Another reason to be excited it’s 2012: the Debut Author Challenge at The Story Siren! Congrats to all the debut authors and looking forward to lots of wonderful additions to the literary scene.
Category: Books
The Best of ’11, via Book Bloggers
Happy 2012 everyone! Want to start the year off with some good reading? You’re in luck–the 2011 Cybils Finalists were just announced. Their categories are some of my favorites, from the standard Young Adult Fiction to Poetry and Graphic Novels to Book Apps and Fantasy & Science Fiction (Middle Grade). I’ve already added a few books to my “to read” list. Excited to see who the winners will be!
The Young and Young at Heart
I love the idea of pairing classic children’s book heroes and their literary adult counterparts, but this list from Flavorwire feels so wrong to me. How in the world can you think Lyra from The Golden Compass could grow up to be Jane Eyre? These are two of my favorite characters in literature, but they’re vastly different people. And Huck Finn growing up to be Dean Moriarty? There’s no evil in Huck the way there is in Moriarty. (Currently watching Sherlock, which only underscores my reaction.)
There are a few good connections (like Eloise and Holly Golightly) but at least half of the pairings don’t add up to me. Granted, it’s a hard concept to work from, but I was hoping for more.
No, But I’ve Seen the Movie
With Tin Tin in theaters, famous writers were asked about the best and worst children’s book-to-movie adaptations, and which they’d like to see. A few favorite thoughts:
Lois Lowry: “I think [movie adaptations of books] are pretty uniformly disappointing, with some (“Tuck Everlasting”) spectacularly worse than others. My only real favorite is the obvious “To Kill a Mockingbird,” which was not published as a YA book (though if it had been written today, it would have been).”
Sherman Alexie: “I think “Howl’s Moving Castle” has to be the best film adaptation of a young-adult book. The book is terrific but the movie is better. I know that’s blasphemy for a writer to say, but the imagination of the filmmakers — the images they create — are better than anything that I created as I read the novel. The filmmakers became my imagination. My two sons also think this is the best adaptation ever.
Jane Yolen: “Three that I would like to see made are Shannon Hale’s “Goose Girl” and the books that follow it, Patricia C. Wrede’s “Enchanted Forest” books, and Bruce Coville’s “Magic Shop” books. I know that’s cheating because I would be getting multiple movies out of a choice of three, but nobody says these kind of choices are fair.“
Love all these choices. There are a lot of other fantastic suggestions* (click through to see!) After seconding most choices in the famous author list, I’d add:
The Good: The 2010 version of True Grit, which was very true to the book and a YA novel at heart.
The Bad: Any Madeleine L’Engle related movie. A Ring of Endless Light is not about saving dolphins from an evil corporation!
The Hopeful: I’d love to see a miniseries based on Tamora Pierce’s Song of the Lioness. (Hell, any of Pierce’s books, but the Alanna series are near and dear to my heart.)
What children’s book movie adaptations are on your best/worst/wish lists?
*On the other hand, R.L. Stine liked the Golden Compass movie, which I thought was a very watered-down version of an amazing book. (Granted, the polar bear scenes were awesome.) A friend of mine has suggested that only Miyazaki could do a worthwhile version of His Dark Materials and I’m inclined to agree.
Best in (YA) Show
We’re almost at the end of the year, which means we’re almost at awards season. No, not just the Oscars. The Awards for Awesomeness in YA. (YALSA, can you make that the official title of your collection of awards? The Hub has a roundup of what these awards are and which books can be nominated.
One I need to check out more is the Alex, which honors books technically for adults but which will appeal to teens as well. Sometimes I get caught up in the YA world and forget that there are good books out there for adults, too.
Also, I would like to hang out with everyone who has ever won the Margaret A. Edwards Award. Seriously. Guys, I will bake for you.
You Are What You Write
Fictional books are awesome. Reading about a character reading a novel that doesn’t exist is like literary inception. (Minus Leonardo DiCaprio.)
So of course I dig Warren Lehrer’s visual novel, A Life in Books: the Rise and Fall of Bleu Mobley. Lehrer has created the covers/some content of 101 fake novels by character Mobley–quite a task. The books develop the life story of Mobley and allow for an engaging look at book design. About the project, Lehrer says:
“I decided I wanted to get at this kind of panoramic view of the world in a different, more evocative and fun way, by writing a novel about one man’s use of books and storytelling as a means of understanding himself, the people around him, and a half century of American/global culture.”
It’s kind like “you are what you read,” except in Lehrer’s novel “you are what you write.” I’ve included an image of one of Mobley’s books here, but there are a ton of others in the original article. Make sure to click through and see the rest.
Reading at the End of the Year
Gone through your Christmas gift reading already? Then check out the Hub bloggers’ list of 2011 books they don’t want you to miss. Lots of awesome suggestions here. (As if my to-read list could be any longer, right?) I’m especially intrigued by The Auslander by Paul Dowswell, Sean Griswold’s Head by Lindsey Leavitt, and Putting Makeup on Dead People by Jen Violi.
Based on Actual Events
Steve Sheinkin won the 2011 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Nonfiction for his book The Notorious Benedict Arnold: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism, & Treachery. From his acceptance speech:
“But I realized there was more to Arnold’s appeal than the story, and it goes back to Arnold making people nervous. Why does he make people nervous? It’s not that Arnold is a bad guy—it’s that he’s a good guy and a bad guy. A hero and a traitor.
“As a country, I don’t think we handle contradiction very well. When it comes to talking about the American Revolution and our Founders—essentially, our creation story—we seem most comfortable sticking to two-dimensional portraits. It’s hard for us to think of the United States as a nation built on grand and beautiful ideals but with deep moral flaws woven in from the start. I think we’re afraid that if we try to explain this complex mixture to young readers, they’ll be confused, and maybe less patriotic. I’m convinced it’s one of the main reasons kids think history is boring.”
I love Sheinkin’s point about history being complicated, and how we avoid those issues when teaching history to kids. History is never about good guys versus bad guys. It’s about real people dealing with immediate problems and trying to solve them the best they can, or trying to succeed in their own right, or trying to avoid major collapse. It’s what we still do. The more books we have that deal with complex historical figures, the better. And, as Sheinkin says, this might help kids get more invested in history.
Make sure to click through for the rest of Sheinkin’s speech.
The “Something”
From an interview with publishing powerhouse Jean Feiwel:
As you and your fellow editors look to acquire books, is there one element that grabs you each time, that one essential element?I say this in my rejections letter, if I don’t emotionally connect with something I’m not going to respond to it. There’s something about the story that has to pull on my emotions in some way. It has to make me laugh. It has to be very dramatic. It has to surprise me. Something has to happen for me to respond to a story. Even it’s something I’ve heard a lot , even if it’s yet another vampire story, if there’s something in it that feels fresh or emerges in some surprising way I’ll will respond and go after it. There has to be something emotionally alive in it for me.
I think this is the hardest part of querying. You can have a fantastic pitch and a wonderful book, but if it doesn’t connect with that particular agent/editor it’s not going to work. And that’s good, in a way. You want your agent or editor to be passionate about your book. If they’re not, they won’t really want to put in the time and effort required to make it a wonderful, successful work of art that readers will love. And it’s so hard to tell what exactly will strike an agent/editor. As Feiwel says, it can be an old story (back again, vampires?) but something about it has to stand out. While you can revise a novel to tighten the plot or enhance the character development, it’s really hard to pinpoint what that “something” that will catch an editor’s attention.
Jean Feiwel will be part of the “Children’s Books, Today and Tomorrow: Four Expert Impressions” panel at the 2012 SCBWI conference in January. So excited to hear more of her thoughts on the industry, and for the conference in general! (For more conference news and previews, check out the SCBWI conference blog)
Good Books, Bad Reviews
It’s easy to think that classic novels have always been considered classics. But even the most famous novels got some bad reviews. Book Riot has compiled some quotes from bad reviews for great books. My favorite:
“On J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye:
This Salinger, he’s a short story guy. And he knows how to write about kids. This book though, it’s too long. Gets kind of monotonous. And he should’ve cut out a lot about these jerks and all that crumby school. They depress me.”
Granted, I’m pretty sure you could round up a hundred tenth-graders and get the same opinion. But a review like this is a good reminder that not everyone has to love your book. Not everyone will love your book. Sometimes even important reviewers will hate your book. But that doesn’t necessarily make it a bad book or mean that it won’t connect with someone. Being a writer means having to deal with a lot of criticism and rejection, even when you’re talented and beloved. It’s not an easy life, but seeing quotes like this helps.
Click through for even more bad review inspiration!