Kelly Jensen's Blog, page 76

Real Life

Now that I’m selecting children’s materials for a large public library system, I’m looking through review journals and publisher catalogs a lot. This means it’s easier for me to spot cover, title, or plot trends than it was in my previous position. The one that’s stood out to me most recently is the phrase “real life” used somewhere in the title; I find this interesting since it implies there’s a “fake life” the characters could be leading. Most of these book titles refer to online lives or lives led on some other screen (like the Castle). Here’s a tip for writers and editors: if you’d like your next book to stand out, don’t title it In Real Life. Just a thought.

All descriptions are via Worldcat unless noted otherwise.

Guy in Real Life by Steve Brezenoff (May 2014)

The lives of two Minnesota teenagers are intertwined through the world of role-playing games.

You Look Different in Real Life by Jennifer Castle (June 2013)

Five teens starring in a documentary film series about their ordinary lives must grapple with questions of change and identity under the scrutiny of the camera.

In Real Life by Cory Doctorow (October 2014)

Anda loves Coarsegold Online, the massively-multiplayer role playing game that she spends most of her free time on. It’s a place where she can be a leader, a fighter, a hero. It’s a place where she can meet people from all over the world, and make friends. But things become a lot more complicated when Anda befriends a gold farmer — a poor Chinese kid whose avatar in the game illegally collects valuable objects and then sells them to players from developed countries with money to burn. This behavior is strictly against the rules in Coarsegold, but Anda soon comes to realize that questions of right and wrong are a lot less straightforward when a real person’s real livelihood is at stake. [Kelly’s review]

In Real Life: My Journey to a Pixelated World by Joey Graceffa (nonfiction, May 2015)

A confessional, uplifting memoir from the beloved YouTube personality. It’s not where you begin that matters. It’s where you end up. Twenty-three year old Joey Graceffa has captured the hearts of millions of teens and young adults through his playful, sweet, and inspirational YouTube presence (not to mention his sparkling eyes and perfect hair). Yet, Joey wasn’t always comfortable in his skin, and in this candid memoir, he thoughtfully looks back on his journey from pain to pride, self-doubt to self-acceptance.

In Real Life by Jessica Love (March 2016)

Hannah Cho and Nick Cooper have been best friends since 8th grade. They talk for hours on the phone, regularly shower each other with presents, and know everything there is to know about one another. There’s just one problem: Hannah and Nick have never actually met. Hannah has spent her entire life doing what she’s supposed to, but when her senior year spring break plans get ruined by a rule-breaker, she decides to break a rule or two herself. She impulsively decides to road trip to Vegas, her older sister and BFF in tow, to surprise Nick and finally declare her more-than-friend feelings for him. [Description via Goodreads]

In Real Life by Lawrence Tabak (November 2014)

Fifteen-year-old math prodigy Seth Gordon hopes to compete professionally playing Starfare, the world’s most popular computer game, but when he gets the chance to move to Korea and train full-time, he may not be ready for the culture shock and leaving his possible girlfriend, Hannah.

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A Few Cybils Reads – Part I (2015)

The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh

Ahdieh gives us one of a slew of recent stories inspired in some way by the Arabian Nights, and it’s a strong one. Teens who know a bit about the frame story of Scheherazade will love the twist Ahdieh puts on it, while those completely ignorant of it will have no trouble becoming invested. Shahrzad’s best friend was killed by eighteen year old Khalid, the Caliph of Khorasan, after he took her as his wife. He has taken dozens of wives and none of them has survived beyond the morning after their wedding day. Shahrzad intends to become his next wife – but not his next victim. Instead, she plans to take revenge. Readers will know from the beginning that Khalid is not the murderer he is believed to be – a prologue gives this bit away, so it’s meant to be known – but unraveling just why the girls all end up dead and how (if) Shahrzad can put a stop to it is great fun to read about. It’s also a romance, of course, which is also not unexpected, but it’s a good one. The setting is especially well-drawn (the food!). This is a solid story with lots of appeal.

The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

I’ll confess something: I have never read anything by Holly Black before this. But immediately upon starting it, I was struck by the level of craft apparent; it’s obvious why she’s so highly-regarded. This novel is one of the best-constructed I’ve read in a while, and I found myself marveling frequently at how neatly and effortlessly the story built, layer upon layer. Hazel and Ben live in Fairfold; so do the fairies. The human inhabitants know that the fairies are mostly benign and will only hurt those who don’t follow the rules – tourists, mainly. And if a Fairfold resident is harmed or killed every once in a while, well, they were probably doing something they shouldn’t have. But then the horned prince who has rested in the glass coffin in the middle of the forest wakes, and the Fairfold citizens seem to be fair game. Is the prince, whom both Hazel and Ben thought themselves in love with when he slept, behind it? It’s difficult to give a pithy plot description for this book, because it has a lot going on. Hazel and Ben once hunted fairies, Ben was cursed/blessed with a knowledge of fairy music as a small child, Hazel once made a terrible bargain with one of the Fair Folk, one of the teenage boys is actually a Changeling that the human family decided to keep, and so on. There’s a really rich background to the story, and it all feeds in to the main plotline featuring the horned prince. Fairfold is so well-realized and the characters so well-drawn; fans of urban fantasy and stories about often-malevolent fairies should snap this one up.

Crimson Bound by Rosamund Hodge

I loved Rosamund Hodge’s first book, Cruel Beauty, to pieces. I loved her writing and her complex plotting and how the book was familiar (fairy tale influenced) yet managed to take me by surprise, too. Crimson Bound is the same – it’s Little Red Riding Hood, but darker than even the original story. That’s something I love about Hodge’s writing: she’s not afraid to give her characters real darkness. Her protagonist in Crimson Bound is a murderer, a girl who has been given terrible, unwanted gifts due to a mistake she made as a young teen. She hopes to atone by finding the sword that could destroy the evil threatening her country, but she’s haunted by what she’s done, what she’s capable of doing, and what she wants to do – as well as what she is becoming, something even worse than what she is. This is a fairy tale mash-up and retelling, a quest story, and a romance (of sorts) all in one, but none of those threads coalesce in a way you’d expect, a hallmark of Hodge’s storytelling. Go into this one without knowing a huge amount of the plot and prepare to be whisked away.

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Recently Read: ONE by Sarah Crossan and SEE NO COLOR by Shannon Gibney

October is on track to be the best reading month of 2015 for me. I’m not particularly surprised, though. Since I track my reading, it looks to me like this is a regular occurrence: every October I tend to read more books than in other months. Part of it is that the weather always seems to give me more energy, and the other part is that I tend to let myself read more than one book at a time, since I love trying to read as many horror novels as possible, in addition to my regular reads.

Instead of talking about those horror reads, though, here’s a look at two recent YA novels I devoured. One of these came out recently, and the other will be hitting shelves shortly. They’re both novels featuring characters who aren’t your typical white girls, and both are the kinds of stories that will really resonate with teen readers.

 

One by Sarah Crossan

Grace and Tippi are conjoined twins. Their bodies are connected from the hip downward, and they’ve been operating as two girls in one shared body for their entire lives. But now that money is tight at home, they’re being sent to a special private school, paid for by the state. Entering a new school has both girls concerned about how others will look at them, react to them, and treat them. Lucky for them, they find two new friends — maybe one who is a little more than a friend to Grace — who accept them and help them make the transition more smoothly.

It’s anything but smooth, though, as both girls begin feeling their body/ies falling ill. It starts slowly, but then things begin to get more serious. And when a visit to their specialist doctor reveals there’s a serious problem, they and their family have to make the decision on whether or not it’s time to surgically separate them.

Told in verse, Crossan develops a really thought-provoking, sympathetic, and emotionally-engaging story about Grace and Tippi. This is the kind of book readers who want a tear-jerker will love, since it’s going to bring tears throughout.

More than being a story about the conjoined twins, though, this book looks at the whole life of the girls. We see how their parents struggle with keeping a job and an income. We see a father succumbing to alcoholism. We see a younger sister whose life has been upended time and time again because of the needs of her conjoined sisters. Where many would see this as a novel packed with a lot of things, Crossan weaves these threads together effortlessly and shows how stories about “big things” like conjoined twins are never confined to a single narrative. There are so many elements that are a part of their lives outside of their body/ies, and Crossan offers us such a nice picture of that. One of the things Grace talks about is how she and her sister get tired of answering intrusive questions, and by offering an insight into the bigger, more life-altering elements of their lives, we as readers are forced to pause and wonder why it is we’re curious about the weird things, rather than empathetic about the whole picture.

One should also be applauded for having a beautiful design. This is a book you want to read in print because the verse is laid out elegantly, but more, the little design elements throughout really do pack a punch. The silhouette on the cover goes throughout the story, and it is one of the pieces that will further the need for a tissue at the end of the story. A smart, fast, and engaging read for readers who are curious about twins, conjoined twins, verse novels, and more. One is available now.

 

See No Color by Shannon Gibney (November 1)

Alex has never thought about the fact she’s a mixed-race girl who was adopted by a white family. She’s never put too much thought about the fact she has both a younger brother and sister who are white, born from the mother and father who adopted her after thinking they could never have children. Alex’s big driver in life has been being the great baseball player that her father has pushed her toward being. After his own career as a potential big leaguer in Milwaukee falls apart, he pours all of his energy into making Alex and her brother the next big stars on the field.

Her game, though, begins slipping. And when Alex’s game begins slipping, she begins to pay more and more attention to her racial status. She begins hearing what people say about her and more, she begins to think about the lies she tells people, including the black boy she’s met and begins taking a shine to. Where other people regularly say they don’t see her race, Alex begins to understand that’s not necessarily a compliment. Yet she’s not quite sure what to think of herself, either.

Alex begins to spend more time with her black boyfriend’s family, and she begins to really think about blackness as part of her identity. She also discovers, through the aid of her sister, the name of her real father, and she takes it upon herself to drive out and visit him in Michigan — where she’s confronted again with the reality of her black identity. These are situations in which she’s uncomfortable, but they’re ones that force her and the reader to understand that her black identity matters. There’s a particularly moving scene where Alex goes to a black beauty shop for the first time and learns — really learns — how her hair and her looks require a different sort of treatment that she has to learn for herself. But more, what this scene reveals is that her white family has to step back and recognize and acknowledge blackness as a part of her identity, too.

This fast-paced, shorter novel packs a punch. Transracial adoption, black identity, baseball, and romance all play a part in the story, but they’re not the whole of Alex’s story. This slice-of-life story will resonate with so many readers, including more reluctant ones, so make sure you find space on your shelf for it and more, make sure this is the kind of book you’re promoting and book talking with readers. There is much to dig into here, and it’s timely, relevant, and more, it’s timeless. Gibney doesn’t offer a time period setting in this one, though as a reader, I found it to be set in the late 90s or early 00s, simply because of a lack of technology/access to technology. But that lack of true time setting is a benefit to the story, as it furthers the themes as ones that always resonate.

Pair this book with Renee Watson’s This Side of Home. They’d make for outstanding conversation about race, identity, and family. Hannah Gomez wrote in depth about this title over on her blog, and because she can talk about things I cannot in terms of experience, I highly recommend reading her take on this book, too (it’s positive!).

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This Week at Book Riot

 

Over on Book Riot this week…

Tips for how you can take a readcation (…and why you should!)

 

This week’s “3 on a YA theme” is on the really fascinating microtrend right now of dream fantasies.

 

And a round-up of what singer-songwriter and all around cool dude Matt Nathanson is reading.

 

Last week, I was also interviewed for this really fantastic article about why we love to hate on the things teen girls enjoy. Check it out.

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Slasher Girls and Monster Boys edited by April Genevieve Tucholke

I’m not normally someone who seeks out short story collections. Often professional reviews will say of them something like “There’s not a bad story in the bunch,” and then I’ll read the anthology for myself and think “You, ma’am, were incorrect.” But this collection of mostly horror stories? There really isn’t a bad story in it. Each of them is inspired by one or more books or films (Frankenstein, Nosferatu, The Birds, Psycho, etc.), and it’s a lot of fun to spot these influences while reading. There were some stories I didn’t love, but they’re all worth reading, and some of them will make you want to sleep with the lights on. I listened to the audiobook version, which is really well-done, though some of the narrators (there are a handful, each gets 2-3 stories) are frustratingly slow talkers, so I actually sped them up to 1.25 times their normal speed and it sounded much more normal for me.

A few of the standouts for me were:

The Birds of Azalea Street by Nova Ren Suma

This is the first story, and it helps set the tone for the whole collection. It features Nova Ren Suma’s distinctive voice and atmospheric writing while tackling how teen girls are taken advantage of and gaslighted by the adults around them, a theme that will recur in later stories. It’s creepy and character-driven, the latter of which can be really tough to do in short stories and is therefore extra impressive to me when done well.

In the Forest Dark and Deep by Carrie Ryan

Ryan mines Alice in Wonderland, showing that it really should have been a horror story from the start. You won’t think about the white rabbit in the same way ever again. This is one of the creepiest of the lot (not gruesome, but very creepy), which is saying something.

Hide and Seek by Megan Shepherd

Shepherd’s story could be described as being the most “high concept.” A girl is murdered by her stepfather, then makes a deal with Death’s representative to win her life back: she’ll play a game of hide and seek with Death for 24 hours. If she wins, she lives, and all collateral damage is undone. If she loses, she remains dead, and all collateral damage remains. This makes for a really suspenseful tale, and Shepherd manages to infuse it with interesting characters who I’d like to get to know better in longer stories. The ending is perfect, too – clever and satisfying.

Sleepless by Jay Kristoff

Kristoff’s influence of the movie Psycho is obvious right off the bat, and intuitive readers will spot both twists in Kristoff’s tale, but it’s so well-told that it won’t matter. In fact, I expect many readers will race through the pages with bated breath, eager to be proven right and see how it all plays out. Along with Shepherd’s, this may be my favorite story of the whole collection: it plays with a number of pop culture influences in really fun ways, features a strong revenge plotline, and is just the right combination of creepy (we get inside the head of a really twisted individual, but just how twisted he is takes time to learn) and suspenseful. The beginning of the story includes a lot of online conversations, which are a bit odd to hear narrated (“smiley face”) and probably work better on the page.

Stitches by A. G. Howard

Howard gives us the most gruesome story, in my mind. I wasn’t wild about the narrator, who was a little too monotone for my taste, but Howard’s story – heavily influenced by Frankenstein, but in a really different way – still shines. Every few months, a girl slices off a part of her father’s body with his permission – an arm, an ear, and so on – and gives it to a collector, who provides them with an alternate piece from another body to reattach. The reason behind this is teased out over the course of the story, and it’s both shocking and makes perfect sense within the framework Howard has created. Howard doesn’t shy away from describing what it’s like for the girl to dismember her father, making this a story not for the faint of heart. If you can get past the gruesomeness (or seek it out!), this one should be a favorite.

Less impressive to me were Jonathan Maberry’s Fat Girl With a Knife, which was too similar to other zombie stories I’ve read before, and M by Stefan Bachmann, a murder mystery that’s serviceable but pales in comparison to the others in tone and atmosphere. Still, these two weaker stories are better than a great number of other short stories in similar collections, and everything else in the anthology is even better. Truly, there’s not a bad story here.

Audiobook borrowed from my local library.

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Cover Talk: Title as Landscape

One of my favorite ways to see a title showcased on a book cover is when it’s made a part of the cover’s landscape. Perhaps the character interacts with it in some way, or it makes up part of the building. There are a lot of covers where the character writes the title in pen or crayon or lipstick so I’ve left those off this list, but I thought it would be fun to round up a few others I’ve seen recently (within the past three years). What others have you spotted that you find striking?

Deceptive by Emily Lloyd-Jones

When immune Americans–those having acquired powers after receiving an experimental vaccine–begin to disappear in great numbers but seemingly at random, unrest spreads across the country and super-powered teens Ciere, Daniel, and Devon find themselves working together to find the truth. [description via WorldCat]

Illusive by Emily Lloyd-Jones

After a vaccine accidentally creates superpowers in a small percentage of the population, seventeen-year-old Ciere, an illusionist, teams up with a group of fellow high-class, super-powered thieves to steal the vaccine’s formula while staying one step ahead of mobsters and deadly government agents. [description via WorldCat]

Winterkill by Kate Boorman

When the revered leader of her settlement, a dark, isolated land with merciless winters and puritanical rulers, asks Emmeline for her hand it is a rare opportunity, but not only does she love another man, she cannot ignore dreams that urge her into the dangerous and forbidden woods that took her grandmother’s life and her family’s reputation. [description via WorldCat]

The Way to Game the Walk of Shame by Jenn P. Nguyen (2016)

Taylor Simmons is screwed. Things were hard enough when her single-minded dedication to her studies earned her the reputation of being an Ice Queen, but after getting drunk at a party and waking up next to bad boy surfer Evan McKinley, the entire school seems intent on tearing Taylor down with mockery and gossip. Desperate to salvage her reputation, Taylor persuades Evan to pretend they’re in a serious romantic relationship. After all, it’s better to be the girl who tames the wild surfer than just another notch on his surfboard. [description via Goodreads]

The Third Twin by C. J. Omololu

Ava and Lexi, high school seniors and identical twins, created an imaginary triplet, Alicia, to date and dump boys but now they are being stalked and impersonated by the sister they invented and their former dates are turning up dead. [description via WorldCat]

Kissing in America by Margo Rabb

In the two years since her father died, sixteen-year-old Eva has found comfort in reading romance novels — 118 of them, to be exact — to dull the pain of her loss that’s still so present. Her romantic fantasies become a reality when she meets Will, who seems to truly understand Eva’s grief. Unfortunately, after Eva falls head-over-heels for him, he picks up and moves to California without any warning. Not wanting to lose the only person who has been able to pull her out of sadness — and, perhaps, her shot at real love — Eva and her best friend, Annie, concoct a plan to travel to the west coast to see Will again. As they road trip across America, Eva and Annie confront the complex truth about love. [description via WorldCat]

I am Princess X by Cherie Priest

Best friends Libby Deaton and May Harper invented Princess X when they were in fifth grade, but when the car Libby is in goes off a bridge, she is presumed dead, and the story came to an end–except now, three years later, Princess X is suddenly everywhere, with a whole underground culture focused on a webcomic, and May believes her friend must be alive. [description via WorldCat]

The Detour by S. A. Bodeen

Seventeen-year-old Livvy Flynn, a bestselling author of YA fiction, is kidnapped by a woman and her apparently manic daughter who have no intention of letting her go. [description via WorldCat]

Hit by Delilah S. Dawson

Near future thriller about a teen forced to become an indentured assassin who has only five days to complete her hit list–with the added complication of her sole ally’s brother being the final assignment. [description via WorldCat]

Strike by Delilah S. Dawson (2016)

Patsy Klein is on the run. With her boyfriend, her dog, and two laptops snatched from a secret agent’s burning trailer, she has nowhere left to go. Except to a meeting of the Citizens for Freedom, the group that claims to be striking back at the new Valor government that turned Patsy into an assassin. But Patsy soon learns that the CFF aren’t necessarily the good guys they claim to be, and now she’s fighting the war she was trying to escape–from the other side. [description via Goodreads]

I’ll Meet You There by Heather Demetrios

Skylar Evans, seventeen, yearns to escape Creek View by attending art school, but after her mother’s job loss puts her dream at risk, a rekindled friendship with Josh, who joined the Marines to get away then lost a leg in Afghanistan, and her job at the Paradise motel lead her to appreciate her home town. [description via WorldCat]

End Times by Anna Schumacher

When life in Detroit becomes too hard to bear, Daphne flees to her Uncle Floyd’s home in Carbon County, Wyoming, but instead of solace she finds tumult as the townsfolk declare that the End Times are here, and she may be the only person who can read the signs and know the truth. [description via WorldCat]

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Stories About Refugees: A YA Reading List

 

I admit a lot of ignorance in regards to the refugee crisis in Syria. I’ve been trying to get a handle on it by reading the news and understanding what, exactly, is going on in that country that is making people flee in ways that are horrifying to even think about, let alone see in images and on video.

In an attempt to get some sort of understanding, I’ve been reading and watching what I can. A couple of the most valuable and insightful pieces I’ve experienced might be useful for others grappling with what’s going on:

 

The Syrian Conflict & The European Refugee Crisis Explained in an Animated Primer

 

Years of Living Dangerously

 

Of course, these pieces are only the beginning and they’re not giving a full picture of the scope. It’s difficult to admit to ignorance, and it’s worse to not know where to begin educating yourself.

One way to delve into the lives and stories of refugees, though, is through fiction. I thought it’d be worthwhile to round-up some of the YA and upper middle grade offerings that highlight refugee stories. While not all refugee stories are the same — and not every issue going on in each country is identical nor even close to similar — the thing that matters most, or at least the part that’s easiest to think, talk about, and grapple with, is the human element. That’s what’s in these stories.

All descriptions are from WorldCat, and I would love any additional suggestions in the comments. I’m sticking to fiction, but feel free to recommend solid non-fiction titles, too. I’d love this to be a valuable resource for YA readers, educators, and librarians who are asked questions or want to highlight these stories today and in the future. Likewise, any worthwhile online resources would be welcome.

 

 

90 Miles to Havana by Enrique Flores-Galbis: When unrest hits the streets of Havana, Cuba, Julian’s parents must make the heartbreaking decision to send him and his two brothers away to Miami via the Pedro Pan operation. But when the boys get to Miami, they are thrust into a world where bullies seem to run rampant and it’s not always clear how best to protect themselves.

 

A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park: When the Sudanese civil war reaches his village in 1985, eleven-year-old Salva becomes separated from his family and must walk with other Dinka tribe members through southern Sudan, Ethiopia, and Kenya in search of safe haven. Based on the life of Salva Dut, who, after emigrating to America in 1996, began a project to dig water wells in Sudan.

 

A Time of Miracles by Anne-Laure Bondoux: In the early 1990s, a boy with a mysterious past and the woman who cares for him endure a five-year journey across the war-torn Caucasus and Europe, weathering hardships and welcoming unforgettable encounters with other refugees searching for a better life.

 

Bamboo People by Mitali Perkins: Two Burmese boys, one a Karenni refugee and the other the son of an imprisoned Burmese doctor, meet in the jungle and in order to survive they must learn to trust each other.

 

The Day of the Pelican by Katherine Paterson: In 1998 when the Kosovo hostilities escalate, thirteen-year-old Meli’s life as an ethnic Albanian, changes forever after her brother escapes his Serbian captors and the entire family flees from one refugee camp to another until they are able to immigrate to America.

 

Deep Sea by Annika Thor: Nearly four years after leaving Vienna to escape the Nazis, Stephie Steiner, now sixteen, and her sister Nellie, eleven, are still living in Sweden, worrying about their parents and striving to succeed in school, and at odds with each other despite their mutual love.

 

 

 

The Good Braider by Terry Farish: Told in spare free verse, the book follows Viola as she survives brutality in war-torn Sudan, makes a perilous journey, lives as a refugee in Egypt, and finally reaches Portland, Maine, where her quest for freedom and security is hampered by memories of past horrors and the traditions her mother and other Sudanese adults hold dear. With unforgettable images, the author’s voice sings out the story of her family’s journey, and tells the universal tale of a young immigrant’s struggle to build a life on the cusp of two cultures. Includes historical facts and a map of Sudan.

 

I Lived On Butterfly Hill by Marjorie Agosin: Eleven-year-old Celeste Marconi is a dreamer, a writer, a collector of words. But then a new whispered word trickles into her life: “Subversives.” Her beloved country of Chile has been taken over by a military dictatorship, and subversives–people considered a threat to the new government–are in increasing danger. Celeste’s doctor-parents must go into hiding to remain safe, and Celeste, heartsick, must say good-bye to them. But the situation continues to worsen. More and more people are “disappearing,” and soon Celeste herself is sent thousands of miles away, all the way to the coast of Maine–where she doesn’t have a single friend or know a word of English. How can she possibly call another country–a country where people eat breakfast out of a box, where the cold grays of winter mirror the fears that envelope her–home? WIll she ever see Chile again? And if she does–what, and who, will she find there?

 

Now Is The Time For Running by Michael Williams: When soldiers attack a small village in Zimbabwe, Deo goes on the run with Innocent, his older, mentally disabled brother, carrying little but a leather soccer ball filled with money, and after facing prejudice, poverty, and tragedy, it is in soccer that Deo finds renewed hope.

 

Out of Nowhere by Maria Padian: Performing community service for pulling a stupid prank against a rival high school, soccer star Tom tutors a Somali refugee with soccer dreams of his own.

 

Sequins, Secrets, and Silver Linings by Sophia Bennett: Three fourteen-year-old friends with very different interests befriend a twelve-year-old Ugandan refugee whose gift for design takes off in the high-fashion world of twenty-first-century London.

 

Shooting Kabul by NH Senzai: Escaping from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan in the summer of 2001, eleven-year-old Fadi and his family immigrate to the San Francisco Bay Area, where Fadi schemes to return to the Pakistani refugee camp where his little sister was accidentally left behind.

 

 

 

 

Tangled Threads by Pegi Dietz Shea: After ten years in a refugee camp in Thailand, thirteen-year-old Mai Yang travels to Providence, Rhode Island, where her Americanized cousins introduce her to pizza, shopping, and beer, while her grandmother and new friends keep her connected to her Hmong heritage.

** Readers who want a non-fiction look at Hmong refugee life in America will want to pick up The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down. It’s an adult read but it should have teen appeal.

 

The Milk of Birds by Sylvia Whitman: When a nonprofit organization called Save the Girls pairs a fourteen-year-old Sudanese refugee with an American teenager from Richmond, Virginia, the pen pals teach each other compassion and share a bond that bridges two continents.

 

The Red Pencil by Andrea Davis Pinkney: After her tribal village is attacked by militants, Amira, a young Sudanese girl, must flee to safety at a refugee camp, where she finds hope and the chance to pursue an education in the form of a single red pencil and the friendship and encouragement of a wise elder

 

Trouble by Gary D. Schmidt: Fourteen-year-old Henry, wishing to honor his brother Franklin’s dying wish, sets out to hike Maine’s Mount Katahdin with his best friend and dog. But fate adds another companion–the Cambodian refugee accused of fatally injuring Franklin–and reveals troubles that predate the accident.

 

Where I Belong by Gillian Cross: Thirteen-year-old Khadija, a Somali refugee, becomes a model for a famous fashion designer to help her family back home, while the designer’s daughter Freya and fourteen-year-old Abdi, whose family Khadija lives with in London, try to protect her.

 

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This Week at Book Riot

 

Over at Book Riot this week…

 

77 YA books for your October – December reading lists

 

This week’s 3 On A YA Theme was about 3 YA-related Etsy shops. You can buy me something from them, if you want.

 

Why we need abortion stories in YA, along with a big old reading list.

 

Also this week, Elisa Zied interviewed me about fatness and body issues in YA lit.

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Maintaining Privacy and Safety Online: Tips & Tools To Use

Last fall, I shared 7 tips for maintaining your safety online. That post was really well-received and made its way onto BlogHer. Because this has become a topic I’ve fixated on over the last year as my own work has become much more public online, I thought it’d be worth revisiting and offering up another series of easy-to-implement things you can do to protect your privacy and safety online.

First and foremost, I need to recommend a book:

Violet Blue’s The Smart Girl’s Guide to Privacy was recommended to me by numerous people and I’m really glad I bought it. Swapna talked about it over on Panels, and I echo her sentiments: this is a book that anyone who does work on the internet or invests in social media on the internet needs to read. While it’s geared toward women, anyone can walk away with really valuable tips and tricks. There’s a privacy checklist in here that I plan on revisiting on a regular basis to ensure that things don’t slip under my radar. The checklist, as well as other tools and resources, are available on Blue’s tumblr, too.

Many of the following tips, tricks, and tools I am going to recommend came up as I worked through her book. I discovered and tried a lot of these on my own with solid results, based on what Blue suggested checking for. In other words, she suggested paying attention to what you’re allowing on your Twitter timeline, and I tried out a handful of tools to see what worked best for me and my level of comfort. So, your mileage may vary, depending on your needs, but these were all good bets for me.

You are absolutely welcome to share this, print it, whatever you want. I appreciate credit, but it’s not required. These are simple things you can spend 10 minutes doing and I highly recommend not only doing them for yourself, but recommending these things to others looking for help being more private and safe online.

A Quick & Dirty Primer to Safety and Privacy Online

 

Get Out of People Finder Websites: Opt out of things like Spokeo. Search ALL of your names and nicknames, including maiden names or full names if you go by initials, and pull them all out. Look up all of the places you’ve lived before and cross check. You can opt out of Spokeo here: http://www.spokeo.com/opt_out/new. Do this with as many people finder sites as possible. I found myself listed under multiple states, under multiple names, and I pulled it all off. The process takes about a day, but then it’s gone. 

 

Make a Burner Phone Number to Give Out: Created a Google Voice phone number. This is free. You can forward it to your real phone. Perhaps you want to pick a number no where near where you live. I made one for a large metropolitan area and it will forward to my real phone. I’m comfortable sharing this one online. Bonus: doing this will save you from those inane sites or apps which require a phone number or which use your phone number for innumerable data mining reasons. 

 

Make a Burner Email To Give Out: Set up a burner email account. You can forward it to your real inbox. I created burner emails for Kimberly and I to have individually through our domain, but we share an inbox for Stacked, too. Anything worthy of our real email addresses we’ll reply to from them. This makes me feel good giving out my email on social media, to enter contests, to sign up for anything. Basically, anyone you don’t want having your direct line, give them this. 

 

Your Address: Get a PO Box. I noted this last year, but it’s become incredibly worthwhile this year, as it’s cheap and let me give an address out to people and places without ever feeling insecure. PO Boxes are tax deductible if used for business (freelance writing counts!). Check with your post office for forwarding options, as sometimes you can set up a PO box to come to your home. Also, you can, I believe, set up a PO box in a town you don’t live in.   

 

Check Who Has Your Address: If you own a domain, especially through a place like GoDaddy, your address is out there. A quick Google search for me turned up all of my information very publicly. Change the WHOIS info for domains registered to you to include as little identifying info as possible — this is where a burner phone number, a burner email, and a PO Box are invaluable. Do the same thing with TinyLetter (which will publish the address you enter at the bottom of each email, so make sure it’s your PO Box), MailChimp, or anything else that requires a public-facing mailing address. GoDaddy will let you pay a fee to keep this information totally private, too, if that’s preferable.

 

Deep Dive On Google/Yahoo/Other Search Engines: Google your phone number, address, date of birth, social security number, screen names, logins, and email address — with multiple variations. See where these things are and ask for them to be removed where possible. If you can, delete as many comments on blogs or websites with that information as possible. In the earlier days of blogging, many required an email address in the comments to be entered into contests. Go back and delete those comments. You’ll also want to do a Google image search of these same bits of personal information and remove anything you don’t like or aren’t comfortable with people having. Delete any social media profiles you no longer use or want available, too. You’d be surprised what pops up. 

 

Create Multiple User Names: If you have accounts around on different sites or social media and you want to keep some things private/unfindable, have multiple user names. My Etsy user name, for example, has nothing to do with my name or the user name catagator, which I use in most places. I don’t want people finding me on there because it’s none of their business what I’m buying or looking at. You don’t owe people your information, even if you love them and trust them. Sometimes it’s your business and yours alone.

 

Unsubscribe From Email Lists: The best thing I did for myself over the last year or so was unsubscribe from every pesky email list I don’t want to be part of. Why do I need eight emails a week from my eye car provider? Why do I need eight emails a day from B&N telling me about deals? Why am I on some publisher’s email list that I don’t care about? Unsubscribe when anything pops into your inbox you don’t want or don’t care about shows up. Those companies are profiting by having your information and giving you little or nothing in return. After doing this, I no longer struggle with my inbox. I used to wake up in the morning to 40 or 50 emails, but now, I wake up to 4 or 5 at most, and they’re almost always things I need to take care of or from people I want to talk with. If you can’t part with some of these lists, use your burner account for them!

 

Tape Over Your Computer Camera: This one is straight from Blue’s book. She has good reasoning behind this, as cameras can be hacked quite easily. If you need to use your computer’s camera, you can simply untape it. I used a small piece of a post-it note and taped over that, which will keep the lens from getting sticky.

 

Use A Blocking Tool on Twitter: Go beyond Twitter’s blocking. Use a tool like BlockTogether, which lets you create block lists and share them with other people. This is useful if, for example, you blog with many people and you all deal with spam periodically. You can share the block lists and save time. This is free. You can also use it to set up parameters on blocking — so you can have young Twitter accounts blocked, those who have Tweeted fewer than X-times, etc. You can go through and unblock anyone who falls into these block parameters because sometimes you accidentally block someone who you don’t mean to block. 

 

Delete Old Tweets: There’s a great tool out there called Tweet Deleter which you can use to bulk delete your Tweets. You pay $15 a month, but you can cancel after one month if you do this smartly. When you pay the $15, you’ll upload your Twitter archive, and you can search it, choosing tweets to block. You can delete entire months or entire years — don’t want people to find your Tweets from 2009? Delete them all. Do a search for any info you don’t want public, like emails, town names, family member info, etc. This does auto-renew, so remember to cancel the service when you feel comfortable.

 

Remove Fake Followers: Neat thing I learned, and by neat, I mean, annoying — you can get follow spammed on Twitter. Someone can pay to have hundreds or thousands of fake Twitter accounts follow you; this looks fishy on Twitter’s end, and when they think you’re paying for followers, they will block your account. I recommend seeking out and blocking fake accounts following you on Twitter. Pay $15 for https://fakers.statuspeople.com/ to delete all of the fake followers you have. This doesn’t auto-renew, so keep it just for a month.

 

Check Privacy Settings Everywhere: Go through all of your social media accounts and make things private where you can and completely delete the apps from which you can’t rid yourself of public-facing information you don’t want public. You don’t NEED LinkedIn if you don’t want it. Same with Pinterest or any other social media account. Check Twitter’s privacy settings to see what apps have access to your account and make sure you’re okay with what they have access to. Revoke as needed. I ended up deleting LinkedIn because it was spam most of the time, but more importantly, it did not let me delete some information I REALLY wanted deleted. So, I just got rid of the whole thing. If I need it again in the future, I’ll make a new one. 

 

Make Yourself Unsearchable On Facebook and Check Facebook Privacy Settings Everywhere: Change your Facebook name if you don’t want to be searchable. You need a real name, but you can shorten your real name or use a first and middle name only. To adjust your Facebook privacy settings, go to the dropdown menu on the upper-right corner. Select “privacy.” Under “Who can see my future posts?” select Friends or Friends Except Aquaintances. Next to “Review all your posts and things you’re tagged in,” select “Use Activity Log” and remove any posts where you’re tagged and don’t want to be. Under “limit the audience for posts you’ve shared…” select Limit Past Posts so your past posts are no longer public. Go through each other setting and select the option best for you, and check back in once per quarter because FB’s privacy settings change often.

 

Don’t Be Location-Enabled: Turn off ALL location-enabled options in all social media. If you don’t care, someone you may be with might care. Do it for their privacy if not your own. Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and other places do this for you — take away their ability to know where you are. I keep nothing on location except one private account for me which tracks my walking (and which I would never share with anyone, even people I know and love). 

 

Audit Your Social Media Photos and Locations: Go back through your Instagram feed and remove any pictures that give clues to where you live (neighborhood signs, street signs, your mailbox, house number, etc.) or that include the license plate on your car. You’ll be surprised how often your car sneaks into pictures you’re trying to take of snow or your kids playing outside. *This tip came from someone else and isn’t mine, but it’s fitting with the ones above, so I’m leaving it! 

 

Any other tips you’d add to these or the ones linked to in the post from last year? I’d love to hear them and share them with readers who are interested.

One of the things Violet Blue says over and over in her book and I want to reiterate here is: once you start doing this, you might find yourself overwhelmed and freaked out. This isn’t bad — it means you now know what you can do to make it stop, right now.

 

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More Cybils Suggestions

The nomination period for the Cybils official started on October 1, and as of the writing of this post, YA speculative fiction has 69 eligible entries. Many of the titles I hoped would be nominated have been, so naturally, I’ve come up with another list in case you haven’t nominated a title yet. Won’t you help give me and my fellow panelists yet more reading material to deprive us all of necessary sleep? Nominations close October 15.

The Girl at the Center of the World by Austin Aslan
The Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard
Dove Arising by Karen Bao
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
An Inheritance of Ashes by Leah Bobet
Stone in the Sky by Cecil Castellucci
Need by Joelle Charbonneau
Nearly Found by Elle Cosimano
Death Marked by Leah Cypess
The Hunted by Matt de la Pena
Glittering Shadows by Jaclyn Dolamore
Sound by Alexandra Duncan
Court of Fives by Kate Elliott
The Shadow Behind the Stars by Rebecca Hahn
Magonia by Maria Dahvana Headley
Legacy of Kings by Eleanor Herman
Crimson Bound by Rosamund Hodge
The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen by Katherine Howe
Hunter by Mercedes Lackey
Zeroboxer by Fonda Lee
Deceptive by Emily Lloyd-Jones
Daughters Unto Devils by Amy Lukavics
A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
The Orphan Queen by Jodi Meadows
The Heart of Betrayal by Mary E. Pearson
The Winner’s Crime by Marie Rutkoski
The Sin Eater’s Daughter by Melinda Salisbury
Lizard Radio by Pat Schmatz
Spelled by Betsy Schow
Dreamstrider by Lindsay Smith

 

 

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