Good morning all!  Today Ghenet and I wanted to share some discussion points for Friday’s book club and also give you all an update on the plan for the rest of the summer (Pssst, there’s a giveaway involved!) But first, the discussion points.

Feel free to answer or not answer these questions.  They are just here to get the discussion going and help spark ideas.  But if you need someplace to start, go ahead and use these questions as a jumping-off point.

The Summer I Turned Pretty: Discussion Points

1) Are the characters likeable and believable?  If so, how does the author accomplish that?
2) Since the stakes aren’t life and death (at least not at first), how does the author keep us engaged?
3) What effect does the setting have on the story?
4) What role does Cameron play in the story?
5) Title: Was it a good choice? What effect does it have on the story?
6) What did you think of the ending?  Is it satisfying? Does it make you want to read the next book?

We’ve also chosen the next books for the rest of the summer book club.  This will give you all plenty of time to get the books or borrow them from your local library.  On July 29th we’ll discuss Tangled by Carolyn Mackler, and on August 26th we’ll discuss Sweethearts by Sara Zarr!

Speaking of Sweethearts, we have a fun giveaway just for you!  Just fill out the form below before 11:59pm Wednesday, June 29th and you’ll have a chance to win a signed copy of Sweethearts by Sara Zarr!  Earn an extra entry for the contest by participating in the book club.

Welcome Back to YA Cafe, where book lovers can gather and chat about teen literature. I’m your barista, along with Ghenet from All About Them Words.

Each Friday we pick from a menu of topics and share our thoughts on our respective blogs. We’ve also got plans brewing for interviews, events and even some exciting giveaways, so stay tuned! Join the discussion by responding in the comments, on your own blogs or on twitter using the hash tag #yacafe.

Today’s Special: What YA book(s) would you like to see turned into a movie?

‘Tis the season for books turning into movies.  Between the last installment of the Harry Potter series out this summer and the Hunger Games movie (yeeey!) out next spring, there’s a lot to look forward to in YA books going to movies.  But there’s one book I’m dying to see as a movie and I’m not sure if it’s ever going to happen.  This book is: The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor.

I let my fingers do the walking and did a little searching on Google, only to find that there appear to be hints that this movie is in store, but because of the Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland movie released in 2010, it appears that LGW is in wait-and-see mode.  There was mention on the Google that one of the producers of The Dark Knight had signed on for LGW, which would be awesome.  This book is such a dark twist on the Alice in Wonderland story that the movie would need to be equally so.

The reason this book would translate so well into a movie is because it’s so visual.  The color plates in the book with illustrations of the characters give us just a taste of the incredible visuals that this story has in store.  But this book isn’t just about cool imagery, there is also action and a hint of romance that would allow it to appeal to both guys and girls.  The strong female lead–Alyss–definitely appeals to the female audience, but the action and intense fight scenes would also keep male viewers engaged.  Think Alice-in-Wonderland-meets-Star-Wars, what’s not to love?

If this movie were out right now, I would see it in a heartbeat.

What about you?  What YA book are you dying to see made into a movie?

Fellow barista, Ghenet shares her book-to-movie picks on her blog: All About Them Words.  Check it out, then tell us what you think!

Welcome Back to YA Cafe, where book lovers can gather and chat about teen literature. I’m your barista, along with Ghenet from All About Them Words.

Each Friday we pick from a menu of topics and share our thoughts on our respective blogs. We’ve also got plans brewing for interviews, events and even some exciting giveaways, so stay tuned! Join the discussion by responding in the comments, on your own blogs or on twitter using the hash tag #yacafe.

Today’s Special: “Why Do You Write YA?” Blogfest

I have to admit, I’ve been struggling with this post.  At first I thought it would be easy, because the answer seems so obvious.  I write YA because it’s AWESOME! (duh, right?)  But that didn’t exactly seem like it could fill an entire post.

I dug deeper.  In light of all the #YASaves stuff that happened this weekend, I thought that maybe my love for YA came from having discovered that special YA book as a teen.  Maybe I write YA now because growing up that’s what I loved to read most.

Truth is, though, I didn’t start reading YA until I was an adult.  When I was a teen, I went to one of those scary-competitive schools and had so much reading to do for class that there was little time left to read for fun.  Even during the summer, when most kids get to choose what they read, we had two set list of books we could choose from: The Great Books, and The Very Good Books.  (N.B. Great Books comprised the classics written by dead white men and Very Good Books consisted of top-notch contemporary literary fiction.  Not much room for YA on that list.) So while YA is what I love to read most now, it was not what I read as a teen.

Then I thought, maybe I write YA so that I can rewrite my own teen years so that they would turn out better.  But again, the dirty truth: my teen years weren’t really all that bad and certainly they didn’t merit rewriting.  When I write YA, I make my characters go through things a million times worse than what I ever went through.  In fact, my teenage life was pretty ordinary.  I spent most of my time doing schoolwork or with a violin tucked under my chin.  My best friends were my siblings and the most illicit thing I ever did was take my little sister shopping for a fake ID was so she could get into a teen-only nightclub in Brazil.  Pretty innocuous stuff.  If I needed to rewrite my teen years at all it would be to make them more exciting and interesting, not less.

The truth is, I write YA because when I was a teen, things mattered. We got worked up about the smallest things: like how we hosted a sit-in in the school lobby in seventh grade to protest the fact that the middle school students couldn’t vote for student government.  Or how when that one particular boy noticed (or didn’t notice) me, it would either make or break my day.  Big stuff mattered but small stuff mattered too.

This is why I write YA.  Because whether you’re writing about serious problems like homelessness or eating disorders, or just the typical teen stuff like boy-meets-girl, it matters to the readers.  And if it matters to my readers then it most definitely matters to me.

There’s still time to sign-up  using the linky below and then just write your post and, tell us why you write YA on  your own blog.  And don’t forget to hop around to different blogs and see what other  folks are saying!

Welcome to this impromptu post from YA Cafe. As you probably already know, YA Cafe is a place where book lovers can gather and chat about teen literature. I’m your barista, along with Ghenet from All About Them Words.  Usually we post on Friday, when we pick from a menu of topics and share our thoughts on our respective blogs.  Sometimes, though, something will happen in the world of teen literature that makes us want to respond right away, even if it isn’t a regular YA Cafe day.  This is one of those days.

You’ve probably already heard about the article titled Darkness Too Visible which appeared in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) yesterday.  Much discussion, disagreement, even outrage has ensued, coming mostly from the teen lit community.  A lot has already been said throughout the blogsphere about the various misconceptions presented in the article, so I’m not about to rehash the subject one more time in this post.  Janet Reid (AKA Query Shark) shared her straight-to-the-point response here. Misty from Nothing Cannot Happen Today raises an important question about the age-range for YA being much wider th an any other age in children’s literature.  The hashtag #YASaves is filled with links to responses from lovers of teen lit everywhere, weighing in on why YA is important.

A lot is being said from the point of view of YA readers, but I’ve been wondering about the writer perspective.  Sure, many authors of YA books have joined the discussion, but it seems the topic is approached mostly from the point of view of the reader.  Why is it important for teens to read YA?  What is the purpose and value of YA?  Why does YA matter?

These are all imp ortant questions, but what I want to know is why do we write YA?  Why is YA so important that as writers we choose to write it above all else?  As a writer, I could pick any genre, really, but why is it that YA makes my voice resonate in a way that no othe r type of writing does?  I haven’t figured out the answers yet, but I want to find out.

Questions like this are why we’re hosting the “Why Do You Write YA” blogfest on Friday.  In light of everything that has been happening in the teen lit community, I invite you all to join and tell the world why you write YA, why it it matters so much to you.  Just as people aren’t going to stop reading  YA, writers aren’t going to stop writing it either.  I know I won’t.