Week 7

Assignment 1

I took a look at the flow chart recognized some titles and noted the others.

 

Assignment 2

I read the article The Next Big Thing YALSA

The article was enjoyable but I thought the reasons listed for Adults Reading Young Adult Literature had a glaring omission.  I think a major draw is that adults want to get inside the heads of teens. It is well known that teen brains are not fully developed – especially when it comes to making rational decisions.  Personally, I love reading the genre to get inside teen minds and to try to understand some of the psychology behind their behavior. 

 

The article Not Just for Teens  Library Journal  covered a lot of the same territory as the Yalsa  article regarding explanations of the seemingly recent hunger for teen books by adult readers (i.e. nostalgia, wanting to know what their kids are reading, the paranormal craze, marketing and tv/movie tie-ins).  I was pleased to see that the article made mention of wanting to relate to teen issues and understand teen behavior.  This article also mentioned that the plot in YA literature generally moves at a more rapid pace and characters are more fully fleshed out sooner so readers can more quickly make an emotional connection.

 

Assignment 3

John Green Books is a blog that lets John Green’s inner comedian and social commentarian sides be front and center.  He posts a lot of videos on seemingly random topics which are quite entertaining and also thought provoking.  He has a lot of guest posters (especially now as he is currently on paternity leave) and they seem to share his style of humor and sensibilities.  It’s fun and he and his brother Hank have been doing this for some time and are known as the Vlog Brothers.  The only John Green book I’ve read so far is Looking for Alaska.  I thought that Green did a good job of capturing the voice of an awkward self-conscious teen-age boy in his protagonist Miles. The Fault in our Stars is definitely on my list for this summer.

The other site I’ve started to follow is Stacked.  The latest post deals with validating (or not) the feelings of teenage girls through novels. The writer seems to feel that boys’ issues have long been taken more seriously than girls’ and it is only recently that this is starting to change.  I’m not sure if I agree or not- I would need to read a lot more YA books from past years in order to have a justifiable opinion.

 

Assignment 4

I looked at Harper Teen- the majority of books on the site have a fantasy or paranormal element- no surprise there.  I also looked at Teens at Random and found similar content.  I clicked on a few of the posts and saw people posing with favorite books and casting their dream cast for movies of books they love.