Tag: Reading

Teaser Tuesday: Second Sight

Teaser Tuesday and the rules are simple:

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

  • Grab your current read
  • Open to a random page
  • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
  • BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
  • Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Let’s try a writing book this week, shall we?

It’s as Richard Peck says: “A good YA novel ends not with happily ever after, but at a new beginning, with the sense of a lot of life yet to be lived.”

From Second Sight: An Editor’s Talks on Writing, Revising, and Publishing Books for Children and Young Adults, by Cheryl B. Klein, pages 217 – 218.

Oh, I love that. It gets it just right, I think. When we did our blog tour for Geek Girl, Darcy and I would often refer to the “hopefully ever after.” But I think this is better.

And it’s not really a spoiler, since Second Sight is a book of essays, so you don’t need to read in order if you don’t want to. Cheryl also has a lot of excellent information online for YA and children’s writers. Check out her blog and her website.

Geek Girl makes a list!

Our editor emailed us the other day to let us know that The Geek Girl’s Guide to Cheerleading was nominated for the 2012 Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults list, which is sponsored by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) of the American Library Association. Geek Girl is nominated in the Get Your Geek On category (appropriately enough).

Be sure to click through and check out all the books on the list. It could keep you reading all summer long. Plus, other 2009 Debs are keeping us company, such as Jennifer Hubbard (The Secret Year) and Jennifer Brown (Hate List).

Diversity in YA Book Tour

Two our our 2009 Debs, Cindy Pon and Malinda Lo have put together a Diversity in YA book tour, possibly coming to a city near you starting May 7th!

Where, you ask? Well, in these cities here:

San Francisco | May 7, 2011 at 3 p.m.
— Focus on Asian American YA with Cindy Pon, Gene Luen Yang, and J.A. Yang
San Francisco Public Library (Main Library)
Latino-Hispanic Room
100 Larkin St.
San Francisco, CA 94102

Austin | May 9, 2011 at 7:30 p.m.
— With Bethany Hegedus, Guadalupe Garcia McCall, Cindy Pon, Dia Reeves, and Jo Whittemore, and moderated by Varian Johnson
BookPeople
603 N. Lamar
Austin TX 78703

Chicago | May 10, 2011 from 5:30-6:45 p.m.
— With Claudia Guadalupe Martinez, Nnedi Okorafor, and Cindy Pon
Barbara’s Books
1218 South Halsted Street
Chicago, IL 60607

Boston | May 12, 2011 at 7 p.m.
— With Holly Black, Sarah Rees Brennan, Deva Fagan, Cindy Pon, and Francisco X. Stork, and moderated by Roger Sutton
Cambridge Public Library (Main Library)
Lecture Hall
449 Broadway
Cambridge, MA 02138

New York | May 13, 2011 at 6:30 p.m.
— Focus on LGBT YA with Cris Beam, David Levithan, and Jacqueline Woodson
The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center
208 West 13th Street
New York, NY 10011

New York | May 14, 2011 at 1 p.m.
— With Matt de la Peña, Kekla Magoon, Neesha Meminger, Cindy Pon, Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich, Rita Williams-Garcia, and Jacqueline Woodson, and moderated by Cheryl Klein
Books of Wonder
18 West 18th Street
New York, NY 10011

Want to hear more? Check out Malinda’s vlog:

Even if you can’t make the tour, check out the vlog. How else are you going to learn about the Chinese Twilight?

Teaser Tuesday: 80s awesomeness

It’s that time again!

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read

  • Open to a random page
  • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
  • BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
  • Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

 This week, I’m reading Rose Sees Red by Cecil Castellucci. In short:

Rose has given up. She’s given up on friendship, on happiness, on life being anything other than black, black, black. Yrena wants out. She’s a dancer who doesn’t want to dance, a prisoner in her own home, a resident of New York who never gets to see the city. To Rose, Yrena has always been the Russian girl who lives next door, seen through the window but never spoken to.

At least not until Yrena crashes into Rose’s room-and Rose’s life-and sets in motion a night in New York City that none of them will ever forget. From YA superstar Cecil Castellucci, this is the story of cold hearts and cold wars warmed by simple human connection and the liberty of being young and free in the early hours of a new day.

You guys, this book is all 80s, all the time. It has leg warmers, KGB and CIA agents, Dungeons and Dragons, and is so chock full of 80s awesomeness, it’s making me dizzy just thinking about it.

It was difficult to pick a teaser (and mine’s a little long, but really, you need to read all of it–no spoilers, promise), but here it is:

There were perverts in the Bronx. I knew this to be true because my brother, Todd, was a pervert and he lived in Riverdale. I also knew that his dorky friends were perverts, and they were all downstairs in the garage playing Dungeons and Dragons. Right now, my house was Pervert Central.

~ p. 40, Rose Sees Red by Cecil Castellucci

What I did this weekend

Cover of "Deep Down Popular"
Cover of Deep Down Popular

What I did, the weekend edition:

  1. Took two karate classes
  2. Baked banana bread
  3. Did the laundry
  4. Finished reading a novel (Deep Down Popular by Phoebe Stone)
  5. Finished writing a novel

Yes, the first draft of what I’m calling Speechless (even though I wrote a short story with the same title–actually, the short story inspired the novel) is done.

This is less impressive when you learn that the word count is only 32,000. I did that on purpose. This is an upper middle grade/tween novel and that length gives me plenty of room for revisions. I can comfortably add 10,000 words and not freak the freak out about word count.

And of course, during all this, the kids were messing around with Andrew’s video camera on the back deck. They set it up on a tripod so it was pointed right at me (we have a series of glass doors/windows that face the backyard). Then they would knock on the door and run away (but, thanks to all that glass, I could see them–so yeah, not very subtle). Once, I stepped out on the deck and said something to the camera about trying to write.

Later, they holed up in a bedroom to watch their masterpiece with much giggling.

So, if you’re imaging me in some idyllic writer’s paradise … um, yeah, not so much. It’s me, the cooling banana bread, the dog wanting to go outside, and the kids turning me into their own reality show.

WWW Wednesday

It’s WWW Wednesday over at Should Be Reading.

To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading:

  • The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson (the commute read)
  • Deep Down Popular by Phoebe Stone (on my nightstand)

Just Finished Reading:

  • Rival by Sara Bennett Wealer (Good, so good. You must read this, especially if you love contemporary YA.)

What to read next:

Oh, the choices, but I’ll probably go with one of my library books:

  • Daughter of Xanadu by Dori Jones Yang
  • Fall For Anything by Courtney Summers

Teaser Tuesday: Rival by Sara Bennett Wealer

It’s Teaser Tuesday over at Should Be Reading. The rules:

  • Grab your current read
  • Open to a random page
  • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
  • BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
  • Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My Teaser:

I let out a tiny laugh; I couldn’t help it. “How can you be lonely when so many people love you?”

~p 134, Rival by Sara Bennett Wealer

WWW Wednesday: the post-Rita edition

It’s WWW Wednesday!

To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

  • What are you currently reading?
  • What did you recently finish reading?
  • What do you think you’ll read next?

On Monday evening, I entered the last score for the Rita books I’ve been reading and heaved a sigh of relief. Not that reading for the contest is a bad thing. It’s the pressure, the list of books waiting for their score. They look so sad, sitting there, scoreless. But no more!

So, now, back to talking about books!

Currently reading:

On the nightstand: The Vespertine by Saundra Mitchell ~ the new release from the wonderfully talented Saundra, one of the 2009 Debs.

In the car: Matched by Ally Condie ~ this is a great book–and audio book–so far. Really enjoying my commute this week.

 Just finished reading:

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand

The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller by John Truby ~ Wow, this one was … intense, but I got a lot out of it.

Reading next:

For the nightstand: Rival by Sara Bennett Wealer ~ Sara’s debut and I can’t wait to read it.

For the car: The Girl Who Played with Fire by StiegLarsson ~ the first one was a great commute read, minus scratches on the CDs. I have high hopes for this one.

Peeking out …

Peeking out from behind my stack of Rita Award books*. Just one more to go! So … clearly I’ve been reading. And I’ve been writing, too. I just haven’t been writing in my blog (again, clearly).

So what better way to illustrate that than posting a  picture of a kitten and some books! Who doesn’t love kittens? Or books? Plus, Googling “stack of books” + kitten is like gold. Ah, internets, I love you.

I hope to return to a more reliable (oh, who am I kidding, I won’t be that reliable) or more frequent, at least, blogging schedule soon.

Until then, I have books to read.

*Books pictured do not resemble actual Rita books. Any similarity is purely coincidental.

BTT: Is this the real life

From Booking Through Thursday this week:

I am paraphrasing from a friend’s Facebook wall her question:
“How would a teen-age boy who is going to work with his hands ever use Literature of England in his work?”
The age-old “How am I going to use this in real life?” question. How would you answer it?

Participants this week are writing some wonderful answers. For the sake of time, I’m going steal mine. From one of the writing craft books I’m working through (yes, it’s true, the answer to the question about reading is in … a book):

From The Anatomy of Story by John Truby:

Stories don’t show the audience* the “real world”; they show the story world. The story world isn’t a copy of life as it is. It’s life as human beings imagine it could be. It is human life condensed and heightened so that the audience can gain a better understanding of how life itself works.

*Note: The book is billed as a screenwriting book (hence the use of audience), but it applies to all types of stories.

Books, literature, stories teach us empathy. What’s that old saying? You never really know someone until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes. Literature lets us do that. Never mind cultural literacy, I believe reading can make us better people.

Plus, having a passing familiarity with the Western Canon means you don’t have to have people explain song lyrics to you.