gets settled.

The Spectacular Now

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by Tim Tharp
ages: 14+
First sentence: “So, it’s a little before ten a.m. and I’m just starting to get a good buzz going.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

I want to start this with: “Sutter Keely is an alcoholic.” Because, by saying he’s the “life of the party” (which is true) or “running away from his problems” (which is also true) seems to underscore the gravity of the problem. Sutter drinks — whisky, mostly — all. the. time. He can’t function without alcohol in his system. And it’s going to be his downfall.

Or, at least at the start of the book, that’s what  you think. His “beautiful fat” girlfriend, Cassidy, breaks up with him (no surprise; Sutter can’t keep a girlfriend) and he wakes up with a hangover on some girl’s — Aimee’s, as it turns out — front lawn. Here’s his chance at redemption: he’s going to take this socially awkward girl under his wing and reform her.

Except, he doesn’t. Sure, he shows her acceptance and she shows him love, but in the end there is no Defining Moment (though Tharp came close a couple of times), no Growth, no, well, nothing. And in the moment of reading, I was royally pissed at that. I don’t care if I don’t like a character (Sutter was bordering on destructive, and my mom-instincts — yes, they are kind of like a Spidey-sense — kicked in), I want there to be some sort of growth arc, some sort of conflict and resolution. But for Sutter, he was his own conflict, and there was no resolution. Sitting back after a couple of days, I can see how a firm resolution fits Sutter’s character: he’s all Live In The Now, which I thought was very Dude of him at first, but after a while just seemed a pathetic excuse not to do anything. There’s no growth arc because Sutter is beyond growing, and it’s not just because he lives in the now and embraces the weird. It’s not deep, though, it’s just lame.

And Aimee? While I’m not sure I wanted her to be Strong and Rescue Sutter, I did want something more from her than to roll over (literally sometimes) and let Sutter have his way. Perhaps it’s because she’s emotionally abused, perhaps it’s because she’s shy, but she was beyond pathetic as a character. And that’s just sad.

So,  I’m not quite sure what to think of this one. It had the potential to be brilliant, but only ended up as kind of meh.

The Life of Ty: Penguin Problems

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by Lauren Myracle
ages: 7-9
First sentence: “Today, my big sister Sandra is taking me to school.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

I know: I don’t usually do beginning chapter books on here, but I had a book talk last week to do (picture and beginning chapter books) and I thought I’d take a few minutes to read this one so I could talk about it.

First off: will it turn off the boys if I say this is adorable?? Because it IS. So. Freaking. Adorable.

Seven-year-old Ty is in second grade. He’s got two older sisters — one old enough to drive — and a brand-new three-month-old baby sister (and I thought I spread my kids out). He’s been the baby of the family for so long, that he’s not taking to the new addition very well. And that’s putting it mildly.

He does okay at school, though his best friend is in the hospital recovering from a bout of leukemia, and his second best friend is a girl, Lexie, that’s a bit wild. (She brings rubber bands to school because she wants to play “shooting people”. Ty doesn’t want to.) Then they go on a field trip to a local aquarium. Lexie breaks the rules and gets away with it. Ty breaks the rules — he wanders off — and gets in a ton of trouble. It’s not fair.

It does have a happily-ever-after type of ending; Ty does figure things out, with the help of his older sisters, and things do come right in the end. But there’s this moment, when he’s in trouble and his mom is lecturing him that Myracle got spot-on from both the mother and child’s point of view. It was actually the relationship between Ty and his mom that won the book over for me. It was a delightful little story with an absolutely adorable boy as it’s focus.

Worth handing to your first or second grader.

(Not Quite) 10 Questions For Elissa Brent Weissman

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I first encountered Elissa a couple of years ago when I was on the Cybils Middle Grade second round panel. Nerd Camp was on our shortlist, and we ended up picking it as our winner. I’ve had a special place in my heart for it ever since, and as a result, chose it as one of my 3-5th grade book club summer picks. The kids liked it too, and we thought it’d be fun to ask Elissa some questions (they came up with all the questions).

How do you come up with book ideas?
EW: Some ideas spark from things that happen to me or I hear about in real life. I decided to write Nerd Camp, for instance, after teaching at a summer camp for smart kids.  My students were so fun and clever and funny and warm, I just had to try to capture that atmosphere.  The idea for The Short Seller came to me when I discovered the fast-moving, exciting fluctuations in stock prices from one minute to the next.  But none of these experiences translate directly into books; I usually take something real and begin stretching the situation with my imagination, asking myself, “What if…”  Following those “what ifs” leads me to characters, and, from there, to their stories.

In Nerd Camp, why did you choose to write from a boy’s point of view? Was it hard?
EW: I started Nerd Camp with a setting (a summer camp for smart kids) rather than a character, and I attempted to write the book with many different characters—mostly boys, but some girls too— before hitting upon Gabe.  I fell in love with Gabe the moment I started writing about him, and I just knew that his story was the one that was going to work.  Also, there’s just something about a boy yearning to be liked by his new stepbrother that is so endearing and honest, it just makes the central conflict more compelling than if it were a girl wanting the same. It wasn’t too difficult to write from Gabe’s point of view, though perhaps that’s because he’s such a nerd, and I am too.  In Nerd Camp 2.0 (due out May 2014!), I also write from Zack’s perspective, and he’s so cool it was harder to do!

How did you come up with the idea of SCGE? Is it a real place?
EW: SCGE is not a real place, but it’s based on one: the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth (CTY).  I taught at CTY for four summers, but only at day sites, so the campers didn’t stay overnight.  (CTY does have sleepaway camps as well, on college campuses.)  Apart from the idea, the type of kids you find there, and to some degree the structure of each day,  SCGE is entirely fictional.  Wouldn’t it be fun if it were real, though?  I’d love to go!

What do you think a NERD is? Do you think everyone has a cool side, too?
EW: What a great question!  I think nerds are people who love to learn.  The stereotype is that nerds are good at school but awkward in social situations, which is why they could be perceived as uncool.  In an environment where it’s cool to not care, nerds, of course, would be ultimately uncool.  But at a place like SCGE, where everyone loves learning and cares a great deal about school, being cool is defined differently.  The key is to embrace what you love and resist the pressure to conform to someone else’s concept of what’s cool.  (Which, let’s admit, is no easy task!)  If we think about nerds as being people who are passionate about something, not only does everyone have a cool side, but even the coolest people have a nerdy side, too.

Tell us about your new book. What’s it about?
EW: The Short Seller is the story of seventh grader Lindy Sachs, who’s stuck at home with mononucleosis and bored, bored, bored—until she discovers she’s got a knack for trading stocks online.  Her parents give her $100 in her own account to  invest as she sees fit, and before long, she’s a stock-trading whiz, doubling her money and then some.  It’s when she decides to start trading with her parents’ money too that she finds herself in some risky business—and some major trouble.  I could tell you more about the plot, but it’s more fun to watch this short book
trailer.

Thanks so much to Elissa for her time, and to my book group kids for coming up with the questions!

The Golem and the Jinni

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by Helene Wecker
ages: adult
First sentence: “The Golem’s life began in the hold of a steamship.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

I have sat here for a good while, trying to figure out how to start this off. All I knew about it, going in, was that it was turn-of-the-century New York City immigrants. And that the main characters were a golem — Jewish mysticism — and a jinni — Arabic mythology. Everything else in the story was a mystery left to unfold.

Know what? I loved it that way. I loved not knowing what was going to happen next, discovering connections and twists and turns as they came.

I will tell you this: it’s a fantastic debut novel. Wecker’s writing is lyrical and magical, and she captures the essence of not only her human characters, but the fantastical ones as well. The sturdiness of the Golem and her need to fill desire; the flightiness of the Jinni. One of the things that impressed me (aside from her melding historical details with fantasy) is she managed to have both the Golem and the Jinni grow in their respective ways. And not always together. It’s simultaneously both their separate stories and their intertwining ones.

Which brings me to the end. There are some elements of the book that I wondered how they fit in. Flashback and stories that seemed out of place for much of the book. But the ENDING. Oh, wow. Wecker is a master storyteller that I didn’t even suspect how all the pieces fit together until it was upon me (or maybe I’m just not a careful reader), and the ending blew. me. away. It was amazing and perfect and totally and completely satisfying.

If all adult books were like this, I’d probably read more of them.

Hollow Earth

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by John Barrowman & Carole E. Barrowman
ages: 9+
First sentence: “The book the old monk was illuminating began with these words:
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

Twelve-year-old twins Matt and Em Calder don’t really think there’s anything weird about their drawing abilities. Okay, so sometimes they can fall into their pictures and sometimes their pictures come alive, but there’s nothing unusual about that.

Well, of course they’re wrong, and they find out in a big way when something happens at London’s National Gallery and they and their mother find themselves on the run to Scotland, to live with a grandfather they’ve never met.

Once in Scotland, they find they’re a part of this group of artists/magicians called Animare, people who can bring their art to life. It’s not all fun and games though: there are splits in this group, factions who believe that they myth of Hollow Earth — that there’s a portal to the center of the earth where all the demons are — is real, and those who want to stop. Matt and Em find themselves caught in between these feuding adults, not quite sure which side to believe.

At least, I think that’s what the plot is.

See, while I really liked the idea of melding art and magic — Animare actually have to draw things on paper (or the ground, or skin) in order for their magic to work — I’m not sure this was the best story. (An aside: I only picked this up because A raved about it. So, it does have the kid appeal.) Granted, it’s the first in a series, so there’s really just a lot of set-up going on. Even though there’s an adventure on the island off the coast of Scotland full of danger for our fair heroes, it just all felt kind of by-the-numbers. Which means while it isn’t bad, it isn’t brilliant either.

A says the second one in the series isn’t as good, though it left her on a cliffhanger, so she, at least, will keep going in the series. I’m glad I gave it a try, at least.

What I Did for My Birthday

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Iwas going to pack my minivan full of people and drive to Oklahoma City to see this movie:

BUT, a miracle occurred, and we didn’t have to! It came to Wichita. So, I took a whole group of people out to lunch (at a Mexican restaurant, because that’s what you eat before seeing a silly movie set in England):

And then we infiltrated stormed (seriously: we were basically the only ones in the theater. What is it with Wichitans???) went to the theater and had a grand old time! (Seriously: the movie was HILARIOUS, and had everyone — from the teenagers on up — guffawing. A LOT.)

I also bought these books:

Rose Under Fire, because ELIZABETH WEIN. I mean, how could I not??
Deadly Heat (which came out today) (remember my guilty pleasures from last year?)
Dream Thieves (which also came out today) because I had to own it. And because I sent my ARC along to some fellow YAckers so they could gush about it, too.

I call that a good way to celebrate 41 years on this planet.

High Ho, High Ho, Off to read (Middle Grade Speculative Fiction) I go!

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It’s Cybils panel announcement time! And I find myself with a host of other really cool bloggers on the Middle Grade Speculative Fiction (aka Science Fiction/Fantasy) panel. To say I’m excited about reading 120+ MG SF books is like saying that the sky is blue. Or that I like cake.

The other (awesome, amazing, really cool) panelists I’ll be working with are:

Kristen Harvey
The Book Monsters
@bookgoil
Allie Jones
In Bed With Books
@wearedevilcow
Cecelia Larsen
The Adventures of Cecelia Bedelia 
@celialarsen
Brandy Painter
Random Musings of a Bibliophile
@brandymuses
Charlotte Taylor
Charlotte‘s Library
@charlotteslib
Stephanie Whalen
Views from the Tesseract  

You can see who made it on the other panels here. Hooray for Cybils season!