Last Minute Notes on SLJ DoD and BEA

This evening I'm hopping a bus to New York City for four book-filled days at School Library Journal's Day of Dialog and Book Expo America. Before I left I thought I'd highlight some of the things I'll be prioritizing during my time there and also give a few quick tips and tricks that have served me well in past years.  Both SLJ and Kirkus have created their own BEA guides, so if you want more info. on all that there is, check there. Oh, and PW has an article Galleys to Grab.

Where I'll Be:

Day                 Time         Session                                          Location
Wednesday 8:30-6         SLJ Day of Dialog                          Faculty House, Columbia University
Thursday         9:30-10:20 Getting Kids Reading                 1E12/1E13
Thursday         10-10:50         Young Adult Editor's Buzz          1E14/1E15
Thursday         11:00-11:50 Journey of a Young Adult Book  1E16
Thursday         3:30-4:20         eBooks From Libraries                1E10
Friday         10-10:30         Meet Young Adult Authors Buzz  Uptown Stage
Friday         12-12:30         Writing Genre for Boys                  Uptown Stage
Friday         1-1:50         Libraries + Tumblr                    1E09
Friday         3-3:30         Realistic Fiction                          Uptown Stage
Friday         3:30-4:45         ABC/CBC Tea                          1E12/1E13
Friday         4-5                 The New Graphic Novel                  Uptown Stage
Saturday         11-11:50         New Adult Crossover                  Midtown Stage

What I'm Wearing:

• Dark Wash Skinny Jeans (casual, but classy...ish)
• Flats or Sandals (gotta be kind to my feet what with all the walking)
• Short Sleeve or Half-Sleeve Top (casual, but classy...ish)
• Sweater (which I'll take off and put on as temperature necessitates)
• Scarf (which I'll take off and put on as temperature necessitates)

What I'm Bringing:

• Backpack (for comfortably stashing ARCs and personal items)
• iPhone (with BEA mobile app already downloaded)
• Wallet (duh!)
• Snacks (food in the convention center is expensive, so I'm packing granola bars, fruit and yogurt and will probably buy a bagel with cream cheese en route to the Javitz Center)
• Paperback book (to read when I arrive at BEA early and must sit on the floor until doors open)
• Collapsible tote (just one, just to get me started)

Priorities on the Exhibit Floor:

• Avoid the stampede of crazies when the doors first open by heading to smaller publishers first
• Head to the HMH booth (1657) ASAP to get their awesome tote bag, which is large and zips
• Pop over to Scholastic (1639) to say hello and secure goodies for Hunger Games Camp and perhaps snag one of the Harry Potter lithographs at 10am on Thursday (unless it's too crazy)
• Take only the ARCs I really want and plan to read.  My "must haves" are below. Other than those ones, I'll take only what I can carry to the post office and ship in one of those $14.95 "if it fits, it ships" boxes.

My Must-Have ARCs:

• Elizabeth Wein's Rose Under Fire (Disney/Hyperion, 1721 on Thursday)
• Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl (St. Martin's Griffin, 1557)
• Robison Wells' Blackout (HarperCollins, 2309)
• A.S. King's Reality Boy (Little, Brown 1829)
• David Levithan's Two Boys Kissing (Random House, 2739 on Thursday @ 12:30)

I'm really looking forward to some good sessions at SLJ DoD and BEA and seeing some library peeps.  Plus, I'm staying with a good friend, and on Friday night, we're going to see/experience Sleep No More, so that should be fun.

Oh, and if I run into you, and you know me from my blog (even if you've never commented), say hi!  It's always cool to meet folks in real life and know that someone is reading, even if quietly.

The LibrariYAn is an Amazon Associate. If you click from links on this blog to Amazon and buy something (anything!), I receive a small percentage of the purchase price.

Summer Reads, Makes Me Feel Fine

You might have noticed that I haven't been as active here on LibrariYAn as I had hoped.  And there's a simple reason for that: 50 books.  That's how many books I need to read between now and the ALA Conference on June 27th.  It's also the end of the school year, and though my body is at school, I confess that my mind is sitting on the beach with a good book.

Recent articles about Summer Reading indicate that I'm not the only one with sunshine and relaxation on the mind.  Witness:

USA Today's Top 10 Young Adult Books for Summer 
Summer Reading from the Horn Book (with a downloadable PDF!)
Edutopia's Hitting the Books: Summer Reading Recommends (okay, so this one is for teachers and adults who work with teens)
The New York Times 4th Annual Summer Reading Contest has judges and is gearing up for entries
School Library Journal is hosting the online event Summer Teen 2013

And I'm sure there's more. But that's all I could cobble together for the time being.  Seen any other cool teen summer reading articles, posts or events? Leave 'em in the comments.

The LibrariYAn is an Amazon Associate. If you click from links on this blog to Amazon and buy something (anything!), I receive a small percentage of the purchase price.

Trailer Tuesday: Ender's Game, The Movie!

Boom!  It's the movie trailer for Ender's Game.



Now I just need to make sure I read the book before I see the movie.  Good thing I've got all this BFYA reading to do first.

The LibrariYAn is an Amazon Associate. If you click from links on this blog to Amazon and buy something (anything!), I receive a small percentage of the purchase price.

Thanks, Man!

The results of the ALA elections were announced yesterday, and I'm so grateful and excited that I was elected to the Margaret A. Edwards Award Committee!  I've never run for an ALA position before and wasn't sure I'd make the cut, so I want to extend a huge THANK YOU to everyone who voted for me.  Another cool thing about getting elected is that librarian extraordinaire Sophie Brookover was also running for a spot on the same committee, and she won too! Word. Up.  And then to top it all off with Todd Krueger winning a spot on the Printz Committee? What? What! Too cool for school.

Full results are posted here.

The LibrariYAn is an Amazon Associate. If you click from links on this blog to Amazon and buy something (anything!), I receive a small percentage of the purchase price.

Wanna Know a Secret? Adults Love YA

Okay, okay, so adults reading and loving YA isn't a secret.  I still can't help myself from feeling 50% excited and 50% unsurprised when another article about adults and YA lit comes along.  This latest article from Cleveland.com is no exception.  No new ground covered, but some good (if not already widely accepted as fantastic) books are recommended.

The LibrariYAn is an Amazon Associate. If you click from links on this blog to Amazon and buy something (anything!), I receive a small percentage of the purchase price.

Judy Blume's Tiger Eyes Hits the Big Screen

It has happened.  Judy Blume and her son adapted her novel Tiger Eyes into a screenplay and then he directed the movie!  It shall be in theaters on June 7th.



and here's a little clip from the movie...



And now is the part where I confess I haven't read Tiger Eyes.  I always meant to check it out when I walked by it in the library, but it never happened.   I'll fix that.  Maybe even before I see the movie.

The LibrariYAn is an Amazon Associate. If you click from links on this blog to Amazon and buy something (anything!), I receive a small percentage of the purchase price.

Gay Characters in YA Lit

As you know, I'm serving on the YALSA 2014 Best Fiction for Young Adults committee.  While all of us on the committee are reading broadly, we've also each taken on the responsibility to ensure that certain genres, sub-genres and niches are not being overlooked.  My special niche is books with LGBT characters.  I thought that finding books that fit the bill would be a piece of cake, but it's harder than I thought!

Sure, I know that there are resources like The Stonewall Book Awards and The Rainbow List, but they only publish a list once a year, and the books on their 2013 list were published in 2012 and thus most are ineligible for our 2014 list.  My search for blogs that review with a focus on LGBT YA titles has also been a mixed bag.  The Hub had a post in February of 2012 that gave some recommendations on award lists, blog and author pages to check out for LGBT reading recommendations.  One of the blogs that was recommended, QueerYA, had a bunch of reviews for fiction titles published since September 2012.  Score! I'm Here, I'm Queer, What the Hell Do I Read? also had a bunch of reviews, but a lot were for graphic novels and memoirs (not in our purview), or were out of our committee's designated date range.  Boo! Author Alex Sanchez has an awesome list of fiction recommendations on his website...but none are 2013 releases. I had a similar experience visiting author Malinda Lo's website.  Womp womp.  Then I came across this amazing article from The Atlantic, that was published in March, and listed a whole bunch of new and upcoming releases. Jackpot!  Between this article and QueerYA, I've put together a pretty decently-sized reading list.

Of course, I'm still on the lookout for more titles, so if you have any to recommend and/or know of some good blogs to check out, definitely send them my way.

The LibrariYAn is an Amazon Associate. If you click from links on this blog to Amazon and buy something (anything!), I receive a small percentage of the purchase price.