Boston Book Festival 2015

Saturday, October 24th was such a crazy day. It was the perfect weather for the annual Boston Book Festival. The subway was kind of a pain with all of the delays but it made it in time for the Libba Bray Keynote. What I love about the Boston Book Festival is how all the panels take place at the Boston Public Library or at churches around the city near Copley Square.

Libba Bray's Keynote is the first YA Keynote the Boston Book Festival has ever hosted and boy was it packed. Bray's event was located in the Emmanuel Sanctuary. Thank you to Elizabeth from Book YAbber and Marci from Reading in the Tardis for saving me a seat! Libba is hilarious as always! Robin Brenner from the Brookline Public Library moderated the keynote. According to Libba, she is not organized when it comes to research. When researching for The Diviners, she read many books about the early 1900's.

But how do you decide what to include in the book? Libba responded with "let me see, I'll have some cake and see what happens." But seriously, Libba will actually visit places to include in her books such as an asylum that will be a big part of Book 3 in The Diviners series.

So what about the diversity of the cast in The Diviners series? How do you choose what character to bring out? The series is scheduled for 4 books with maybe a 5th book in the works. Libba mentioned about "there is nothing more powerful on Earth than story." She questions things like "who controls the narrative?," "how is the narrative and history shaped for us?" and "what is our responsibility?" Certain things are particular to the time period like Harlem and the Chinese Exclusion Act. Unions were important during the era as well. Diversity "represents the world we live in." If Libba was able to bring things back from the 1920's she would bring 1920's fashion, jazz and the radio when it was exciting and new.

Libba has always been a big horror fan. Horror is routed in emotional states with grief, death and sorrow. It's a metaphor of what humans do that are monstrous.

And what is the best and worst writing advice Libba received? According to Libba's favorite author, George Sanders, "take risks and tell the story you need to tell." Taking risks and listening are very important. I will leave it to that.

When Libba Bray was talking about drafts, I laughed when she talked about drafts.
Draft #13 - Help me baby Jesus.
Draft #14 - Jesus can't help you.

Libba explained how "the reader owns the book when it's in their hands. My work is done." In terms of audio book accents, she calls upon her theater background. It comes in handy for writing too. She claims, "I do hear all the voices in my head."

How does Libba develop characters?  She likes to borrow characteristics from people she knows and dresses them in fabulous outfits.

One audience member was ecstatic that Libba added a bi-racial character to The Diviners series. Libba mentioned how an "healthy escape for us is fantasy. Books let you try on different identities. It nurtures the soul and fosters empathy and lets us explore."

Kirun Kapur moderated the BBF Unbound: Why YA is for Everyone? panel with Rachel DeWoskin, Cindy Rodriguez and Carolyn Mackler. In 2010 YA purchases increased 30%. Nowadays, 50% of YA books are purchased by adults.

The panelists were asked what books they loved mattered to them when they were younger.
Cindy mentions how she has always been an avid reader and The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton was her favorite book when she was younger. She can identify with Ponyboy even though Ponyboy is a male. Rachel said The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison was her favorite book. It changed the landscape of the imagination and understanding. Her views on interior life, life and politics changed. Carolyn often went to different books for different reasons. She gravitated toward Judy Blume but went to Lois Lowry for deep books.

What do adult overlook about young adults and children? Cindy mentioned how adults neglect everyday things that children and young adults go through. They hear swearing and experience romance. Life shouldn't be a glorified different reality. She tells adults not to be condescending and how adults shouldn't shelter and protect their children so much. Rachel mentioned how she tries to write novel with girls being nice to each other. The betrayals are often motives that are hard to coordinate and not because someone is being bad. Writing in different perspectives helps even if you don't include it in the novel. Carolyn talks about craft. She wrote five different novels before she finished the Infinite in Between. This is helpful since she was able to capture the voices of all five high schoolers seamlessly and is able incorporate all five voices into one book. It is important to understand how the characters are affected by the same moments but see things in different perspectives.

Cindy mentioned if a character that a reader relates to dies, it sends a certain message to the reader. It is important to be selective and careful about the outcomes of characters throughout a novel. Rachel talked about coming back to what anchors you when thinking when going through dark times. Carolyn explained how it important for YA to understand what the author is going through. Dark times through life will reflect in the books. When the author is going through falling in love or having healthy friendships, happy moments shine in the novel When the author experience sickness, grief over a lost one or having any allergy scare, dark moments are seen in the novel.  Cindy describes how she likes to write something different for a change of pace. Her first novel is dark and about despair but her second book is happy, fun and light.

Why write YA? Cindy explained about she can choose what she wants to read in YA instead of being assigned reading for school. Rachel said with YA you can say the truth. With Adult fiction, children in the novel are usually representing history of the past. With YA, there is no distance about the character. It happens right at the moment.

How do authors manage their days? Carolyn writes when the children are in school but social media is often a buzz kill and distraction She tries to create a white room when writing. Cindy lives for snow days and summers since she teaches and has a child.

My last panel took place at the Teen Center at the Boston Public Library. Not only is the Boston Public Library in Copley Square amazingly beautiful but it's freaking HUGE! I feel like I am walking into Hogwarts! 

The YA: Boys to Men panel was moderated by Amy Pattee and authors present included Jason Reynolds, Brendan Kiely, Matt de la Peña and Andrew Smith. This panel was definitely my favorite out of the three at the Boston Book Festival. There was a lot of information I can use to help encourage my students to read books. It is interesting about how they talked about males being the minority when it comes to YA readers and YA authors. I was also interested about what authors had to say about profiling and stereotyping targeted against certain groups. 
When Matt first sold his first book and his literary agent told him it sold as YA, Matt admitted to Googling YA since he didn't know what it was. He writes books and strives for literature. He tells people to avoid repeating yourself and to try something new. Matt also mentions how socioeconomic and cultural differences shape who a person is. In certain cultures, males have certain expectations they have to live up to and if they don't, they are look down upon.
Jason talked about when he writes, he doesn't push his agenda; he writes life stories. He is a male and a writer but he tells the audience that he is not a male writer. There's a difference. A writer is a writer. It shouldn't matter if the writer is male or not. Jason writes for others and not for a particular gender nor demographic. He writes characters as human beings. Someone once asked him how he writes females well in his novels. Jason responded because it is part of his profession, he just writes. 
Jason actually mentioned that at a juvenile hall, most kids wanted to read romances. They wanted to read books by Gayle Forman, Jenny Han, Cassandra Clare and by Lauren Oliver. They didn't read books by Jason Reynolds and Walter Dean Meyers. You cannot profile people about what they read. When boys and young men are asked if they are okay and when they say they are fine, they are usually not fine. They experience the sadness or the pain but society tells them that they must suck it up. 
Andrew believes a lot of males have this internal struggle and that they are boxed in because of the Y chromosome. Society tells males to be masculine and strong. They are high expectations to live up to. Andrew writes what he knows. He doesn't sugarcoat anything. Andrew mentions how male authors are a minority in YA whether it be in publishing industry or as an author. He also gives advice to students about how falling in love will not fill out all the empty holes you have. Don't get caught up in relationships. 
Brendan mentions how we should diversify all books to reach all types of readers. Someone is not born a reader; a reader is made. Authors need to create the work in order for people to latch on to and to read. They need to create the springboard. 

How do you promote literacy to males, especially if the males are very masculine? Andrew said to break down gender barriers for books. Just talk about books. See what kind of books they will be interested in. Matt mentioned that you need to read to them and not just any book. You need to read books that they want to read. Brendan encouraged showing movie clips of film adaptations. Relate the film to the book counterpart. Comparisons will help get the reader interested. Jason gave great advice about how to get males to read. Don't be tied down to stories. He said to give them all types of things to read. You can use rap lyrics and tell males that it's poetry. Get them interested to lyrics because when you get them hooked, they will want to read more. You want to open it up to what it means to read.
A librarian asked how do you have diverse books be available to readers especially when others on a committee claim diverse books don't get checked out often from the library? Pitch two books and see what the child chooses. Educating readers about what types of books are out there also helps. Once a reader finds an author on genre that speaks to them, they will be hungry for more.

THANK YOU to all the authors, publishers, Boston Book Festival organizers and volunteers for making this event possible! 

Infinite in Between by Carolyn Mackler

Title: Infinite in Between
Author: Carolyn Mackler
Publisher: HarperTeen
Publication date: September 1, 2015
Pages: 480
Source/format: ARC from BEA 2015

Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Synopsis (from Goodreads.com):  Printz Honor author Carolyn Mackler returns with this striking new novel that chronicles the lives of five teenagers through the thrills, heartbreaks, and joys of their four years in high school.

Zoe, Jake, Mia, Gregor, and Whitney meet at freshman orientation. At the end of that first day, they make a promise to reunite after graduation. So much can happen in those in-between years….

Zoe feels like she will live forever in her famous mother’s shadow. Jake struggles to find the right connections in friendship and in love. Mia keeps trying on new identities, looking for one that actually fits. Gregor thought he wanted to be more than just a band geek. And Whitney seems to have it all, until it’s all falling apart around her.

Echoing aspects of John Hughes’s The Breakfast Club, Carolyn Mackler skillfully brings the stories of these five disparate teens together to create a distinct and cohesive whole—a novel about how we can all affect one another’s lives in the most unexpected and amazing ways.

My Thoughts

Five different yet unique teens are randomly selected to be in Group Eighteen for the freshmen orientation project at Hankinson High School in New York. Little did they know is how their lives will intertwine with one another's over the next four years.

Carolyn Mackler easily captures the voices of the five teens over the span of their high school career. Mackler was able to master the multiple POVs effortlessly. Sometimes multiple POVs can be messy and confusing but Mackler was able to streamline all five voices and make them all distinct. Each chapter is a different POV and each chapter is short which makes reading the POVs more enjoyable. Not many authors can pull off five POVs. I find having the months and the high school year at the bottom of the pages is a brilliant idea to figure out how far the crew is away from graduation.

Mackler highlights the most important parts of their four years at Hankinson whether it be good, bad and in between. Mackler doesn't sugarcoat the life of a teenager. Readers can see how the teens mature and change. She covers a wide range of topics most teens go through such as friendships, family dynamics, loss, applying to college, firsts and love. Mackler breaks down stereotypes and there is more to the geek, the princess, the basket case and the jock a la The Breakfast Club. If you're a big fan of coming-of-age, multi-perspective contemporary novels, definitely check out the Infinite in Between.