Materials for Young Adults - Main Journal

This Spring 2007 Materials for Young Adults journal (and the class that it goes with!) are still special to me.

Hello to anyone still out there!

Some of you may recall my pledge to keep this blog, and all my class blogs, available in perpetuity. I vaguely remember reading something on LJ a long time ago along the lines of inactive account names being made available to other users, which suggests that inactive accounts will disappear. I don't want this account to disappear, so I'm keeping it active with this post.

It was been nearly fifteen months to the day that I last updated this blog.

I don't think any of you are "listening" anymore, but if you are: you were my first class, and my last class in some ways too, and I now consider many of you among my friends. Thank you for making this class special for me.

Has anyone been following the scandals on LiveJournal this summer? The latest involves the inclusion of "sponsored content" on the LJ news community. Many users are affronted by this idea, especially paid users, whose agreement with LJ was that they pay for their journals in return for not seeing advertising anywhere on the site. (LJ argues that sponsored content is not the same thing as advertising.)

Here's a quote from the news post dated Aug. 16, 2007 (see original post here):

"Diet Pepsi MAX has created some special stuff just for LJ in the hopes that you'll want to try their new drink that has zero calories, ginseng and extra caffeine. You can keep your journal awake with three new Diet Pepsi MAX themes (they change with the time of day) or their mood theme. Why not send a free v-gift to a friend who needs to stay awake? Choose from a Diet Pepsi MAX can, case, or bottle."

In protest, LJ users have been spamming official LJ communities with endless "gifts" of Pepsi images, as shown here.

Compare this to the following passage from Feed:

"One Saturday...there was this promotion, where if you talked about the great taste of Coca-Cola to your friends like a thousand times, you got a free six-pack of it, so we decided to take them for some meg ride by all getting together and being like, Coke, Coke, Coke, Coke for about three hours so we'd get a year's supply.

"'So...," said Marty, kind of sneaky. "Anyone up for the great taste of...Coke?'"

"I like its refreshing flavor."
"It's really good on a really hot day."
"There's nothing like an ice-cold Coke."
"I like regular Coke, but also the fantastic taste of Diet Coke."
etc.
- p. 158-161

Hmmm.

I'd love to arrange a meetup/class reunion, and there are lots of fantastic YA-oriented programs, including appearances by Laurie Halse Anderson, Walter Dean Myers, and Judy Blume; programs on graphic novels, 'zines, diversity in YA literature, and the history of teen services in libraries; a YA Authors Breakfast; and speeches by this year's Printz winner and honor book recipients. There's far too much interesting stuff to type in here, but if you're going, drop me an email and we can compare plans.

Also, a great big CONGRATS out there to everyone in class who's emailed me recently to share good news on the job front!

We'd talked in class about about how some authors/creators encourage fanfiction, possibly as a way to encourage involvement in their worlds, and therefore (from a profit-centered point of view) encourage more loyal customers, and more buzz surrounding their stories. The main example from class was the TV series The L Word, aimed primarily at adult viewers.

At Book Expo yesterday, I learned that Walden Media and 20th Century Fox are sponsoring a teen fanfiction contest as part of their publicity for the upcoming movie based on Susan Cooper's fantasy novel/series The Dark is Rising. Teens ages 13-17 can submit "a story set in the world of The Dark is Rising" for a chance to win various prizes. According to the advertising poster, more information is available on the movie website, although I couldn't get the site to work on either Safari or Firefox.

Also, Sci-Fi Wire reports that the film will be different in some ways from the book; the protagonist's age will be changed from 11 to 13, and several action sequences will be added.

The director, David Cunningham, is quoted as saying:

"our goal has been to try and make this story more accessible to today's audience ... we're really trying to make this ride feel not like a fantasy film, feel very today, like it's happening to someone you would know and recognize and understand."

What might Tamora Pierce ("Fantasy: Why Kids Read It, Why Kids Need It") think of this statement?

Annotations for the Garden State Teen Book Awards nominees are now online. Some of you will recognize the nonfiction books from the GSTBA meeting a few months back! This is a nice followup to that meeting, and also a useful bibliography of titles likely to appeal to teens.

"Literary Lightning Rod: For decades, Judy Blume has attracted young readers—when they could beat the censors to the book shelves", in this week's issue of Newsweek, features an interview with Judy Blume about ongoing challenges to Forever... The article shows the cover art of a new edition of this book, about which Blume explains:

Every time there is a new edition, I update the letter to the reader and try to explain the difference between what sexual responsibility meant in the '70s when I wrote the book, and what it means today. I still want readers to get involved with the characters and care about them. I still hope they'll come away with an understanding of what it means to take responsibility for your own actions.

I also found this quotation especially noteworthy, in view of our class discussions of both Forever... and Gossip Girl:

They [parents] can't control what's on television or on a billboard, but many think they can control what their children read. These individuals believe if their kids don't read about it, they won't know about it, and if they don't know about it, they'll never do it...How much better it would it be if the parents could read the book, too, and then talk about it with their teens.

Book Expo of America, an annual publisher's trade show "where the world gathers to get a great read on the industry," will be held May 31 - June 3 at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City, a short walk from Penn Station. I haven't been to this show before, but I understand it's a great place to meet authors, pick up ARC's (advance review copies) of upcoming books, and network with librarians and booksellers.

I'll be going on Saturday, June 2, and would love to meet up with any of you who're going too. (I think LISSA has access to low-cost registrations - $30 instead of the standard $45 for librarians/educators - not sure of the details, though, so I'm going to refer you to marietiare on this one.)

Other details:

- Register here - after this Friday, May 11, the registration fee goes up to $50, which may or may not affect people using the LISSA discount.

- You may need to bring your student ID to get in.

Hope to see you there!

A week or two back, I posted about NoveList, a readers advisory database primarily intended for adult readers, but suitable for teens as well. Many public libraries subscribe to NoveList, but it can't be accessed via a university connection, even by going through a public library website.

I'm happy to report that NoveList does seem to work in coffee shops with wifi access, though.

greatlibrarian brings us the following multimedia addition to his booktalk Spell-Flinging and Sword-Swinging: Action and Adventure for Teens of Every Gender:

Where Did the Girls Go?

It's an interesting take on girls and role-playing games - do girls only play RPG's if, as the girl in the video suggests, their boyfriends do?

He says that opening the powerpoint presentation "may be tricky", but I was able to open it just fine.

Thanks to everyone whose presentations made last night, and the week before, one of the highlights of our semester! Here are links to the websites and other materials that folks showed (or played!) in class:

Creatures of Darkness by camillejoy and joyefulliber

You Can Do Anything by alissa548, cynknits, and marietiare

Sound Palette Workshop, of which darlene956 writes:
"There you can listen to sounds but you can't download them. If you click on FindSounds Palette 2.2 you get a 15 day free trial of sounds to download. You can browse the drop down menu for your favorite sound, too."

And some links to websites and videos shown in class:

Miracle Movie Trailer
The Notebook
Knit1 Magazine
Sam Stern - teen cook responsible for the recipe for those lovely chocolate things

Thanks again, everyone, for a wonderful class!

Based on conversations with several of you after class, it seems like questions related to jobhunting are (understandably!) on many peoples' minds. Here's a link to a set of handouts from a jobhunting panel I was on at the ALA Annual Conference last year (scroll to the bottom of the page for links to pdf and PowerPoint files):

Why Should I Hire You? Why Would I Want to Work Here?: A Guide for Both Sides of the Interview

What made this panel unique was that it included voices from both sides of the job search process - library employers talked about what they were looking for in candidates, and recent jobhunters (myself included) talked about what we expected from potential employers. The basic theme of the presentation was that jobhunting is a two-way process, and that people on both sides should put effort into making a good impression.

Also, this panel was the source of the many index cards that have made various appearances in class during the semester. We took questions from jobhunters on the purple cards and questions from employers on the green cards...and wound up with a lot of leftovers!

Need a break at the end of the semester? Take a moment to find out what animal shape the physical manifestation of your soul would be (from The Golden Compass book, via the The Golden Compass movie site).

(Mac folks, this might work better in Firefox than in Safari.)

You can also ask the altheometer a question, as posted earlier this semester.

My daemon comes out to be a tiger, an assessment I'm not quite sure of - although I think a cat of some sort is rather fitting for a librarian...

katebookgirl brings us lots of stuff tonight. First, a request:

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I am doing a bookfair for the store for the second time at a middle school (we normally only do high school). This means we usually go a little deeper in YA then we normally carry at the store. Do you think I could email the class (or post on livejournal) and see if anyone wants to tell me:

1: Their favorite Middle School appropriate YA novel that they've read recently (in class, for their project, or elsewhere)
2: Some Middle School appropriate YA graphic novels (a request from the school for these and we don't normally carry them)

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To answer, you can post here or email katebookgirl directly.

She also sends links to two New York Times articles, one from yesterday's newspaper and one from today's. I've pulled out some quotes from the one about doctors specializing in adolescents; I think they're equally relevant to YA librarians.

"Treating the Awkward Years: Finding the Right Doctor for Your Teenager" (The New York Times, Health, 4/24/07)

“Adolescents are not big children and they’re also not little adults,” said Dr. Walter D. Rosenfeld, an adolescent medicine specialist and chairman of pediatrics at the Goryeb Children’s Hospital in Morristown, N.J.

“American society is not particularly fond of its teenagers,” said Dr. John Santelli, a professor of pediatrics and public health at Columbia University. “The 2-year-olds, everyone fawns over them. But the guy with the pin through his nose is not cute.”

“We can’t do it alone,” Dr. Rosenfeld, the specialist in Morristown, said. “We need to deputize pediatricians and family practitioners, and make them our partners.”

“Adolescents are incredibly thoughtful, creative and absolutely challenging,” he [Dr. Ginsburg] said. “They get when you’re insincere really quickly. The tough kids are not used to adults not fearing them. But if you just love being with them, they melt. The attitude goes away because it’s just a pained, defensive posture.”

"Don't Blame Hip-Hop" (The New York Times, Arts, 4/25/07)

Somewhat reminiscent of the emo-will-bring-down-civilization-or-will-it? debate from a few weeks ago.

Also, a related article on allhiphop.com, "Whitlock Provides Diversion From Imus Issue".

The resource that katebookgirl mentioned last night - a database of fiction searchable by subject - is NoveList (the link goes to the site of its vendor, EBSCO) . Many public libraries subscribe to NoveList, and allow remote access through their websites (typically you have to enter your library card to get in). But, as I learned while preparing my guest talk for Reading Interests of Adults, all access is blocked on a university network, even if you use the network to access your local public library's website! The idea is that universities haven't paid for the database, and therefore the block is on the level of the IP address you're coming from, not the level of the individual website you visit.

I haven't tried to get in to NoveList via other wireless networks (coffee shops, etc), but if anyone else has, do let the group know if you've been able to!

A question's just come up that's a really good one - what sort of citation style should you use in your book and material lists?

I envision these lists as something very practical - other than checking to make sure that your library owns (or can buy) the materials on your list, it's entirely possible that you could directly import your list to use with actual teens in an actual library (or, as an item in a job search portfolio, for example). So, one of the principles to keep in mind is teen-friendliness.

If you haven't already finalized your list, please do choose a citation style that would be friendly and inviting to teens. You can use a standard style, or make up your own - the idea is that your material will be find-able based on your citation, and that your audience (teens) will understand what you're talking about. Your model should be booklists you might have seen at other libraries, not so much academic bibliographies.

For example, this:

Red Hot Salsa: Bilingual Poems on Being Young and Latino in the United States by Lori Marie Carlson. Henry Holt, 2005. (a style that I made up)

is probably more readable than this:

Carlson, L.M. (2005). Red hot salsa: Bilingual poems on being young and Latino in the United States. New York: Henry Holt. (formal APA style)

You don't need to include place of publication, unless that's important in some way to your material (like a local newspaper, for example).

This information comes rather at the last minute, so if you have finalized your list already, I'll accept whatever citation style it's in, APA or otherwise. Either way, though, do be sure to include a teen-friendly annotation for each material on your list.

Looking forward to seeing everyone's presentations tomorrow and next week! Please email or drop by my office if any other questions come up.

New info on the LARP event this weekend, via joyefulliber:

(This is the event that E. mentioned in class a few weeks ago. It's scheduled for this Saturday, April 21, at 7pm in North Plainfield. See the original post here.)

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I wanted to remind people that my hubby's LARP is this Saturday at 7p.m. (registration starts at 6:30) and give some additional/updated info.

E. has decided we're going to do a lighter dinner than usual, due to the later start time (we've been starting at 5, but had to bump it up this month) and therefore he's almost sure he'll only be charging $12 instead of the usual $15. Also, anyone who wants to just observe (and keep me company at the "reg desk") can do so for free, or if they would like to contribute $5 for food, that'd be appreciated.

The website for the game is here.
Feel free to email me to ask any questions or anything!

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Also, this group be holding another LARP event in June, which might be a less busy time for some people.

Encourage a teen to come to the library today, talk up a YA book or other material, or just look forward to our upcoming class presentations. See info on YALSA's Support Teen Literature Day page.

This is long, so I've put it under a cut.

( Some options for what to do with your journal )