Karen Sandler

Tag: ya highway

  • RTW – My Favorite Book I Had to Read for School

    Today YA Highway‘s blog prompt for Road Trip Wednesday is What’s your favorite book you had to read for a class? First of all, school of any kind was a mighty long time ago for me. We did have books back then. Yes, they were paper bound between covers, not on papyrus scrolls. But it’s a little hard for me to remember which books I read for pleasure, and which ones I might have been assigned to read.

    But I did happen to read quite a wide range of books in 10th grade. We had the best English teacher ever, Mrs. Luckensmeyer. She was definitely a factor in me becoming a writer. One of our weekly assignments was to fill two pages in our composition books (front and back of the two pages), which really inspired my creativity.

    I also loved how she had us do book reports. We were free to pick any book we liked from the school library. After reading it, we would hand it over to her in a one-on-one session. She would then flip through it and ask random questions about the book.

    Okay, this would probably be terrifying for those students who never actually read the book. You couldn’t fake one of Mrs. Luckensmeyer’s book reports, like you could if you did it in written format and referred to Cliff’s Notes. But I thought her book reports were great. (Did I mention I was kind of a teacher’s pet?)

    So I read some pretty interesting books. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, for instance. And the one that I think was my favorite of the ones I read in her class because it was just so darn weird.

    Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis. I remember it being a little horrifying (a guy wakes up transformed into a cockroach!), a little gross (the guy is injured and starts turning all gooey and pus-filled!), and a little (a lot) bizarre (who turns into a cockroach anyway?).

    Not the usual kind of book a 14-year-old reads. But at that point in my life, I was choosing books by their title. The title was cool, so I grabbed it off the shelf.

    I later read plenty of classics–Dracula and Frankenstein, most of Mark Twain, plenty of science fiction and fantasy. But Kafka’s Metamorphosis has stuck with me all these years. It still gives me a chill just thinking about that man-to-cockroach transformation.

    So how about you? What favorite books do you remember fromschool? Creepy, wonderful, heart-wrenching? Have you read them since, and do they hold up? Let me know in the comments.

  • RTW – Dream Writer’s Conference

    This week YA Highway‘s Road Trip Wednesday asks, What book and/or writing conference would you love to go to? I’ve been lucky to attend tons of great writers conferences over the years (the majority of them RWA annual conferences when I was a member). And this year I’ve attended two already (LTUE & Spring Spirit) and have a couple more great conferences planned for the latter half of the year (the SCBWI annual summer conference and the 2012 Novelists, Inc conference).

    There are a couple of conferences I dream of attending every year. The first one looks like I will only be able to attend in my imagination–the Maui Writer’s Conference. A quick search on Google tells me that after 17 years, Maui Writers has died. No new conferences since 2009.

    But it always sounded like the coolest (albeit quite expensive) conference ever. First of all, who wouldn’t want to go to Maui? It was always over Labor Day weekend, so you already had that extra day off. And I know of one author (James Rollins) who told me he sold his first book thanks to the Maui Writer’s Conference writing competition.

    Well, putting aside now imaginary writer’s/books conferences, on to reality. I’ve attended BEA once and that’s a conference I’d like to attend again. Also, ALA, which happens to be in Anaheim this year and I ought to attend since it’s reasonably close. (Note: Tip from a conference-attending pro. If the conference is a short drive or plane ride away, scrape your shekels together and attend).

    In the farther away category, I’ve always thought it would be cool to attend one of the big foreign rights book fairs. London, Frankfurt, or Bologna would be great destinations for a combo author’s business trip and vacation. I’d love to see what one of those big international book fairs are like, even thought they’re not geared towards authors.

    This wasn’t part of the original question, but of the conferences I’ve attended, I’d highly recommend the RWA conferences (expensive, but plenty of good general information), LTUE for speculative fiction, and the SCBWI conferences for children’s lit, of course (smaller local ones can be especially valuable). Wear comfortable shoes and layers for the over-air-conditioned rooms and you’ll have a great time.

  • RTW – Favorite Book in March

    ImageThis week, YA Highway asks, What was the best book you read in March? I’ll make this quick and easy–it was Jasper Fforde’s One of Our Thursdays is Missing . If you haven’t read any of Fforde’s wacky literary-based fantasies (the Thursday Next series), you’re missing out on a real treat.

    In Fforde’s Thursday Next series, we have an alternate history in which such things as literary detectives work in Jurisfiction and the BookWorld actually exists. There are wonderful explanations for how books work when a reader is experiencing them (actual BookWorld people act out the characters’ roles). Along with the mind-bending aspect, there is always a very satisfying mystery solved in each book.

    I highly recommend you pick up book one in the series, The Eyre Affair, a marvelous send-up of Jane Eyre. After reading the first one, you won’t be able to resist the rest.

  • RTW: Favorite Literary Moment

    Today’s Road Trip Wednesday on YA Highway asks us to relate our favorite literary moment–a long-awaited kiss, a surprise ending, a character’s decision. As with all the prompts that ask for my “favorite,” I find it difficult to pick just one. The thing is, different books or moments are favorites for different reasons. One book can delight me because the heroine finally kisses the boy, another because she tore the head off her enemy (okay, maybe I’m not delighted in that latter case as much as gratified).

    The first book that popped into my head while contemplating this prompt was Red Sky at Morning. I’m guessing many of you have never heard of it. Red Sky at Morning is a coming-of-age story published in 1968. It takes place during WWII. The main character, Joshua Arnold, lives in Mobile, Alabama with his Southern Belle mother and ship-building father. When Josh’s father enlists in the Navy, he has his family relocate to Sagrado, New Mexico where they’ve previously spent their summers.

    The book is hysterically funny, in a John Green kind of way. But like John Green’s great books, there is heart-wrenching emotion in the book as well. I’ve read the book uncounted times.

    So, favorite moments? There are several. When Josh discovers the bully is more bluster than action. When he finally sends the mooching “professional house guest” Jimbob packing. When Josh sees for the first time the tribute his sculptor friend has paid to his father.

    Beyond these key moments in the book, this is a fantastic book featuring an ensemble cast, including Josh’s best friends Marcia and Steenie. Although the main characters are all white, there is a significant number of secondary characters who are POC, who are interesting and well fleshed out.

    They did a pretty decent job on the movie adaptation, but read the book first. It’s simply wonderful.

  • RTW – The Best Book I Read in November

    I just finished a post on why I love reading e-books and scheduled it for this coming Saturday. I mention this because YA Highway’s Road Trip Wednesday prompt for today is What’s the best book you read in November? and thanks to my Kindle, it was easy as pie to refresh my memory on what I read this past month. I could have also checked Goodreads, but since I’m not great about updating my reads there, it’s not as reliable.

    Anyway, my best book for November was The Declaration by Gemma Malley. In The Declaration, Anna and Peter are illegal children living in a hellish children’s home that’s like something from a Dickens novel. A Longevity drug that extends life indefinitely has led to an overcrowded world, and the illegal children are the ones who pay the price. It’s set in a futuristic Britain and its British voice is part of what led me to fall in love with this book and its characters. I very much enjoyed the humor interleaved with the very dire situation Anna and Peter were in. I also found the set-up intriguing and since we’ve recently reached the 7-billionth mark of the population on our planet, The Declaration had some very real-world elements to it.

    Of course, this is an “older” book (published 4 years ago), but as a newcomer to young adult, I’m still catching up on the great books. The upside to that is I don’t have to wait for the sequel. The Resistance is already available. And since I have the patience of a flea when it comes to waiting for the next book in a series, I am a happy camper about that.

    Has anyone else out there read The Declaration? What was your take?