There is just one more day left in December that will be an homage to the reading and blogging in 2021, but for today I am finishing up the top tens– today graphic novels and manga.
What’s not to love about graphic novels and manga? Whether it’s a standalone or series, the varied abilities and styles of the illustrators and artists are equally matched by the writing of the authors (unless they’re one and the same to which hats-off for talent and skill. All of these titles bring sometimes special to readers from middle schoolers with Huda F Are You? to adults with In Love and Pajamas. There were superheroes and super sleuths, mysteries, and adventures. Plus one adaptation of a wildly successful historical fiction novel with Between Shades of Gray.
The focal point of my reading experience is young adult since I am a high school librarian. As mentioned in yesterday’s post, I am not including any nonfiction in my top ten’s for 2021 because of committee work, but it still left plenty of time to read fabulous young adult fiction. And here they are:
While Lee’s The Nobleman’s Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks is the end of her Montague Siblings series that was postponed from 2020 and an eagerly anticipated title, there are several on the list from 2021 that are becoming or could become series themselves. Gray’s Beasts of Prey has already had a sequel announced (Beasts of Ruin) and one of the first books on my TBR for 2022 is Jean’s Tokyo Dreaming, the sequel to Tokyo Ever After. Sharpe likely has no intention of a second book for The Girls I’ve Been however there was so much to Nora’s story that it could easily have a sequel. Her obstacles were no match for her will to survive, so I would love to know where she goes after the bank heist is over.
Adler’s summer romance Cool for the Summer is as hot as Playing with Fire but for different reasons. The history unpacked in both Moore’s The Perfect Place to Die (about H.H. Holmes’s killing spree) and Williams Garcia’s A Sitting in St. James as sweeping and atmospheric. While the last two not yet discussed– Take Me With You When You Go and Me (Moth) are centered around a relationship between two characters: siblings and strangers, respectively that unfurl deep-rooted connections which wreck readers by the end.
A fellow librarian colleague, Stacey Rattner, who I’ve mentioned in the past and I presented last month about how our reading lives as librarians affect our students’ reading lives. We asked questions to think-pair-share about and then coupled them with reading recommendations.
During one of these sections, we talked about having time/making time to read and Stacey shared that I read during my lunch period. Yes. Every day I read during my lunch period. Other than when my intern and I were eating together this fall or if I can’t take my lunch for some reason, you’ll find me with my feet on the opposite chair, eating my snack, and reading. And it was recently reinforced when I was listening to the audiobook Do Nothing: How to Break Away From Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving by Celeste Headlee that what I’m doing has work and personal benefits similar to this BBC article from 2019 that also references how brain breaks at work lead to happier employees and feelings of productivity. I didn’t start doing this because of these reinforcing studies, I did it because I knew it would help me detach for a brief time in the middle of the day and do something I loved. It resets me and I started sharing on my public Instagram my lunch time reading it, using the hashtag #literarylunchbox. They tend to be graphic novels or short nonfiction that I can either read in a period or over a few days.
Here are some of the titles I’ve read recently during my lunch period:
I’m a little biased because over the past year I’ve worked with a group of phenomenal librarians: Ginny, Laura, Laura, Yolanda, Jeana, Mike, Janet, and Rebecca. Together we make up the 2022 Excellence in Nonfiction Award Committee through YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association), a division of the American Library Association. Our charge is to select the best written, researched, presented nonfiction writing targeted toward kids ages 12-18. We read through hundreds of books, nominate the special ones, debate their merits, whittle it down to five finalists, and then by next month, select the winner to be announced at the Youth Media Awards. It’s the most rewarding work. And here are our finalists:
Check out the full release with annotations on YALSA’s website. I’ll sign off so I can go pop a little bubbly that they’re out in the world!
Our school library is always looking for a good collaboration. This collaboration came looking for us. Our local county’s crime victim case manager wanted to see if we could partner on a book study and information session about healthy relationships.
With a few starts and sputters, we got it off the ground with 22 students who were given the book (to keep)– Bad Romance by Heather Demetrios and a donut– and the job to read the book plus eat the donut, and we’d have a discussion and session in February.
The other day one of the boys came in and was ready to return the book saying that he had finished it already and was handing it back in. I reminded him that it’s his book to keep to which he was excited and I said “What did you think? Ready for the discussion in February?” His response was “It’s not my usual kind of reading, but I really liked it and yes, there’s a lot to talk about.” Maybe he’s discovered a new category of book to read or maybe it’s the social aspect of the reading that appealed to him, either way, I’d call that a win. I’m counting the days to February to make it a special and informative event for the students (with the added bonus that we might be able to Zoom-in Demetrios for an extra special experience).
Was there a book recently that you finished that you’d say the same thing about?
Today is the second anniversary of my now-thirty nine year old cousin’s heart transplant. I blogged about it here. And I shared a book that I read pretty soon after that called The Man Who Touched His Own Heart: True Tales of Science, Surgery, and Mystery by Rob Dunn. I want to celebrate her two years with a new heart and having her on this planet still.
Plus give a little love to the nonfiction writers out there who blind us with science. I seek out nonfiction regularly for every type of audience from picture books like Tiny Stitches to middle grade like Breakthrough! to young adult like Jane Against the World to adult like Pump. Simply because I’m fascinated by science. I’m in awe of it, the developments over time, and the people who make it happen. I still get a little teary thinking about my LASIK surgery in October, correcting my fairly horrible eyesight (since fifth grade) in the matter of 15 minutes. I think about our school’s valedictorian last year who was going to become a surgineer– she didn’t want to *just* be a surgeon but she wanted to design the robots that aided in that surgery, the engineer too.
Cheers to STEM and the books that explain it to those who love reading about it.
Last night I couldn’t contain my elation. Being the chairperson of the 2022 Excellence in Nonfiction Award for the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) underneath the American Library Association (ALA) has been rewarding work this year. It was my year to give back having sat on both award and selection committees, so I volunteered to chair. The experience has been the best distraction from an awkward year still in the throes of a pandemic.
Then last night we deliberated on our five finalists that will be announced in a press release next week. By 7:15pm EST time we had our finalists. We signed off the call and I high-fived my family.
Reading is one of the benefits of the committee work (of which I’m a confirmed bookworm) but the other is networking with other professionals in the field: our committee is a mix of public and school as well as academic librarians literally spanning the country. Their contributions to the conversation, their observations, critiques, and evaluations as well as comradery in the experience led to a book high that even after a sleep is still racing through my system. And it will only get more exciting once everyone knows, then when we pick our winner, and the Youth Media Awards are announced at the end of January.
Aren’t breaks for catching up on your TBR pile? Mine wasn’t ridiculously large but I do have the added problem of borrowing books digitally or putting books on hold that come in super quickly even though I really don’t have time to read them. Additionally, my committee work is coming to an end which means a lot of the prescribed reading I’ve had to do all year is now petering out and I have more room for all the extras.
And Ruta Sepetys’ new book coming out in February was just that book I got my hands on this month. Not only did I have the pleasure of being able to read an advanced copy, within days I was assigned it to review for a professional library magazine. So I am not going to go into great detail with a review because that will be published shortly in School Library Journal, but know that it’s my Outstanding Book of the Month for November for a reason– ’nuff said.
It’s been a long month, but October for educators is akin to March in many ways.
As my secret reading (reading for a committee which I cannot share) ramps up, I was still able to sneak in some books that do not fit the committee’s profile to pick my outstanding book of the month. And you know how I like to cheat. This month’s outstanding book is actually a trio, part of a series written by Kami Garcia and illustrated by Gabriel Picolo.
Their Teen Titans graphic novels will see the release of Robin some time in 2022, but until then I dove into the first, Raven, the second, Beast Boy, and the third, Beast Boy Loves Raven within days of one another via Hoopla where you never have to wait! And maybe that adds to the excitement but I also recognize that these three so far are written beautifully in both the dialogue and narrative and Picolo’s illustrations compliment it with vivid colors and exquisitely drawn character, situational, and action scenes which flowed scene by scene.
Meeting Rachel, then Garfield, and then building the suspense to when they meet and discover they both have hidden abilities meant that the stories had to stand on their own but then come together. With a backstory for each character it was easy to move from one to the other and then the meet-cute between the two. It’s as simple and complicated as two veterans can make it, to the celebration of readers.
Today is my sixteenth year in education. Fifteen of them have been right where I am today, as the high school librarian.
I have seen one facelift and one major update with the third around the corner– a completely new space to move in to next fall to the facility. I have had more than a dozen direct supervisors, building principals, and superintendents. With a graduating class hovering around six hundred students, I have likely interacted with close to 9,000 teenagers and hundreds of teachers. And whatever each school year brings, it always circles back to the kids. I saved this post to make on the first day of school, but it’s really a post that could have been shared on the last day of school last year. And it’s been sitting with me all summer long.
The three major subgenres of books that were most circulated last year– specifically reflecting why they were the most circulated as I often do at the end of a calendar year when making “best of” lists or the books most likely to be missing from the shelves and of course, when I’m putting new orders together for purchase.
Yes, we still checked out physical books through the curbside pickup method, the small number of students who were physically in the building, and the handfuls of drive-up to their curbside. And then there was the robust digital offerings. I booktalked until I couldn’t booktalk anymore– Google Meets, 1:1, and in-person.
What were they?
Murder
Romance
Humor
Let’s break this down: the three most asked-for books in the library came down to murder, romance, and humor. And then I say, it was 2020. And you nod your head. Of course!
True crime is prevalent in Netflix series and podcasts, books and casual conversation. It’s a thing. And it’s a thing with our teenagers too. Being home with their families rather than playing team sports and attending school every day, I’m sure there was some level of interest in the subgenre because of these massive shifts in daily business. It’s easy to go to a darker place. And books are nothing if not a reflection of inner thoughts and feelings.
We all needed some love. We missed family gatherings and meeting up with friends. And for teenagers, a whole chunk of their socialization went out the window when schools shut down. Really, all they needed was some love. So can you see how a little romance went a long way?
And humor, there is comfort in the familiar. Yes, we have Diary of a Wimpy Kid in our high school library and no I couldn’t keep them on the shelves. They wanted the escape from the seriousness of the news and the pandemic. They wanted to laugh. And who can blame them?
I will remember this past school year because it was the year I lost my co-librarian for the majority of the school year to budget cuts and had to manage alone. It was isolating because staff were scattered and hunkered in their rooms talking to computer screens. But I still saw kids each day and I will remember that all they wanted were some books and those books had to do with murder, romance, or humor. And I replied, well then I’ve got a book for you…
Readers Be Advised 