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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]