The Hunger Games: Pride and Popularity

The past few weeks have brought a tidal wave of publicity for The Hunger Games and its record-breaking movie.  Many of my students (and several teachers and principals) are reading it.  I'm so excited to see students, adults, and the media talking about books and reading.

My reluctant readers embrace it without question and come back to me the next day, breathlessly declaring their love for the book and hungry for the next installment. However, I have encountered a few students who are hesitant to read The Hunger Games.  They tend to be good students who are voracious readers.  They tell me that they don't want to read it because "it's so popular right now" or they give me a scrunched up look that means "If I read it now I'll just be like one of those people who never reads anything but now they're reading The Hunger Games and I don't want to be in THAT crowd." They feel left behind, like they missed the boat.  They pride themselves on reading a book before it becomes a sensation.  They have bragging rights--"Oh, that book? I read that thing two years ago!"  They take pride in their reading, for better or worse. They also think that just because something is popular, that it also has to be bad.  Unfortunately a lot of things that are popular right now are (from a critical standpoint) terrible.  Mindless reality shows. Simplistic music. Cliched literature. Cliched everything.

I read The Hunger Games about a week after it was published, way back in 2008.  I had just started my career as a high school librarian, so I was eagerly snatching up any book promised to be the "next big thing."  All my book review sources were raving about it, so I bought a copy for our library. The next thing I remember was coming up for air a day later. I knew this book lived up to its hype.  Could I imagine it as a worldwide sensation? Not at the time, but as I saw students react to the book, I knew it would be big.  I was the first to read the book in my circle of friends, both personal and professional.  I told all my friends and family about it, and they told others. I admit I am prideful in that fact.  Thankfully, my pleasure in seeing people fall in love with books and reading is stronger than my pride in being first. But not by much.  Part of being a librarian involves being up on what's hot and what's coming soon.  I'm so lucky that I have a job wherein my conscience requires me to read young adult books.  It's a wonderful life, truly.  Seeing how teens react to books is just icing on the cake.  Thankfully, my pleasure in seeing people fall in love with books and reading is stronger than my pride in being first. But not by much.

So what do I tell my students who have missed out  The Hunger Games and have to read it with the rest of the world?  I've been pondering this for the past few days. This question has forced me to think about how I approach the books I read. Witnessing students' hesitancy to read a book has helped me to see that to be a fair reader of a book requires that I put aside any and all expectations.  It's just me and the text.  I'm sure there are a lot of literary and critical analysis people out there who have wiser and better things to say about this topic than I ever will.  But for me, this experience has helped me to see that I can't let other people's expectations (or my own) cause me to give a book an unfair chance.  I can be prideful about my reading and my desire to "be the first."  I can't dismiss something just because it's popular.  Sometimes the masses get it right. The Hunger Games and Suzanne Collins deserve every laud and honor that come their way. My deepest hopes for the phenomenon around these books and movies is that the media and teens will continue to talk about reading and question how their lives are transformed because of it.  I hope that kids will read more and better books and that critics and elitist culture-types will see that young adult literature and the people who read it are a force to be reckoned with. That is something I can be proud of.

PS If you want to read a book that I think will be the next big thing....see my review below.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Nitty Gritty
Hazel has thyroid cancer that's metastasized into her lungs. She meets Augustus (Gus) who has osteosarcoma and a prosthetic leg at a cancer support group for teenagers. They begin to fall in love and embark on a remarkable journey to find answers for the big questions they might not have time to answer.

Touchy Feely
This book: be still my heart. I really can't say enough wonderful things about this book.  I heeded Jennifer Hubert's advice to read it slowly, to savor it.  It's the kind of book (for me at least) like Harry Potter, wherein I can only read it for the first time once, and I'm subsequently jealous of everyone else who hasn't read it yet.  I've always been a big fan of John Green, but I had forgotten how much I liked his books and his person in general.  Now I've been trust head-over-heels back into Nerdfighteria.  He writes for my favorite kind of teenager: the proud-to-be-nerdy, wise-cracking, grammatically-correct, philosopher-referencing kind.  Green mixes sweet romance and piercing grief, travelogue and family drama, philosophy and shoot-em-up video games into a book that I read a month ago and still haven't stopped thinking about.  This is Green's best book, and probably one of the best book that will come out in 2012. Every student I've given it to has read it quickly, given it five stars on Goodreads, and just generally loved it.

Nerdy Bits
Hazel and Gus travel to Amsterdam to meet Hazel's favorite author.  The descriptions of the city make it come alive (Green lived there while writing TFiOS).  One scene in particular stands out to me.  One night in Amsterdam, Hazel and Gus are eating at a fancy restaurant along a canal. The leaves are blowing off the trees and I imagine it looks something like this. Gorg!

Other tidbits about TFiOS

• The release date was moved to January 10 from May.  I didn't realize the significance of that date until I reread Looking for Alaska.
• The original title of the book was The Sequel.  The current title comes from Julius Caesar: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings." (I, ii, 140-141).
• The book is dedicated to Esther Grace Earl, who helped run a Nerdfighter Tumblr and died of cancer in 2010.  A foundation, This Star Won't Go Out, exists to help families in the Boston area affected by cancer. 

Full Coverage
The cover is designed by Rodrigo Corral, who's designed such books as The Glass Castle, The Marriage Plot, and Super Sad True Love Story.  So he's what they call a "big deal" in the biz.  I think it's iconic and the colors just make me want to wear it. If you see one with a yellow sticker, then you've stumbled upon one of the 150,000 first printing copies signed by the man himself (and even rarer are the Hanklerfish and Yeti copies).

Dewey Love
I can't think of a particular non-fiction book to pair this with (other than a travel guide to Amsterdam), but for extra credit, watch any and/or all of the Vlogbrothers videos on YouTube. DFTBA!

Inspirational Moment

Final Thoughts
This might be one of my favorite YA books of all time.  I hope this thing wins the Printz, the movie wins a bunch of Oscars, and that one day John and Hank Green will win the Nobel Peace Prize for P4A. Then I will be satisfied. Maybe.

Favorite YA Books of 2011

When all the "Best of" lists come out at the end of the year, I always feel frustrated because there are always books I haven't read. I feel like a slacker no matter how much I read. Here, in alpha author order, are the books I DID read and loved. Some are new this year, some are older titles.

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray
The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson
Copper Sun by Sharon Draper
The Lonely Hearts Club and Prom and Prejudice by Elizabeth Eulberg
Warped by Marissa Guibord
The Summer series by Jenny Han
Unearthly by Cynthia Hand
Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai
Legend by Marie Lu
The ENTIRE Bloody Jack series by L. A. Meyer (audiobook preferred)
War Horse by Michael Morpurgo
Shine by Lauren Myracle
The False Princess by Eilis O'Neal
Anna and the French Kiss and Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins
The Queen of Water by Laura Resau
Across the Universe by Beth Revis
Divergent by Veronica Roth
Okay for Now by Gary Schmidt
Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys
I'll Be There by Holly Goldberg Sloan
Lost and Found by Shaun Tan
Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
Paranormalcy by Kiersten White

If I had to name a favorite "new" book of 2011...I'd probably have to say I'll Be There and Anna and the French Kiss would be tied for first.  For my favorite "old book," I'll cheat and say the entire Bloody Jack series.

Many of the books that are showing up on the lists now I've tried to read and just haven't gotten into. I'm going to keep trying on Chime and The Scorpio Races.

2012 is shaping up to be a good year in YA fiction. New John Green, new Markus Zusak, and lots of new additions to series I love.  What's more exciting though, are all the new authors out there whose voices we haven't yet heard.

I'll Be There by Holly Goldberg Sloan

Nitty Gritty
Sam Border and his brother Riddle know how to lay low--how to fend for themselves and how to avoid their volatile father Embry. Sam meets Emily Bell, a nice girl from a nice family with a not-so-nice singing voice. A chance encounter at her church while Emily is singing the Jackson Five's "I'll Be There" sets events into motion that have ramifications far beyond themselves.

Touchy Feely
This book is like the best hot chocolate on Christmas Day. Can it get any better? This story is engrossing, the characters are fully fleshed out (including the vile father) and the narrative style gives readers the sense that they are witnessing something magical. Which they are. I've heard this book described as "emotionally satisfying" which it is. I think that guys and girls would like this book. There's enough romance and action and adventure to suit most tastes. It's also heartening to see a kind, functional family in a YA book. So many times, the mother's dead or the father's emotionally distant or whatever. Sam's family is like that, but Emily's family is loving and supportive of their relationship. It just makes the book that more authentic.

Nerdy Bits
Beyond their budding romance, Sam has a hidden talent propels Emily's family to rescue him and Riddle from the influence of their father. It looks a little something like this (spoiler alert!)

Full Coverage
I love this original cover by Neil Swaab. The awesomeness of this book is magnified by not having any half exposed windblown faces or a guy and a girl allllmost kissing. This cover is timeless to me, and hints at the special, heartwarming story within.

Dewey Love
I'm blanking on any sort of non-fiction tie-in at the moment, but now would be the perfect time to listen to the titular song.



Inspirational Moment
Holly Goldberg Sloan has a brilliant website with character playlists, inspirations, and other info. Here's a quote from that site about the book.

"I’ll Be There is about the importance of time and place and individual action. It’s about finding your way when you are lost. And it is about the joy of being found. It is about families, personal responsibility and individual talent. It’s also about consequences."

Final Thoughts
This book is going on my "I-bought-it-so-I-can-loan-it-to-other-people-just-call-me-a-book-evangelist" shelf. Sloan is a rather accomplished movie producer, so I'm crossing my fingers that this book will be made into a movie. It's a story that people will respond to. So until that happens...you know what to do.

YA National Book Award Nominees

The nominees for the 2011 National Book Award were announced this week. Here are the finalists in the Young People's Literature category.

Franny Billingsley, Chime
Debby Dahl Edwardson, My Name Is Not Easy
Thanhha Lai, Inside Out and Back Again
Albert Marrin, Flesh and Blood So Cheap: The Triangle Fire and Its Legacy
Lauren Myracle, Shine
Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now

Check out the judges: Marc Aronson, Ann Brashares, Matt de la Peña, Nikki Grimes, Will Weaver. They know their stuff!

I've only read three of the titles (Shine, Inside Out and Back Again, and Okay for Now). I am terrible at "calling" these sorts of contests because each book has a different audience and a difference. The most powerful read for me was definitely Shine (which has an amazing epigraph), but the book I just want to pick up and hug and read again someday is Okay for Now. I've heard great things about all of these titles--except for My Name is Not Easy. Which means that this title will probably win because it's the one book I haven't heard of and haven't read. That's how it always is.

Happy reading and may the best book win!

Great Printz Award Post

I just discovered Sarah Couri's blog Someday My Printz Will Come over at SLJ. She's written a great post today about how the Printz Award is chosen. It's long, but well worth the read.

Coming soon: A review of Holly Goldberg Sloan's I'll Be There.

Bloody Jack: Being an Account of the Curious Adventures of Mary "Jacky" Faber by L.A. Meyer

I've known about this series for a long time, but I'd never read any of the books until now. Except I didn't *read* this one; I listened to the audiobook. I've heard narrator Katherine Kellgren described as the "female Jim Dale." All I can say is that Kellgren brings this book to swashbuckling life. It's SOOO good! I love Mary "Jacky" Faber's character--she's strong and sassy while still being relatable. I think she's on track to becoming one of my favorite female literary characters of all time. I rank this up there with The Help and The True Meaning of Smekday as audiobooks that are even better than their already-awesome paper counterparts. I'm just glad there are at least eight more! (The ninth book, The Mark of the Golden Dragon: Being an Account of the Further Adventures of Jacky Faber, Jewel of the East, Vexation of the West, and Pearl of the South China Sea, comes out October 3!