Busy Days Ahead

School days, school days, break the golden rule days!

Yes, by now, school is back in session all over the U.S., and I think some Canadians have already taken their first snow day.

The fall is shoring up to be a very busy time for Elephant's Bookshelf Press, too. In the coming weeks we'll be revealing covers for the next two publications: Tales From the Bully Box, an anthology of anti-bullying stories targeting Middle Grade readers edited by Cat Woods, and the much anticipated Billy Bobble Makes a Magic Wand by R.S. Mellette. I can't tell you how excited I am about both of these books!

In the coming weeks, I'm also aiming to reinvigorate this blog, where we'll post interviews and profiles and news about some EBP writers and friends of EBP. For example, did you know that Stitching Snow, the debut novel by our book designer, R.C. Lewis will released from Disney Hyperion in mid-October? I've got my hard-cover copy on pre-order, and I hope you do too! And the next novel by Mindy McGinnis, In a Handful of Dust -- the companion novel to her fantastic debut, Not a Drop to Drink -- will be out in just a couple weeks.

And those are just the works that slide off my brain stem after a half cup of coffee on a Friday morning.

What hot debuts and releases are you looking forward to this fall?

Friday the 13th, and Beyond

Yes, I know today isn't Friday the thirteenth, and neither is next Friday. Heck, there isn't another Friday the thirteenth till July.

But Mindy McGinnis, author of Not a Drop to Drink, a Young Adult novel I'm really looking forward to reading when it's published in 2013 (get it? -- 13!) appeared today on a newly launched writing community of bloggers called Friday the Thirteeners. So I thought I'd note that. Of course, readers of Spring Fevers will recognize Mindy's name. Her story "First Kiss" led of the anthology.

In her post, Mindy calls attention to a post on garment disagreements with her mother. (Not that she was aware, but I saw this post right after hearing about a garment disagreement between one of my 3-year-olds and my wife. Nice little coincidence.) What is not a coincidence, of course, is that in her post, Mindy's talking about boobs and prom dresses. I have a few years yet before I have to worry about such concerns for either of my little girls, but I'm sure those discussions will cause a fuse in my daddy brain to be lit and possibly lead to a messy explosion of brain matter upon the walls.

By the way, if you're in the Cincinnati area at the end of May/beginning of June, you might be able to catch Mindy at the annual Lori Foster Reader and Author Get Together . It looks like it's almost sold out, so check that you can attend.

Book Review: Shiver

I don't know if you feel it too, but I think someone punched the afterburners into high gear. I could have sworn Labor Day was a week ago. (And no, I still haven't taken that vacation...) It's also hard to believe that the year is almost three-fourths done. Around New Year's, I asked readers if they'd like to contribute book reviews. I got one back then. Now I have another to share with you. Though I know the writer's name, she prefers to be identified by her Agent Query moniker, Big Black Cat. Thanks, BBC, for your contribution.

Yes, I'm a YA librarian and I hadn't read Shiver yet. There, I said it.

With that off my chest, I have to share that I approach all YA romance with trepidation. I'm virulently anti-love-at-first-sight, which is so common in the genre. Maybe I'm a jaded adult, or perhaps I was just an unattractive teen, but I find the idea of love at first sight is usually an excuse for not having to bother with character development vis a vis the relationship. So I found myself pleasantly surprised by Shiver — but I digress.

The story's basic plot is human girl loves werewolf, which had me gagging at hello. But guess what, BBC was won over by something I didn't expect — really good writing. Stiefvater does a stellar job of using a cliched genre as a vehicle for some excellent writing. She also takes a big leap by introducing YA readers to a little culture, such as the German poet Rilke. Yes, that's a true statement.

While there is an element of "ba BOOM I'm fantastically in love," the rather complicated backstory of Grace, the female main character, and her obsession with a wolf pack, produces a relationship that builds on (gasp!) friendship and trust before evolving into something else. True, the male MC (werewolf Sam) is in his wolf form at the time, but hey — building blocks are building blocks, and if you can’t dig interspecies relationships you have missed the YA bus.

Another pro for me in this book was the supporting cast being well written — something you don't always see in YA, or adult literature for that matter. Teen characters often come off as stereotypes, so I was pleased to find an exception. There were perhaps two characters that I didn't feel I "knew" by the end, but for the most part the whole group was well written and individualistic.

Maggie Stiefvater is represented by Laura Rennert of the Andrea Brown Agency, and I can tell you, I'm jealous as hell about that.

Young Adult Novels and the Old Adults Who Write Them

According to this article that appeared in the Washington Post a couple weeks ago, I'm too old to be considered to be tolerated for remaining young in my mind. That's ok, since there are enough times that I feel old already. But I suspect few things would make me feel as old as reading a young adult novel.

I've read a couple of them before, but probably not since I was a student teacher. However, I may be wrong, because there seems to be no clear definition of what a YA novel is. The Post article isn't about the age range of YA subjects, rather it's a profile of Nick Hornby, the British novelist who wrote High Fidelity and Fever Pitch. According to his Web site, he's known for being funny, humane, and touching -- though the article seems to point more to a sense of melancholy that runs through his personality. But I'd say a man who has a profoundly autistic son is allowed to be touching and melancholy at times when it suits him.

What I liked most about this article -- which struck me as rare for the Post, though I don't usually read it for its literary reportage -- was that it got to the heart of who Hornby is as a writer and why people enjoy reading him. He said that the characters he likes to write about are "people in very ordinary situations in cities, whose lives get bent out of shape by something kind of big happening to them." Perfect. You've got me hooked! That's what I like to write too. (Well, sometimes the situations get a little out of the ordinary.)

The article is about Hornby's entree into the YA field, with his new book Slam. While some of his creative team feel it should have been marketed to the adult reading public (where it would sell better), Hornby seems pleased at the opportunity to do something new.

Hornby was inspired to write in part by the early works of Roddy Doyle, who wrote The Commitments, The Snapper, and The Van. But his approach to YA novels appears to have been changed by his discovering David Almond and the late Robert Cormier. (I'll admit they're both news to me.)

Slam -- and indeed, this article -- are unique, in that they show that there are still writers and publishers willing to do something different, something daring, to cultivate new readership. I'm pleased to see it, and I hope there are more examples to call attention to in the future.