By Sarah Statz Cords
I LOVE YA books. Totally love them. I have to be very careful starting them because when I do, I don’t want to stop until I’m done, and I neglect both household duties and sleep. Cases in point? The nights I started John Green’s Looking for Alaska, Peter Cameron’s Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You, and any of Louise Rennison’s Georgia Nicolson books, were late nights that led into long tired days immediately thereafter.
I am not a children’s or teen librarian, however, and most of my readerly friends don’t read a whole lot of YA novels, so my YA habit is mainly a covert one. So where do I learn about all the newest and best teen and kids’ books out there? A very handy and often quite humorous site called Bookshelves of Doom.
The site’s aesthetically pleasing and informative, and all I can say is that the blog’s author must read really quickly, because she provides reviews for a truly humbling number and array of new YA fiction titles. As an added bonus, she’s also a librarian. Solidarity!
So, if you don’t have the time or interest to read YA books, and you need your sleep (which means you definitely shouldn’t start Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series; they’re addicting) consider checking out Bookshelves of Doom.
And? If you’re really motivated, you might also want to check out Heather Booth’s and Michael Cox’s fantastic handout from their 2008 PLA conference program Where’s a YA Librarian When You Need One?
More and more adults are reading teen lit or YA lit now. Some of the best writing and the best stories I’ve seen in the last year are being published there. When I was speaking in Massachusetts last month and said something about it I was approached by a person afterwards who said she was glad to hear it. She had thought she was the only one. Because I am by nature nosy, I’m always asking the people I encounter what they are reading. I’ve been amazed in the last several months by how many of the adults I encounter who are reading teen books. And, these people aren’t librarians or secondary teachers. They are reading the teen books because the teen books are smart and captivating.