YA
Finally! In "Immortal Rules," One Girl of Color Survives Dystopia
I’ve never read a single books published by romance giant Harlequin and so I carried Julie Kagawa’s ... Read more »
Reading Race in Marie Lu's Dystopian YA Hit "Legend"
When I checked Marie Lu’s Legend out of the library, I hoped that the main girl character (June) would be Asian. After all, Lu herself is Chinese, born in China and influenced, as a young child, by the... Read more »
What if Cinderella Wasn't Straight and White?
In Cinder, the familiar glass slipper story is set in a dystopian future Beijing 126 years after World War IV has ended. Cinder’s author, Marissa Meyer, is white. Meanwhile, Chinese-American author Malinda Lo award-winning 2010 retelling of Cinderella, Ash, takes place in a... Read more »
Young Adult Books Too Often Present a World Without People of Color
The last (and only) time I ever read George Orwell’s 1984 was my senior year in high school. I haven’t thought much about it since. Then my daughter brought home Lauren Oliver’s Delirium from her middle school library and enthusiastically recommended that I read... Read more »
Do Girls of Color Survive Dystopia?
“I’m looking for a book for my 12-year-old daughter. She likes dystopic fiction,” I said not too long ago to the clerk in a children’s bookstore. As her eyes began to scan the wall of Teen Fiction, I added, “With people of color as the protagonists.”
“I feel you,” sympathized the... Read more »
What Happens When Your Son Falls in Love with a "Girly" Book Series?
It doesn’t take a skilled gender detective to deduce the target audience of the Rainbow Magic books for early readers. These wildly popular books feature covers that literally... Read more »
Beautiful Creatures is a Cut Above Other Supernatural Teen Romances
‘Tis the season of the perennial teenage supernatural romance. New film Beautiful Creatures is a chicken-and-dumplings plate with a heapin’ helping of that angst-filled young love so common to tween fantasy, spiced with Flannery O’Conner-flavored Southern Gothic and... Read more »
The 10 Best Books of the Year for Young Feminists
It’s hard to find smart books for kids that are heavy on the good female characters but light on the Disney princesses. A part of the American Library Association called the... Read more »
BiblioBitch: Code Name Verity
Let me start by saying that I’m a Hunger Games gal. I thought that series was the end for me; the top of the bold, brave mountain of perfect Young Adult (YA)... Read more »
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