YA Fiction: 11 Cyberpunk Novels You Need to Read
Never heard of cyberpunk? It’s a subgenre of science fiction, a blending of “high tech” and “low life”. Although it’s not hot right now, cyberpunk and dystopias have a lot in common (think The Hunger Games, or Kaimira: Sky Village). But where dystopias are more general (what if the government took control? what if a plague wiped out half the population?), cyberpunk plays with scientific what-ifs in the context of a greater dystopic world. And although not specifically geared toward...
Read MorePenguin & the iPad: Taking Books to the Next Level, or Leaving Them in the Dust?
Earlier this week, Penguin CEO John Makinson debuted a concept video demonstrating some of the ways the house is planning on tapping the potential of Apple’s new iPad. With interfaces less like a book and more like an iPhone app, it’s clear the company is taking this new platform seriously. John Makinson, from PaidContentUK: We will be embedding audio, video and streaming in to everything we do. The .epub format, which is the standard for ebooks at the present, is designed to support...
Read MoreGetting Inside the Book Review: How They Work & Why We Read Them
Once upon a time, only professional reviewers wrote book reviews. The greater the number of publishing credits and letters after your name, the greater your chances of being taken seriously. Of course, it doesn’t take a degree to work out if you like a book (though in the case of Edward Bloor’s Storytime, you might need an MFA to work out why). And a good review is still a good review–whether it’s over at your friend’s blog, or in the Books section of The New York Times. Some...
Read MoreThe Girl With Glass Feet Review up at SFWP
My review of Ali Shaw’s The Girl With Glass Feet is up over at the Santa Fe Writers Project. Thoughtful, dreamlike, meandering–these were my expectations of Ali Shaw’s debut novel, The Girl with Glass Feet. For the first chapter or so, the novel held up. Lines like “It was a darkening afternoon whose final shafts of light passed between trees, swung across the earth like searchlights,” drew me into St. Hauda’s Land, setting up yet more expectations. Then it all fell...
Read MoreBooks For Boys (And Adventurous Girls) part two: 34 – 67
Finding good books for boys can be challenging–without a little help, that is. Compiled with the help of the folks on NESCBWI Yahoo list, here are a few great books to get your boys, girls, and perhaps even yourself, reading. Want to suggest a great boys’ book? Email me, or leave a note in the comments! Download a PDF version of the list here; download a titles only version here; get the whole list here; and get the whole, titles only list, here. Miss the first half of the list? Head over...
Read MoreZahra’s Paradise: Helping Teens Relate to Everyday Iranians?
Regularly updated webcomics with over-arcing storylines have been popular for years. Jorge Cham’s Ph.D was such a hit with the geek set (my grad student husband included) that he’s successfully self-published four collections. Penny Arcade, brain child of “Gabe” and “Tycho” has become review central for all things video game, and hosts an annual conference (PAX). But where Ph.D and Penny Arcade are inspired by real life, Zahra’s Paradise is real life. Amir is a human rights...
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