I explain this to Richard, my boss at the library, with great relish.  He peers at me through his dirty glasses with a look I know all too well.  ”A spork?  What’s a spork?”

I sigh with impatience.  ”Everyone knows what a spork is, Richard.  It’s, like, half spoon, half fork.  A spork.  Obviously.”

Yup, there’s the look, no mistaking it now.  ”Everyone knows, hmmm?  Then prove it to me.”

It’s the quintessential Richard challenge: prove it.

And I, a 17 year old library student worker, love nothing more than to try to prove it.  So, Richard wants me to prove to him spork is a real word?  No problem, I can do that.

I dig through dictionaries, encyclopedias, cookbooks, and reference volumes until my eyes cross.  And, as Richard has taught me, I not only document all my research meticulously (one of Richard’s truisms: patrons don’t just need an answer, they need an answer they can support.) but keep notes about what gaps there are in the library’s collection and what volumes we need to have updated.  (another Richard truism: research is always more than one question at a time.)

But a week passes and I can’t turn up a single use of the word spork.  (This is before the Internet, my friends).

“I can’t find it,” I concede to Richard.  ”But that doesn’t mean anything.  Colloquialisms are acceptable -”

Smirking, he holds out a dictionary of flatware.  There’s a  picture of spork all right but underneath the picture is the caption “Ice cream fork.”

“But – but -” I try to protest.

“Remember this part, youngling,” Richard says, “just because everyone says something doesn’t make it so.  There are answers in this world.  You just have to keep looking for them.”

When I graduate from high school later that year Richard’s present for me is a delicate sterling silver ice cream fork.  For the next 16 years, I will cherish this present above all others and, when my life gets bleak, I will sometimes pull it out to remind myself of Richard’s words: there are answers in this world.

Richard Azar was the director of the Arthur Johnson Memorial Library for five years.  He hired me to work in the library as a student worker in 1994 when I was 15 years old.  Richard was my first supervisor, my first mentor, the first adult outside my family who saw and then encouraged something interesting and fierce in me.  Words cannot express the driving force he was in my life during my adolescence: how he opened my world and my mind and always, always, made me work for the answers.  He gave me great books to read, world literature and American pulp, he talked to me like an adult, he always expected the most from me, and he gave me what I know now is the most important gift you can give a teenager: through his unapologetic, flamboyant, and joyous eccentricity he helped me feel less like an alien from another planet.

Richard taught me that libraries exist for their patrons, that we buy books we might think are crap (“Another stupid cozy mystery?” I’d whine) because “we’re in this for them, not for us.”  Richard taught me that we never add for abridgments for children and teens because “they deserve the whole story too, you know.”  Richard let me get hands-on in every aspect of the library I showed an interest in: accessioning, billing, interlibrary loan, weeding, creating displays and reading lists, collection development, answering in-depth patron reference questions – I had experience in all that and more by the time I was 18 years old.  He never said something was out of my reach or understanding.  He trusted me with responsibility, pushed me in new directions, and believed that I had something worth contributing to this world.  He was the kind of boss, the kind of librarian, the kind of person, I wanted to be.

Simply put: I wouldn’t be a librarian today without Richard.  I wouldn’t be the person I am today without him.

I wish I’d told him that.  I hope he knew that.

Richard left the world this past Sunday and now it’s a much duller and more pedestrian place.  We are poorer because we lost Richard Azar.  I am poorer.

On Monday when I heard the news I left the service desk and called my parents.  Talking to my mom about it, I couldn’t stop the tears.  ”There’s only one thing you can do for Richard now,” she told me, her voice soft.  ”Wipe your eyes and go out there and be the best librarian you can be.”

That’s just what I’m gonna do.

Find the answers in life, youngling - that’s what Richard would say to me, what he always said.  So I’m going to do that too.

And I’m gonna have my sterling silver ice cream fork alongside for it.

–

(If you have someone in your life like Richard, I suggest you take this very moment to tell them thank you for all they’ve done for you.  I wish I had when I had the chance.  And if you want to read more about Richard, another tribute from a former employee, check out this memorial written by Thayla Wright, another one of my former mentors, and the current director of the Arthur Johnson Memorial Library, which will always be my first library home.)

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This is about what it’s like to be there in the second when everything in your professional life changes.  Even if I didn’t attend ALA’s Midwinter conference for the business and committee work that makes it so satisfying, I think I might go just for the live YMA announcements.  It’s truly a magical moment: this was the first year I got to sit with a big crowd of friends and colleagues that I’ve spent so long discussing this literature with and just even knowing you’re surrounded by people who care as much as you, who love as much as you, know as much as you – that alone is a gift.  MUCH LESS the anticipation, the life-changing moments, the roll of excitement and cheers that electrify the crowd – there’s just nothing like it.  Honest and truly nothing compares.

The YMA announcements are always a roller coaster of emotion.  You can’t take the thrill of a personal favorite winning in one second and are heartbroken another favorite was ignored the next.   It changes everything: makes you excited, frustrated, confused, curious, ready to read and explore and discuss books deeply.  And that’s pretty fucking great, ain’t it?

• I could not be happier with the Printz winner Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley.  I screamed SO LOUDLY when they announced it I think I burst some eardrums and I definitely had a second of going numb with joy.  I’ve been preaching about this book to anyone who will listen and wishing the Printz for it since I finished it a few months ago (I’ve read it twice) so to actually have that happen – OH, ALL MY DREAMS COMING TRUE!!  This is a truly beautiful and special YA book  - the kind for all your non-reluctant readers, the kind to grow into, the kind that will mean so much to the right reader.  And it’s literary and deep and worthy of this big award and LORDY, HOW I SCREAMED!
• Truly, no moment was more special than when Ashley Bryan was announced as the recipient of the Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement.  I wish I had a recording of the explosion of sheer joy in the room.  The cheers and applause were overwhelming.  When I tweeted about it I referred to Bryan as “our beloved Ashley Bryan” because, seriously, I’ve never heard anything like that.  And, as anyone who has ever been lucky enough to hear Ashley Bryan speak knows, if there’s anyone who’d love and revel in an explosion of sheer joy?  It’s him.  It’s a well-deserved honor for a very special talent.
• I was particularly excited about the Coretta Scott King and Pura Belpré Illustrator winners.  Shane Evans’s Underground: Finding the Light to Freedom is absolutely beautiful.  The way Evans’s uses color is something else.  A band of slaves flee into the blue-black night and stars light their way on every page.  It’s stunning and powerful. This is the kind of story that the picture book format really brings to life, really gives some import to.  Meanwhile, in Diego Rivera: His World and Ours, Duncan Tonatiuh creates one of the best artist biographies I’ve ever read.  It’s not just the way Tonatiuh’s very specific style makes the story entirely his, it’s how he talks about what Rivera’s work might look like in our world, how he explains to children what Rivera strove to create and capture with his art. Tonatiuh never talks down to children, instead, he brings Rivera’s world, the artist’s world, to life.   I was just in love with these selections and am so happy this is going to get this original and daring picture books in even more libraries.
• There was a gasp of surprise and disappointment when it was revealed that the Schneider committee had elected not to name a picture book winner.  But should we have been surprised?  The Schenider goes to the book that best “embodies an artistic expression of the disability experience” and, well, the disability experience is usually no where to be found in picture books!   Think of the last time you prepared for a baby storytime and went to get a bunch of picture books about, say, body identification.  Think of the Mem Fox refrain, from a book that ostensibly about the wide diversity of human life: “And both of these babies, as everyone knows, had ten little fingers and ten little toes.”  Everyone knows, eh? Think of allllll those books you have about heads, toes, fingers, legs, arms – and think how many feature babies or parents without fingers or eyes or legs.  Can you think of one?  Any one?  A single one?  Of course not!  Because, as everyone knows, we all have ten little fingers and ten little toes, right?  And that’s just a single example, of course, the disability experience is much larger.  But you wouldn’t know that from picture books, would you?  I was proud that the Schneider committee held out on principle and I hope that if ANYONE took a lesson from Monday morning it was publishers.  We want, we desperately need, more portrayals of disability in picture books.  Start publishing them, we’ll start buying them.
• Love the Alex list and having a reason to read grown-up books!  I was quite beyond thrilled to see the two books I was most crossing my fingers for: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline and The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern on the Alex list.  These are deliriously perfect books for teen readers who are dipping their toes in adult fiction.  I was first sold on The Night Circus by a rapturous teen girl who promised me it was the most amazing book ever.   I can’t wait to read all the other books on the list!
• SO HAPPY to see Money Boy by Paul Yee as a Stonewall Honor book!  I read this book in one sitting in a Indigo bookstore in Canada back in September.  It’s utterly unlike anything I have ever read in queer YA lit.  Ray is a Chinese immigrant in Toronto having a hard enough time fitting in as he struggles with his father’s expectations and learning English but being gay on top of that?  He knows what will happen if his father finds out and, soon enough, Ray finds himself alone and broke on the streets of Toronto.  How is he going to survive?  There’s so much I love about this book: the concise writing that SO accurately sounds like an ESL immigrant teen, Ray’s family situation and the realistic pressures in his life, the pacing, the gay adults Ray meets who are good and bad and unlike he expected, the way things are worse than Ray imagined and better than he could have hoped – it’s just the kind of fresh, original story that queer YA lit needs.  I hope the Stonewall helps get this book even wider recognition – go out and get a copy!

You can read about ALL the ALA Youth Media Awards and even see an archive of the webcast (listen for those Ashley Bryan cheers!) at ALA’s website.  There’s much more to be discussed, like all the amazing lists ALA committees created and my deeper thoughts on some of the winners, including a more in-depth love letter to the brilliance of Where Things Come Back but I wanted to get a first reaction post done before the week was out.  It’s good to capture those once in a lifetime moments when you can, after all.  At least until next year, when we get to have them all over again!

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I also have a few announcements!  I want to start by thanking everyone for entering my last two contests and let you know who the randomly selected winners were.  Jasmine, who blogs at A Room With Books, won the copy of Daughter of Smoke and Bone generously provided by Little, Brown.  (have you read Daughter of Smoke and Bone yet??  What are you waiting on?!) and Jennifer won a copy of Rick Yancey’s The Monstrumologist.  YAY…and thanks to all for commenting and entering.  I like spreading the word about awesome books with people.  Share the good news forward, peeps!

Aaaand … I won something too!  I am super-excited to share that I won the Diversity in YA reading/blogging challenge.  Whooo!  The Diversity in YA challenge was a true challenge for me.  I learned a lot from having the chance to really reflect on what books can do and why they matter.  I was happy just to participate and grateful to Cindy Pon and Malinda Lo for hosting the challenge and consistently promoting Diversity in YA.  WINNING the challenge was even more amazing and exciting.  Thanks to all the publishers and authors for donating their books – the ones that my library doesn’t already own will go right on our shelves and the ones we have will find good homes, either with other librarians or my teen patrons.

Now onto the actual blog being alive part!

Movies can do that: make people forget everything that’s bad about their lives, and bad about the world, even make them ignore the fact that they’ve already run out of popcorn. All that matters is what’s on-screen, that world in black-and-white or bright color, the story that’s got its hold on you.  Movies really can make it better.

I read Nova Ren Suma’s middle grade masterpiece Dani Noir a few months ago, but only recently has the true resonance and loveliness of it hit me.  Dani Noir is lots of things.  It’s a story about a teenager dealing with pain and repercussions stemming from the messy breakup of her parents’ marriage.  It’s a story about that awkward summer when a friend has moved away, everything is changing, and you’re not quite sure what your life is going to be like.  It’s a story about a girl growing up and making mistakes and learning that you can survive your own mistakes, even when they are thoughtless and hurtful.  It’s all that.  And all that is lovely and smart and sharp and well-written.  But Dani Noir is something else too.

Dani Noir is a book about how loving art can not just enrich your life but make it easier too.  More than that though: Dani Noir is a book about being a fan, a book about how being a fan can be an important, productive identity in your life.

Now how cool is that?

Dani is a cinephile.  In fact, this is central to the plot of the novel and her character.  Dani loves film, particularly old films, particularly films starring Rita Hayworth, and particularly the genre of film noir.  (see title.)  During her confusing, lonely summer Dani will find comfort and solace in film.  She will see her story in film, though not always in the most positive way, and she will try to use film to make sense of her life.  This is what we cinephiles do, you see, this is what we look to the big screen for.  In this summer of growth and pain, Dani will come to understand that film, that art, can be a tether to what’s good in life and a way to find like-minded friends and conspirators, people who speak your language and want in on the conversation.

I can’t remember the last time I read a YA/MG novel that was so sharply accurate about the power of that connection.  Maybe, frankly, never.  I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop: for an overwrought scene where someone shouts at Dani that “LIFE ISN’T LIKE THE MOVIES, WAKE UP ALREADY!” In this scene, the character would completely misunderstand what it means to take refuge in art, what it means to let movies take you into another world.  Dani would eventually come to see how wrong she was about everything, how real life is so much more satisfying than anything you could ever see on some old screen!  And yet that scene never came.  No, not at all.

In fact, the opposite happened.  Dani came to understand that her mistakes, her thoughtlessness and single-minded fixations, were her own.   Dani learned that life was not a film noir movie that she could act as director of regardless of anyone else’s feelings.  And yet she retained her love for film, her ability to see her life in it, her true kinship and connection with the medium. And that’s part of what makes Suma’s characterization of Dani so rich and true: here is a character who changes and grows, makes mistakes and pushes people away, yet retains her passions and interests, is the same character we met at the beginning but a more realized, more mature character at the end.

Even if I didn’t already love everything else about Dani Noir, from the unflinchingly honest way it looks at the emotional impact of divorce and remarriage to the feather-light but still consequential mystery at the core of Dani’s puzzle-solving, I would love this book for one simple reason.  Dani doesn’t have to “give up” film, because film is part of who Dani is.  In fact, Dani gets to share film with the people her world has now expanded to include.  She gets to try new films, new actresses, maybe even new genres.  This love opens her life up, helps her share her fandom and start conversations.  That is what it means to be a fan, the very best, most true parts of it.  Dani Noir and Nova Ren Suma get that and that makes this book truly unique and truly special.

Dani Noir is highly recommended for all middle-grade audiences, it’s particularly suited for middle grade readers who are looking for something truly different and worth their time. The novel takes place over the summer before Dani’s eighth grade year, but there’s definitely lots of early teen appeal here – ages 11-15 are the sweet spot for this book, especially if you know any curious, bright, passionate kids who are fans and fans-in-the-making.  You should buy a copy or go check it out from your local library today.  If your library doesn’t have a copy, request they add it.

Dani is so right: in those moments when you feel alone, on those days when you just need to escape, movies really can make it better.  And so can books as good as Dani Noir.

(Dani Noir will be re-released as Fade Out in June, 2012.  Personally, I’m not exactly crazy about the new title or cover but if it gets more people reading the book – hooray!)

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Lush

If I had to pick just one word to describe Laini Taylor’s startlingly original new novel Daughter of Smoke and Bone that word would be:  lush.

Lush in every definition of the word – full of sensory detail, a world that you can sink right into and be totally immersed.

If you follow YA lit, you’ve probably heard the buzz around Daughter of Smoke and Bone.  Besides the rapturous professional reviews (four starred reviews and counting) it currently has a perfect 5 star  “average customer review” on Amazon and 63% perfect 5 star review rate on GoodReads.  So, basically, what you’ve been hearing has probably been pretty damn positive.

But I’m here to tell you that whatever you’ve heard about Daughter of Smoke and Bone,  which was released here in the USA this Tuesday, no matter how glowing and positive it might have been, it just doesn’t do justice to the lush surreality, the almost painful beauty of this book.  I’ve never read anything like it, YA fiction or not, and it’s exciting that something this challenging, this haunting, this complicated is being published for young adults.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone is the story of Karou, a beautiful, mysterious art student who lives in Prague.  Karou has a secret, a secret even she doesn’t fully understand.  While she lives in our world, she also has a life in “elsewhere”, a world beyond our sight full of magic Karou doesn’t quite understand.  She runs errands, dangerous errands that span the globe, for a chimaera named Brimstone, a creature who raised her and just might know the secrets that Karou longs for, namely who she is. When Karou and Akvia, a beautiful creature with wings, meet and engage in a bloody fight in Marrakesh, it’s the beginning of Karou’s story unfolding and changing in a way she couldn’t predict.  Karou is about to discover the truth about the world she thinks she’s always understood and find out who she really is.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone is a violent, passionate, complicated novel.  When I gave to 16 year old Xian, one of my most avid readers and reviewers,  I told her, “This one is unlike anything you’ve read before.”  She rolled her eyes and smiled.  The next day, already in the middle of the book, she came back to tell me, wonder in her voice, “This is like nothing I’ve read before.”

What works best about this book is that sense of wonder, the way Karou and her world spring off the page: full of sensory detail and an ominous, precarious sense of something wrong – something hidden lurking just around the corner.  When Taylor unravels the plot of just what’s hidden (and why!) you can’t help but marvel at the brutal perfection of it, to gasp at everything you haven’t known about the story.  It’s stunning and shocking and terribly perfect and unfair and wonderful, all at once.  It’s the kind of plot reveal that makes you go back and read the whole book over again, so you can revel in the details and spot even more the second time around.

So, yeah, you’re reading another YA book about demons and angels and star-crossed lovers … but with Taylor’s masterful use of form and craft, with all the twists that squeeze your heart until you think it might burst, with every complicated moral question that sends your head spinning, with every passage you want to read out-loud just so you can savor the way the words feel on your tongue: you’ve never read anything like this before.

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Since this post is part of the official blog tour for Daughter of Smoke and Bone, now YOU have a chance to win your very own copy!  Little & Brown is giving away one finished copy to a US resident.  (Thanks, LBYR, you’re the best!) All you have to do is leave a comment on this blog no later than Friday October 7 and I’ll choose one random winner.

If you want more info about Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Little & Brown and Laini have an amazing online presence for the book, from book trailers to excerpts and more.  Check it out at the following places (the official website is pretty much the best ever):

Laini Taylor Interview

ME: From the beginning, I was struck with what a great feminist text this is!  There are such strongly realized the female characters in this book.  Karou and Zuzana have a great friendship full of support for each other and Karou, herself, is fully-formed, assertive, curious, and determined.  It’s sometimes hard to find such fully realized female friendships and characters in fantasies or paranormal titles.  Did you specifically approach writing this relationship and writing Karou with this in mind?

LT: Well, I knew I wanted to have a strong character and that she would be a girl. Before any considerations of theme or ideas, I’m always thinking of story first, and relatability, and wish-fulfillment. I want to write stories that readers will want to climb inside of and live in, characters that people will want to inhabit for a time. I have spent some time trying to figure out what it is that does that, what creates that magic, but I’m not sure I could articulate it. Mainly, I am targeting myself as a reader and hoping that if I write the book that *I* want to live in, that others will too.

Karou has a lot of fantastical qualities. In so many ways, she’s who I wish I could have been as a teenager: talented, resourceful, quirky, unique, mysterious, tough, and oh yeah, beautiful. But she’s also nice, and she’s a little dark, a little sad. She has the same longing to be loved that any girl has, the conflicting impulses: to be strong and independent, but also to seek love and acceptance from possibly undeserving boys. I hope that in spite of her fantasy elements, she has a true emotional core.

Where Zuzana comes into things is, on the one hand, a practical matter. A main character must have someone to talk to, someone to reveal to. Dialogue and interaction are the lifeblood of a book. Zuzana stands in for the reader in discovering Karou’s secrets. But she’s more than a device, of course. She’s a lifeline for Karou.

Having just one good friend can get a person through a terrible time, and Zuzana is Karou’s one good friend. She was so much fun to write. Some characters immediately take over, and she was one of them. And when I go back to her, even to write a tweet for her (@rabidfairy; Karou is @bluekarou) she comes back instantly. It makes me love her, she feels so real and immediate to me.

LT: Ha ha! I did originally imagine this book looking like Karou’s sketchbook, embellished with some of the art that’s mentioned in the text. I think that would be amazing, but I do also think there’s a lot to be said for leaving the visualizing entirely up to the reader. I’m always so bummed when a cover image depicts a character in a way I don’t agree with. It can affect the reading experience profoundly. So I was happy that the cover is obscure. As for interior art, it would be so fun to work with Jim to create some of Karou’s sketchbook some day, in some capacity.

ME: Without giving away too many spoilers, it’s safe to say chimaeras are a big part of this story!  I was struck with what a resonant metaphor this is for adolescence, which not only makes the plot stronger but really makes this story especially relevant and interesting to teen readers.  Did you think about those connections while you were writing?  Was there something in particular that drew you to writing about chimaeras?

LT: Hm. I think you’d have to tell me what you mean about the adolescence metaphor. It wasn’t conscious. I don’t tend to think of those things consciously while writing, but I am always fascinated to find them “in the lint trap” after the fact! I learn a lot about myself by what sorts of themes recur in my writing.

Why chimaera?

They’re visually intriguing, they’re not vampires or werewolves (not that I don’t love vampires or werewolves), and they stand in well for “devils.” I have a fascination for world folklore, and I love playing with the notion that it could be based on real sightings. This has cropped up in my other books too. In my Dreamdark books, djinn feature prominently, but they aren’t what humans think they are. The idea is that humans see just enough to get the story all wrong. In the case of chimaera, sightings throughout history could conceivably account for all devil and monster lore—even gods and goddesses. Issa’s tribe, the Naja, could have been the inspiration for serpent goddesses that are fairly prevalent in mythology.

And because they defy our standards of beauty, chimaera would naturally be classed as evil, while beautiful angels would be presumed good and godly.

But really, everything in the book is an outgrowth of one freewrite. Giving myself permission to write anything at all just for fun, what emerged was a scene in which a blue-haired teenage girl argued with her monstrous father figure. Brimstone came into being that day, ram horns and all, and all the chimaera grew from him.

Thank you, Laini for such amazing answers! (and yes, the chimaera are a great metaphor for adolescence: Who am I?  How can I feel like so many things at once?  Why do I sometimes feel monstrous and sometimes feel beautiful, why am I a little bit of both all at the same time?  Good stuff!)

–

Daughter of Smoke and Bone is highly recommended as a first purchase for all public and school libraries – it has HUGE appeal for a wide swath of readers: those looking for a new fantasy series to fall in love with, those who want something different than the same book they’ve read a hundred times, those who want to challenge themselves, and those who just love a good, old-fashioned, heart-stopping, star-crossed lovers love story.  This book will fly off your shelves and start discussion with your teens.  And, of course, it will leave you in agony for the next volume in the series.  As for me, I’m already counting down and, believe me, the minute you turn the last page … you will be too.

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I think this is the moment when you well and truly fall in love with Harry Potter – when you become fully immersed in Rowling’s universe in a way that you never really shake after that.

I thought of that moment when I stopped trying to figure out every single scientific and anatomical detail about how the giant, genetically created flying airship/animal known as the Leviathan works or was created.  At some point, and I don’t remember exactly when it was because it never works like that, not really, at some point, I stopped concentrating and worrying about all that and was, instead, just aboard the Leviathan.  I just knew.

And that’s the moment I fell well and truly and permanently in love with Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan trilogy, a steampunk, historical alternative universe set in 1914, and the richly dense fictional world he’s created: a world filled with fantastical beasties and brave girls disguised as boys and labyrinth political intrigue and revolutions and exiled princes on the run and danger and adventure and huge, elaborate mechanical devices and, of course, true love.

Sure, I’m still waiting for my letter from Hogwarts.  But now?  Just as much?  I’m waiting for my recruitment papers from the Royal Air Service.

I’ve talked a little about how hard I tried to love Leviathan and how, time and again, it just didn’t work for me.  (and how it was the superb audiobook versions that really pulled me in) But my teens?  They have loved Leviathan from the beginning and the love it, passionately, across every reading demographic you can imagine: boys who are into steampunk, girls who love romance, reluctant readers, advanced readers, readers who hate sci-fi, readers who’d never try historical fiction.  And while that made me very happy, it still wasn’t doing for me.  Too much jargon,  too hard to really get into.  But I kept trying, because my teens kept insisting.  They would entreat me time and again:  “Please, we need to discuss it!”  So this is the series, above all other I have encountered in my 4 years working with teens, that the teens had to sell me on first, simply because they had to talk about it.

And that, I think, speaks to the key of the appeal of the Leviathan series.  There’s all this complicated world building, advanced machinery, behind the scenes political machinations, and feats of great derring-do and adventure.  Not only are those things that get teens turning pages, those are things that get teens talking.  Those are the things that make Westerfeld’s Leviathan universe one that feels lived in and the things that make you want to live there.

I don’t particularly want to spend this whole post going over the minutiae of the plot.  For one thing, no explanation really does the rich plot justice; it really is the kind of book that unfolds in the best ways like a puzzle with each detail weaving a larger picture.  For another thing,  because of the complexity of this universe, you’d just get caught up in a boring plot-point recitation.  “And then she, but then he, but also don’t forget in this universe that …”

But I do want to talk, briefly, about our two lead characters: Deryn “Dylan” Sharp and Prince Aleksandar Ferdinand of Hohenberg.  And what utterly lovely lead characters they are!  How fully rounded, how realistically flawed, they are!  How easy it is to care for them, to root for them, to feel for them!  Deryn, the common girl who pretends every day to be something she isn’t, who changed her name and joined up with the Royal Air Service so she could fly.  Deryn, who is an excellent midshipman, always up for dangerous missions and routine duties. Deryn, who must learn to rely on others, to temper her recklessness with thoughtfulness, who like so many teens struggles with who she is and who everyone thinks she is.  Deryn, who finds herself immediately drawn to Alek from the moment they meet, who becomes his best friend and fierce ally because it’s the right thing to do as she also finds herself, much to her great surprise, falling in love with him.  And who wouldn’t love Alek?  Alek, who is brave and loyal and good in the best sense of the word.  Alek, who opens his mind to the new world of the Darwinists and wants justice and right to prevail.  Alek, who has no idea that his best friend is a girl in love with him.  Alek, the Prince on the run who is learning that whatever his destiny might be, he has control over it, he doesn’t just have to sit passively and let the world happen around him.  (again, another plot line that is particularly resonant to teens.)

These are great characters, the kind you feel like you truly know, the kind that feel real.  Deryn and Alek take alternating chapters to tell their stories and this is another brilliant move on Westerfeld’s part.  Besides the fact it’s yet another element that keeps the pages turning, it also gives their stories and characterization freedom to grow independently and gives readers a chance to really live inside each of their perspectives.

Today is the publication date of Goliath, the final volume in the trilogy.  I was lucky enough to get my hands on an ARC back in June (there might have been crying and flailing involved…) but I won’t spoil the ending here except to say that it’s a fitting conclusion: full of everything that makes the series great, as well as new characters, a particularly salient “big” question for teens to ponder, and a few surprises too.  In case it wasn’t clear enough, this series is highly recommended as a first purchase for all public libraries.

And now it’s YOUR chance to dive into this world for the first time and I hope you’ll feel the same immersion and exhilaration I did, that same love.  Go to your library or local bookstore and pick up a copy of Leviathan  today – now the series is complete, so you have no excuse to jump right in.  You won’t regret it.

While it’s true that I might not be able to tell you everything about how the Leviathan works as an airship, I know how it works as a story, as a fictional universe that springs to life and lives in your heart.

I know that it flies.

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This is something I am proud of in our profession.  This is a particular reward, a particular task that takes particular skills, in our profession.  Not everyone is good at it and it takes time and skill and patience.  It takes the ability to, at times, squash down that voice inside you that wants to prostrate yourself at a teenager’s feet and scream, “NOT TWILIGHT!  THERE’S SO MANY *GOOD* BOOKS YOU COULD BE READING INSTEAD!”  And that is a lot harder than you might actually think, when you are a person who loves good literature so darn much.

But we push through that!  We reach out for reluctant readers, we constantly assure them that we are there for them, that our collection is for them, that we won’t give up on them.  And I’m damn glad we do.

Only sometimes, sometimes, I wonder about what happens when we forget about our non reluctant readers – those teens that can’t get enough, that read dozens of books and still want more, the ones that walk out of the library with a huge pile of books and a big smile.

What happens to them in our giant stampede of “THIS BOOK WON’T HURT YOU, I SWEAR!” reassurances?

I think I know.  It’s not that they stop coming into the library, not quite, it’s that they stop coming to us.  They go to the adult section, you see, and fall in love with Harry Dresden and Daenerys Targaryen.  And while that is totally awesome – nothing breaks my heart quicker than to see a 15 year old, a bright, voracious reader look right at me and say, “Yeah, young adult books are just boring, I’m not really interested anymore.”

When we, and here we means librarians, teachers, writers, publishers, publicists, all of us who are involved in this industry, when we encourage the dumbing down of young adult fiction, we tell this 15 year old they’re right.

We say: “Yup, you had a good run here with us, you really loved those kid books!  But now you’re way too smart and sophisticated and mature as a reader for all this stuff, this baby stuff, so you might as well go find real books!”

And I don’t want to be in an industry that says that.  Do you?

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When I am doing training and workshops for librarians I inevitably come up against the Octavian Nothing issue.

Here I am, having just spent an hour telling them all the latest zombie-romance-vampire-killing-non-stop-action books that are sure to fly off their shelves and now I stand before them and tell them that, with limited budget, they need to buy Octavian Nothing – a dense, historical novel that wrestles with huge, hard questions and is written in deliberately stylized prose meant to evoke the 18th century.  They stare at me in bewilderment.  Who am I?  Can they trust anything I say?  HAVE I GONE MAD?

So then I tell them the most important part: Octavian Nothing is not for all your teen readers.  Octavian Nothing is the kind of book you have to sell to your teen readers, the kind you have to work to connect with the right teen.  And maybe Octavian Nothing is right for one teen out fifty.  But for that one, this is the kind of book that can change their life – the kind of book that can open a world of possibilities in them, that can make them think and wonder, that can make them say, “Yeah, young adult literature is awesome.”

Don’t you want that?

And yes, they nod, thinking about Octavian Nothing, thinking about the American Revolution and questions of liberty and freedom and justice and moral right.  That seems profound, that seems like a higher calling.  Yes.

But what if that same question was posed about a book where monsters rip people’s faces off, where the blood flows copiously, and there are very nasty things that go bump in the night?

Would it be so easy to nod then?

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The Monstrumologist is that book.  It’s not for every reader.  It’s not for many reluctant readers (though there are some who will be drawn in, much to their surprise!)  It’s sophisticated, smart, classically structured, dense, and detailed.  The Monstrumologist is a book for the teenagers who think that young adult literature doesn’t have anything left to offer them.

The Monstrumologist tells the story of young Will Henry, who is apprenticed to Pellinore Warthrop, the monstrumologist of our title.  Dr. Warthrop is an amazing character, full of sharp edges and determination – a man who never flinches from his duty, even when his duty is dark business indeed, he springs off the pages with clarity.  Will and Dr. Warthrop, as I am sure will come as no surprise to you, encounter and do bloody battle with a great number of monsters, both of the human and inhuman variety.  The books are richly plotted, detailed historical pieces and, oh yeah, they’ re rip-roaringly-turn-on-the-lights scary and stomach-churningly gory. 

This blog is not a review of The Monstrumologist series, per se, Bear already handled that for me a few days ago  And if you want to read a great one try out Liz’s review of the first book (she has great reviews of all three titles in the series, Curse of the Wendigo and Isle of Blood.) or you could read the professional reviews, which were glowing.  (Booklist said it “might just be the best horror novel of the year.”)  I wasn’t lucky enough to get an AR of Isle of Blood but I can’t wait to read it next week because this is a series that has only become richer and more fulfilling with each volume, as you come to know all the characters and their world better.

When I heard that Simon & Schuster had declined to pick the book up for a fourth volume, I felt YA lit grow poorer.

But!  Now we know there will be a fourth volume and THAT makes us all richer.

To celebrate and because I hope this series of posts has convinced at least one of you, dear readers, that you absolutely MUST start this series today, I’m giving away a copy of The Monstrumologist so that you too can be taken in by Will and Dr. Warthrop (and so that you too can have nightmares!!) All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on this blog and I’ll randomly select a winner!  The contest is open extra long since I’m currently out of the country on vacation – so you have until September 19 to enter.

If you can’t wait that long, head out to your library to get The Monstrumologist right this second.  I promise, you’ll be richer for it. (and probably a little scared too…)

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With that in mind, I had one major question for Rick Yancey about the series’s providence.  That question was:

The Monstrumologist series is unique in the way it blends the horror genre and what we usually refer to as “literary fiction”.  How did you decide to bring these two genres together?  What ways do you see these genres as complimentary, particularly when it comes to the appeal of this series?

His answer was so perfect, so much more than I was expecting, so fabulous and thoughtful and comprehensive, I knew I had to share it all with you.  Enjoy and thanks so much to Rick for participating in all this and for this amazing reply.  (and make sure you stop by tomorrow when you can comment for a chance to win a copy of The Monstrumologist!!)

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Call it a product of naivete or denial, but when I completed the first Monstrumologist book, I did not consider it horror or “literary.”  I looked at it (and still do to a certain extent) as an adventure yarn, sort of like a darker version of “Treasure Island.”  That was the original concept and still there is a part of me that cringes when I hear those two descriptions of the series slammed together.  The stylist in me rebels at the mash-up, “literary horror,” and I will confess I’ve never read anything of Lovecraft, read “Frankenstein” just once and that was years ago, and hadn’t even picked up a King novel since I was in my twenties.  Recently (between writing Book One and Book Two), I tried to get through “Dracula,” and couldn’t.

I think if I purposely tried to write something “literary” I would fail miserably.  What I have been attempting to do (as I have with all my books), is create – or re-create – an authentic voice.  I first tried writing the story in third-person, which is not comfortable for me, and quickly abandoned the attempt and recast the story through the voice of an older Will Henry.  I did want to capture a 19th Cent. feel, because in many ways Will was trapped in that era, unable to extricate himself from the memories of that time when his childhood vulnerability was tested to the extreme.  In a sense, I was trapped there with him – in a time when people wrote – and even thought! – in full sentences.  That cuts against the grain in most of current YA fiction (and adult), so maybe that’s why some folks call it literary (Full sentences!  Big words!)

I knew, of course, that the adventure would have to have a certain dark flavor, since monstrumology, by its very nature, is dark and dangerous – it ain’t butterfly collecting, after all.  If Warthrop hunted something equivalent to a three-toed sloth . . . well, where’s the thrill in that?  And if you have these outlandish and nightmarish things running about, it’s going to get a little intense.

And I wanted INTENSITY.  Not just intensity of the chase and the inevitable physical dangers of monster-hunting, but psychological intensity, emotional intensity.  19th Century writers never shied away from this and Will, being forged in that time period, would not have either.  There was, and still is, a danger in these stories of descending into the cartoonish (Headless bipeds with teeth in their bellies . . . come on!), and I knew beyond elevating the language a little I had to elevate the complexity of the characters and the intensity of their relationships.  Whenever I get bogged down in the esoterica of monsters or the convolutions of a plot set a hundred plus years ago, I tell myself, “Go back to the characters.  It’s about them and their relationships.”  It adds a richness to the tale, the chief function of which is to keep me from getting bored.  These characters fascinate me – not the gore, not so much the “big themes” of love, faith and what it means to be human (though I like that these themes have emerged as a by-product), i.e., the “literariness” of the books.  As I said in another interview, I fell in love with my characters.  They are quite real to me.  I suffer with them, laugh with them, cheer for them and fear deeply for them.

I worried when the first book came out about some of its more challenging aspects, particularly since it was published as YA.  But I don’t worry about that anymore.  Like real people, Will Henry and Warthrop are who they are.  The stories are what they are. Readers, whether they are sixteen or sixty, who like a good story well told, will discover the books and share a little, with me, the thrill and satisfaction that is unique to fiction: immersion in an alternate universe we are loathe to leave when the last page is turned.

-Rick Yancey

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BUT!  Fandom must never rest!  A group of bloggers, myself included, decided it was still really important to get the word out about the publication of the third book in the series, The Isle of Blood so that, hopefully, new readers would find their way to this amazing series.   The Isle of Blood goes on sale September 13. As a celebration (and publicity push!) we’re all taking turns posting about how amazing The Monstrumologist is.

You can read posts all this week and next week at A Chair, A Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy, The Book Smugglers, and Stephanie Reads.  And here at my blog, the rest of this week is a Monstrumologist party up in here!  Tomorrow, I have a super-special guest post from Rick Yancey himself discussing the origins of  the series and on Friday will be a blog/review from me and a chance for you to win your very own copy of The Monstrumologist so you can start the series and see what everyone was so excited about.

Today, however, I’m going to post a special guest review of The Monstrumologist, one sure to get you psyched for the giveaway  … one written by that rarest of creatures (gasp!) an actual teenager. 

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I don’t even remember the first time I met Bear, but I am sure we were thick as thieves from the very first moment.  Bear is one of those teenagers you cross your fingers for, the kind you go into library services hoping you’ll get to serve.  He wants to talk to you about books and movies and the world.  He’s bright, inquisitive, clever, and an influencer on other teens.

Bear is also a voracious reader who reads across a variety of genres.  Bear is the kind of reader, the kind of patron, it’s actually rather easy to forget about.  Teens like that, after all, don’t need that much help from us, right?  They find books, they read no matter what, we don’t have to worry about getting them through the doors!

And yet!  Bear wants and needs just as much reader’s advisory as any reluctant reader.  So when I have the chance to connect him with a book, I know that an actual connection will be made – that this is a book that will be relished and analyzed and loved.  

Putting The Monstrumologist in Bear’s hands gave me that sweet rush of anticipation and pride you always get from good reader’s advisory.  “This,” I thought as he checked it out, “is why I do what I do.  This is gonna be true love.”

Thanks to Bear for being a patron that makes  my job worthwhile, for insisting I read Leviathan, and for writing this review and letting me share it with all of you.  Find your patron like Bear at your library today and put this book in his or her hands.

It’ll be true love.

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Mon-strum-ol-o-gy    n.

1: the study of life forms generally malevolent to humans and not recognized by science as actual organisms, specifically those considered products of myth and folklore

2: the act of hunting such creatures

It was a spring night in 1888 when Will Henry, orphaned assistant to Dr. Pellinore Warthrop, was called out of bed by the arrival of a grave robber who had found something more gruesome and terrifying than anything the twelve year old boy had yet experienced in his year of working for the doctor. The find launches them into a case of nightmarish monsters, some human, and some very much not.

There were so many things I loved about this book; I almost don’t know where to start. The cast of the story included some really interesting characters, characters that not only stayed interesting, but got more interesting as the story went on.  Doctor Warthrop struck me as being similar to Sherlock Holmes in many ways, if Holmes hunted monsters instead of criminal masterminds. You also get the sense that there is something more to Will Henry than meets the eye, though I can’t really put my finger on what it is. Of course, Dr. Kearns (if that is his real name) is the scariest character I have encountered in a long time. He definitely knows about monsters, and you know how they say it takes one to know one…..

Then there was the gore, something that you can’t ignore with this book. I have the habit of eating while I read, but if you are at all weak of stomach I would not recommend doing so with this book. I am not usually the biggest fan of gore and horror, but this was different. The way the story was told had the perfect blend of emotion-capturing horror as well as the slightly detached journalistic reporting of facts. With these two flavors of storytelling working together, even the most over the top grotesque parts of the book seemed more believable and less gratuitous than other horror I have read.

I could go on about this book some more, but I would much rather go read the sequel now. I guess that means you will just have to go get the book and read it for yourself, but remember that “Yes my dear child, monsters are real. I happen to have one hanging in my basement.”

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(you can also read Bear’s review at Check It Out!, my library’s teen review blog, where he has written MANY other reviews.  But since that blog isn’t open for comments, I wanted to cross-post here.)

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In fact, I am a good liberal about being a good liberal.  That means that I recognize that my activism is always a work in progress, that I must constantly strive to question and check my own privilege, that I must consciously work on expanding my vocabulary and understanding,  I must broaden my horizons and knowledge base to better inform my positions, and acknowledge that there is always something more for me to know.

I’m a good liberal about being a good liberal and I’m damn proud of that.

So why had I never heard of Bobby Hutton?

When he was 16 years old, Bobby Hutton was the very first Black Panther recruit.  When he was 17 years old, Bobby Hutton lead a protest march on the California state capitol.  And Bobby Hutton never got to be 18 years old, because two weeks before his birthday, the Oakland police murdered him. (more on Bobby Hutton)

I’m a good liberal, damn it, why did I find out about Bobby Hutton from a children’s book!?

Rita Williams-Garcia’s masterful One Crazy Summer is ostensibly the story of three sisters (Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern) who spend a summer reconnecting with the mother (Celeste, who now calls herself Sister Nzilla) who has left their family to “find herself” in 1968.  In  many ways, it is a very traditional children’s book: the story of a summer that changes everything for the characters, the story of an older sister who learns that she doesn’t always have to be in control, the story of our three young characters learning and growing and changing.  It’s those “traditional” hallmarks that will help ensure this book is a classic that generations of readers can relate to.  But what makes One Crazy Summer MORE than that is everything that makes it non-traditional.  I don’t think I’ve ever read a children’s book that looks so uncompromisingly at what you sacrifice as a woman to be a mother, particularly the unique sacrifices that would exist in the year 1968.  I have certainly never read a children’s book that has a mother like Sister Nzilla – a mother who is neither a villain or a redeemed heroine, but who is person, on her own terms, struggling to find out what it means to be a mother and a free person.  And, of course, I’ve never read a children’s book where our characters learn about revolution from the Black Panthers.  All those elements are what make One Crazy Summer something special and unique, something rare and beautiful that draws you in simply because you want to understand and inhibit and know its world.

But I am not here, exactly, to review One Crazy Summer (although it is, of course, worthy of review and analysis!) the goal of the Diversify Your Reading challenge is to talk about how the book affected me as a reader.

And Bobby Hutton is how this book affected me as a reader.

Lil Bobby Hutton is in every corner of One Crazy Summer.  Learning his story makes Delphine, our no-nonsense narrator, question  everything she thinks she knows about how the world works.  It also makes her afraid.   If Bobby Hutton could be shot and killed while he was unarmed and stripped down to his underwear is it safe to be around the Black Panthers?  The brilliance of  having this be one of Delphine’s fears is how Williams-Garcia then lets Delphine understand that the real question Bobby Hutton’s death should have her asking is this: is it safe to be black in America?  And if it’s not what I am, Delphine, going to do about that?

This is a real question the Black Panthers strove to address and answer: what does it mean to be black in America, when a 17 year old boy can be shot dead on the street by the police for no reason?  What does it mean and what can we do to change what it means?  What can we do to change America?

Bobby Hutton’s death, Bobby Hutton’s life and activism, raises these questions – questions all Americans should be called upon to answer, both in 1968 and in 2011.

And I, good liberal that I am, had never heard of Bobby Hutton.

Reading One Crazy Summer did much more than just cause me to go look up Bobby Hutton and find out more about him.  (though I am grateful this book afforded me the opportunity to do that!) That’s too simple an answer to “how this book affected me as a reader.”  Bobby Hutton, One Crazy Summer, the question about what any of can do to change the country we live in and the world we’re a part of – reading this book was a reality check for a good liberal like me.  I know there’s always more for me to know, but I honestly wasn’t prepared to find it in a children’s book about the 1960s.  “I know a lot about that era,” I assured myself.  “And I know a lot about the Civil Rights Movement too.  If anything, I’ll just enjoy this because Rita Williams-Garcia is a great writer and this is a unique era to be featured in kid lit.”   And as I comforted myself with all my knowledge and my good liberal-ness, there was Bobby Hutton.

It was more than a reality check: it was a reminder that the best books about “diversity” do more than fulfill check boxes in an effort to educate you.  The best books about diversity, like One Crazy Summer, get straight to your heart and your brain and open the world up to you – they make you, like Delphine,  ask questions about Bobby Hutton that are more than “So, who was this guy?” and are, instead, “What did he mean?  What can I learn from his life?  How can his life make my  life better and more meaningful?”

These questions are relevant and worth asking to readers of all ages, but they have a particular resonance, I think, with children and teens.  That’s the reason we, as librarians and teachers, must have these books on our shelves and get them into our patrons and students hands.  Books like One Crazy Summer don’t force answers on you, they do something far more valuable: they get you to ask the questions.

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