bookshelves of doom

Awesome rediscovery at the library.

I was rearranging our booksale area and I found these two gems:

  

I had the library one as a kid—either that, or I checked it out of the library so many times that I FELT like I owned it?—and so when I found it on the shelf, obviously I had to do some looking around. My discovery? It was part of a huge series! I just went ahead and ordered another one, and I shall continue to do so until I HAVE THEM ALL ON MY BOOKSHELF.

Anyway, if you have one on hand, take a look. They very definitely have a '70s feel, but in some ways they feel quite modern as well—loads of arch humor that will appeal to adults, and lots of asides in both the text and the illustrations—which makes them feel a bit like precursors to Lauren Child's books.

YAY! I love when a childhood favorite holds up.

Random House bought Figment.

From PW:

“Random House Children’s Books’ new relationship with Figment supports our ongoing strategy and increasingly important efforts to communicate and engage directly with our readers,” Marcus said. “The team who founded Figment created a dynamic community that we will continue to grow and expand, and we are so pleased for the opportunity to continue the conversations with this audience of teens that love young adult books.”

One would hope that the curated content (versus the user-created content) won't suddenly (or slowly, for that matter) be all-RH, all the time?

"Instead, if there is one truism of successful Y.A., it’s that the book’s unrelenting emphasis must be on character and event, and not the brilliance of the author’s viewpoint."

Eliot Schrefer, at the NYT:

When I turned in my first officially young adult novel, my editor didn’t cut for content. He didn’t strike a single moment of sexual desire or brooding or bad language. What he did was set a pretension barometer twice as strict as adult fiction’s and started deleting every time the arrow ticked over.

Well worth a read. Self-deprecating and smart and thoughtful and funny.

Yesterday @KirkusReviews...

...I wrote about Katie Alender's Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer:

Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer is a hugely entertaining mash-up of genres: chick-lit and ghost story, mean girl drama and romance, travelogue and coming-of-age. It’s light and frothy and fun, it’s full of straight-out-of-a-teen-slasher-movie scenes, but it avoids being forgettable or vapid since it’s grounded by the following elements...

(I've featured the cover art from the ARC, rather than from the finished book. I'm still sad that they removed the blood spatter. BTW, DOESN'T THE MODEL LOOK LIKE A BLONDE LARA FLYNN BOYLE??)

Texts from The Outsiders.

From the Toast:

what kind of a gang is this
what do you mean
i mean i feel like we’re different from other gangs 
different how
i don’t know i guess
we’re just a bunch of regular beautiful guys who like to read poetry and get in knife fights

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Sunday evening in our house.

Josh: OH, AS IF A HOUSE WOULD LOOK LIKE THAT AFTER BEING ABANDONED FOR TEN YEARS.

Me: You realize that you're nitpicking a CW show, right?

...

Both, in unison: YOU SUCK, SARK.

...

During a scene between Stefan and Elena:

Me: This show would be insufferable without Boone.

Josh: OH MY GOD, YES. If the show was just about these two idiots, there's no way I could watch it.

Josh gets up to go into the kitchen.

Me: Do you want me to pause it?

Josh: HELL, YEAH.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time to stay in PA school.

From the Scranton Times-Tribune:

At a school board meeting in October, Gary Butler spoke on behalf of a sophomore at Riverside Junior Senior High School, challenging the inclusion of "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" by Mark Haddon on summer reading lists. He requested the book be removed because of instances of profanity within the text.

"We're going to keep the book," Superintendent Paul Brennan said in a meeting with English teachers and principals Friday afternoon. "We had safeguards in place where the child did not have to pick that book."