Katherine Center's Blog, page 3
March 24, 2018
GIRL BOOKS FOR BOYS
My TEDx Talk is about how important it is to encourage boys to read stories about girls—stories that put boys in the shoes of a female main character so that boys can learn how to empathize with girls. As things stand in our stortelling culture right now, the vast majority of stories that we admire, talk about, give prizes to, throw money at, and adapt into movies are by guys about guys doing guy stuff. This means that girls get a lot of practice stepping into the shoes of male main characters—but boys have fewer opportunities to do the same for girls. Add to that our cultural notion that “girls will read stories about boys, but boys won’t read stories about girls” (which i don’t believe), and that leaves boys in danger of not getting enough practice relating to the girls in their lives.
When the talk is up online, I’ll post it here.
My idea is that we should sell boys on great stories—that just happen to have female main characters.
Here’s a list, compiled by my 12-year-old son and my 15-year-old daughter, of their favorite books with female main characters.
* This is NOT anything even close to a complete list. It’s only a beginning.
** I’m not highlighting books with “one of each” here, though there are many of those that my kids loved (Fablehaven comes right to mind!) because I’m specifically interested in collecting great stories that put us in the point-of-view of female main characters. So even if the story has some great secondary female characters, it won’t make the cut. The stories on this list need to put us in a girl’s shoes to walk us through the story…
Board Books (0-4)
But Not the Hippopotamus — Sandra Boynton
Picture Books (2-8)
Eloise — Kay Thompson
Olivia — Ian Falconer
Knuffle Bunny — Mo Willems
Amanda and her Alligator — Mo Willems
Grace for President — Kelly DiPucchio
Chrysanthemum — Kevin Henkes
Lily — Kevin Henkes
A Weekend with Wendell — Kevin Henkes
Blueberries for Sal — Robert Mccluskey
The Paper Bag Princess — Robert Munsch
Also check out this fantastic list from of the Top 100 A Mighty Girl Picture Books.
Chapter Books (7-10)
Ella Enchanted — Gail Carson Levine
Ramona the Pest — Beverly Cleary
Clementine — Marla Freeze
Middle Grade (9-12)
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her Own Making — Catherynne M Valence
The Girl Who Could Fly — Victoria Forester
Sisters — Raina Telgemeier
Drama — Raina Telgemeier
Matilda — Roald Dahl
Harriet the Spy — Louise Fitzhugh
Counting by 7s — Holly Goldberg Sloan
Under the Egg — Laura Marx Fitzgerald
Tween (10-14)
The Hunger Games — Suzanne Collins
When You Reach Me — Rebecca Stead
A Wrinkle in Time — Madeline L’Engle
The Two Princesses of Bamarre — Gail Carson Levine
Anne of Green Gables — LM Montgomery
Deenie — Judy Blume
The Epic Crush of Genie Lo — F.C. Lee
Non-fiction
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
YA (14 and up)
Everything, Everything — Nicola Yoon
Eleanor & Park — Rainbow Rowell
The Fault in Our Stars — John Green
Graceling — Kristen Cashore
Caravan — Stephanie Garber
A Spy in the House — Y.S. Lee
Divergent — Veronica Roth
Throne of Glass — Sarah J. Maas
Cinder — Marissa Meyer
Shadow and Bone — Leigh Bardugo
Our beloved local independent bookstore, Blue Willow Bookshop, has some recommendations as well: You can order these books from them and they’ll ship ’em right to you!
Princess in Black series by Shannon Hale
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Graceling by Kristin Cashore
Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu
Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy by Karen Foxlee
Aru Sha and the End of Time by Roshani Chokshi
The Penderwicks series by Jeanne Birdsall
Serpent’s Secret by Sayantani DasGupta
Amina’s Voice by Hena Khan
Patina by Jason Reynolds
Nevermoor by Jessica Townsend
BUY from Blue Willow
Be sure to check out the great lists of empowering books for girls and boys at A Mighty Girl.
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSaveSaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
March 4, 2018
Effing Shakespeare PODCAST
If you’ve ever wanted to listen to me talk about writing and stories for 1 hour and 24 minutes, today is your lucky day!
Kate Williams and Jessica Cole asked me to join them for their podcast about writing and stories, F*cking Shakespeare, and I had so much fun, they basically couldn’t get rid of me.
Come listen to it HERE !!!
(That’s the beautiful Kate Williams, doing her thing!)
And here’s Kate’s astonishingly kind intro for the show:
“Here’s what you need to know about Katherine Center. I’ve never been to her house. But I suspect she’s the woman with all the kick-ass ideas for dinner parties. Nothing’s ever dull. Great music. Some clever game that sets a party in motion in just the right way. Whatever tiny flame of jealousy the dark part of you wants to start nursing, is quickly snuffed out immediately by all the damn fun you’re having.
It’s the same for reading her novels. She stacks scene upon scene of memorable moments, witty and real banter between flesh and bone characters, and carefully plotted action that always culminates in some spectacularly grand moment that sticks with you.
My favorite from her 2010 novel GET LUCKY, is a Save the Love Library kiss-a-thon, where a beleaguered woman finds herself, figuratively and literally, sitting on the top of a historic library slated for destruction. At the end of the sit-in, she is to kiss someone from the audience 99 times, for the number of years since the library’s been built. I’ll not spoil the novel by revealing what happens, but I will say that thinking about it even now feels like I was there, watching the whole thing unfold on the library’s lawn.
Even though you might be envious, as I was, of her dinner party ideas/writing chops, the experience of reading her work makes you more optimistic about what the world is capable of, even in these the weirdest of days. That if we’re just a bit kinder to one another, that if we do our best to make memories worth holding onto with each other, that if we remember as Dixie, wise old Southern Belle of a warrior woman in GET LUCKY says, ‘sometimes you have to be brave for the people you love,’ things out there, in the world, just might get better.”
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
November 5, 2017
HOW TO WALK AWAY — The cover!
So beyond thrilled to share the cover for my upcoming book, How to Walk Away. I love everything about it. The font! The red! The flowers!
Actually, our front door is red, and I painted flowers all over it last spring. So this basically could be our front door.
I’m a total cover junkie. I’ve bought books just for their covers more often than I want to admit. And I’m just deliriously happy that this cover really does capture something about the story inside. It’s so rare—and so lucky—when that happens.
It’s still a wait before it goes on sale, but you can read more about it here, and you are more than welcome to pre-order! 
March 14, 2016
Novel numero SIX!
[Excerpt from Katherine Center’s sixth novel—slated to go on sale SPRING 2017!]
Twenty minutes later, he pulled up the parking brake beside an airplane hangar at a private airfield in the middle of nowhere.
I looked around. “You can’t be serious.”
He leaned in. “Are you surprised?”
“Yes and no.”
“Just pretend. Just once, I’d like to surprise you.”
“Fine. I’m shocked. I’m awed.”
“Don’t pretend that much.”
“Can we go to dinner now?”
“Not yet. I want to show you something.”
“What?”
He turned off the ignition. “If I could tell you about it, I wouldn’t need to show you. Would I?”
He came around to my side and took me by the hand, and then he pulled me behind him, bent over, tiptoeing, around the far side of the hangar.
I followed him in a state of cognitive dissonance—knowing exactly what he was doing while insisting just as clearly that he couldn’t possibly be doing it. “Are you sneaking me in here?” I whispered.
“It’s fine. My friend Chip did it with his girlfriend last week.”
I tugged back against his hand. “Dixon. I can’t!”
“Sure you can.”
“Is this—illegal?”
“I just want to show you my plane.”
“It’s not your plane, buddy.”
“Close enough.”
I had zero interest in seeing his plane. Less than zero. I was interested in wine and appetizers and candlelight. I was in the mood to feel good, not bad. “Can’t we just go to dinner?”
He peered around, then turned back to me. “Anybody can go to dinner.”
“I’m cool with being anybody.”
“I’m not.”
Then, with a coast-is-clear shrug, he pulled me out across the pavement and stopped in front of a little white Cessna. It looked like the kind of plane you’d see in a cartoon—wings up high, body below, and a spinny little propeller nose. Very patriotic, too. White, with red and blue stripes.
“Cute,” I said with a nod, like, Great. We’re done.
But he took my shoulders, and pointed me toward the cockpit. It hit me that I was supposed to get in.
I took a step back. “What are you doing?”
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go for a ride.”
Nope. No, thanks. “I don’t want to go for a ride.”
“Yes you do.”
“I’m afraid of flying. As you know.”
“Not with me, you won’t be.”
“It’s not about you. It’s about flying.”
“You just need the right pilot.”
I was shaking my head—half disbelief, half refusal. “You’re not even certified.”
“I’m as good as certified. I’ve done everything there is.”
“Except take the test.”
“But the test is just to see what you’ve already learned.”
“Dixon? No.”
“Margaret? Yes. And right now before they catch us.”
The force of his insistence was almost physical, like a strong wind you have to brace against. He wanted to do this. He wanted me to do this—to show faith in him, to believe in him. It wasn’t a test, exactly, but it was still something I could fail.
I wasn’t a person who failed things.
I was a person who aced things.
It felt like a big moment. It felt draped in metaphorical significance about bravery, and trust, and adventurousness—like it would reveal something essential about who I was and how I’d live the rest of my whole life. Saying no to flying right now somehow suddenly felt like saying no to every possibility forever. Would I be a chicken? Would I shy away from possibilities? Would I let my worries hold me back? Would I always refuse to rise to the moment?
In a way, I never really had a choice.
May 27, 2015
Texas HAPPINESS tour!
I’ll be doing a three-day, three-city tour around Texas in June to talk about my new book, HAPPINESS FOR BEGINNERS! Please tell all your Texas friends!! I promise to make it fun!!
DALLAS :: Thursday JUNE 25 :: The Wild Detectivs :: 7:30 pm
SAN ANTONIO :: Friday JUNE 26 :: The Twig Book Shop :: 6:00 pm
AUSTIN :: Saturday JUNE 27 :: BookPeople :: 3:00 pm
• • •
• • •
• • •
To get notified about upcoming books and stay in touch:
• • •
• • •
• • •
And here’s a little 3-minute video about the stories I write–and why I write them!
Hope to see y’all there!!
May 15, 2015
April 3, 2015
This about sums it up for me.
The lovely and hilarious Karen Walrond and I just collaborated on a project.
I started out wanting to make a book trailer for my new book, but we wound up doing a video about my writing process.
That’s me talking in the video, trying to say something coherent about why I write the kinds of books I write–about the challenges of writing stories that are both funny and sad at the same time.
This is my favorite part:
“The only compass you can follow as a writer is to tell the story you long to hear.
And I long to hear stories about how people pull themselves together–much more than stories about how they fall apart.
I read once that we go to non-fiction to learn things and we go to fiction to feel things. I don’t’ want to feel bleak, or dead, or bitter, or disappointed.
I want to read stories that make me laugh–and give me something to look forward to. Ones that believe in love and hope and kindness. Stories that see the best in us.
And that’s the kind I want to write, too. I want people to come away inspired and grateful for all the blessings they tend to forget.”
I also like this, and it’s something I think about a lot: “We have this funny misconception in our culture that only darkness is important. But I think light is just as important.”
Karen spent the morning at my house, and she totally captures the feel of it! It was a school morning, so the kids and husband were out, but the dog makes several appearances.
December 31, 2014
(100 Days of) HAPPINESS FOR BEGINNERS
In the weeks leading up to the on sale date of my new novel, Happiness For Beginners (March 2015), I’m celebrating by making images of my favorite quotes from the book.
Getting the word out about a new book is never easy! You can help out by SHARING THESE QUOTES (or others!) in any way you like! Drag them to your desktop and email them to friends or post them on Facebook! Or pop on over to Pinterest and follow and share the (100 Days of) HAPPINESS FOR BEGINNERS board. Or get inspired and write them on your own sidewalk in chalk, or paint them on your car window in shoe polish, or embroider them on a shirt! Send me a picture–I’d love to see!!!!
ORDER your own copy of HAPPINESS FOR BEGINNERS HERE!
Be the first to find out about new books HERE!
There’s more to come, so:
Find me on Pinterest HERE.
Find me on Facebook HERE.
Follow me on Twitter HERE.
December 7, 2014
The Lost Husband: Optioned!
The Lost Husband has just been optioned by a movie production company! See the article about it in Variety here.
August 15, 2014
the fabulous Brené Brown
Katherine Center and Brené Brown out at Katherine’s mom’s Texas ranch!
So grateful to my friend Brené Brown for recommending The Lost Husband so heartily – and for putting my books on her favorites list!
• • •
“Last week my good friend Katherine Center celebrated the launch
of her new book,The Lost Husband, with a party here in Houston.
I was lucky enough to get an advance copy of The Lost Husband
and I’ve already read it twice. Yes. Twice.”
