In this column at School Library Journal, school librarian Diantha McBride says:

I’m afraid this won’t be popular, but I need more books for boys—as do most librarians who work with young people. I’ve noticed that lots of books with female characters aren’t really about being female. In fact, in many cases, the main characters could just as easily have been males—and that would make my job a lot easier.

The part of McBride’s statement rankles me most is this:

I’ve noticed that lots of books with female characters aren’t really about being female.

I feel that her conclusion that since the books aren’t about being female, they should have boy main characters, suggests that books with female main characters should be about uniquely female experiences.  Certainly there are many experiences unique to females, and those need addressing.  But can you imagine if every book with a female main character was about that?  I would get so bored so quickly.  I would probably refuse to read books with female main characters then, too.

Books about members of marginalized groups should not have to be about experiences unique to only those groups.  I’m reading David Levithan’s Boy Meets Boy right now, and I love how even though Paul is gay and the book is about his romantic relationship with another young man, the exploration of that relationship is by no means limited to aspects that are unique only to individuals in same-sex/gender relationships.  It is an exploration of universal experiences that could happen to anyone at the beginning of a new relationship, regardless of any specific characteristics of the people in that relationship.

Does that mean I think that no books should be about experiences unique to a marginalized group?  Of course not.  It’s important to acknowledge experiences and challenges unique to members of certain groups; to ignore those would be to act as if we live in a world where everyone is always treated equally and lives the same life.  But to insist that being a member of a group means you must be defined only by membership in that group is absurd.

Photo by Foxtongue.

From Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast:

As a reminder, 7-Imp’s 7 Kicks is our weekly meeting ground for taking some time to reflect on Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things from the past week, whether book-related or not, that happened to you.

Here are mine:

1. I had a lovely wedding, on the beach, with beautiful weather and good company and delicious food and it was beautiful.

2. That was followed by a lovely (and cheap!) honeymoon. We stayed at my husband’s (oh that’s weird to say) family’s beach condo, and his moms (he has two, the one that gave birth to him and the one his dad married later) had left us a beautiful gift basket, a refrigerator full of fancy food, and some wine and sparkling cider.

3. The return trip home was easy.

4. Sad is that my mom hurt her back a few weeks ago, but the good that came of it was that it meant she, my brother, and my dad spent some extra time here in town waiting for her to be ready to travel (and giving her a chance to see her old chiropractor a few times).

5. A friend dropped by Thursday to pick up a script and then when I spontaneously invited him to come to lunch with my family and myself, he said yes. He hadn’t seen my family since before they moved away, so it was nice for them to get together with him.

6. My sister, who was away on an internship for six months, is back in town and we’ve been spending boatloads of time together and bonded over a shared love for Project Runway.

7. The show I’m rehearsing is a very brief ensemble piece. We get through the work we’ve set aside for rehearsal pretty quickly, and then we spend time after that just sitting around bonding, which I think is important for building chemistry.

Bonus Kick: Little Willow put up my Art Saves contribution!

I’m currently working on a production called I Hate Shakespeare.  It runs through quite a few of Shakespeare’s most famous plays, and then some of the lesser known ones as well, poking fun at them (and at people who claim to hate Shakespeare, actually).

My favorite part of the show is the "Zombie Theatre Presents…" segments, when zombies interrupt famous soliloquies.

The first of these is from Richard III, and I present it to you here, with some zombie stuff added at the end so you can get a feel for it.

Today I have reviews of two books for you.

Lessons from a Dead Girl by Jo Knowles

When Laine's mother tells her that Leah Greene is dead, she can't help but feel that it's a little bit her fault. After all, she did wish for it. Each time Laine's mother says Leah's name, Leah is pulled back to a memory of an earlier time with Leah, of "Lessons" Leah gave her in what friendship is about. This first novel by freelance non-fiction writer Jo Knowles tells a tale about childhood loneliness and the abuse one child can perpetuate on another. I read it in two sittings, and I would've read it in one but I started it late at night and was just too sleepy to pay attention - and I didn't want to miss anything.

What I appreciate most about Lessons from a Dead Girl is that it gives us real people in all of the characters. Leah Greene is a popular girl, and it would be easy for an author to let her be one-dimensional. Jo Knowles gives us another perspective, demonstrating what I think can be one of life's greatest lessons, especially for adolescents: that everyone has problems, and no one acts entirely without reason.

With Lessons, Jo Knowles makes a strong debut. I look forward to her next book, Jumping Off Swings, to be released on August 11 of this year.

Book: Lessons from a Dead Girl
Author: Jo Knowles
Publisher: Candlewick
Original Publication Date: October 9, 2007
Pages: 224
Age Range:  Young Adult
Source of Book: Publisher
Related Links: My Interview with Jo Knowles
Buy it [Affiliate Links]: IndieBound - Powell's

Goy Crazy by Melissa Schorr

It's lust at first sight when Rachel Lowenstein meets Luke Christiansen, a waiter at her brother's bar mitzvah.  Luke is tall, blond, and decidedly not Jewish.  She desperately wants to date him, but she knows her parents won't approve.  Can she turn her back on her faith and her culture for a cute boy?

Goy Crazy is a charming romantic comedy that addresses coming of age issues common to all teens.  Rachel feels constantly in conflict with her parents.  She's been a good girl her whole life and she's sick of it.  So she decides that her sophomore year of high school, she will be a bit naughty, and she'll start by pursuing a boy from the wrong religion.

 I would recommend Goy Crazy to anyone looking for a fun read that is not so light as to be mindless, but is very clever and uplifting.  It does rom-com right: there's the wrong boy who seems so right, the boy her parents prefer who is not at all what she wants, and the realization Rachel makes that the people she knows aren't necessarily the people they seem to be.  It's a good time, and summer would be a great time to pick it up and take it to the beach with you, but it'll hold up any time of year.

Book: Goy Crazy
Author: Melissa Schorr
Publisher: Hyperion Books for Children
Original Publication Date: August 22, 2006
Pages: 352
Age Range: Young Adult
Source of Book: Author
Buy it [Affiliate Links]: IndieBound - Powell's

I’m getting married on Wednesday.  (Yes, that soon, and on a weekday.  It turns out when your in-laws are professional musicians, weekdays work better for them.)

So I thought I’d share with you the poem that my father will be reading during the ceremony.

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly
beyond any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

And the poem from which we have quotes inscribed in our wedding bands:

love’s the i guess most only verb that lives
(her tense beginning,and her mood unend)
from brightly which arise all adjectives
and all into whom darkly nouns descend

Happy Friday!  I’ll be spending mine on wedding tasks, seeing Harry Potter, and having dinner with my friends in honor of my recently-past birthday.

Photo by Frenkieb.

For my purposes, the term "kidlit" includes young adult literature as well.

For many reasons, I’m looking to become more active in the kidlit community.  I know who the major blog players are.  I’m a member of the Kidlitosphere listserv.  I’m also a member of Child_Lit.  I’m just wondering if there’s anywhere I’m missing where really great conversations are going on.

Suggestions, anyone?

Photo by Vimages.

Today is my birthday (yay!) and I’m going to give you the gift of some posts from other bloggers that I think you might find especially interesting. Are you ready? Here goes!

How to Get Over Writer’s Block Sonja asked her Twitter followers for advice and they gave her many and various answers, which she then compiled in this post for your reading pleasure.

Literature on the Web cloudscome shares a list of resources she developed for her collection development class in library school. So many resources!

Important News for Bloggers MotherReader provides links to three different articles about how the FTC is planning to begin regulating blogs. This especially affects those of us who receive review copies or use affiliate links in our blogs.

Naming Names Melissa Wyatt shares how she arrived at the names for several of her characters. Fun insight into an author’s thought processes.

Enjoy!

Photo by D. Sharon Pruitt.

We in the Kidlitosphere are probably queens and kings of book clutter. I think I must have fifteen boxes of books in my attic, and the few shelves I have available are always overcrowded. It runs in the family; I recently visited my parents’ new home in Ohio and found piles of books everywhere, waiting for new shelves to arrive.

Most of us would probably find we have a tendency to acquire books which then sit around for years and years, never having been read or read once and then never touched again. I’ve recently decided to release my book clutter, and I thought I’d share with you the blog posts that have helped me through the process.

• Bringing your bookshelves back to order discusses how to decide which books to keep.
• 20 Ways to Get Free or Cheap Books, and Give Away Your Old Ones is an excellent list post, and helped me with my dilemma of what to do with ARCs. (I list them on BookMooch and just put in the notes that they are uncorrected proofs. Voila! The books aren't destroyed, but they're not sold/donated in the place of actual finished copies.)
• Read a book and pass it on contains a list of six questions to ask yourself upon finishing a book to help you determine if it's worth holding on to.
• Get rid of that library of clutter lists a few non-profit organizations that would be happy to have your donations.
• How to use Powell's Books for uncluttering describes one blog reader's experience selling her book clutter to Powell's.

Happy decluttering!

I just received an email from my advisor/YA Lit professor with a list for what we’ll be reading this semester.  It’s at least a few books a week (so I’ll be achieving Jo Knowles’s recommended amount!).

Here’s the list with my notations:

Levithan, David. Boy Meets Boy.
Cormier, Robert. The Chocolate War. - Own it, haven’t read it.  (Bought it at a library sale.)
Head, Ann. Mr. And Mrs. Bo Jo Jones.
Lipsyte, Robert. The Contender.
Hinton, S.E. The Outsiders. - Read it in middle or high school.
Anderson, Laurie Halse.  Winter Girls.
Frank, E.R. America.
Johnson, Angela.  First Part Last.
Dessen, Sarah. This Lullaby. - Sarah Dessen lives in Chapel Hill and I think both of her parents are professors at the university.  (I think her mom, in fact, is a Classics professor who spoke to my students once when I taught in Chapel Hill.)  It’d be cool if, you know, she came to our class.  She probably won’t, though.
Gaiman, Neil and Terry Prachett.  Good Omens. - Read it a few years ago, and I’m pretty sure Will owns it.
Lynch, Chris. Slot Machine.
Zusak, Marcus. The Book Thief
Blundell, Judy.  What I Saw and How I Lied
Nixon, Joan Lowery.  Name of the Game is Murder.
Meyer, Stephenie. Twilight. - Read it a year and a half ago and gave my copy away.  I wish I’d thought to keep it, but I know it won’t be hard to find again.  (I just hope I can get it used instead of new.)
Jones, Diana Wynne.  The Pinhoe Egg.
Westerfeld, Scott. The Uglies. - Read it a little more than 2 years ago, still have it.  It’ll be good to re-read as I never finished the series.
Myers, Walter Dean. Here in Harlem.
Freedman, Russell. Freedom Walkers: The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Helfer, Andrew. Malcolm X: A Graphic Biography.
Pardes, Bronwen. Doing it Right: Making Smart, Safe, and Satisfying Choices about Sex.
Alexie, Sherman. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian.
De la Pena, Matt. Mexican WhiteBoy.
Yang, Gene Luen. American Born Chinese.
Hale, Shannon, Dean Hale and Nathan Hale. Rapunzel’s Revenge.

We also need to keep a journal about these, informal, to refer to during class discussions.  I think my reviewing process here has prepared me really well for that.  Yay!

If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to my feed so you will get my other posts about library school.

Photo by Sister72.

From Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast:

“Welcome to our weekly meeting ground for taking some time to reflect on Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things from the past week, whether book-related or not, that happened to you.”

Here are my kicks, which will cover a couple of weeks:

1. I had last Sunday to recover from what had been a very social weekend, with outings Friday night, Saturday afternoon, and Saturday night.

2. At the Saturday night event (a party/meeting), I was elected an at large member of the board of the Durham Savoyards, one of only two theatre groups with which I’m currently active.

3. I went to Target on Monday and discovered that Frito-Lay offers a “Smart Pack” giant bag which contains 20 small bags of baked snacks. It’s hard to find snacks that are both easy and safe for my sensitive tummy, so this was a big happy.

4. On Tuesday I flew to Cincinnati where I got to spend the evening with my family, including my dad, who left for Boulder on Wednesday.

5. On Wednesday I spent the day with my mom and brother, and had another food-related glee when I discovered oatmeal in tiny packets sweetened only with evaporated cane juice and maple sugar. (Unfortunately it was meijer store brand, and we have no meijer here at home.)

6. On Thursday my mom fitted me for my wedding dress, which she is making. My top and my bottom and my front and my back are all different sizes, so if clothes are going to be stunning on me they have to be so fitted as to approach being haute couture. The pattern I’d bought for the dress required a few alterations, which my mom expertly made in some muslin to make a second, properly fitted pattern to use before she started cutting the satin she’ll use to make the dress.

7. On Friday, my sister called and asked me to dinner because she didn’t want to go home to her empty house yet.

   Here’s to a new week full of shiny new kicks for all!