You Don't Suppose This Was Marketed As YA Because It Sounds So Much Like The Hunger Games, Do You?

Salon has an interview with Lise Haines, author of Girl in the Arena, which, at least in the interview, comes off sounding like The Hunger Games. Some of the commenters thought so, too.

Though Bloomsbury states in its catalog that Girl in the Arena is Haines' debut novel, according to the interview and her website, she's written two others for adults. In discussing why it was published as YA, she tells Salon, "...I just wrote the novel I had to write. I let others sort out how to sell and market it."

She's not the only writer who has said things like that. While I can see those writers' point, it seems to me that attitude comes from a belief that writing is some kind of mystical and otherworldly experience, an art that can't be defined. My belief is that art involves craft and that writers should have control of their craft and technique and know what they're writing. Thus, you should know that you're writing a young adult vs. adult novel.

On the other hand, I have to admit, if I wrote a kids' book and a publisher said, "We want to publish this as adult," I'd probably say, "Go for it." You can control your work while you're working on it, but afterwards things get a little murky.

Dinosaurs Romping In The Snow In Connecticut

Here in central Connecticut we had a nice, floppy snow today--our second snow this week. So I thought it was neat to learn this afternoon that a launch event for Tyrannoclaus--a Christmas book about dinosaurs--will be held November 8 from 1 to 4 pm at Connecticut's own Dinosaur State Park in Rocky Hill. If it's already snowing here in mid-October, might we expect a bit on the ground at Dino State Park by November 8th?

Dinosaurs? Snow? Christmas? Come on! I can't be the only one who's seeing the way this whole scenario is coming together.

By the way, there's a fee to tour the museum, but the readings at 1:00 and 2:30 and the booksigning in the gift shop are free.

"Kids' Movies That Aren't Really for Kids"

I'm always going on (and on) here about picture books that really should be marketed to adults. Salon has an article up today called Kids Movies That Aren't For Kids: The Top 10.

In it, author Andrew O'Hehir uses the term kidult, which I hadn't seen before. I'm trying to decide whether it has negative or positive connotations.

Hmm. What Would I Do For A Book Right About Now?

Many bloggers have been linking to and commenting upon the Interview with the FTC's Richard Cleland at Edward Champion's Reluctant Habits. I found two things particularly interesting about the interview.

1. Over the past year or so there's been a lot of discussion in the kidlitosphere about whether or not book review sites should accept arcs and books from publishers. Could it be perceived as payment for services rendered and thus make the reviews appear biased? It wasn't unusual to see bloggers writing, "What? Do people think I can be bought with a book?" Well, evidently the FTC thinks you can. "If, however, you held onto the unit, then Cleland insisted that it could serve as “compensation.” You could after all sell the product on the streets." "“If a blogger received enough books,” said Cleland, “he could open up a used bookstore.”"

Though that sounds laughable, I do think that I read years ago that Dorothy Parker sold books she was sent for review. For what that's worth.

2. "Cleland insisted that when a publisher sends a book to a blogger, there is the expectation of a good review." My first thought when reading this was, Gee, I wouldn't have known that. My second thought was that I don't think this guy understands publishing. I think publishers send books to bloggers hoping to get any kind of coverage at all. My third thought was that maybe this guy was right. Given that so many bloggers have policies of only recommending books at their sites, publishers may very well have expectations of receiving good reviews when they send them review copies. It doesn't necessarily follow that the books they send are some kind of payment for said good reviews.

I have to say, this whole thing makes me very happy that Original Content is merely a me, me, me author blog and not a review site.

Colleen at Chasing Ray suggests the new FTC rules regarding what is considered compensation for blog reviews will "likely mean the end of receiving ARCs or review copies from publishers. With the ever shrinking print review sections in newspapers and magazines, the negative impact on publishing is obvious."

Stay tuned.

"Twilight's fantasy is that the gorgeous gay guy can be your boyfriend..." Oh. I See. Kind Of.

Esquire carries an article that will tell you What's Really Going on With All These Vampires. It explains Twilight thus: "Twilight's fantasy is that the gorgeous gay guy can be your boyfriend, and for the slightly awkward teenage girls who consume the books and movies, that's the clincher." But aren't those slightly awkward teenage girls hoping for a gorgeous straight guy? Gorgeous gay guys are, indeed, gorgeous, but what's a straight teen girl going to do with one?

This article mentions True Blood, which is somewhere on my Netflix queue, and does a little rave about its opening credits. While I was listening to the True Blood theme music, I thought, Hey, isn't that Chris Isaak? Guess not.

Blog of a Bookslut got me going on this.

Just The Way I Remember It!

Okay, so a couple of nights ago I was reading some more of Minders of Make-Believe by Leonard Marcus, which is really wonderful even though I have been reading it for months. And what do I come upon but a few pages about Francelia Butler, a leader in children's literature academics who used to teach at the University of Connecticut. A lot of what Marcus had to say about her I'd heard before because back in my own personal Dark Ages, I worked at UConn for an institute that appears to no longer exist. (Good. Maybe now I'll stop having that recurring dream about having worked there my entire life.) Professor Butler was there at the same time. In fact, I was working at UConn the year she brought Margaret Hamilton to campus. (Which Marcus mentions.) Though I wasn't a kidlit person then, I certainly knew who she was because she and her children's literature course were famous. People wanted to take that class. The story was that it was always full. Just as Marcus says in his book. And everything Marcus says about Butler giving her personal library to another college in a "pointed rebuke"--that's the story I heard at the time, too. Reading all this made me feel as if I were back there listening to campus gossip again. Only now it's history.

A Possible Crossover Book

You know, lots of times I'll hear some book has won an award. I go ahead and read it and am left thinking, Gee, was nothing else published that year? That's not the case with the truly terrific The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley, which won the Crime Writers' Association Debut Dagger Award in 2007. Anything that could have beaten it would have had to be incredible.

Imagine a noncriminal Artemis Fowl in a book with an intellectually vigorous style similar to that of Octavian Nothing that is set in an English village that you might find in one of Dame Agatha's 1950's era novels. And then imagine that that the book you're talking about is very well-written on top of all that.

You're beginning to get the picture.

The Sweetness at the Bottome of the Pie is an adult mystery novel with an eleven-year-old main character, Flavia de Luce. She is one serious piece of work, the youngest child of what seems to be a depressed, country gentleman/stamp collector and his late, lamented wife who disappeared in the mountains years before. She has two older sisters, Ophelia, who plays the piano (classical music, of course) and Daphne who reads Dickens, with whom she is at constant war. They all live in a house the family has inhabited for generations, and Flavia has taken over an ancestor's personal laboratory. She is seriously into chemistry. She is extremely witty in a dark, brittle sort of way. And, yet, she is also innocent.

A body turns up in the cucumber patch. You can take it from there.

Setting this book in 1950 was a stroke of genius. Flavia is a bit over-the-top. Oh, hell, she's a lot of over-the-top, which is what makes her so marvelous. But no one could begin to believe she could exist in the twenty-first century. Her extensive knowledge of...all kinds of things...could only be acquired in a world without TV, malls, dance lessons, sports, and, it would seem, traditional schooling. (School is never mentioned.) And, for me, a big stumbling block with child mysteries is the fact that kids can't get around places on their own. But Flavia's always jumping on her old bike and pedaling off all over the place. It's believable in a pre-suburban world. I have ridden my bike to the library and even a church tag sale, but it's a huge undertaking, taking a big chunk out of my day. Traffic being what it is, I'm taking my life in my hands every time I do it. But in Flavia's world, it works.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is the beginning of series. While I'd be delighted to spend more time with Flavia, I've often been disappointed with follow-up mysteries. She may be able to pull this off, though.

This series could definitely have crossover potential for sophisticated teen readers who enjoy literary humor.

I Don't Think I Like Angels

They have wings like fairies. So I'm not looking forward to being inundated with the things.

Link from Jill Corcoran Books.

Have I Done This?

Have I ever used quotation marks for emphasis? Nathan Bransford says it absolutely is not done. He also says it's an error committed by "people of a certain age." (I am not quoting him there. I am using quotation marks to either show irony or euphemism. I'm not sure which, but it doesn't matter because Bransford says both are acceptable.)

Being older than dirt, myself, I fear I have used them for emphasis--but not since technology provided me with italics!

The "Blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks should help us all remember to curb our quotation mark usage.

They Really Aren't For Us

I can sympathize with author Daniel B. Smith, in his article The Very Grouchy Daddy in Slate. Eric Carle's books don't have a lot of "narrative creativity." They weren't read a lot at Chez Gauthier, because the mom here needed more story. We went to things like Curious George just as fast as we could.

But I can't agree with him that the task of children's authors is to "entertain, educate, stimulate the imagination of, etc., the parent" as well as the child and that "lesser writers...serve only the child."

Entertaining, educating, and stimulating the imagination of parents is a marketing ploy. Parents are gatekeepers for young, nonreading children. They have all the money. Authors and publishers may well want to entertain, educate, and stimulate them for that practical reason.

But your gutsiest children's writers serve only one master--their child readers. If adults, like myself, don't get their books, that's just tough. Is Eric Carle milking a monotonous, winning formula for all it's worth? Maybe. Maybe even probably. But the fact that adults like myself don't care for that formula is meaningless. He writes for children--or he should be writing for them--and not for us.