Links Galore
June 19, 2013 § 1 Comment
Lots of great links to get you through the week:
- Nodding and laughing at all of these stealth cliches.
- All the literary Tumblrs you could ever want to follow.
- Penguin wallpaper, for those bits of wall that aren’t already covered by bookcases.
- Gotta start mapping out my promotion timeline.
- Are you serif or sans serif?
- It’s hard to imagine these writers without their pen names.
- Writers talk about why they’re glad they joined SCBWI. (See if you can spot my critique group!)
- There’s a new Editor-in-Chief at One Teen Story.
- Coffee, don’t listen to them. They’re just jealous.
- Great post about why we need more Native American characters in YA.
- Find your local library on this map of US public libraries.
- Any titles you’d add to this list of mid-year Printz and Morris predictions?
Friday Fifteen
June 14, 2013 § 4 Comments
Happy Friday, everyone! It’s almost Father’s Day, so let’s take a look at the dads of literature in this week’s collection of fifteen-word book reviews:
1. Danny the Champion of the World by Roald Dahl
A novel full of heart about a boy, his dad, their caravan, and pheasant poaching.
2. Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
Gorgeous writing; read this a dozen times as a kid. Tuck himself is heartbreaking.
3. The Chosen by Chaim Potok
Compelling novel with complicated father-son relationships. Love the last scene with Reuven and his father.
4. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Awesome, touching adventure about siblings who cross the universe to save their father.
5. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Atticus Finch wins the “best fictional dad” award. Stunning novel all around.
Much Ado About Gifs
June 14, 2013 § 4 Comments
Things I like: Shakespeare. Joss Whedon. Last night I got to see both combined in the latest Much Ado About Nothing movie. It was so much fun! I went with my friend, Hannah, with whom I also saw Joss Whedon in person. (Needless to say, we were both way excited.) Obviously the only way to share our excitement is through a Joss Whedon-based gif movie review.
Spoiler alerts–but seriously, guys, the play is a few hundred years old.
My feelings about the cast:

The set, aka Joss Whedon’s house:

All the banter:

Everyone after the big party:

Don John setting up Hero:

Beatrice asking Benedick to fight Claudio:

What I want to tell Hero:

And of course Nathan Fillion being hilarious:

How I felt after the movie:

In all seriousness, it was really cool being in a movie theater full of people laughing out loud at one of Shakespeare’s plays. It’s a great example of how stories can transcend time and location. Human drama and romance and comedy touch all of us. And if those stories can costar Nathan Fillion, bonus.
Dickens Rocks
June 13, 2013 § 5 Comments
Sorry, Schoolhouse Rock!, I’ve got a new favorite source for humorous, educational skits and songs–Horrible Histories. Specifically, songs about Dickens:
Of course now I want indie bio-songs for all the classic authors.
(via Slate)
Links Galore
June 11, 2013 § 2 Comments
All the links I’ve been hoarding:
- Awesome YA heroines who know how to get stuff done.
- Avoid info-dump and weave in your backstory.
- Reading Rainbow celebrates 30 years of helping kids connect with stories.
- Even Shakespeare was inspired by current events.
- Great glimpse into the editorial process with Sarah Dessen and her editor, Regina Hayes.
- Grammar is going to the dogs.
- Just Add Hot Water and other ways to achieve the writer’s work-life balance.
- Thoughtful look at best friends in YA.
- This Printz book club warms my heart.
- In case you need to fill up your summer reading list.
48 Hour Book Challenge Finish Line
June 10, 2013 § 18 Comments
My first 48 Hour Book Challenge is complete and I consider it a huge success. It was so nice to have a weekend specifically devoted to reading. Although I didn’t get as hardcore as many people, I was still really pleased with my results. The books I had in progress are finished and I even added two new books to my pile. The final stats:
- 13.75 total hours read
- 1599 pages read
- 7 books finished
- 3 cups of tea consumed
- Extra credit*: 1.25 hours reading time, 154 pages read
The Books
I don’t think I had a bad book in the batch. I felt like I had a nice mix of contemporary realism (The Moon and More, The Total Tragedy of a Girl Named Hamlet, Dirty Little Secrets, and Jellicoe Road), fantasy (Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell and Shiver), and adult crossover (Tell the Wolves I’m Home). I’d definitely recommend any of the above. It also felt really good to finally cross a lot of those off my list–they’d been hanging out on my nightstand for far too long.
For me, this was a great reminder that sometimes you need to put away the phone, close the laptop, and shut off the TV. It’s easy to get sucked into “just one more Tweet,” but that ultimately means missing out on lots of good reading time. I’m going to try to be more mindful of this moving forward, because I loved reading all weekend. It reminded me of being a kid again and holing up in my room with a pile of library books. (You know, in the olden days when we used to have to call people to find out what they were having for lunch or when we couldn’t stream our favorite shows directly to our computers.) Any tweets or blog posts you miss will be waiting for you once you’re done with that chapter.
Thanks so much to Ms. Yingling for hosting this year’s challenge! (Also, major props to her 30 hours of reading time. Holy cow!) And high five to everyone else who spent the weekend
*If you didn’t see yesterday, the extra credit was from not having finished Jellicoe Road in the allotted 48-hour period but not being able to stop reading because of all the feelings.

