Guys Talkin' to Guys (or This is What Makes Us Boys*)

*with apologies to Lana Del Rey

Tip of the Day: Have you seen the amazing items up for auction on Kidlit Cares, started by author Kate Messner to benefit the Red Cross and Sandy victims? (Now author Joanne Levy is helping out, too.) GO KIDLITTERS!

My favorite session that I attended at the YALSA Symposium earlier this month was "Guys Talkin' to Guys" where four teens from different high schools in St. Louis answered questions on a panel with five male YA authors.

What made this 90-minutes so great? Real live teen guys talking to librarians and authors about reading and books! It's not something that I get easily in my day job and I really enjoyed hearing what they had to say. Some of it was funny, surprising, smart, real, and/or inspiring.

Take aways:

1. Teen guys do read, but often if is in the forms of magazines, instruction manuals, sports articles, short bites of information on subjects they are already interested in.

2. Cover art and titles make a huge difference on if a guy will feel comfortable carrying around/reading a book. They don't want to be perceived as "weak" by their peers, so a book needs to look "tough." (One panelist was convinced THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER was about a girl based on the title, so he resisted reading it despite recommendations and was surprised when he finally read it.)

3. It is more acceptable to be seen going to a "girl" movie than reading a "girl" book. (Often going to the movie involves going WITH a girl, which doesn't happen with a book.)

4. Books with girl main characters are fine to read as long as the cover and title don't seem girly (THE HUNGER GAMES was cited as the perfect example of this).

5. Books have a lot to compete with, and since guys spend a lot of time online, playing video games, watching movies, playing sports, using smartphones, etc., ads for books need to be just as convincing as those for other forms of entertainment -- and as easy to come across.

6. Guys would read more, and be more comfortable seen reading a variety of books, if they were "forced" to read in groups, like as a class in school for 20-minutes a day for example. Group reading wouldn't make anyone stand out for doing it instead of something else.

What have you learned from teen guys lately?

Deena, Miss Subbing for Pubbing

Sympositastic! (of YALSA Does It Again)

Tip of the Day: If you are a YA author and have the chance to go to a YALSA Symposium, go! EVERYONE there will LOVE YOU! We'll be in Austin in 2014!

Wow. Thank you SO MUCH to YALSA for putting together the 3rd YALSA Symposium in St. Louis this past weekend. On Friday and Saturday, I attended sessions and activities from 8:30 til 7 PM, and on Sunday from 8:30 til my transport to the airport at 1:30. And it was all amazing!

First, proof that I was actually there:

Due to my issues with being CLOSED INTO TINY RICKETY ELEVATORS, I chose to glimpse it from the park below. More power to those who braved the climb and saw the Mississippi River from the top!

I have tons of notes of cool tips for authors (hence author2author) that I will dole out over the next couple of weeks, but today I want to highlight some cool moments.

1. Having dinner/drinks with authors Selene Castrovilla and Jo Knowles.

Selene and I have met a few times now at YALSA and TBF and she is a spunky woman with great edgy YAs, historical non-fiction for kids, and some adult novels in her too. It's always fun to catch up with her, and I wish her the best as her homestead recovers from Sandy!

Jo I've followed on LiveJournal for years and she is very sweet and very talented and writes the type of novels I loved as a teen and still do now.

I also attended the lunch where these two authors spoke:

Patricia McCormick

David Levithan

They both spoke about the human experience in some way, noting that any book can connect with any person -- even if they are a different color/sex/religion/etc. of the main character -- because we all share the human experience.

The final keynote speaker on Sunday was Scott Westerfeld. The topic of his fun, educational, hilarious, and thoughtful presentation was on the history of the integration of illustrations in books for teens and adults and how he used that in LEVIATHAN.

His speech would appeal to teens as well. If you ever have the chance to see him present, you must go! Seriously, I laughed and listened and was truly entertained.

On the flight home from STL to ORD, I had the pleasure of sharing my row with Helen Frost! I'd seen her session earlier on Sunday, and am a huge fan of HIDDEN, as are the teens in my town.

We chatted about books and authors and politics and writing and the 1-hour flight flew by (pun intended). If you haven't had a chance to read her work, you must; it is brilliant. Poems within poems, meanings within meanings, that all form a cohesive novel. Her Printz Honor novel KEESHA'S HOUSE will release next year in paperback, as well as her new YA SALT; definitely keep your eyes out for them.

Thanks again to all the librarians, authors, publishers, and YA lovers who made this conference possible.

Deena, Miss Subbing for Pubbing

When Disaster Strike! (or Weather Permitting)

Tip of the Day: Give me a shout in the comments if you will be at the YALSA Symposium with me in St. Louis this weekend!

With all of the talk about -- and destruction caused by -- Hurricane Sandy this week, I was thinking about disaster novels, realistic stories based on natural events.

Adding "bad weather" into your novel is a great way to create tension and a non-human foe. It also adds atmosphere and helps to place your story on the map.

If you've had enough of these horrors in real life, I understand. But if you want to read some kidlit with this setting, I recommend the following:

ASHFALL and ASHEN WINTER by Mike Mullin. When the supervalcano errupts, Alex must survive the fallout on his own. Totally gripping and it made me cold just reading about the ashy snow.

TRAPPED by Michael Northrop. During a snow storm, seven teens are stuck in their high school awaiting rescue while the temperature drops and the snow piles up. Creepy and disturbing and a little too close to home for those who live in lake affect snow zones.

HURRICANE by Terry Trueman. In 1998, Hurricane Mitch strikes Honduras and 13-year-old Jose must take care of his house when his father goes missing. This tragic and realistic story reads quickly and shows the vulnerability of island life.

THE WAITING SKY by Lara Zielin. Jane finally leaves her alcoholic mother back home -- but just for the summer because her mom needs her -- and joins her older brother and his team of tornado chasers through tornado alley. While the focus is on the characters rather than the weather, the tornado's power and unpredictability is well drawn.

What are your favorite weather/natural disaster novels?

Deena, Miss Subbing for Pubbing