…or is it?

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.

Ha ha, fooled ya!  In honor of April Fools Day, YA Cafe is doing another giveaway!  This time it’s a joke contest!

Today’s Special: If your favorite YA character had a theme song, what would it be?

Examples:

Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games — “I Will Survive”
Mia from If I Stay — “Should I Stay or Should I Go”
Edward from Twilight — “Another One Bites the Dust”

Tell us your favorite YA characters and their theme songs in the comments (here or at All About Them Words) and Random.org will pick a winner.  If you give us multiple jokes, you get multiple entries.  It’s that simple.  Contest is open until 11:59pm Eastern Time on Wednesday, April 6th.

One lucky winner will get a SIGNED copy of R.L. Stine’s Bitten (which is actually two books in one: Dangerous Girls & The Taste of Night).

Ghenet and I got a chance to meet Mr. Stine at SCBWI and he’s super-nice, not to mention really funny!  Here’s a picture of the two of us with him.

Want to see more April Fools jokes?  Fellow barista, Ghenet is co-hosting this same contest at her blog: All About Them Words.  Check it out, then join the fun by entering the contest!

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 does romance matter in YA?

5 Ways that Romance can Enhance a Story (YA, or not):

1) It creates conflict.  From Judy Blume to Carolyn Mackler, authors know that adding a romantic interest to a story is a great way to add conflict.  Even if the story itself is not about the romance, having romantic tension can add an element of conflict to the plot.  Take Mackler’s The Earth, My Butt and Other Big Round Things for example.  In this book, the main issue revolves around the protagonist’s self-image and her relationship to her family, but her tension with “the boy” helps add an extra conflict.

2) It offsets violence or sadness.  In books where violence (The Hunger Games) or sadness (If I Stay) are central to the story, having a romantic element brings in a breath of fresh air amidst the pain.  In The Hunger Games moments between Peeta and Katniss give the reader a little break from the constant chaos of the violence.  In If I Stay, the deep sorrow that fills the book is offset by happier flashback moments between the protagonist and her boyfriend.

3) It raises the stakes.  Again, The Hunger Games is a perfect example.  Until Peeta declares his love for Katniss, the main conflict in the story is “Will Katniss win the Hunger Games and survive?”  But the minute we start liking Peeta and we realize that he’s willing to sacrifice himself for Katniss, the stakes get higher.  According to the rules, there can’t be two winners in the games, so for Katniss to survive Peeta will have to die.  Voila!  Higher stakes.

4) It helps make less sympathetic characters sympathetic.  This one was tough to find examples to illustrate, but Dakota in Tangled is a good example.  When we first meet him, he seems cruel and manipulative but as the story develops, we learn details about his romantic life that explain his manipulate behavior.  His budding relationship with a new woman adds depth to his character and makes him more sympathetic.

5) Even if we know how it will turn out, we still keep reading.  I call this the Pride and Prejudice effect.  Sure, we know almost immediately that Lizzy and Darcy will end up together, but we keep reading.  The interest isn’t in what will happen, but how.  Unlike any other element or genre in literature, romance is the only one that can be completely predictable and yet will still keep us reading.

Want to read more about romance?  Fellow barista, Ghenet shares her thoughts on her blog: All About Them Words.  Check it out, then tell us why romance in YA matters to you.

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:  Short Stories for Teens

I love short stories.  I use them for teaching and I also like reading them for fun.  Part of why I like them so much is that you get a whole story–beginning, middle and end–in one small package.  You can read the whole thing in one sitting and don’t have to wait until next time to find out what happens.  For someone like me who reads book endings compulsively, short stories are the perfect solution.

The only problem is, it’s nearly impossible to find short stories written for teens because there are very few venues that publish them.  I have managed to find a few anthologies especially for teen literature.  Here are some of the ones I’ve read recently.

Geektastic (edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci): This is one of my all-time favorites.  In this anthology, YA greats (Libba Bray, Bary Lyga, Sara Zarr, M.T. Anderson and David Levithan, just to name a few) share stories about various areas of geekdom.  From trekkies  to gamers to theater geeks, this anthology is one delicious collection of all things geeky.

Zombies vs. Unicorns (edited by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier): This book attempts to answer that all-important question: which is cooler, zombies or unicorns?  Personally, I’m on team unicorn because animals that fart rainbows amuse me.  What about you, are you team zombie or team unicorn?

Love is Hell: Part of the same series as “Prom Nights from Hell” and “Vacations from Hell,” this collection has stories by five well-known YA authors that each give a paranormal twist to the typical YA romance.  Not as entertaining as Geektastic or Zombies vs. Unicorns but still fun, in that guilty pleasure sort of way.  I read this book on the beach; it’s the perfect beach read.

But never fear, there are more places where you can find great teen literature and Ghenet will be telling you about one of the coolest ones on her blog.  So zoom over there right now and read all about it!

Want to hear more about the AWESOME that’s happening in teen literature?  Fellow barista, Ghenet gives the details on her blog: All About Them Words.  Check it out, then tell us places where you’ve discovered short stories for teens.

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 we love dystopian Teen Literature?

I’m probably going to get in trouble for saying this but I don’t watch the news.  I don’t read the newspaper and the only type of online news that I follow is stuff that pertains to writing and literature.  Because that’s what I like to read: books.  In an ideal world, I would live somewhere where I could get my news and current events from novels rather than periodicals, television or the internet.  This is why I love dystopian teen literature.

Gabi’s Top Five Countdown: Why Dystopian YA is So Much Better than Watching the News

5)  It talks about real issues in a non-boring way.  Let’s face it, political issues and current events can be a bit dry sometimes, but dystopian literature takes those same ideas and talks about them in a way that makes me not want to fall asleep.  I’d much rather read The Hunger Games than an editorial rant on why reality television’s all that is evil in our society.  And M.T. Anderson’s Feed is almost scary in how well it predicts that technology is taking over our culture.  I love dystopian YA because it gets teens (and adults!) to think about important issues without boring everyone to tears.

4)  There can be violence but in reality, no one gets hurt.  I’ll admit it, I like a good fight scene when I read dystopian literature.  Still, there is something comforting in knowing that when I put the book down, no humans or animals were actually harmed in the making of that story.  It shocks me how we can watch violence on the news, then change the channel or shrug it off, like it’s scenes from some action movie.  It’s not.  People are getting hurt for real.  Maybe I’m crazy, but the news should not be “entertainment.”  This is one of the reasons why The Hunger Games really spoke to me.  It’s a great commentary about how we allow grim realities of war and violence become “entertainment” on the news.

3)  There’s love.  I love that almost every dystopian YA book boils down to the notion: “The world sucks.  Let’s make out.”  There are all these terrible things going on in these dystopian worlds and yet these teen protagonists are still real teens.  The world might be falling apart, but they still care whether the person they’re crushing on likes them back.  Even in books where there isn’t a strong romantic thread, there’s still some deep and caring relationship that propels the story and gives the protagonist hope.  Which brings me to reason #2.

2)  There’s hope.  No matter how bad things get in dystopia, the characters always manage to find hope.  Protagonists in dystopian novels are probably the most optimistic people in the universe because even though their world is unthinkably awful, they still hope things will get better.

1)  You know when you’re being lied to.  Dystopian YA literature doesn’t pretend it’s telling us real facts.  It’s perfectly clear the moment you pick up The Hunger Games or Matched that the place you’re reading about isn’t actually real.  These days, reports and footage get chopped up and edited so that they tell the “right story” and give the news the right spin.  It’s hard to know who to trust.

I’m not saying every single news channel or newspaper is out to distort and manipulate our minds, but I do think that we all need to have a healthy dose of skepticism about what we believe at face value.  With dystopian literature, we know from the get-go that it’s not real; there’s no pretense of reality.  And I find that rather refreshing.

Want to hear more about dystopian teen literature?  Fellow barista, Ghenet shares her thoughts on her blog: All About Them Words.  Check it out, then tell us what you love about dystopian YA!