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Superlatives Blogfest 2013: Best in Show

Dec 19, 2013 | , , , , , , ,

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It’s time for the 3rd Annual YA Superlative Blogfest! Jessica Love, Tracey Neithercott, Alison Miller, and Katy Upperman host this blogfest, which highlights favorite YA novels, covers, characters, and story elements. It’s fun to go through the list of 2013 YA releases I’ve read, and it’s even more fun to get a bunch of new titles to add to my TBR list. Today wraps up the blogfest with Best in Show.

Best in Show

Favorite Cover: I loved the cover for The Art of Wishing–it was dreamy but grounded, and it had a lovely script-inspired font.
Most Likely to Make You Miss Your Bedtime (Book you couldn’t put down): The 5th Wave, definitely. Once I started reading, I should’ve cleared my calendar. It was truly unputdownable.
Best Repeat Performance (Favorite sequel or follow-up): This feels like a cheat, but Just One Year. Both books were their own stories within a closely tied pair. I suppose Just One Year could’ve felt redundant, but instead it built on the story in Just One Day, beautifully.
Best Old-Timer (Your favorite read of the year published BEFORE 2013): I finally read Code Name Verity this year, which was worth the wait. (Or maybe I shouldn’t have waited, because it’s a really excellent, powerful book.)
Book Most Likely to Make a Grown Man Cry: Probably Second Chance Summer, which is such a tearjerker that the book should be shrink-wrapped with a big box of Kleenex.
Most Pleasant Surprise (Book you didn’t think you’d like, but totally did): I’m going to have to give this one to The 5th Wave, too–I don’t like aliens, and sci fi/dystopians are not usually my thing. But I really enjoyed this one. 
Favorite Outlier (Favorite picture, middle grade, or adult 2013 book): A favorite MG of this year was Tim Federle’s Better Nate Than Ever, which is hilarious and heartwarming, and should be required reading for mildly disgruntled New Yorkers. It made me want to go kick up my heels in Times Square–and that’s saying something!
My superlative: Best Friendship: And that goes to Red. I love reading about strong, honest, and supportive female friendships, and that’s exactly what Felicity’s trio is!

What were your picks for Head of the Class? I skipped over a few categories, so I’d love to hear your picks for those!

What’s Up Wednesday, 10/9

Oct 9, 2013 | , , , , , ,

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What’s Up Wednesday is a weekly meme that helps readers and writers touch base with blog friends. If you’d like to join in, you can find the link widget on Jaime’s and Erin’s blog posts. I love this idea because it gives a structured, easy way for me to keep up with blogging. Also, the buttons are cute. Thanks for the idea, Jaime and Erin!

What I’m Reading 
I’m still reading The Weird Sisters. I’m kind of lingering in the story, which is nice. I tend to read quickly, and sometimes I forget how satisfying it can be to take more time with a book.

What I’m Writing   
When Audrey Met Alice odds and ends, which are writing-related.  I’ve come to the realization that some of my writing time, going forward, needs to be allotted to the business-y side of publishing. And that’s okay! Otherwise, I’m still on a bit of a writing break. I did open a planning document on Sunday night and had fun brainstorming for an old new idea. I’m toying with the idea of doing a NaNo-inspired November writing marathon.

What Inspires Me Right Now   
I’m going to repeat last week’s inspiration: great weather and great books. I’ll also add the camaraderie and kindness in the kid lit writing and publishing community (see below).

What Else I’ve Been Up To
Revealing this new blog, and revealing the cover for When Audrey Met Alice! It was so fun to get to share the cover on Monday, and I am really grateful for the enthusiastic responses to it. (Mundie Kids is helping me give away an ARC, if you’d like to enter to win it!)

IRL: Making progress toward winning the title of Clumsiest Ever–I fractured my toe. By walking into my bathtub. But at least it’s an excuse to sit around and read, right?

So what have you been up to lately?

Cover Reveal!

Oct 7, 2013 | , , , , , , , , , ,

That’s right, When Audrey Met Alice has a cover!

You can head over to Mundie Kids and check it out. We’re also sharing the ARC cover and details about the process behind creating the perfect cover for Audrey and Alice’s story.

Here’s the link: http://mundiekids.blogspot.com/2013/10/when-audrey-met-alice-by-rebecca.html

Elizabeth Connor, the incredibly talented designer, and the whole Sourcebooks team created what I think is the perfect image for this story. It’s an understatement to say that I’m thrilled with it.

Thanks to Katie at Mundie Kids for her help and enthusiasm with my reveal! It’s so fun to get to share this.

MMGM: Keeping Safe the Stars

Jul 15, 2013 | , , , , ,

One of my favorite reads of 2011 was Sheila O’Connor’s Sparrow Road. A midwest setting, a creepy mansion/artist’s colony, and mysteries–what more could you want? (Not to mention beautiful prose and compelling characters.) So I was very excited to read the author’s next book, Keeping Safe the Stars. Here’s a summary from Goodreads:

Such a gorgeous cover

When crisis hits, a young girl becomes the only one left to take care of her family

Pride,
Nightingale and Baby are the Stars. Orphaned and living with their
grandfather, Old Finn, in rural Minnesota, the children, like their
grandfather, are wary of outsiders. They believe, as Old Finn taught
them, in self-reliance.
But then Old Finn falls seriously ill and
is taken to the hospital all the way in Duluth, leaving the children to
fend for themselves. Pride, as oldest, assumes the lead. Though she
makes mistakes, she keeps them afloat; they even earn money for the bus
trip to Duluth. But when they finally see Old Finn, he can’t walk or
even say his own name, and Pride knows her days of keeping safe the
Stars are drawing to a close. Self-reliance can’t make Old Finn well
again. But maybe, just maybe, a secret from Old Finn’s past might make a
way for them to stay together after all.

In a review somewhere (possibly on Goodreads), Keeping Safe the Stars was compared to the Boxcar Children series. The resilience and love in the Star family did remind me of that beloved series (not just the plot element of kids fending for themselves). This story is set in the Watergate era, and it was so interesting to step back into a relatively recent time when kids were encouraged to be independent in their home/community–I’m not necessarily saying it’s good or bad that middle-graders rarely roam free on country roads today; things are just different.

This book is full of strength and grit and community, and it has a love story, too. I really adored it.
I’m not alone in my feelings for Keeping Safe the Stars; it recently won the Midwest Bookseller’s Choice award for Children’s Literature.

To see what other marvelous middle-grade books readers and writers are blogging about today, check out Shannon Whitney Messenger’s blog for the MMGM links!

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