BYAFB Week Roundup

We are deeply into Buy A Friend A Book Week people. To recap my suggestions for kids' books that would be appropriate for adult readers:

How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff

Millions by Frank Cottrell Boyce.

I Was A Teenage Fairy by Francesca Lia Block

The Adrian Mole Diaries by Sue Townsend

So what did I buy? Well, I invested in a copy of Millions to give to a young relative. But then I decided that the book might not be right for him. So I got him a copy of Unshelved.

Millions will go to another relative.

You still have a couple of days to do your part for the publishing industry. Buy books!

Yes, I Did It, Too

I happened to be listening to NPR this afternoon and heard one in a series of segments they're doing on what they call "buttonhole books"--"the ones you urge passionately on friends, colleagues and passersby." They're asking authors to talk about their favorite buttonhole books. Julie Powell talked about Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy.

I'm not a fan of the whole trilogy, but I thought the first book, known as The Golden Compass in this country, was incredible. Just breathtaking. I've probably said that here before. It was one of the first kids' books I recall crossing over and being popular with adults, too.

And I did go around urging it "passionately on friends." I believe I bought an audio version for a gift for someone who was going to be traveling with kids.

I Don't Really See The Point

I think I've mentioned Library Thing in passing before. I actually signed up recently after visiting the website of one of my commentors and seeing that she was doing it.

I signed up for the thing, but there's no way I'm going to try to catalog my own books. It's not that I have so very many, but if I have any extra time, I'm going to mop the bathroom floors and paint my bedroom. Buy food. Something like that. So what I've been doing is cataloging what I've been reading because I keep track of how many books I read each year. Oh, if only I'd thought of this back in January.

Oh, wait! I've only read something like 55 books since January 1! I could take the time to enter all those. I could do it when I'm avoiding writing. Yeah! And then on New Year's Eve, I'd have a catalog of all the books I've read this year.

Assuming I wanted that.

But I'll keep trying for a while. We'll see what happens.

The Ol' Gail Has Returned

Has anyone else noticed that I've been unnaturally pleasant lately, enjoying the majority of the books I've been reading? Yeah, well, it's over.

I picked A Bundle of Sticks by Pat Mauser McCord up off my To Read Shelf where it has been for at least a year. It was a gift from the guy who runs my taekwondo school, and I meant to read it this spring because it's a kids' book with a martial arts story line, and Happy Kid! is a kids' book with a secondary martial arts story line.

A Bundle of Sticks has an interesting publishing history. It was originally published in the early 1980s, I think by Atheneum, but I could be wrong. At that time it was reviewed in the right places and won three readers' choice awards. It was reprinted in 2004 by Turtle Press, a Connecticut publisher that specializes in martial arts books and DVDs.

Personally, I found the writing style a little...awkward. Not very compelling. However, you could definitely call this a problem book, and as with most problem books, the problem is all-important. The main character is being victimized by a bully. His father pressures him into studying a martial art so that he'll be able to defend himself. To McCord's credit, she tries to make clear that studying a martial art isn't about learning to fight. Ben, the main character, gets something from his studies beyond the ability to whip his tormentor.

Bullies are a big, big issue for kids. I've had lots of students mention them when I've been visiting schools. For many kid readers back in the 1980s, the content of this book was so significant that they didn't care about the writing style. I'm guessing that school culture has only become worse. No doubt there is still an audience for this book.

Spider Men

YALSA has named Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman a Best Book For Young Adults 2006, which mystifies me. Not that the book isn't good. It just doesn't appear to me to be YA. It doesn't appear to me to be published as YA.
They could have named it an Alex Award winner, meaning it was an adult book that appeals to young adult readers. But they didn't. They categorized it right with the YA books.

I think even an Alex Award would have been a bit of a stretch because I don't see a whole lot here to attract YA readers.

Anansis Boys revisits the fantastic idea behind American Gods--the gods of other cultures still exist here in America, though in a somewhat down-to-earth form. They have children who don't necessarily know their own fathers. Anansi Boys is much lighter than American Gods. Almost more run-of-the-mill, though certainly still an entertaining read.

Anansi, who has been hanging out in Florida, dies and his two adult sons meet for the first time. One of them is a godlike being. The other is some kind of an accountant.

There are themes here about identity and understanding your place in a family, which certainly are common in young adult literature. But there are no young adult characters and no compelling reason why the book should be considered more young adult than adult. Sure, anyone can read and enjoy this book. There's no reason in the world why it shouldn't make its way to some high school reading lists. But is it young adult?

I don't see it myself.

What They Really Mean

You all know my feelings about book blurbs. If not, read Blurbs Fail Me. You'll get the idea.

By way of Blog of a Bookslut.

Oh, That Controversial Cobblestone

I learned at the NESCBWI listserv today that Cobblestone, a high-end history magazine for kids, has found itself in just a bit of hot water.

I'm guessing that it's not often that Cobblestone makes the news.

Someone Is Taking This Way Too Seriously

And They All Died Happily Ever After is the New York Times response to J. K. Rowling's tease that she might snuff Harry Potter in the last book.

Killing off characters has become just a little bit predictable for Rowling. Hasn't it been said that when Shakespeare didn't know what to do in some of his plays, he created a blood bath in the final act? You can't deny that that wraps up story lines.

Here's my prediction: If Rowling kills off more people--particularly Harry--in her last book, word will get out within 48 hours of publication day because Potter fans are maniacs (in the very best sense of the word) and that's plenty of time for them to polish off a Potter book no matter how much it weighs. Once the death becomes old news, the serious fans who haven't read the book won't out of outrage. And people like myself won't read it because why bother? We'll know how it ends.

Here's a story line Jo can have on me--how about if Harry has to sacrifice his magical powers in order to save wizardom? And then he has to go back to the muggle world and live like a Dursley into middle age and beyond. Or maybe he can even lose his memory of having been anything but a miserable teenager and then go on to work in an office selling paper products until his brain dissolves and flows out his ears.

Now, that, my friends, is real tragedy.

My Afternoon Reading

While my bookseller friend and I were hanging out this afternoon, she showed me an incredible picture book called Mama by Jeanette Winter. What's so incredible about it, you ask?

Mama includes only two words of text--mama and baby. Otherwise, the story is told through the pictures. This, I heard once, is what a good picture book is supposed to do. It's not just supposed to illustrate text. Its pictures are supposed to follow their own storyline.

Mama is the true story of a young hippo that was separated from his mother during the 2004 tsunami. He is rescued by humans and eventually bonds with a tortoise that's over 100 years old.

This is a story, a nature story, I guess you'd call it, that a very young reader can "read" by following the illustrations. I can imagine it becoming part of pre-school and kindergarten curricula for years to come.

And I mean that in a good way.

And I'm Done!

I finished my meager marketing push for Happy Kid! today with a two-hour visit at a lovely little bookstore in a small town on the Connecticut River. Beautiful, beautiful.

We sold one book.

Was this a waste of time the way I've felt that so much of my marketing efforts were a waste of time? No. I spent the afternoon chatting with the bookseller and looking over her stock. We discussed, among other things, magical realism and whether or not writers are influenced by their reading.

On top of that, this woman has had my books in her store for a couple of months and has been selling them. I signed all her stock, and she'll be keeping them prominently displayed for a while. Best of all, she has read Saving the Planet & Stuff, is a fan, and has been handselling it.

That was well worth two hours of my time.