For the first season, Tu Books focused on science fiction and fantasy. Now that Fall 2011 is acquired and in the midst of editing and production, we’re opening up our focus on genre fiction to include mysteries for children and young adults. Remember, we’re still looking for main characters of color, but the setting could be anywhere—or any when—in the world.
As always, please refer to our submission guidelines for details.
I’m working on my talk at the Ventura/Santa Barbara SCBWI Writers’ Day. In preparation for it, I’m doing a personal review of touchstone children’s and YA fantasy and science fiction titles from, say, the late Victorian period forward. Science fiction is tougher—I’m not going to cover pulp novels from the 30s or anything. Perhaps we might start with the 70s or 80s in SF (though I tossed Jules Verne and Robert Heinlein on the list because they do stand out—please advise me of others of similar caliber). I’m heading to the library tomorrow to grab a number of books, and trying to think if I’ve missed any.
Now, “fantasy” in children’s books has a pretty broad definition. I’m going to narrow the focus down to prose novels with human or humanoid main characters. That is, I’m not interested in animal stories (Redwall is awesome, but not the point of what I’m going for) or graphic novels or toy/doll stories (Winnie the Pooh, lovely as he is, doesn’t count here, though he does play into the whole British tradition; but no matter, that’s not what I’m looking for today). The Wind in the Willows is iffy–it’s anthropormorphized animals running around in frock coats and talking in British accents; for our purposes here today I’m going to say we’ll leave it off, though I reserve the right to change my mind later. Of course, so is Redwall (without the frock coats), so that helps make my decision in identifying their similarity.
I’m looking for books that a large number of readers would consider a touchstone—not obscure. “Touchstone,” as I’m using it here, is a title that’s either so popular practically everyone would probably have read it (like Harry Potter) and/or has great literary merit—something with great importance. Hence my list becomes more thin as it comes closer to the present day because I feel like we’re a little too close to those books to really be able to pick out that many books (right now) with lasting merit; those will manifest over time. But some do stand out, and I’ve included them.
Here’s my list. Anything you might add? Surely there are more pre-WWII era that I’m forgetting, and I’m sure I’m overlooking something obvious altogether. I’ve never (gasp) read Andre Norton, for example—hence my request on Twitter & FB for title suggestions—and could use some prompting about what her most memorable/important titles are.
Late Victorian Era (1850–1901)
Pre-World War II (1901–1940)
Post-World War II, including Vietnam Era (1940s—early 1970s)
Gen Xers’/Millennials’ growing-up years (late 1970s–2001)
Post-September 11th (2002–present)
Last weekend I went to the excellent A Is for Anansi conference at NYU, and met a lot of thoughtful people who want to make the world a better place for African American kids. I took a lot of notes and would like to share them at some point, but I’m in the midst of finishing an edit and have only popped online, so I’ll have to do it some other time. In the meantime, Hannah in Lee & Low’s marketing department took some great notes that she shares here.
I cut out from that conference a little early to pop by New York Comic Con over at the Javitz Center, and the best way I can find to describe it is CROWDED. Apparently something like 90,000 people went over the course of the weekend, but I believe most of them were there Saturday between 1 and 4. Got to see my friends Brandon and Emily Sanderson for a few minutes while Brandon was signing books in the midst of a madhouse (we caught up later in less crowded circumstances), wandered around the significantly less-crowded Artist Alley for a while, said hi to some old Wizards of the Coast coworkers at the Wizards booth, and then the crowds got to me and I made my escape. It helped that I was also in the midst of a Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood marathon on Hulu at home, and watching that sounded much more appealing than shoving through crowds and not really seeing anything. I took my camera with me to take pictures of the costumes—and there were some really good ones—but there wasn’t any room to get a good candid shot, so I didn’t bother. Sorry–blog posts are always more fun with pictures. (I’ve taken a number of pictures lately, but haven’t had the time to actually upload them online.)
Thirdly, and BEST of all, I can finally announce our third acquisition at Tu Books, making our third book and rounding out the Fall 2011 season! As reported in PW Children’s Bookshelf yesterday:
Stacy Whitman at Lee & Low Books bought North American rights to Tankborn by Karen Sandler, for publication in fall 2011 as part of the Tu Books imprint launch list. The dystopian YA title is about best friends Kayla and Mishalla, genetically engineered slaves on the planet Loka, whose developing friendships with higher-status boys lead them to question the strict caste system of their world. Sandler has written more than 17 adult romance titles; this is her first YA. Lindsay Ribar and Matt Bialer at Sanford J. Greenburger Associates brokered the deal.
I’m SO EXCITED. The lineup for Tu for Fall 2011 is going to be awesome. We’ve got a YA paranormal thriller (I call it Burn Notice with werewolves), a middle grade space adventure (Olympics in space), and a YA dystopian with two main characters you’re going to love. As time goes on, I’ll be able to tell you more about Wolf Mark, Galaxy Games, and Tankborn; for now, the teasers will have to suffice!
Speaking of which, as I said, I’m in the midst of an edit that I’m trying to get back to the author before I leave for the weekend. Have a good one!
I’ve had several topics I’ve been meaning to post on, but I’m afraid this week has been a little busy, filled with good things like editing in-process books, talking with designers, finishing reads on a couple manuscripts, and a couple of editorial letters, just to name a few things. As I tweeted earlier this week, watching me do such things—either through me discussing them here, or actually watching me in person—would rather be like watching paint dry. Not a whole lot of entertainment.
But now this weekend I’m starting to work on my talk for the Venture/Santa Barbara SCBWI at the end of October, the title of which is Beyond Orcs and Elves: Diversity in Fantasy and Science Fiction. My focus, of course, will be on fantasy for children and young adults, but as part of the discussion I’ll be talking about working on Dragonlance: The New Adventures during my time at Wizards of the Coast, and the huge body of work of epic fantasy that those books drew upon (not to mention hundreds of game manuals).
So, I figured it’s time for another book list. This is a very specific one: I’m looking for a list of PRE-Robert Jordan epic fantasy that appealed to teenagers, whether published for them or not. So that includes Dragonlance Chronicles, which was published for adults, but it also includes Robin McKinley’s The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown, published for young readers. (I’m not sure if the latter two were published for teens or children, but I believe it was teens. I could be wrong.)
What do you all think? Remember, I want pre-Robert Jordan. The Eye of the World came out in 1990, so we’re talking the 15 or so years before that, because Robert Jordan really changed a LOT of things in epic fantasy, inspiring a lot of epic fantasists working today both in adult and children’s. I’m looking for the “before” shot. (It’s not really a before-after—more like a before-after-after-after, but you get the idea.)
To get us started, I’ll just list a few authors (I will come back tomorrow when it’s not after midnight and flesh out the list with specific books):
Robin McKinley
Tamora Pierce
Terry Brooks
Piers Anthony
Lloyd Alexander
Susan Cooper
Anne McCaffrey
David Eddings
Then there are the obvious precursors to these fantasists, including Tolkien and Lewis. But any other suggestions to fill out the 70s-80s list? I’m as likely as not to know the books, so please feel free to suggest either an author’s whole body of work, or specific books.
I did a guest post at the SFWA site on the difference between YA and middle grade, covering not only the clear delineations of anticipated audience, but also the vagaries of character age and actual audience. Head on over.
ETA 11/6/12: As with all my book lists, I’m putting this on Pinterest so I can more easily keep this list up-to-date. For a more recent version—including the books mentioned below and books published since 2010—see my Clean Reads for Teens board.
I have a friend who is the leader of a church group for girls 12-18, and she asks:
I want to set up a little library for our YW. [Young Women] These are multi-cultural girls, low income, some from illegal families. I would love to get your suggestions as to good books to put in the library. Since the library will be at the church, they do need to be on the “clean” side, but the girls range from age 13-17 and I think can handle some more complicated themes.
I have a start of a list here, but would love your additions to the list. “Clean” should include nothing stronger than “darn” or the occasional “crap” or “hell,” and on-screen violence should be kept to a minimum; no sex/sexual conduct beyond kissing/holding hands (at least, not in-scene), though romance is great. That doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t handle tough subjects, though. The Maze Runner, for example, is dystopian, but still a clean read overall. Even a book that tackled rape and its aftermath, or something similarly violent, could be appropriate for a list like this depending on how it’s written.
In general, I’m an advocate for good literature over judging a book by what isn’t in it, and my friend is that kind of reader, too. But given that this is a church-associated library, the suggestions do need to be “appropriate,” if you know what I mean. Feel free to suggest titles that might not be shelved in a church library ONLY if they’re borderline (i.e., something my friend my suggest the girls look up on an individual basis if she feels they’re ready for them).
For example, The Hunger Games may not be for everyone. I love it, and would hand it to any teen I knew who didn’t have a problem with a little violence. But some teens are more sensitive than others, so it might be important in a church context to gauge just how well the reader might welcome the visuals they’d get from that book, especially when it might as easily be picked up by a 12-year-old as a 15-year-old. (Then again, given that we live in a dystopia and modern teens know it, perhaps they’d be just fine with it.) Public library, no problem. But it’s the kind of thing that a conservative church library might not be the best place for.
This is NOT a fantasy-only list. Feel free to add YA-appropriate “clean reads,” particularly but not limited to multicultural books, from any genre. I’m just biased for SFF, that’s all. 🙂 It is a tough list to assemble, though, because I hate to recommend something as “clean” when I haven’t had a chance to read it myself.
There are so many books I want to recommend but can’t, because in this case a book with even the occasional s-word wouldn’t be something we’d want to put in a booklist handed out at church or in a church library. That leaves out excellent titles such as The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, but hopefully the girl who is the right reader for that book will find it anyway.
So, that gives us a starting point. What other books might be suggested for this list? I’m low on historical fiction, contemporary realism, and non-fiction, mostly because I’ve just listed a few good books off my own shelves and pulled a few titles from the multicultural SFF post. There are SO many titles about civil rights and slavery—feel free to suggest some, as I only have one on this list—but there are so many other time periods and issues that books tackle, too. So, light and heavy, as long as its clean. Go!
* Technically, this is a middle grade series, but the books are loved by older girls too and I think would be a fun recommendation for girls who like fairy tales.
** Starred titles may have a little bit more violence than you might want in the library; you might want to read it first to be sure.
*** Can someone remind me, as it’s been a while, whether the language in these books goes beyond made-up cursing and slang? Or if, in the case of Impossible, the rape scene is too graphic for a conservative audience?
ETA 5/22/12: I’m keeping this book list up to date on Pinterest nowadays, linking each book to its Goodreads entry. It’s much easier to just pin a book than to keep this list up to date. For the running lists (broken down by age group and genre) and more, go here (sorry, the link was broken for a while there):
ETA: I’ve finally gotten the ability to edit the post back, so I’ve put as many of the suggested books into the list now as I can. Suggestions always still welcome. This is a continuous project.
I’ve gotten a lot of great suggestions to add to the list, but my website seems to still be broken, and my own computer has a dead motherboard (well, it did when I started writing this last week—thankfully, it’s now fixed). I’m still figuring out why WordPress won’t let me edit any of my old content.
So, in the interest of having one place that people can use as a resource, I’m going to copy everything into this entry. Rather than divide the list by what I’ve read and what I haven’t, which was just more a personal exercise last year in wondering whether my own reading habits had reached past my own culture, I’ll divide the list by age group and genre (fantasy/SF). What that means is that I am not making a comment on how good I think a book is or recommending it/not recommending it—there are several books on this list I haven’t had a chance to read yet. It’s simply a list compiling what’s out there. I’ve also added books that I’ve discovered over the last year or that have been suggested to me in the comments. Go to the previous booklist post for comments on some of the books in this list.
Middle Grade Fantasy
Middle Grade Science Fiction
Young Adult Fantasy
Young Adult Science Fiction
Unsure of whether these books are MG or YA (have not read yet, pulled titles from Shweta Narayan and The Happy Nappy Bookseller‘s lists. Can someone give me a head’s-up what categories they fit in?
Please feel free to continue to leave other suggestions in the comments.
In continued celebration of the theme of Teen Read Week, even if the week itself is over, I interviewed author Cindy Pon about her new book, Silver Phoenix, and about reading beyond reality. Okay, sure, it was because our schedules didn’t meet up for getting the interview up during Teen Read Week, but I think it’s an important enough idea that we should continue to discuss reading beyond our reality long after the week officially celebrating it ends.
I especially like what she had to say about universal ideas in literature — even if you’re not Asian, or English, or a ballet dancer, “This is why stories are so wonderful to me. If the author did her job, you can love and relate, even to something that isn’t exactly like you.”
I plan to continue to interview authors, teen readers, and other bloggers over the next several months, probably one a week, so stay tuned. If you’re interested in this issue and have something you’d like to submit as a guest post for Tu’s blog, please also let me know at stacylwhitman AT gmail.com.
Also, if you didn’t see it last week, I guest-posted over at Myth, the Universe, and Everything, talking about folklore, fantasy, and the kinds of stories I’d like to see for Tu Publishing.
Today for Teen Read Week, I interviewed Susan from Color Online about teen reading over at the Tu Publishing website. Check it out!