Under Construction

YA Today will be undergoing some new updates – including a new header! – in the next few weeks so bear with us. Please check back soon for some new YA reads and news.

The Austen mash-ups continue

Quirk Books recently announced their 3rd Austen title, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls, due to be released in late March 2010.

This book is a departure from their two previous titles in that it is not technically a mash-up but rather a completely new title. This title is an Elizabeth Bennett ‘origins’ story of sorts in which we find out how the plague of ‘undesirables’ started in England and how Elizabeth Bennett went from traditional Austen heroine to zombie-kicking ninja.

Given the HUGE number of Austen-inspired zombie and vampire books currently out right now (Mr. Darcy, Vampyre is yet another of these titles) maybe Quirk Books has jumped the shark on this topic (as proposed in the New York Times way back in February 2009)?

What do you think? Are YA readers still interested in these books? And what about the fact that this new title has no original Austen text. At present, many high schools have incorporated P & P & Z into their English curriculum to pique readers’ interests in the classics, but will the same be true for this new title?

In celebration of Banned Books Week Sept 26th-Oct 3rd….

My favorite ever library advertising for Banned Books Week…

From the Twin Hickory Public Library in Glen Allen, Virginia from last year’s Banned Books ‘living’ display.

And thanks to Cory Doctorow who profiled this library last year in Boing Boing – click here for the full article.

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An interesting sidenote to this display is what happened last year when the Henrico County Library System, which Twin Hickory library is in, sponsored an ‘All Henrico Reads’ for the works of noted YA (and adult) author Julia Alvarez.

Over the course of the summer high school students and Henrico residents read Alvarez’s books in anticipation of her speaking engagement at Henrico County Library, planned for October 7th, 2008.   However, the appropriateness of Alavrez’s book, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents – a required or recommended book on the Henrico County summer reading lists for many high schools and a noted YA book in general (including being featured as one of the new ‘ 21 classics of the 21st century’ by NYC librarians) — was questioned by some school parents, specifically for its ‘ mature’  (i.e. sexual) content and the book was taken off the school’s recommended reading list.

Alavrez, incidentally, did still speak for ‘All Henrico Reads’ (article from Richmond Times Dispatch here) but the event seems a little bittersweet when her best known and loved book was, in effect, shielded from its one of its target audience – teens.

So, not only was Twin Hickory’s library display last year a fantastic and eye catching way to celebrate Banned Books week — it was also reflecting the very real book challenges occurring right in their area over notable and renown works of YA literature.

Penguin Classics Get Fashionable New Facelifts

New York Fashion Week may be over, but the newly facelifted Penguin Classics Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, and The Scarlett Letter, are here to stay.

Featuring modern new covers by noted illustrator and artist Ruben Toledo (and designed to coincide with New York Fashion Week) Penguin’s intention was to attract new readers to classics in a vein similar to that employed by Quirk Books that has made new readers give Jane Austen a second glance with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and the newly released Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters (which I am reading right now – it is great!).

According to Toledo, Penguin gave him free rein to redesign the covers as he saw fit with the only instruction to, “…make art that would make [young adults] want to read — to introduce these stories to a new public no matter what age” (for the full text of Toledo’s interview with WWD Lifestyle click here).

In spite of owning previous copies of all three of these titles, I just purchased the Toledo-illustrated version of Wuthering Heights…and I think I might buy the other editions too.

Reminiscences on ‘classic’ YA of Yesterday

Jezebel columnist Lizzie Skurnick’s has just released a book, Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classic We Never Stopped Reading, which is all about her re-reading and reminiscing on her favorite YA books as a child and teen in ways both humorous and profound…though mostly humorous.

Shelf Discovery includes esays from Skurnick’s Jezebel column, “Fine Lines” and some new additions as well. Essays and titles include, ‘Flowers in the Attic: He ain’t Sexy. He’s my Brother,’ and ‘Summer of My German Soldier: Springtime with Hitler Part I.’ Not to be missed.

Teen Reads has a review and featured preview of the book here.

Baby Be-Bop Burns: the continuing controversy in West Bend over book banning

The fight to ban ‘objectionable’ books like Baby Be-Bop, by Francesca Lia Block, continues in West Bend, Wisconsin and has now gone national, covered today by CNN.com.

The fight began back in February when two parents raised questions over what was deemed ‘acceptable’  and ‘age appropriate’ content for young adults – particularly as it concerned books of a ‘sexually explicit’ nature, which by this couple’s definition included a broad range of behaviors such as pre-martial sex, non-heterosexual sex, sex without consequences, sex with drugs, alcohol and so on. In total this couple and their supporters have identified over 80 books as ‘objectionable’ in the West Bend YA library catalogue including the very popular and well-reviewed (and oft-challenged) The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

Some nearby residents from Milwaukee who heard about this fight got involved and mounted their own crusade against Baby Be-Bop (a coming of age story about a gay teen) in the West Bend libraries for its “explicitly vulgar, racial and anti-Christian” content — and petitioned the library to publicly burn the book for the ‘good’ of the community.

This is ongoing fight that despite the small size of the community (30,000) is sure to continue and possibly gain in momentum. This debate has even made onto YouTube and you can listen to both sides of the debate here – the library supporters and the library critics.

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Baby Be-Bop author Francesca Lia Block was interviewed by Salon.com about this fight in June (click here for the interview). I love her quote in which she says, “It’s a tiny little book,” she added, “but they want to burn it like a witch.”

It is sad that especially in a small town residents want to restrict content in the libraries. Number #1 we don’t pick content lightly in libraries – we collect carefully and pick books that are well-reviewed and that mean something. Number #2 in a small town, and as a small town survivor myself, a library can really be a refuge for people and to want to take that away from teens and instead dictate to them what they should read seems counter to everything about librarianship.

Regency England like you’ve never seen it before: A book trailer for ‘Pride and Prejudice and Zombies’

My second foray into video booktalks and trailers…

Jane Austen’s classic text (well…85% classic text) with some added zombie mayhem – including a plague of undead terrorizing Hertfordshire, Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s ninjas terrorizing Elizabeth Bennett, and the Bennett sisters fighting back against all this with their finely honed combat skills.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies – Regency England like you’ve never seen it before.

The Austen re-invention continues: Sense and Sensibility…and Sea Monsters

After the runaway success of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Quirk books just announced last night a new title in its collection – Sense and Sensbility and Sea Monsters to be released this coming September.

According to an interview with EW.com, book co-author Ben H. Winters promises, “a giant rampaging mutant lobster. Octopi with glittering tentacles. And pirates — I couldn’t resist pirates.” Compared to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, there will be a higher ratio of good monster action in this book — and more swordfights…and even submarines..?

I can’t wait.

And be sure to check out its fantastic book trailer.

Everything seems normal and like a typical A&E or BBC classic adaptation of Jane Austen until 0:55 into the trailer when we hear a telltale splash in the lake behind Marianne Dashwood and Mr. Willoughby.

Followed at 1:33 by an approaching tentacle — and then – suddenly! – a scream worthy of any good horror film and Willoughby is gone!, dragged into the lake by a sea monster!

Traditional Jane Austen it is not, but who has not wanted to see Willoughby (like Wickham in Pride and Prejudice) finally get his? A great and exciting new way to read ‘the classics’ that is sure to circulate well on many YA shelves.

The book trailer you won’t forget: Jake Wizner’s ‘Castration Celebration’

…yes, that is the title.

Even better?

The book trailer is set to a song entitled, “I saw my parents having sex” — a musical number right from the pages of Castration Celebration.

Jake Wizner’s previous YA novel, Spanking Shakespeare (2008) tackled the horrors of senior year for one uniquely named, Shakespeare Shapiro and won accolades for its bawdy humor and confessional style – one of the best compliments coming from the Chicago Tribune who said, “this brilliantly lewd novel is hilarious.”

This time the subject is music camp…but High School Musical this isn’t.

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*YA Today note: the book trailer IS quite salacious (though nothing you won’t see on primetime TV any day of the week), but it is certainly PG-13 just so you are aware….interestingly, it is these mature aspects of Wizner’s work that have netted him a huge amount of parental ire — and a huge number of teen fans.

NYC library cuts UPDATE

So, I am totally behind the times (library school keeps me pretty busy), but in a good way — the New York City libraries have reached a ‘handshake’ deal with the Mayor’s office to ensure library service remains unaffected by the upcoming budget.

The budget still needs to be passed officially tomorrow, but this is great news for New York and libraries across N. America. Public outcry certainly helped — as well as Library Journal naming of the Queens Public Library, ‘the library of the year’ — right during the middle of the budget considerations. I think it would have been especially bad for NYC to cut a library’s budget in the same year that library was named ‘library of the year.’

And even better, the office of the mayor, in reaching this agreement, called 6 six-day library service a ‘core service’ – right along with keeping fire houses open, and preserving social services.

Wow. Librarians, we may not put out fires, but we are a vital part of the community.

* picture above is from the NYPL website