unadulterated.us

I Crawl Through It by A. S. King - review

 

Let me be right up front about something: I couldn't wait to read this book.

There aren't a whole ton of people writing literature - Literature with a capital L - for teens these days, and even fewer that I can stand to read. Not because they're bad, not at all - but because the truth of teens is so hard. If you write it well, it's going to hurt.

Everybody Sees the Ants hurt. Reality Boy, that too. But after reading Glory O'Brien's History of the Future, which had pain but also love and humor and that whole thing where you hate your best friend - well, there was no way I was not going to hit that pipe again just as soon as possible. I got a copy of I Crawl Through It at this year's School Library Journal Day of Dialog, and I started it on the subway back to the hotel.

The Jumbies by Tracey Baptiste - review

I love helping kids find books. I mean, der, that's what unadulterated.us is all about, that's why I work in the public library, etc. etc. But it bears saying. One of the things I love about it is surprising a kid. Say it's a kid who doesn't want a book. A kid who is reflexively embarrassed because his mom is insisting that he talk to the librarian. He just wants me to go away and stop asking him questions.

Nicki Minaj wants nothing to do with this reader advisory nonsense.

 

So I say, "What about a book where a bunch of people get killed?" And the mom's face goes like - "errr..." and the kid is just startled enough that he forgets how mortified he is by the situation.

 

Until she starts hearing about little girls battling supernatural fireball demons.

Now let's talk about The Jumbies!

BEA recap? Don't mind if I do!

I am home, at my kitchen table in the dimness of my house, birds and windchimes and helicopters (and the 12 o'clock boys) are all I hear, and my ears are still ringing from the din of a thousand conversations in the cavernous hollow ice cube that is the Javits Center in New York.

That's just me being metaphorical. My ears always ring like this.

But sure, let's do it. Let me put my thoughts in order, or at least jot them randomly into a blog post and see if I learned anything at BEA this year.

BEA, or Book Expo, is an annual book industry trade convention. Publishers and others stake out booths where they showcase their upcoming titles, sometimes by trotting out the authors to meet and greet and sign and press the flesh.

 

 

Poor authors. You just know some of them got into this game thinking that once they became successful they could just "eat cheese in a cave" as Rainbow Rowell said during her EXTREMELY funny speech at the Children's Book Author Breakfast. She is possibly not as shy as she makes herself out to be: "I made Nathan Lane laugh!" she marveled at one point during her talk. "The rest of you don't count."

(Nathan Lane was there as the moderator of that breakfast. He qualifies as moderator because he has a forthcoming Celebrity Picture Book about his French bulldog, Mabel.) (There is only one reason for celebrities to write children's books, and that is so that we can have a famously entertaining moderator at the Children's Book Author Breakfast. In past years I've seen Julie Andrews, Chris Colfer, Neal Patrick Harris, and Octavia Spencer.) (Colfer wins it, by the way.) (Even without singing.) (I know you were curious.)