Week 7: Not Just For Teens

Assignment 1

I looked over the Lawrence Public Library's flow chart for "So you love the Hunger Games...What Should You Read Next?"  Overall, I think it will appeal to Teens and especially those who enjoy instant answers with little text to read.  The arrows were a nice touch although I did find them a bit confusing in spots, particularly when there were titles that fit into more than one genre.  Also, why did they drop the ball with the "Still looking? Try a classic!" titles?  They could  have put any of these in their corresponding genres they identified above since the 'classic' category is a catchall here.  I mean, it doesn't help the person looking at this list who doesn't know what these classics are about, identify what the basic plot is.

Assignment 2

I read "Who's buying teen books?" in the Christian Science Monitor and "YA comes of age" in Publishers Weekly.  The CSM article discusses the phenomenon that over 50% of the readership of YA titles is people over the age of 18.  They site specific titles (ie, The Hunger Games) as being responsible for attracting an older audience to this  genre.  I have noticed that people who are obiviously not Teens checking out or asking about YA titles for years now.  I read in that genre and didn't think anything about it being 'a trend,' I just like some of the authors and titles.  I find it interesting that the publishing industry was somewhat unaware of this trend which I think has been going on longer than they suspect.  I do agree that many YA books (with the exception of such titles as the over-hyped Twilight series) tend to have tighter story lines without a lot of padding.

The PW article article discusses that YA has undergone a huge transformation in the past decade or so into a darker, more supernatural type of story line.  However, they do say that the industry is noticing something of a 'paranormal fatigue' and vampire/supernatural plots are giving way to dystopian-based stories.  I have to say that I am THRILLED that the vampires are starting to finally die off (sorry about the pun) from YA fiction and there are more stories that tend more towards realism.  I do think that there is plenty of dystopian fiction in YA  and Adult fiction, but there is plenty of realistic fiction in YA, too.  I don't know about the must have a hardcover copy of a title issue, but it sounds plausible.  Also, I found it interesting that neither article mentioned how e-books are impacting the YA genre and its readers.

I published comments to the blogs of April F and Kathleen M.

Assignment 3

I'll be following the John Green blog (which is written by author John Green) and Stacked which is written/maintained/edited by two librarians, Kimberly Francisco and Kelly Jensen.

John Green's blog is mostly written/edited by Green although there are a lot of posts from fans and videoblogs from his brother Hank and himself.  Its targeted audience is fans of Green's books and YAs in general who like that kind of fiction.  It's self-consciously clever which can be annoying at times, but he seems sincere is his efforts to try and 'make the world a better place' or at least entertain his readers.

Stacked is obstensibly about "librarians, reviews, and mayhem" and it does contain a lot of well-written reviews and insights into the YA genre.  They also include other info such as "Twitterviews" of authors and guest blog posts on vaious topics.  I liked how they have a list of "Labels" on the left-hand side of the page so you can easily navigate to a variety of topics.  I feel this to be a more useful RA tool for YA questions than the Green blog.

Assignment 4

Harlequin Teen:  What I noticed is that the trend and hot titles (at least here) tend to be romances (go figure!) that involve a teen girl (who is misunderstood or an outsider or suddenly thrust into a world that is foreign to her) who meets that guy (who is also misunderstood or has a dangerous secret or has supernatural powers) and they hook up.  I'm sure there are plenty of adventures, misunderstandings, and steamy or passionate or mild romantic scenes and they will probably end up together.  Unless it's a series, then it may take several books before they finally end up together.  I think the main thrust of Harlequin Teen is to groom a younger audience to transition into their adult line of romances.  That's just my thoughts from looking over their site.

Teens at Random:  Well, although these aren't necessarily romances, many of the titles and new/upcoming releases are along some of the same lines as Harlequin.  It seems to be a lot of fantasy (ie, Grimm's fairy tales), alternate realities (ie, Norse gods runing the US), dystopians (ie, nuclear disaster survivors), paranormal (ie, ghosts) and similar settings where teens have to deal with unusual, unexpected, and/or scary situations and make the best of it.  It also seems to have a lot of 'nobody understands me' element to many of these stories.  Interestingly, there is a series entitled The Flappers which sounded as if they set the cast from Pretty Little Liars down in the roaring 1920's/Great Gatsby era.  Even though some of these titles are obviously leaping on the popular themes that appeal to YA readers, a few did sound worthwhile.