Posts tagged Amulet Books

UPDATE: Click here for the link to the broadcast archive.

Here is the TweetChat archive from Monday’s School Library Journal Webcast with Jeff Kinney.

Click the image to register.

Follow on Twitter: @SLJEvent #sljwimpykid

In The Third Wheel, love is in the air-but what does that mean for Greg Heffley?

A Valentine’s Day dance at Greg’s middle school has turned his world upside down. As Greg scrambles to find a date, he’s worried he’ll be left out in the cold on the big night. His best friend, Rowley, doesn’t have any prospects either, but that’s a small consolation.

An unexpected twist gives Greg a partner for the dance and leaves Rowley the odd man out. But a lot can happen in one night, and in the end, you never know who’s going to be lucky in love.

Jeff Kinney tells all about Greg’s pursuit of dance happiness in this one hour live-streaming event, and will answer your questions live! Kinney will also talk about the origins of Wimpy Kid and where it might go from here.



Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Third Wheel Event Kit.

“Writers Speak to Kids” on NBC Learn with author Jeff Kinney.

What is it that makes a novel primarily for teenagers, as opposed to anyone else? You might be surprised at the debate this question spawns. I’ve had many thoughtful discussions on the subject, sometimes with critics who raise the question about my own work, but I’ve also seen YA novelists denounce – and I use the word advisedly – books as brilliant as Mal Peet’s Life: An Exploded Diagram as great in themselves but definitely Not For Teenagers.

Peet’s book sits in that hinterland where teenagers themselves reside: one foot in youth and one in the great wide world beyond. Aidan Chambers’s Dying to Know You, longlisted for this year’s Guardian Children’s Fiction prize, is likely to fuel the debate. Its unnamed narrator is a 75-year-old author of books for teenagers who is mourning the recent loss of his wife, who has to consider his sciatica before sitting for any length of time, and is constantly taking emergency urinary breaks in roadside hedges..

He befriends 18-year-old Karl. Taciturn but likeable, Karl has already left school and is working as a plumber. He approaches the narrator because his girlfriend, 16-year-old Fiorella – a fan of the author – has tired of his reticence and demanded he answer a series of questions about himself in “full-dress English”. What she doesn’t know is that Karl is severely dyslexic, unable to translate his thoughts into written words. For reasons of his own – namely that he hasn’t been able to write at all since the death of his wife – the author agrees to help Karl..

Their friendship is as unexpected to the characters as it is to us; at one point Karl has a violent run-in with thugs at the pub who put the worst spin on it. But Chambers is so skilled, so calmly truthful in his writing, that Karl’s simple, decent humanity and the narrator’s careful concern come across as entirely believable. Not all teenagers are the defiant balls of attitude they are too frequently portrayed as in the media. In fact, most aren’t, and none of them are that way all of the time. Most of them are like Karl: cautious, principled, finding their way..

Dying to Know You doesn’t stay long in its expected Cyrano de Bergerac groove. Fiorella responds quite badly when she finds out Karl’s words aren’t his own, and a camping trip she takes with Karl to get closer to him doesn’t go the way either of them planned. The story darkens, but never gratuitously, and Chambers is unafraid of frank discussions of sex, depression, the death of a parent, and even serious thoughts of suicide. Chambers himself is 78, a few years older than his novel’s narrator, and what emerges is not just a moving, unexpected story of the complexity of teenagers, but also a story of later life, of ageing and loss, and what experience really means..

So is this a book for teenagers? Why on earth not? It features two fully realised, complicated teenagers at its centre, viewed with a clear-eyed compassion by an observer who could have tipped towards the alien but remains fully human. It is perfect for that cloudy expanse between older teenager and younger adult, a novel that doesn’t pretend to advise, but merely sees its characters for who they really are. No one appreciates that more than a teenager does.

—Patrick Ness, The Guardian UK, 6/15/12

I called Erica and asked her to send a copy to the author right away. Sharing books with the perfect reader is a barometer for the potential audience for the book. I also made sure my teacher reader in Indiana had access to it. He teaches 11th grade AP language arts and has a wicked sense of humor and I knew he would love the book.

Fast forward. One day on Twitter the three of us found ourselves in a hilarious conversation on Twitter with the author, Jesse Andrews. It is so much fun to experience excitement about a new author, a fantastic reading experience, with other readers and the author, too!

Here is some of that Twitter banter, including some general tweets shared about the book.

Laurel Snyder:
@LaurelSnyder I’m reading a YA right now where the [main character] has these “imagined” scenes that read as screenplays #mglitchat

@LaurelSnyder Deeply satisfied, I retire to the HILARIOUS BOOK I’m reading. Nighty night!

@muellerspace Eavesdropping on you and the book you’re reading. Unless you seriously can’t tell us.

@LaurelSnyder Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. Naughty eff-bomb laden YA about a geeky boy and a girl with cancer.

@LaurelSnyder Too soon to tell if it’s going to “go deeper” but I can say it’s brilliantly funny and kids will LOVE.

@LaurelSnyder Oh, & also— this awesome YA book is about a JEWISH kid. That’s right! First Mirka, then Inquisitor’s Apprentice and OJ, now this.

@LaurelSnyder And there are these screenplay thoughts/excerpts in the book. Oh, it’s GOOD. I predict big things.

@LaurelSnyder This book is a riot AND it’s about a girl with cancer. How does one do that?

@LaurelSnyder “It’s somehow worse to draw attention to the fact that there are two boobs. ‘You have nice boobs.’ Bad. ‘You have two nice boobs.’ Worse.”

@LaurelSnyder Oh, hell. This book is awesome. An awesome funny BOY-MC YA book. I cannot stop laughing. It’s Adrian Mole on speed, with lots of cussing.

@LaurelSnyder Okay… I’m officially starting a @swerdnaessej [Jesse Andrews’ Twitter name] fan club. Just finished his book & I cried from laughing, & then, umm… the other way too.

Me:
@trkravtin @LaurelSnyder @swerdnaessej I’m joining the fan club. Maybe we can get @PaulWHankins, too.

Paul W. Hankins:
@PaulWHankins @trkravtin @LaurelSnyder @swerdnaessej I missed the thread, but if you’re talking about Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, I am in…

@PaulWHankins @LaurelSnyder @swerdnaessej Abrams, & Amulet continue to provide readers with super titles in the humor genre.

@PaulWHankins @trkravtin @LaurelSnyder @swerdnaessej Okay. I just spewed Vernor’s all over my laptop. Earl’s first lines in the whole book? Too rich.

@trkravtin @PaulWHankins Are you laughing? @laurelsnyder @swerdnaessej

Jesse Andrews:
@swerdnaessej @trkravtin @PaulWHankins @LaurelSnyder I am a little worried you guys are all fake aliases my mom created to improve my self-esteem.

@PaulWHankins @LaurelSnyder @swerdnaessej @trkravtin I like it. Let’s play with him a little while. Let me look at his profile picture again.

@PaulWHankins @trkravtin @swerdnaessej @laurelsnyder Yep. As I suspected. Looks like Seinfield and De Niro had a love child. This makes for funny (wink).

@LaurelSnyder @swerdnaessej’s Me and Earl and the Dying Girl: Hilarious romp about cancer, immobilizing self-awareness, family, class and donkey d*cks.


@PaulWHankins @trkravtin @LaurelSnyder @swerdnaessej The most telling, most brutally honest look at the microcosm called high school.

@swerdnaessej @trkravtin @paulwhankins @laurelsnyder Oh man, you guys. I am legitimately verklempt right now.

@PaulWHankins @trkravtin @swerdnaessej @laurelsnyder Earl is all the great sidekicks. If we do Hero’s Journey with this, we have to include his question.

@trkravtin @PaulWHankins I thought Earl was great, too. @swerdnaessej @laurelsnyder

@LaurelSnyder I thought Earl was VERY carefully balanced. Tricky stuff, that. But so smart, and so purposeful. @trkravtin @PaulWHankins @swerdnaessej

@PaulWHankins @LaurelSnyder @trkravtin @swerdnaessej I love how Earl is able to float among characters, infiltrate Greg Gaines.

@PaulWHankins @trkravtin @laurelsnyder@swerdnaessej “I know you’re Jewish but I just want to say something from the Bible.” Too funny.

@PaulWHankins @trkravtin @LaurelSnyder @swerdnaessej “She wanted us all to be ‘surprise Jews.” Meaning, with sneaky Anglo-Saxon names.” Classic.

@PaulWHankins @trkravtin @LaurelSnyder @swerdnaessej The main characters response to the news about Rachel. So authentic. This book’s a winner in 2012.

@LaurelSnyder Yes, this. So actual. So honest. And the growth is the same way, incremental, believable. @PaulWHankins @trkravtin @swerdnaessej

@swerdnaessej @LaurelSnyder @PaulWHankins @trkravtin Hurrah for you guys! And again, it’s fine if you’re all my mom/grandma, just please cop to it

@PaulWHankins 5 of 5 stars to Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews bit.ly/t7RHjp

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl 9781419701764 ABRAMS Books/Amulet Jesse Andrews $16.95 Cloth.

Laurel Synder is the author of many books for children. Her most recent novel is Bigger than a Bread Box, and her most recent picture book, Good night, laila tov, is brand spanking new and perfect for Earth Day!

Paul W. Hankins teaches 11th Grade English and AP English Language and Composition in southern Indiana. He is the creator/moderator of RAW INK Online, a digital learning community that connects his students with the Young Adult authors they are reading. Hankins created the hashtag campaign, #SpeakLoudly and co-hosts the new SpeakLoudly.org site with David Macinnis Gill. Hankins lives in southern Indiana with his wife, son, and daughter. A writer, Hankins’ work can be found in an anthology, Where Handstands Surprise Us and Motif 2: Chance.

Read my Goodreads review here.

Read Jesse’s post on the Abrams Blog here.

UPDATE: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is a top six pick for the 2012 Spring New Voices for Teens by the American Booksellers for Children Association.

Kirkus *STARRED REVIEW*: “Debut novelist Andrews succeeds brilliantly in painting a portrait of a kid whose responses to emotional duress are entirely believable…”

A frequently hysterical confessional from a teen narrator who won’t be able to convince readers he’s as unlikable as he wants them to believe.

“I have no idea how to write this stupid book,” narrator Greg begins. Without answering the obvious question—just why is he writing “this stupid book”?—Greg lets readers in on plenty else. His filmmaking ambitions. His unlikely friendship with the unfortunately short, chain-smoking, foulmouthed, African-American Earl of the title. And his unlikelier friendship with Rachel, the titular “dying girl.” Punctuating his aggressively self-hating account with film scripts and digressions, he chronicles his senior year, in which his mother guilt-trips him into hanging out with Rachel, who has acute myelogenous leukemia. Almost professionally socially awkward, Greg navigates his unwanted relationship with Rachel by showing her the films he’s made with Earl, an oeuvre begun in fifth grade with their remake of Aguirre, Wrath of God. Greg’s uber-snarky narration is self-conscious in the extreme, resulting in lines like, “This entire paragraph is a moron.” Debut novelist Andrews succeeds brilliantly in painting a portrait of a kid whose responses to emotional duress are entirely believable and sympathetic, however fiercely he professes his essential crappiness as a human being.

Though this novel begs inevitable thematic comparisons to John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars (2011), it stands on its own in inventiveness, humor and heart.

Greg Gaines, 17, would be the first to tell you that his constant “dickhead behavior” makes him the least likely person to befriend a classmate dying of leukemia. But he’s pushed into it by his mother and, well, the result is this “horrifyingly inane,” “unstoppable barf-fest” of a book. Greg prefers to keep a low-profile at school, instead collaborating with his almost-gangsta pal Earl on terrible remakes of classic films: Apocalypse Later with Super Soakers, The Manchurian Cat-idate with cats. But his knack for cracking jokes keeps the dying girl, Rachel, smiling, and pretty soon the whole school thinks he’s some kind of hero. He’s even pushed into making a final opus: Rachel the Film, a.k.a “the worst film ever made.” One need only look at the chapter titles (“Let’s Just Get This Embarrassing Chapter Out of the Way”) to know that this is one funny book, highlighted by screenplay excerpts and Earl’s pissy wisdom. What’s crazy is how moving it becomes in spite of itself. The characters are neither smart or precocious. Greg is not suitably moved by Rachel’s struggle. His film sucks. He thinks “bereavement” means “being attacked by beavers.” But it’s this honest lack of profundity, and the struggle to overcome it, that makes Andrews’ debut actually kinda profound.

The theme of #TitleTalk on Twitter last Sunday night was poetry in anticipation of Poetry Month in April. Teachers nationwide chatted about challenges and successes of teaching poetry in the classroom. Here are some poetry books for children of all ages that might inspire new ways to enjoy poetry in the classroom or at home.


A Foot in the Mouth
A Kick in the Head
A Poke in the I

“Readers will have the good fortune to experience poetry as art, game, joke, list, song, story, statement, question, memory. A primer like no other.” — School Library Journal (starred review) (Ages 8 -12) Candlewick Press, Editor: Paul B. Janeczko, Illustrator: Chris Raschka

Poetry tips for teachers from Paul B. Janeczko.


Here’s a Little Poem: A Very First Book of Poetry, Anthologist: Jane Yolen and Andrew Fusek Peters, Illustrator: Polly Dunbar Candlewick Press

“With lots of hugs and kisses, as well as messy nonsense and uproarious action, this big spacious anthology of more than 60 poems is a wonderful first book to read with babies and toddlers over and over again.” — Booklist (starred review)

Poetry Speaks Who I Am by Elise Paschen, Sourcebooks

“This volume of verse is aimed at teenagers and is, not surprisingly, full of strong emotion… It’s a standout collection, packaged with a CD of the poems read aloud, many by the poets themselves.”





Stage a Poetry Slam by Marc Kelly Smith and Joe Kraynak, Sourcebooks







Poetry Speaks Expanded by Elise Paschen and Rebekah Mosby, Sourcebooks

“By the time you’re done, your biggest problem may be that you wish there was more.” – Wall Street Journal

“The definitive anthology of poets reading their own work.” — Publishers Weekly


Poem in Your Pocket for Young Poets, Selected by Bruno Navasky, in association with the Academy of American Poets, Amulet Books

The perforated pages in Poem in Your Pocket for Young Poets enable readers to select a poem they love, tear it out neatly from the book, and carry it with them all day to read, be inspired by, and share with family and friends.


Poem in Your Pocket: 200 Poems to Read and Carry Edited by Elaine Bleakney and published in conjunction with the Academy of American Poets, with an introduction by Kay Ryan, Poet Laureate, Abrams Image

Download free poems for your pocket from Poets.org