"Even if it sounds a bit cheesy, pursue your dreams.”

“Life is very full for 18-year-old Beth Reeks. Like every first-year university student she is juggling studies, a hectic social life and the challenge of living away from home for the first time.

     But unlike her peers at Exeter University, Reeks is also having to find time to finish off her third novel – and is now coping with the responsibility of being billed as one of the world's most important young role models.
     Reeks – who writes romantic fiction for young adults under the pen-name Beth Reekles – was earlier this month named by Time magazine on a list of the 16 most influential teenagers in the world alongside entertainment stars such as Lorde and Justin Bieber, sporting stars including swimmer Missy Franklin and Barack Obama's daughter Malia. […]
     For those yet to catch up with Reeks's work, she began writing love stories about teens partly because she was fed up with so many books aimed at young people being about vampires, werewolves and wizards (though she grew up on Harry Potter herself and cites JK Rowling as one of her role models).
     She self-published her first novel, The Kissing Booth, a rollicking romance set in California, on Wattpad, the story-sharing website, and watched amazed as her tale attracted 19 million readers across the globe.”
— Steven Morris, The Guardian
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Noble Advocate

"By the time Malorie Blackman read a work of fiction featuring black characters, she was 23. The book was Alice Walker's The Colour Purple, set in the American south in the 1930s, and its impact on her was huge. Blackman was then working as a computer programmer, having given up her childhood dream of becoming an English teacher after the careers adviser at her London grammar school put her off. But she still read children's books, and in her spare time began to write her own, and imagine they might one day be published….
     This week Blackman, now 51, was named the eighth children's laureate, a position she inherits from mega-selling Gruffalo author Julia Donaldson and will hold for two years. At the announcement of her appointment in London on Tuesday, a few days before publication of her latest novel for teenagers, Noble Conflict, she looked delighted. 'I think younger children have been incredibly well served by the laureates we've had, but maybe teenagers haven't had as much of a look-in, so I'm looking forward to redressing the balance,' she said.
     Blackman is also the first black laureate and a forceful advocate for black and ethnic minority children's needs and rights. In making up her mind to write about black people in 1980s London, she grabbed a baton previously held by African-American pioneers including Alice Walker and Maya Angelou, who in the 1970s and 80s did so much to popularise writing about black people's lives."
— Susanna Rustin, The Guardian
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Buy all of Marjorie Blackman's books here...

Rejuvenation

"Ig Publishing, which for more than a decade has maintained a list of fiction and nonfiction for adult readers and reissues for the academic market, is moving into a new direction this fall with the launch of Lizzie Skurnick Books. The imprint, explained Ig publisher Robert Lasner, will 'bring back the very best in young adult literature, from the classics of the 1930s and 1940s, to the thrillers and social novels of the 1970s and 1980s.'

     Skurnick, the author of Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading (William Morrow, 2009) and a freelance journalist who writes about publishing and culture, will handle all acquisitions and edit the books, roughly 12 to 14 titles per year. Ig, which is based in Brooklyn, N.Y., will continue to publish another 8 to 10 titles for adults per year."
— Claire Church, Publishers Weekly
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Beyond Grey

"Susan Cooper's sequence of five children's stories, The Dark Is Rising, is, you'll have guessed, all about the dark. The dark as velvety, blanketing night. The dark as the keeper of mysteries, ineffable and unknowable. Above all, the dark as counterpoint to the light; as one side of the great battle between evil and good.
     The Dark Is Rising is a Christmas ritual for me. The story starts on 20 December, and it is on 20 December each year that I start reading it. It is the night before Will Stanton's 11th birthday. All is happy anticipation and the busy, noisy stuff of a family coming together for the Christmas holiday. Will goes to bed with not much on his mind except a hope that his dearest birthday wish might be granted: deep, white, enfolding snow. He puts out the light. And then the terror comes."
— Charlotte Higgins, The Guardian
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Get all of Susan Cooper's books here…

Young As You Read

Every Girl's Story Book (The Avenue Press, circa 1938)

"With The Hunger Games movie coming out in March, the frenzy for young adult (YA) fiction has reached an all-time high. With series like Harry Potter and Twilight, young adult fiction has gained so much attention that those outside of the typical 'young adult' age group have taken notice.
     For those of you who still haven't read young adult books, I have a few suggestions below to help ease you into this ever-growing genre."
— Lisa Parkin, Huffington Post
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The illustration from Every Girl's Story Book is by G.W. Goss.

At Bloggerheads

"A literary punch-up that had been brewing for a while finally erupted between a bunch of readers, authors and agents on Goodreads – the vast online site where millions of members discuss the world's books. In the same week that award-winning children's writer Anthony McGowan caused a stir with his 'scorching' Guardian review of Blood Red Road by Costa winner Moira Young, the Goodreads flame war flared across Twitter, sparked by writers and agents who seemed to be stamping on negative reviews.
     It all started with a 'snarky' (or 'honest,' depending on who's side you're on) review of a much-hyped YA novel, Tempest by Julie Cross, just published in the UK by Macmillan Children's Books. A sarcastic response and put-downs of reader views on the Goodreads site by Cross's author friends, and comments by her agent, caused outrage. While Cross responded gracefully, other YA authors and agents took the fight to Twitter in a spectacularly misjudged bout of reader-bashing, 'sneering at the people who make their ****ing books reach the NYT bestseller list,' The Bookwurrm judged.
     Things escalated further as authors and agents publicly discussed rigging the ratings on Goodreads and Amazon to push up the visibility of good reviews and 'hide' bad ones."
— Julie Bertagna, The Guardian
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Swell Books

From: Escape from Realty

"Upwards of 11,000 books have been challenged in American libraries and schools since Banned Books Week was born in the last week of September back in 1982. We wanted to draw some attention to books that have been censored over the years, so we got in touch with Sarah Murphy, a school librarian and co-founder (with Maria Falgoust) of The Desk Set, a 'social and philanthropic group for librarians and bibliophiles.' Sarah writes, 'Those who attempt to ban books are probably afraid of whatever is inside. So, what are they most afraid of? Judging from the dangers cited this year, it’s sex.' [...]
      Let’s celebrate our freedom to read by checking out the books that got the would-be book banners’ totally chaste knickers in a knot. Here are ten suggested titles; some are new to the list, others have been challenged for decades."
— Kathleen Massara, FLAVORWIRE
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