YA Blog

A blog worth subscribing to: The YA YA YAs blog is written by three YA librarians who combine, "book news and reviews (of fiction, non-fiction, and manga), thoughts on librarianship, links to online resources, and craft ideas to use for programming, all with a YA bent". I love their enthusiasm!

YA Authors Cafe has interviews with authors writing for teens along with a list of links to YA authors who blog.

School Library Journal has an interesting blog post written by Anastasia Goodstein "What Would Madison Avenue Do? Marketing to Teens".

It reminded me that I am truly living my dream. I was born a few decades too soon. My home town library had no teen section. The high school library was the kind of place where dropping a pencil in the hushed atmosphere could get you thrown out if the librarian didn't like the look on your face.

Now I run an 8,000+ volume high school library with excellent Internet access. The place is hopping from 8:00 AM until 4:00 in the afternoon. We average around 21 class visits a week, often double or triple booked for some blocks. It is not a quiet place; it is a busy place.

The kids are so busy in fact that they seldom have time just to read for pleasure. It hurts to see the look of regret on a student's face when I show them a book I know they would love and they tell me they simply don't have the time just now. I want to declare a 'no homework' week. Month? I want to ban all needless, endless testing. Why DO they have to memorize things it would take them less than a minute to find online? Who cares exactly when the battle on the Plains of Abraham took place? I rant.

I wish they all had more time to read more of the wonderful YA titles out there. More Stephenie Meyer, more Shelley Hrdlitschka and Susan Juby, more Jane Yolen, more Chris Crutcher, Alex Flinn, Anthony Horowitz. These authors know how to engage teens. Check out Stephenie Meyer's playlist for her novel Twilight.

Image Credits: The Webfooted Booklady, all rights reserved.