Tag: Lish McBride

Best Fiction for Young Adults (#BFYA2022) Nominations Round-Up, Fall

BFYA Fall Roundup Art
Due to the large number of nominees, not all titles are shown here. See full list below.

Each quarter, the Selected Lists teams compile the titles that have been officially nominated to date. These books have been suggested by the team or through the title suggestion form, read by multiple members of the team, and received approval to be designated an official nomination. At the end of the year, the final list of nominations and each Selected List’s Top Ten will be chosen from these titles.

The City Beautiful. By­­ Aden Polydoros. Harlequin/Inkyard Press, $19.99 (9781335402509).

Amidst the glitz and glamour of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, Alter Rosen, a gay, Jewish, Romanian immigrant teen, becomes possessed by the dybbuk of his murdered friend and must avenge the deaths of his friend and a growing number of other local Jewish boys.

Curses. By Lish McBride. Penguin Random House/G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers, $18.99 (9781984815590).

When Merit refuses to marry a prince, she is cursed to live as a beast. Tevin’s family runs cons on rich girls, but when his mom runs afoul of the beast she trades him for her freedom. This fresh, gender-bent Beauty and the Beast retelling examines what “beastly” really is. 

Continue reading Best Fiction for Young Adults (#BFYA2022) Nominations Round-Up, Fall

Best Fiction for Young Adults (#BFYA2022) Featured Review of When We Were Infinite by Kelly Loy Gilbert

When We Were Infinite Cover Art

When We Were Infinite by Kelly Loy Gilbert
Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: March 9, 2021
ISBN: 9781534468214

This is it. Senior year. And all Beth wants is to be with her friends as much as possible. Bonded long ago through their shared orchestra experience, Sunny, Jason, Brandon, and Grace are all the family Beth needs. She’s determined to keep them all together and connected, this year and beyond, even if it means losing herself. And she’s also secretly harboring a major crush on Jason. 

When Beth and Brandon accidentally witness Jason’s father assault him, Beth is heartbroken that none of them had any idea what he was going through. As Jason spirals into anger and depression, she anxiously tries to both fix him and hold the whole group together. As often happens in senior year though, each friend must choose their own adventure and find a way to hold on to each other as they go forward.     

Continue reading Best Fiction for Young Adults (#BFYA2022) Featured Review of When We Were Infinite by Kelly Loy Gilbert

What Would They Read?: Fox Mulder from the X-Files

I grew up watching the X-Files, so I was really excited when I heard that the show would be reappearing this spring.

xfiles

If Mulder and Scully were to walk into my library, I’d probably want to follow them around to find out what weird things have been happening, but if they asked for book recommendations, this is what I’d give them.

Daughters Unto Devils by Amy Lukavics

Amanda’s family leaves their home in the mountains to live out on the prairie and hopefully leave behind the memories of the last, harsh winter they had to face. Her father chooses to move the family into an abandoned cabin that is covered in dried blood, and unfortunately for Amanda, things only get creepier from there.

Glory O’Brien’s History of the Future by A.S. King (2015 Amazing Audiobooks for Young Adults)

After drinking a mixture of beer and desiccated bat dust, Glory and her best friend begin having strange visions of the future.

Evil Librarian by Michelle Knudsen

Cynthia’s best friend is in love with the new school librarian, but Cynthia is sceptical. The new librarian isn’t just creepy; he might be an actual demon.

Continue reading What Would They Read?: Fox Mulder from the X-Files

Back to School Anime for Book Lovers

School is back in session so I thought I would soften the end of summer break with some anime set in high schools! This month I submit to you a love story full of laugh out loud moments,  a ghost-seeing duo who can’t stay out of trouble, and a geek who gets drafted to be on a competitive cycling team.  As a bonus, all these shows are ongoing manga series, so you can watch and read (in your vast spare time)!

Back to School Anime for Book Lovers

Continue reading Back to School Anime for Book Lovers

The First Day of YA

The Twelve Days of YAThis year on the Hub we are celebrating the Twelve Days of YA with a series of posts loosely based on the traditional Twelve Days of Christmas gifts. We have converted each gift into a related theme common to YA and paired it with a list of relevant titles. You may use the Twelve Days of YA tag to read all of the posts in the series.

Special thanks goes to Carli Spina, Faythe Arredondo, Sharon Rawlins, Geri Diorio, Becky O’Neil, Carla Land, Katie Yu, Laura Perenic, Jennifer Rummel, Libby Gorman, Carly Pansulla, and Allison Tran for their help creating the booklists and organizing this series.

On the first day of YA, my true love gave to me a partridge in a pear tree.

This is the first of many birds that appears in the original song, but the only theme on our list that has to do with the feathered fliers. We selected titles for this list that included bird imagery including those that have birds as part of the story, characters with bird wings, or just really amazing bird-centric artwork. We hope you enjoy the titles we picked and encourage you to share your favorite avian stories in the comments!

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children   RavenBoys_cover   Hold Me Closer Necromancer

ava lavender   The Aviary   Like Water on Stone

– Jessica Lind, currently reading The Beginning of Everything by Robyn Schneider

Where Are They Now? Morris Award Finalists & Winners

yalsa morris winnerHave you ever wondered what YALSA’s Morris Award winning authors have been up to today since they were recognized for their first novels? Well then, this post is the one for you.

For a little background, YALSA has been giving out the Morris award since 2009, which honors debut young adult authors with impressive new voices. This post is not intended to be a comprehensive list of  what all of the finalists and winners have been up to, but it’ll give you an idea of what some of our Morris winners and finalists have been writing since winning their awards. (Be sure to take a look at the full list of Morris winners and finalists.)

Then: 2009 Awards 

  • 2009 Winner – A Curse Dark As Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce
  • 2009 Finalist  – Graceling by Kristin Cashore

Continue reading Where Are They Now? Morris Award Finalists & Winners

What Would They Read?: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

buffy_the_vampire_slayer_For several months now I have been creating recommendation lists for some notable characters for TV.  I’ve been putting this one off, mainly because I am slightly intimidated to take on a Whedonverse show.  So please forgive if I unsuccessfully tackle the pop culture phenomenon, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BTVS).  Who knows… maybe if I succeed with this one, I’ll try another Joss Whedon masterpiece, Firefly.

In a TV show that centers around so much reading and research mixed with punching and stabbing, creator Joss Whedon does manage to name-drop a few literary titles here and there.  In the “Band Candy” episode, Buffy refers to Willy Loman from the play “Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller.  During season five, Buffy encounters the most popular vampire in all literature in the episode “Buffy vs. Dracula.”   I don’t want to jump the gun, but did Buffy actually read Dracula by Bram Stoker?  If not, then I definitely am tossing that title to her.  Honestly, it’s more of a textbook for her than recreational reading, but so what? If these literary examples tell us anything, it’s that obviously Buffy and the Scooby Gang must love books!  So, without further ado, here are some recommendations for our Sunnydale pals!

Buffy Summers – I just want to state for the record that I would never ever give Buffy Twilight by Stephenie Meyer.  While the star-crossed lovers scenario might ring a bit true, I believe that Buffy would never be able to get through a book in which vampires don’t kill you, but rather play baseball and sparkle in the sun.  There has been much speculation rampantabout what Buffy would do in Bella Swan’s world, i.e. whether or not she would slay Edward and his family.  Also, as we have seen in several episodes of BTVS, vampires and werewolves aren’t enemies.  Angel and Oz get along just fine, although that aren’t fighting over the same girl.  That being said, I think we could come up with a more suitable reading choice for Buffy.

We have seen Buffy take on a variety of beasties and demons throughout her seven years, however there is one creature that never proved to be much of a threat: the unicorn.  Right away, I would pull the “Killer Unicorns” series by Diana Peterfreund.  This book series, starting with  Rampant, is about an ancient order of female teenaged unicorn hunters who must join together to stop vicious unicorn attacks.  Unlike the random selection of slayers in Buffy’s world, these hunters are descendants from unicorn hunters of the past.  The book is full of training, unbelievable realizations, and forbidden love; all things that Buffy can understand in ways other readers cannot.  Continue reading What Would They Read?: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Books for Boys that Aren’t “Books for Boys”

Recently I was sitting in my library’s teen space with a few teens (three guys; two girls) chatting about movies, books, friends, and the Spongebob Squarepants version of the Game of Life when I had a bit of a revelation. This wasn’t really a new revelation but rather a confirmation of what seems like such an obvious fact: there are no such things as “books for boys.”

See!? Sometimes guys read Danielle Steele! (Photo by Flickr user Wei Tchou)
See!? Sometimes guys read Danielle Steele! (Photo by Flickr user Wei Tchou)

During this hanging out time, some boys insisting on showing me multiple trailers for YA movie adaptations: first, Divergent; then The Maze Runner; and finally, The Fault in Our Stars. They talked about how excited they were for these movies and how they couldn’t wait to see how the movies were different from the books. One of the boys said he watched the TFiOS trailer five (!) times in a row after it was released recently. This got me to thinking about the books and media these boys were interested in. They featured both guy and girl protagonists, they were cross a couple of different genres, and were written by both male and female authors.

I realized it doesn’t matter if a book is “for” a guy or a girl; the gender of the intended audience tends to get all mixed up when you factor in the power of a good story. Boys like stories; girls like stories. Readers in general like stories. We need to forget what we think about boys and reading and find them the stories they want. Continue reading Books for Boys that Aren’t “Books for Boys”