We hope your new year is off to a great start. You may have noticed we haven’t been doing weekly link roundups—that’s because we’re transitioning to monthly features based on feedback we got in our end of year readers’ survey. We’ll have more updates on how we’re adapting to better serve your needs soon, but for now, enjoy this recap of featured posts on The Hub as well as other resources form around the web to help you better curate library collections for teens.
At the Hub
- Kelly Dickinson’s latest installment in her fantasy column is all about ‘the chosen one’ trope.
- Dawn Abron rounded up a preview of diverse debuts in her Diversity YA series.
- Teen librarians and librarians love libraries and YA lit, so of course they love librarians in YA lit. Jancee Wright rounds up some notable libraries in YA lit — and I’d add a shout out to Death, the librarian in Kristen Cashore’s Bitterblue, as well as my unbridled excitement to meet the librarian in Laini Taylor’s 2016 release, Strange the Dreamer.
- Hub bloggers have so much love for Agent Carter.
- If you’re looking for a display idea for Feburary, consider featuring titles on teen dating violence, both fiction and non-fiction, as well as resources in your community for teens experiencing abuse.
- Miriam Wallen’s nonfiction booklist about space is out of this world.
- Are you participating in The Hub reading challenge? If you’re perusing the list and having trouble deciding where to start, maybe the teen comments from the BFYA teen feedback session will help.
Books & Reading
- You pick great books to discuss with teens (like the ones from YALSA awards and selected lists) but how do you get teens to actually talk about them in book club? Check out this guide to getting the conversations going. You can also read about how Hub bloggers organize their book clubs in this post.
- The press has talked for years about the “darkness” in YA lit, and it’s also creeped down into middle grade fiction. A new column in School Library Journal that focuses on middle grade literature for younger teens, The Upper Deck, discussed heavy topics in MG fiction in its inaugural post.
- Booklist has a fascinating interview with Michael Grant on “research and making stuff up” while working on his new alternate history novel set during WWII, Front Lines.
- We love talking about the YALSA and other ALA awards and selected lists, but there are more awards out there that can be great readers’ advisory and collection development tools, especially in niche genres or for muliticultural books. 5 Minute Librarian did a round up of book awards, including a section on teen literature (though many other awards also have a YA category, too).
- The 5th Wave hits theaters, and if your library is like mine, it has a long holds lists. School Library Journal has a great list of new releases to promote to patrons waiting to check it out.
- Audiobook lovers, this post is for you. Epic Reads has a round up of YA books with celebrity narrators. How did I not realize that Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of Hamilton the Musical, narrated Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe?
- RA for All reminds us that good readers’ advisory is about knowing a little about a lot.
- On the YALSAblog, our own Hub contributor Diane Colson shares her thoughts on how selected lists can evolve to better serve the needs of librarians.
- If tearjerkers are your thing, this is the booklist for you.
- The ALSC blog has a great list of backlist middle grade mysteries you don’t want to forget about.
Movies & TV
- Recovery Road by Blake Nelson has been adapted for television, and offers a nuanced look at teen addiction with a refreshingly diverse cast.
- More superhero TV shows might be coming soon: Marvels Most Wanted, an Agents of SHIELD spinoff, is in the works.
- Judging by the premiere, Season 3 of The 100 is going to be intense.
- This research analyzes the amount of speaking time of characters in Disney movie by gender, and it is fascinating and troubling.
- Syfy’s adaptation of Lev Grossman’s The Magicians has made some changes to the story but kept its heart.
- The Fifth Wave movie adaptation has been panned by many critics— The New Yorker was particularly scathing: “The whole thing appears to have been designed by some crazed Oedipal wing of the N.R.A.” (As noted above, this hasn’t decreased demand for the title, at least at my library).
- The Shannara Chronicles, based on Terry Brooks’ novels, debuted on MTV — and claimed 7.5 million viewers. Were your library patrons among them?
- Shadowhunters is supposed to work better as a TV show than a movie — what is your take? Regardless, the demand for the new series set in Cassandra Clare’s world of angels and demons, Lady Midnight, is already getting a long holds list at my library.
Video Games
- Teen Services Underground has a great post about Fallout 4, the video game that loves libraries.
- If Nintendo is popular in your library, check out this post on the game Animal Crossing at Teen Librarian Toolbox.
- If this Game Informer article is any indication, there are some cool virtual reality games coming out in 2016.
Just for Fun
- The sorting hat is back at Pottermore! Many people taking the quiz a second time has an identity crisis after being assigned a different house.
- New Barbies in different body shapes and skin tones is a good sign for diversity.
- Are you following the (relatively) new BooklistYA twitter? It’s all kinds of awesome (with a heavy dose of snark).
— Molly Wetta, currently reading Jessica Jones: Alias by Brian Michael Bendis, illustrated by
From the article on Disney Princesses and women:
“Furthermore, studies suggest that it’s better to praise children for their efforts or accomplishments rather than their traits — better to say “you aced that test!” than “you are really smart!” — because children are more motivated when complimented on their efforts.”
Or even better, because not everyone is smart and because you’re not less of a person if you can’t ace a test let’s say “That was really kind of you” or “How thoughtful you were to do that” and maybe encourage some kindness.