Tag: Stephanie Perkins

The Fifth 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 fifth day of YA, my true love gave to me five golden riiiiiiiings.

Marriage! Marriage is what brings us together today. In honor of five gold rings, we give you five golden stories of marriage in YA. We hope you enjoy the marriage-related stories we picked and encourage you to share your favorites in the comments!

   The Story of Us         

  • The Selection series by Kiera Cass
  • The Story of Us by Deb Caletti
  • Twilight series by Stephenie Meyers
  • The Chapel Wars by Lindsey Leavitt
  • I Now Pronounce You Someone Else by Erin McCahan

– Jessica Lind, currently reading My True Love Gave to Me edited by Stephanie Perkins

The Fourth 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 fourth day of YA, my true love gave to me four calling birds.

Music is a fantastic partner for books. Many YA authors are very open about the influence that music has on their stories. Whether it’s providing a playlist that was on repeat while writing, song lyrics at the beginning of each chapter, or having the plot of the story based on the characters’ love of music, you cannot ignore musical YA. We hope you enjoy the rockin’ titles we picked and encourage you to share your favorites in the comments!

   

             

– Jessica Lind, currently reading My True Love Gave to Me edited by Stephanie Perkins

The Third 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 third day of YA, my true love gave to me three French hens.

There is something so romantic and exciting about stories set in foreign countries. France is certainly no exception. Rather than three French hens, today we are giving you eight French stories. The following books all take place, at least in part, in France. Ooh-la-la! We hope you enjoy the titles we picked and encourage you to share your favorite French stories in the comments!

AnnaFrenchKissCover   Isla and the Happily Ever After      BelleEpoqueCover

   JustoneDayCover  White_Bicycle  Marie Antoinette Serial Killer

– Jessica Lind, currently reading My True Love Gave to Me edited by Stephanie Perkins

The Second 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 second day of YA, my true love gave to me two turtle doves.

As mentioned before, there are a lot of birds in the traditional song, so we focused on the turtle dove’s association with love for today’s list. Love and romance are pretty common topics in a wide-range of YA books, so it was not difficult to come up with titles. We hope you enjoy the titles we picked and encourage you to share your favorite stories with love in the comments!

   aristotle and dante   Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

everything leads to you   Let It Snow   Love Lucy

– Jessica Lind, currently reading My True Love Gave to Me edited by Stephanie Perkins

Jukebooks: My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories

My True Love

Some of your favorite authors in the young adult literature world have put their own spin on the holiday season in a brand-new collection of holiday-themed short stories. For this incredible collection, we have a full playlist.

To get the connections, you’ll have to read the stories!

 

 

1. “Midnights” by Rainbow Rowell
A Thousand Years by Kristina Perry

 

2. “The Lady and the Fox” by Kelly Link
Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me by The Smiths

 

3. “Angels in the Snow” by Matt de la Pena
Yo Amo La Navidad by Tercer Cielo

 

4. “Polaris Is Where You’ll Find Me” by Jenny Han
Last Christmas by Wham

 

5. “It’s a Yuletide Miracle, Charlie Brown” by Stephanie Perkins
O, Christmas Tree by Winter Solstice

 

6. “Your Temporary Santa” by David Levithan
Don’t Stop Believin’ by Glee Cast

 

7. “Krampuslauf” by Holly Black
Auld Lang Syne  by Rod Stewart

 

8. “What the Hell Have You Done, Sophie Roth?” by Gayle Foreman
You Can’t Always Get What You Want by the Rolling Stones

 

9. “Beer Buckets and Baby Jesus” by Myra McEntire
Away in a Manger by Brad Paisley

 

10. “Welcome to Christmas, CA” by Kiersten White
Wonderful Christmastime by Paul McCartney

 

11. “Star of Bethlehem” by Ally Carter
O Holy Night by Jackie Evancho

 

12. “The Girl Who Woke the Dreamer” by Laini Taylor
Beautiful Dreamer by Roy Orbison

 

Diverse Books, Diverse Families

Image courtesy of Flickr user theirhistory
Image courtesy of Flickr user theirhistory

As the holiday season enters into full-swing and all my friends are discussing vacation plans with their families far and wide, I got to thinking about the ways in which families are depicted in YA literature. In particular, the surprising lack of diversity in how family units are portrayed as a general rule. More often that not, YA main characters come from “traditional” heterosexual nuclear families with birth parents who are not divorced. That said, as families across the nation become increasingly more diverse on all sorts of levels, so too are fictional families in YA and adult literature. In honor, then, of diverse families, both the ones we are born into and the ones we find, I’ve rounded up a wide array of titles celebrating the love we give and receive from the most important people in our lives.

Counting by 7s
Counting by 7s

Holly Goldberg Sloan’s book Counting by 7s is a favorite at my school with both students and teachers alike. It centers on the life of the endearingly quirky 12-year-old genius Willow Chance, the adopted multiracial daughter of loving white parents. When her adoptive parents tragically die in a car crash, Willow finds herself taken in by her Vietnamese friends and their single mom. What I really appreciated about this book is that it emphasizes that family, although always imperfect, is something that can be created and that is ultimately transformative. Featuring a truly unusual and unique set of misfit characters, this is an uplifting book that reads something like a fable or fairy tale come true. Continue reading Diverse Books, Diverse Families

Teen Romance in YA Lit

teen_blogging_contest_winner

October is an exciting month for any YA lit fan, because it includes Teen Read Week! In honor of this annual celebration of young adult literature, YALSA invited book-loving teens all over the world to apply to share their enthusiasm for reading in a guest post for The Hub. Thirty-one talented young writers were chosen, and we’ll be featuring posts from these unique voices all month long. Here’s Karina Hernandez from New Jersey.

Young adult books with teen romance are the stories that take you on a roller coaster of emotion. It’s the moment when the two characters meet. It’s the love that grows between the two of them. It’s the introduction of a good love triangle. It’s the struggle when the couple refuses to accept their love for each other. It’s the tears shed, the pillows punched in frustration, the smile released when they finally kiss.

The many emotions of YA lit
The many emotions of YA lit

Everyone has their favorite couple from a YA- Hazel and Augustus, Anna and Étienne, Tris and Tobias, Sophie and Archer, Hermione and Ron, Samantha and Jase, Willem and Allyson, Eleanor and Park. Everyone also has their favorite love triangle – Katniss/Peeta/Gale, Bella/Edward/Jacob, America/Maxon/Aspen, Clara/Tucker/Christian, Juliette/Adam/Warner (Why does it seem like all the love triangles are two boys and a girl, anyway?).

These are the stories that leave us either sobbing at the end or just closing the book and letting out the biggest smile. These stories make us fall in love and just feel happy from head to toe. They take us on a crazy adventure from start from finish, leaving us rapidly turning the pages, thirsty for more.

Now I’ll quickly take you through some of my favorite teen romances in young adult lit and describe the story, the feels, and the love. Continue reading Teen Romance in YA Lit

No Tense Like the Present

I don’t know if it’s my penchant for once-upon-a-time fairy tale retellings, but when I pick up a book, I expect it to be narrated in past tense. Recently, though, it seems like more and more YA OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAbooks are being told in present tense. I’m not quite sure why this is a trend, but I find the more frequent use of present tense interesting and occasionally annoying (I write this completely aware of the irony that I am writing this post in the present tense).

I remember clearly the first time I noticed a story was being narrated in present tense–I honestly don’t remember the book or even quite when in my life this was, but I found the narration clunky and distracting, and I put the book down after a chapter or less. Looking back, I’m not sure if the writing was bad or clunky at all, or if I was just completely put off by the present tense. Now that I have encountered many more books that use present tense, I usually find it easier to ignore the tense and fall into the story, but not always. After all, past tense is something of a common language in English narrative writing, and it’s not like an author can’t convey that something is happening now even while using past tense. september_girlsFor example, Sam in Bennett Madison’s September Girls (2014 Best Fiction for Young Adults) describes his current whereabouts using past tense: “I had decided to take a walk, and now I was alone at the edge of the water as it came and went” (p. 22).

When I thought about writing a Hub post on this topic, I decided to speculate about reasons why an author might choose to use the present tense instead of the past. This seemed like a good way to try to appreciate this writing technique better. Here are some possibilities I’ve come up with: Continue reading No Tense Like the Present

What Would They Read?: Parks and Recreation Part 2

parks-and-recreationThe time has come to recommend more books to our friends in Pawnee.  I feel like I might have left the more difficult characters for this entry.  Last month, I chose books for Leslie, Ben, April, and Andy.  So let’s get started and see what we have this time around.

Tom Haverford – It is not difficult to select books for Tom. Basically, all you have to do is tell him that a celebrity endorsed the book and he would be all over it.  However, I do think that is a bit like cheating.  There has to be a bookSo Yesterday that fits Tom’s personality and passion for the jet-setter life.  There is a book– and it’s called So Yesterday by Scott Westerfeld (a 2005 Best Books for Young Adults selection).  Before the name Westerfeld became synonymous with the Uglies series, he wrote So Yesterday.  In this standalone novel, Hunter has the responsibility to find the Innovators, people who start trends, and present them to the retail market.  Tom, with his big ideas like Entertainment 720 and Rent-a-Swag, will love the adventure Hunter embarks on in a city full of unknown pockets of cool.  Unfortunately Pawnee is not a hub of trendsetting activity.  Tom can live vicariously through Hunter’s story.  Another title that Tom may enjoy is Feed by M.T. Anderson.  In Feed, it is commonplace for everyone to have a feed similar to the Internet directly inputted into your brain.  The program learns your likes and dislikes and sends you advertisements customized to you.  Tom would love having all of that knowledge at his fingertips.  Continue reading What Would They Read?: Parks and Recreation Part 2

YA Books in Real Life: A Group Post for National Photography Month

May is National Photography Month and I thought it would be fun to bring together photos of places that reminded us of YA books, times we dressed up as YA characters, and book titles. I asked my fellow Hub bloggers to share their YA lit-inspired photos, and here’s what we came up with! (Click on the images for larger versions.)

Places in YA Books:
HUB 1

hub 11

Continue reading YA Books in Real Life: A Group Post for National Photography Month