02.24.09
Posted in Awards at 3:14 pm by Bridget
I finally finished Jellicoe Road. The guilt of having one of the library’s few copies which I know everyone wanted to get their hands on finally overwhelmed my resistance to reading it. This resistance had everything to do with the first few lines of the book and nothing to do with the overall content. This may or may not be a spoiler as it i so early in the book but there is DEATH on the first page. This is something that I suppose it has in common with the Graveyard Book although I didn’t seem to notice it as much there.
Once I got into the book, as Janet also mentioned, I got really involved in the relationships between all of the characters. I was more keen on the boarding school and war games elements of it than Janet was though. I kind of like scheming etc. Seems like a good time.
SPOILERS BELOW:
This is a great book for people who like a bit of grit with their read and don’t mind delving into tragiocity. I know many many people who go for this sort of thing in a big way. I was a bit overwhelmed, but I’m not a tragiocity seeking kind of girl. Schemes and war games I’m all over, pedophiles and gruesome deaths via decapitation not so much. There was so much tragedy. And TWO women presumably in their early thirties (the mom and Fitz’s wife) died of cancer. What are the statistical probabilities of this? I used to work in cancer research and I have to say that the probabilities are low. Yes, young people do sometimes get cancer, but it is not common like sneezing.
What I really loved about this book were the relationships and the friendships — they are definitely worth wading through the horror for particularly if you are somewhat on the tough side already.
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02.19.09
Posted in Interviews at 1:40 pm by Bridget
Today we have a very special interview for you with 2009 Newbery Judge Amanda Moss — one of our favorite librarians of all time! She can play the banjo AND make pickles and is known for her crafty parties.
1. You experienced some major milestones this year. How did you
balance those things with being on the Newbery committee in terms of
time and scheduling?
Amanda: You’re right– this was a busy year! I got married in September, and in
November and December I went through the application and interview process
for the new job I started in January 2009. My strategy was simple if not
very structured: READ! I shoved reading into every nook and cranny I could
find in my schedule. I kept all of my books on shelves in the living room,
and on the coffee table I had an ever-growing pile of “read this next!”
material (much to my husband’s glee, of course). Sometimes that material
would take up not only the table, but also parts of the floor. This urgent
visual reminder pushed me to find more time to get through the books. This
meant that some things I usually like to do (playing the banjo, knitting,
watching trashy reality TV shows, and socializing) stopped happening.
2. Did your banjo playing help you in any way?
Amanda: To be completely honest, I touched my banjo zero times during the entire
year of 2008. But now I’m back at it, happily plucking and strumming!
3. How does the committee communicate? Do you have meetings over the year?
Amanda: We met once at ALA’s Midwinter meeting in January 2008, to get to know each
other and get some advice from our wonderful committee chair, Rose. We met
again at the ALA annual conference in June and practiced discussing books
together. Between conferences, we communicated by email to suggest titles
and verify eligibility of books. Because we considered everything published
in 2008 (even in December 2008!), we had to wait until the 2009 ALA
Midwinter meeting to hold our evaluative discussions and make our decisions
about the winner and honor books. Really, the majority of communication
between committee members takes place at the Midwinter conference where the
decisions are made.
4. Are you allowed to/please tell us your personal favorite book of
the year? Was it the winner?
Amanda: I do love The Graveyard Book, but my personal favorite book published in
2008 was What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundell.
5. Can you get us into the Newbery banquet? Can we sit at your table?
What are you going to wear? Is the committee going to color
coordinate?
Amanda: Ooh, that would be so fun! I’m hoping, since the banquet is in Chicago and
I live in Madison, that my husband will be able to come. I don’t know what
I am going to wear, but definitely something very glamorous in a much
smaller size than I am currently wearing.
6. What did you do with all those books? Did you get your own copies
or did you check them out from the library?
Amanda: Publishers sent us lots of books, and I also spent time at bookstores and
the CCBC browsing the new material. One of the committee’s challenges is
making sure we don’t miss anything. I had great success checking out the
books I wanted to read that I didn’t receive from publishers; I think I only
actually purchased one book. After returning from Midwinter this year, I
was thrilled to start saying good-bye to most of the 700 or so books I had
acquired. A perfect opportunity came at my annual Valentine-making party.
Besides making valentine cards and decorating heart-shaped cookies, guests
took home as many books as they could carry!
7. Have you met anyone famous this year?
Amanda: Yes! I met Bridget and Janet, two very famous authors. Can I have your
autograph?
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02.16.09
Posted in Awards, Favorite Books at 12:45 pm by Janet
Ahem. I’m ready to talk about the awards now. Finally. First of all, I have to hand it to Bridget for calling it. She wrote about the Newbery winner, The Graveyard Book, and one of the Printz honor books, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks.
Belatedly, I would like to give a shout-out to two of my favorite teen books of the year, The Hunger Games and John Green’s Paper Towns, neither of which got awards. Oh, John Green, you can’t win every year, but you are still my favorite. Sigh.
On to the actual Printz winners…with venom and spoilers. I read Disreputable History and loved it. This great boarding school story raises some intriguing questions about class and gender and is a must-read for budding feminists. It put me in the mindset to enjoy the Printz winner, Melina Marchetta’s Jellicoe Road, which is also set at a boarding school. I liked Saving Francesca. I was ready to love Jellicoe Road!
Alas, I have to be a voice of dissent. In my opinion, this book does not deserve an entire Printz award. It was a great half of a book. If I could, I would give it the Ntz Award, for best last half of a young adult novel. The first half was slow, with unappealing characters, creeping action, and borderline confusing alternating narrative threads. The kids at this boarding school are fighting this “war” against the Townies and the Cadets. The war seems to have no purpose or cause, but everyone is all worked up about it anyway. This part, centered on 17-year-old house leader Taylor, switches off with the story of five friends living near the same boarding school years earlier. Why should I care about any of this? If this hadn’t been an award book, I would have chucked it out the window after 100 pages. Luckily, I held on. Halfway through the book, things change. The characters get more compelling and the idiot war slows down–the focus changes to relationships and putting together the past, with the two narratives meshing. This part is great. I started to really care about Taylor and her bizarro past. It’s complex and totally worthwhile. But overall, this book was too uneven for me to love. The Ntz Award is the best it’ll get from me.
What do you think?
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02.09.09
Posted in Awards at 4:04 pm by Bridget
I have this huge stack of award winners I hadn’t read yet sitting on my desk — like Jellicoe Road and, I can’t remember, but other fairly serious-ish books that were top notch enough to win awards.
Not so great for the ill and ick-ish as I was all last week. Stomach Flu. I will spare you details. There’s just something about feeling sick and trying to comprehend serious insightful books. Not so much.
So I re-read books I already knew I liked, but I uncovered a horrible thing — you can read a book TOO many times. These were all books that I knew would suck me away from things, but suddenly I was ACTUALLY SEEING THE WRITING! I try to read to enjoy a story first, writing second. If the story is good enough, any faulty writing will disappear. But there is a limit to how many times you can read the same thing and have this happen.
And last week I reached it. With every book that I picked up. All I could find were heriones “gulping” over and over again and heroes “raising one brow” like there was a John Black convention in town (see Days of Our Lives if this reference escapes you)
Has anyone else suffered from this horrible problem? Not the John Black eye brow thing, though that is a problem, but the re-reading until you start to see the words on the page thing?
Such a sad sad discovery.
Not as sad as Judy Blume sending you a letter, Janet, and not really wanting to be your friend. I think you’ve got me beat. I’m sure she would want to be your friend if she found our blog!
Bridget
p.s. We recently had some maintenance on this site and you might need to recopy and paste the RSS feed into your Reader, if that’s how you keep up with us. I noticed that mine didn’t pick up the last two posts, so I’m going to re-input the feed.
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02.08.09
Posted in Random at 3:26 pm by Janet
omg, OMG. I GOT A LETTER FROM JUDY BLUME! A real envelope with Judy Blume’s name on the return address. I’m opening it now… OMG, she must want to be my friend. She must read our blog. She must love us. I’m unfolding the letter. Oh. It’s not really addressed to me. She’s asking a “friend” to do something. She wants me to donate money to Planned Parenthood to help end abstinence only sex-ed programs. She…she…she’s not really writing to ME.
While I support Judy Blume’s cause here, I feel a little bit manipulated. Someone out there knows I’m a bleeding-heart liberal YA-lit-loving librarian and THEY KNOW MY ADDRESS! How did Judy Blume and Planned Parenthood get my name and address? Did they get my info from ALA? What’s next, Mo Willems asking me to support the Audubon Society? I don’t care if I support the group in question, I resent ALA farming out my info. I did not check that box on my membership form. ALA, if you are reading this, please stop letting organizations sending me solicitations, even if they are from Judy Blume. So much for privacy. (Credit card companies, you’re next. But that’s for another blog.)
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