Thursday YA News

After missing out on news last week because of all those 2010 YA Edgar book reviews, Thursday YA news is back. Happy joy:

YA Bookish Stuff

It’s Percy Jackson for teenage girls—this would be Starcrossed by Josephine Angelini. The book won’t be out until summer 2011, but it’s caught quite the buzz because HarperTeen paid seven figures for the trilogy. And Ilsa J. Bick's YA trilogy Ashes sold for six figures to Egmont. You can stop blinking now, and begin wishing that’ll happen to you, too.

Lerner is launching Carolrhoda Lab, a new YA line of books this fall—some really cool-sounding titles in there, and the covers are gorgeous. Exciting stuff.

Also getting into the YA market is Lee and Low, and Indy publishers, with a sci-fi and fantasy focus. The new imprint is called Tu Books, and will launch titles fall 2011—find out more here.

More upcoming book news: thriller novelist Jason Pinter is penning a YA called Zeke Batholomew: Superspy!. Sounds fun.

And the NYC Teen Author Festival is going on right now. Wish I could be there…

Teen Culture

Old is the new young, and young is the new old, says AdWeek. Apparently us oldies act younger, where teens appear more adult today. How totally weird, dude.

Which brands are hot and which are not with teens? Find out here.

And parents want teens to learn tech-iquette.

Publishing Biz

It’s Bologna time! Find out what publishers and other industry professional are saying about the children’s (this includes YA, of course) book market today in this Publishers Weekly article. Interesting stuff.

For Writers

Jim Hines gathered data from first-time novelists to get an idea on trends etc.; interesting if you’re in that boat, or looking to get in.

You children’s book writers can enter the Cheerios contest until July 15th—sounds like a nice one.

GalleyCat will be profiling literary agents, starting with Michael Bourret.

Also on GalleyCat: tips on writing for children, and writing in general (I liked Maggie Stiefwater’s approach to finding time to write when raising young kiddos).

And for fun: here's Peruvian Domingo Pianezzi, surfing with his alpaca. I know, you did that just last week too, right?

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Lambda Literary Awards

To feed your TBR pile, here are the finalists for the Lambda Literary Awards for Children's/YA:

LGBT Children's/Young Adult

Ash, by Malinda Lo (Little, Brown)
How Beautiful the Ordinary, edited by Michael Cart (HarperCollins)
In Mike We Trust, by P.E. Ryan (HarperCollins)
Sprout, by Dale Peck (Bloomsbury USA)
The Vast Fields of Ordinary, by Nick Burd (Penguin Books)

For the complete Lambda listings, check out GalleyCat.

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Tweet Your Alibi

On a mystery-related note today: check out this article on how the FBI is using social networking sites to investigate suspects. They're using Facebook photos and Tweets to check alibis and find evidence of robberies -- how very innovative of the Feeb people. And for us mystery writers: there's another new way to create an alibi for your character. He was tweeting at a ballgame.

As you can imagine, lawsuits and civil liberties protests abound. And you may want to check your list of Twitter followers -- Bob Jones may not be your friend at all.

Still. Interesting story material, huh?

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Steampunkery

For you steampunk fans (or those of you just wondering why steam is being punked), check out these cool pictures up at the Readergirlz blog.

And for more steampunkery, Scott Westerfeld will be chatting about Leviathan at 9 p.m. ET tomorrow, also at Readergirlz.

Steampunk is making it cool to be a bookworm.

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Childhood Heroes
originally posted: March 15, 2010

Happily stolen from the Combreviations blog: The Guardian's list of top 10 childhood heroes. And who's number one?

That's right. Freckles rule.

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2010 YA Edgar Nominees: The Verdict
originally posted: March 11, 2010

So what are my impressions of the 2010 YA Edgar Noms, you ask (or maybe you don’t, but I’ll give my opinion anyway)?

I thought every book was a solid mystery, which was so great to see this year. Where last year’s nominees were good, they weren’t quite the strong mysteries I’d hoped for. But this year was impressive.

What I liked was the diversity: there was a paranormal mystery (Shadowed Summer), a suspense/mystery (Reality Check), an unexpected Victorian (Petronella Saves Nearly Everyone), an old-school younger YA mystery (If The Witness Lied), and a fun whodunit, YA style (The Morgue and Me). What a great mix!

While all of these had their merits and are strong contenders, if I had to make my bet on who will win, I would say it’s The Morgue and Me by John C. Ford. While all the other nominees are good, this book has the strongest voice, which is what YA is all about.

So we’ll see in April if I’m right (I’m wrong all the time, so I’m not actually betting any money). Until then: kudos to the MWA people for choosing such excellent books, congrats to the authors, and thanks from the YA Sleuth for such a fun reading ride.

Mystery really does rock, and even more so when it’s YA.

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Fleur wrote TIMEFIX, a YA Thriller she's now trying to find a home for. Check out Fleur's website for more info.

Many of Fleur's short stories have appeared online and in print, in places like The Thrilling Detective, Shred of Evidence, Versal and Stories for Children. She teaches a fiction writing workshop at her local high school.

Fleur is originally from the Netherlands, and now lives in Colorado with her husband, two daughters, and way too many pets.