Want to vote for Teen Read Week's ALA top ten? Want to help your libraries serve you better?

Go here to see Tea Cozy's awesome list of stuff teens can do this week to support libraries and books! And to celebrate them.

Happy Teen Read Week!

In honor of all you librarians who make it happen, I give you this meme from MemeGirls:

1. How old were you when you got your first library card?
Dunno. Probably 7 or 8.
2. What's the first book you can remember reading from a library?
I know I went to the library a lot before this, but I remember getting Fifteen, by Beverly Cleary.

3. Did you ever participate in a summer reading program or other kids' event at a library growing up?
No. But we went pretty regularly, especially when the library was open evenings. We'd go out to dinner afterwards.

4. Do you remember when card catalogues weren't computerized?
Of course.

5. When was the last time you went to the library?
About five days ago.

6. How many books do you usually check out of the library at one time?
Fifteen. Yes.

7. Name one great author you've discovered at your library.
I'd like to name a YA author, but neither of my local libraries has much for teens. One has wiped its teen section entirely, and the other just put its single shelf of teen books in with the adult so no teen can find them. (Brooklyn Public, your main branch is MADE OF AWESOME for teens, so why are my local branches so sparse?)
Anyway - - James Herriot.

8. What was the librarian at your elementary school like?
Hm! Unmemorable, apparently.
But in middle school, I used to work at the library. No memory of the face or name of the librarian, just that he made me feel welcome and useful.

9. How many times a year do you go to the library?
Probably 20.

10. If you could change on thing about your library, what would it be and why?
I would give it a good teen section and a librarian with a YA specialty. There are always teenagers in there doing their homework. But there is no collection for them.

Well, now that I've filled that out, I sound cranky. I LOVE MY LIBRARIES. BOTH OF THEM! AND THE ONE I USE IN THE SUMMER, TOO!
I KNOW FUNDS ARE TIGHT!
Hurrah for libraries. And Teen Read Week.

Are you all going to those Readergirlz chat? I went to Sarah Mlynowksi's the other day and it was fun city.

Today, I'm on the Page 99 test. Which is a cool site.

Happy Teen Read week!
In celebration, I give you Three Evil Cousins -- book reviews by and for teens, of teen books. A really smart site I found via the Westerblog.

I am reading The Mysterious Benedict Society. Which is awesome in all kinds of most incredibly awesome ways. I guess it is technically for younger readers than teens, but I should think any teen would like it.

"There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written."
-Oscar Wilde

Well, I am OUT OF IT and missed Banned Books Week. It was Sept 29-Oct 6. But we can still talk about them, right?
Especially since TEEN READ WEEK is this week, and all too often it's books for young readers than get banned. CHeck out the list of most-banned books, here.

I am going to celebrate by reading Sandpiper, by Ellen Wittlinger, a book which was recently challenged. What are you going to read?

What can you do to protect freedom of speech in our country? You can blog about book banning. You can talk to your friends about it. You can go to the library at your school.
Talk to the librarian.
Tell that librarian you're interested in the issue of book banning, and ask if he or she has any stories to tell about books being banned in your community. Then ask that librarian to recommend something good to read, banned or un-.
Librarians love this.
It's their job. They won't mind.

This is my fave banned books week poster, made by Literaticat of Not Your Mother's Book Club for when Chris Crutcher came to talk at Books Inc.

A number of quick things:

1. You are invited to the New York Public Library's first ever Children's and Young Adult Literature Cafe!
When : Saturday, October 27 @ 2pm
Where : Donnell Library Center's Central Children's Room
2nd floor of the Donnell Library Center
20 West 53rd Street
New York, NY 10019
More at Fuse # 8, where I heard about this thing.

2. Today I spoke to the NYC Dept of Ed librarians at their conference. They were a wonderful audience. And I got to hear Patricia McCormick speak about writing Sold (amazing and inspring and also heartbreaking) and Katherine Marsh speak about writing THe Night Tourist, which is sitting on my bedside table now!
So aside from the fact that I BARFED on the way to the lecture (TMI, I know, but it was quite a drama!) and was actually quite lucky that my dress was still clean when I got there, it was a great morning.

3. The paperback of Fly on the Wall arrived today! It looks like this and comes out in November:

Go here to read an excerpt. Go here to read some reviews.

4. I went to Sarah Mlynowski's Readergirlz chat last night and it was so fun! You can totally do the chat and send email and IM and probably do your homework at the same time. More details here. And you can read previous chats on Readergirlz -- Meg Cabot, Cecil Castelluci, Ann Brashares and more!. I'll be there Oct 24th, a little after 8 pm Eastern.

5. Via Zee Says, which has posts about all the nominated books that you librarians and teens can make use of -- Vote for the teens top ten books this year! (Also -- website is way less boring for this than it was last year. Yay!)
You can vote starting Oct 14.
Here are last year's winners. I have read 7 and a half of them and this list is really an awesome place to start if you're not sure what to read.

1. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling (Scholastic Press, 2005).

2. Twilight by Stephanie Meyer (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2005).

3. Eldest by Christopher Paolini (Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2005).

4. Rebel Angels by Libba Bray (Delacorte Press, 2005).

5. Peeps by Scott Westerfeld (Razorbill, 2005).

6. 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson (HarperCollins Children’s Books, 2005).

7. Poison by Chris Wooding (Orchard Books, 2005).

8. Captain Hook: The Adventures of a Notorious Youth by J.V. Hart (Laura Geringer Books, 2005).

9. If I Have a Wicked Stepmother, Where’s My Prince? by Melissa Kantor (Hyperion Books for Children, 2005).

10. Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin (Farrar, Straus and Giroux Books for Young Readers,

I have two friends who are finalists for the National Book Award! I can't believe it!!
Congratulations to Brian O. Selznick for The Invention of Hugo Cabret and Sara Zarr for Story of a Girl. Both are amazing books and you should go read them now.

(In case you think my life is glamorous, today I also sat in cat barf)

Reminder: The Readergirlz celebration chatstravaganza is up and running. Come chat with your favorite authors.

John Green. Deb Caletti. Ann Brashares. Chris Crutcher. Mitali Perkins. And more more more. Really, such a cool thing.

I'll be chatting on October 24th at the readergirlz group forum about Dramarama, The Boyfriend List, How to Be Bad, Disreputable History, whatever else! Ask me, and I'll answer.

8:30 PM eastern, 5:30 pacific for ME, 8 pm for everyone else
(I had a little scheduling conflict)

It's all on MySpace. Just friend ReaderGirlz and their group forum (you have to do both!) -- and then every SINGLE NIGHT IN OCTOBER, you can chat with a different teen author. It's a celebration of
YALSA's Teen Read Week.

Here are the dates coming up, and the amazing list of writers:

October 7. Ellen Hopkins
8.Justina Chen Headley
9. Chris Crutcher
10. Ann Brashares
11. Sarah Mlynowski
12.Cecil Castellucci
13.Kirby Larson
14.Tanya Lee Stone
15. John Green
16. Sara Zarr
17. Deb Caletti
18. Rachel Cohn
19. Kirsten Miller
20. Mitali Perkins

Now, it's not SUPER obvious what to do, so this is it:
Go to readergirlz group on myspace, once YOU are signed in to myspace. (remember, make sure you have followed the instructions above re: friending and joining readergirlz).

At the readergirlz group site, scroll past the Welcome and Member faces down to the forum.
Find the thread for or the date and name of whatever other author you are checking out) and double-click it.
At 5:00 PDT / 8:00 EDT, the chat starts. You can post questions and the writer will answer them. To see the answers, return to the forum and refresh.

Cecil Castelluci author of Plain Janes, Beige, Boy Proof and Queen of Cool, read my post below about the David Sedaris essay and the Macy's elves getting it on together and being all men, and she emailed me to remind me that there are girl elves at Macy's.

Yes. It was just that the getting together in the Sedaris essay was all male elves.
Hopefully it is clear now.

How does Cecil know about the elves?
She was an elf! She was an elf at Macy's!
She did not get friendly with any other elves, she says.

Go read her books now.

Via Fuse #8: an article on assigned reading for teenagers and how it sucks.
I was interested that she suggested Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris as assigned reading instead. In the Macy's elf essay, Sedaris flunks his drug test! The Christmas elves get it on with another and they're all men! And it's been a while since I read it, but the language can't be clean. Sedaris swears like seven sailors rolled into one.

I LOVE THAT ESSAY WITH A MAD PASSION and would indeed give it to a teenager. And I agree that school reading lists give short shrift to comedies that have as much literary value and complexity as more serious books -- and that kids might like reading more if they could laugh more often.
But I am kinda surprised the author thinks it would pass muster with most parent bodies.

And as Roger Sutton points out, what is up with making it seem like Shirley Jackson's ultrafamous short story, "The Lottery" is a YA problem novel?