On More Books for Boys, and "White Culture"

The sun's been shining in Scotland, which means I've been outside - not working - but all good things must come to an end. Eventually. While I warm up to actually doing something productive, I'll point out a few things I've noticed from the blogs:

Via Charlotte's, I found out the incredibly angering news that Diana Wynne Jones has lung cancer. Wow, talk about devastated. I'm so FREAKING SICK OF CANCER it's not even funny. We wish Ms. DWJ health and strength for the fight.

Galaxy Express, which is all about SF and romance (a mashup that more books have than not), talks about the awesome that is YA lit, and briefly reviews The H-Bomb Girl, one I hadn't heard of yet. The comments are full of other great YA SFF suggestions.

At The Spectacle, Parker questions School Library Journal writer Diantha McBrides's open letter to publishers, requesting more books for boys -- because boys will apparently only read books with male protagonists, and "some boys have never read a complete book in their lives." (McBride also feels there should be a moratorium on WWII books.) Are characters that fluid? Could it really be as easy as shifting genders? Should George Lucas have stuck with Luke as a Luci, which was his original idea, and thus spared us that whole Jabba-and-bikini episode? (And maybe given Leia a purpose in the whole Star Wars series other than being The White Robed Princess Who Must Be Saved?) These and other thoughts pondered, do join the conversation.

If you have been missing the important and intelligent conversations going on at Chasing Ray, as part of her What A Girl Wants series, I want you to know you're missing some important discussion among intelligent authors and readers. It's more than just talking about the best books for girls. We're talking about the teetering of traditional publishing, the opportunity for new paradigms to be established, the choices before readers and writers -- some really deep and amazing stuff, giving a lot of us quite a bit to think about. The latest WAGW was on representation -- and it has brought up a lot of ...stuff that people weren't sure they thought, but then said and realized that, "Yeah. I believe that." Laurel feels strongly that only Jewish people should write Jewish characters, and Zetta believes that no one can know the African American experience except an African American - yet Kekla feels fine writing Caucasian characters. Can no one can write the queer experience except for another queer person? Colleen's follow-up post to this is very thought-provoking. Where is "white" culture in YA lit?

Red and Yellow, Gay and Straight...

"It is ridiculous how many books are published each season with characters who look the same, sound the same and come from the same economic circumstance. Something needs to change. The questions put to the group this time addressed this issue in several ways. Do you think that writers and publishers address this identity issue strongly enough and in a balanced matter in current teen fiction? Can authors write characters of different race/ethnicity or sexual preference from their own and beyond that, what special responsibility, if any, do authors of teen fiction have to represent as broad a swath of individuals as possible?"

What A Girl Wants: Representing ALL the Girls, at Chasing Ray.

Wake-Up Call

From April Halprin Wayland, via the Teaching Authors blog:

One of the most valuable moments of my writing career happened during a meeting. There were six of us that night: a sculptor, a screen writer, a painter, a violinist, an interior decorator, a muralist and me.

I said, "Everything in my life has a voice— work, family, volunteer activities, doctor appointments, pets. But my writing is mute. It doesn’t have anyone to lobby for it."


The next day, the violinist telephoned. "I really need your help," she said, sounding desperate. "Can you give me an hour?"

I groaned silently…but because she was a good friend, I began mentally re-arranging my day to fit her in. "Yes, of course I can," I said.

"Good," she said. "Because this is your writing speaking." Then she hung up.

This week, the Teaching Authors are focusing on time management--something many writers with day jobs (or, dare we say, lives outside writing) struggle with. Read the rest of April's post here, and if you've got progeny affecting your schedule, too, don't miss this post by Jeanne Marie Grunwell Ford.

April's story about the phone call from her friend reminded me how often I push aside my writing, fooling myself very ingeniously by assuring myself that, no, it's not that my novel isn't important--it's just that the other stuff is currently MORE important. But how many times can I tell myself that? There comes a time when we all need to decide to value our writing like we would a dear friend, giving it the time and space it needs.

Aaargh! Too True.

Another nail on the head, from Inky Girl, Debbie Ridpath Ohi. Happy Revision-ing, writers!

No Snogging, No Thongs, but Lots of Angsting

If you're a fan of Louise Rennison's humorous, sort of breathless British YA lit featuring Georgia Nicolson, you just might like Helen Bailey's Electra Brown. Electra isn't quite as air-headed as Georgia, which is a profound relief, and she's thirteen when the series begins, which makes her a perfect match for post-MG readers looking for something quick and funny to read.

Electra thinks she lives a pretty dull life. However, there's a light on the horizon -- though her parents have split up (and her Dad's new girlfriend, The Kipper -- fake tan orange and bony like the fish -- is an absolute beeyatch, when no one's around to witness it), now she and her mother (Of the Mighty Mammaries) and her little brother Jack (aka The Little Runt) and Mum's boyfriend have a trip to America to anticipate.

Electra is excited -- and nervous -- to visit her cousin Madison in New York. They haven't seen each other since they were ten, and Electra wants to be as gorgeous and buffed and tanned as Madison is in her pictures, and score a Yank boyfriend while they catch up. After all, her friend Sorrel -- whose vegan mother would have a conniption -- is sniffing after Warren, who works at McDonald's. And Lucy, Electra's other gorgeous sidekick, has had a fling in France. Nothing is going on with Electra. Absolutely nothing, so in the fifty or so days left before the half-term break, Electra makes a Plan. She needs one; Madison is gushing away about someone called Max, and that's the last straw for Electra. She needs a man.

Which is why she emails her cousin a little lie...
That snowballs into a bigger one...when her cousin unexpectedly comes to see her in England. The reason Madison comes is serious. The repercussions of her visit -- and the lie -- are pretty much hilarious.

I love the snarky descriptive names Electra gives strangers and frenemies, the doses of British slang that are nonetheless easy to understand, and her unique ability to ramble on about nothing, and waste copious amounts of time, trying on "shed loads" of clothes she can't afford, and hanging 'round with her mates after school. I especially love the friendships depicted in this book. Electra's good friends have their own storylines; Sorrel, whose braid-wearing, lentil-loving, vegan-cafe owning mother named each of her children after an herb, is rebelliously eating meat anywhere she can, while beautiful Lucy struggles with a controlling mother whose hyper-perfectionism drives her to self-harm as a means of dealing. The girls support each other, despite their own issues, which gives the book a depth and breadth of feeling that the Rennison books sometimes lack.

There are four Electra Brown books in the series, and each one promises to be as much of a gem as this one. Swimming Against the Tide is a fun, quick summer read --dare I say "beach read?" -- which I've really enjoyed.

Buy Swimming Against the Tide from an independent bookstore near you!

So, Your Teacher Is Menacing You, And The Principal Says You're On Your Own??

So, you're reading along. You notice that the head of the school is kind of inept -- as an administrator, and as a ...person. He's got his wizard chops, yeah, but he rarely seems to use them, although there was that one time his bird spontaneously combusted, and came back. The Aunt and Uncle are vicious, some of the teachers are menacing, and the parents are dead -- murdered. And the kid with the scar gets only vague advice, and a Mona Lisa smile. What's wrong with this picture?

Maybe only I got irritated with Dumbledore, but it's a common malady in kidlit (and in Disney films, don't get me started) that parents are among the missing or the dead. Anne-with-an-e is perky and chipper, yet has her sad orphan tale, Oliver Twist figures out he can't trust Fagin, and Nancy Drew knows she can drive around in the convertible solving mysteries, and still be in a fresh twinset and pearls by the time her erstwhile father gets home. Once writers got past the 19th and early 20th century moral tales, in which the adult is always right, there evolved a lot of negative press for adults in children's lit, and we're becoming increasingly harder on adults every day. Parker Peeveyhouse has asked a great question about those absent adults in children's science fiction and fantasy.

The nice thing is, young readers have real adults to help them and care for them. And those who don’t can take courage from similarly disadvantaged literary heroes. But how do you think children are affected by reading about powerless, ruthless adults? How can these extremes be tempered in novels–or should they?

Join the discussion.

"It's All Over, Over Here," or Glaswegian Dystopia

2099, and the waters have risen on the island of Wing where Mara lives. Her family sees friends and loved ones -- and their homes -- swept out to sea, gone. They flee in boats, with the idea that somewhere there is higher ground. They arrive at what once was a great city, and find themselves refugees in a horrible situation -- a city bent on keeping them out, a lawless, chaotic raft-town, with water at exorbitant prices, and rampant sickness and death. Mara escapes -- but only just -- into the city, and finds there's both answers and opportunity -- and nothing for her there.

Aquafortis reviewed Exodus last summer, and I was intrigued to read it, and realize that it was about... Glasgow. All the neighborhoods, interlinked cities and towns and landmarks are used as character names, and even the bird, tree, fish and bell symbols from the city's crest are etched on the first page of every chapter. It was strange to read about a city with which I was just getting familiar -- in a more surreal way than even I saw it. The strong environmental message, with which some readers have struggled, was softened for me by the quirky glimpses of familiarity.

Apparently, Glasgow is a good city in which to set a dystopian end-of-days kind of story. Catherine Forde's Tug of War is a MG title which hearkens back to WWII, when refugee children were sent away from large cities, often with only a label around their necks, identifying them by name. Separated from family and often siblings, they were housed with total strangers, whose fitness for childcare was often only hastily assessed.

The Emergency came in 2012, on Capital Day, and a year on, the terrorist attacks and bombing back and forth has been nonstop. Glasgow as a ship building city is a prime target, and it's plain dangerous to stay. Molly Fogarty and her older brother, John, are being parent-evacuated -- the safest thing, her parents think, or else the Parliament will come up with an evacuation plan as disorganized and slapdash as evacuation during the Blitz. At least, if they put them out in the country with friends of friends -- people Dad knows from someone in Accounting -- they'll know right where they are, and there can then be no mistakes, no slip-ups, no problems. Right?

Molly and John are precious to their parents -- who are almost sixty, and had kids late in life. And though they're a regular family, and find each other aggravating and embarrassing, this separation is hard on all of them. Molly's mother takes most of her clothes out of her suitcase, filling it with toilet paper and canned beans, in fear that where her children is going will be worse than where they are. Molly and John find that they won't be housed together. John will be on a farm a few miles down the road, working for the amusingly named Will Nott, and Molly will be on Paradise Farm with Nilly and Phil Pearson. Molly wonders what will happen if she hates things.

But Molly's worries are groundless. Nilly and Phil are, of course, lovely. Loads of lovely. Unlike her own mother, Nilly is slender and beautiful, always perfumed and perfect and full of laughter and fun. And Paradise Farm is great -- no power outages, fresh indoor running water, and amazing and tasty farm food. Eggs! -- and milk! No more powdered crap. Molly is instantly beguiled by this place -- but when Nilly takes her shopping, paints her nails, and has her hair done, she's even more excited. Nilly is her teacher -- and turns into Mrs. Pearson in the classroom -- but she's still fabulous. And she just loves Molly so much.

So, why doesn't Nilly like Molly to write to her mother?
And why won't anyone let Molly see John?

**Spoilery Diversion, Highlight to Read**:
Mature MG readers will figure out long before Molly that Nilly has an agenda. When Molly hears from a schoolmate that John is "having a hard time," and when she sees him for the first time and he's sporting two black eyes, I expected her to go into hysterics and demand to see him. Obviously something is wrong. However, Forde writes Molly as a character very easily bought, who can easily set aside any concern for her brother in the face of the luxury in which she now lives. I don't buy that. Kids today are pretty savvy about stranger danger and abuse -- and slavery. How can Forde expect that in 2012 and beyond it would be any different? I think she doesn't give her middle grade readers enough credit.

The bombing continues in Glasgow, and Paradise Farm isn't a place where bad news is heard, but Molly knows things are bad. When a final disaster brings Mrs. Fogarty to escort Molly home, she's faced with what is, for her, an agonizing choice. Nilly wants to adopt her. She could have everything she wants, forever, and can forget about and ignore the post-apocalyptic nightmare her home city has become. Or, Molly can go back to it all. The choice is up to her.

Forde explains that this novel is based on her mother and grandmother's experiences in the WWII evacuation -- which must have been harrowing. Tug of War is a quick introduction to dystopia for middle grade readers, and will pique their interest in other parts of history.

You can find both the YA novel, Exodus, and the MG tale, Tug of War at an independent bookstore near you!

A Kidlitosphere Central PSA

Now that she's has been laid off from her library (On one hand, "Booo!" on the other hand, can't wait to see what she does next), MotherReader is taking this bittersweet gift of extra time to begin preparations for the The 3rd Annual Kidlitosphere Conference. The 2009 conference will take place in Washington, DC, on Saturday, October 17th, and it has a couple of field trips attached -- one to the Library Of Congress, if all goes well. At $100 or so, this is one of the least expensive Conferences I've heard about, and it includes two meals as well as the usual meet-and-greet and the presentations and panel discussions. Writers and bloggers alike: If you're able to go at all, especially in these grim times for publishing and the bookworld, GO. I can't help but believe that my fellow children's lit enthusiasts, given time, enough coffee, and a quiet room, can come up with solutions to some of the publishing world's problems.

*Aquafortis met one of our Summer Blog Blast Tour interviewee at the Conference, and a surprising number of writers in the area come out and meet their readers. It's apparently an awesome time, and SOMEDAY I'll manage to go. Not this year, though. :(

Revision That Bleeds.

No, seriously.

THIS IS HOW IT'S DONE, I think.