Week 7 - Not Just for Teens

Assignment 2
I read The Next Big Thing: Adults Reading Teen Literature by Jennifer Rummel and Who's Buying Teen Books? by Molly Driscoll. According to the first article, there is a growing percentage of adults purchasing YA books. For those of us in Library Land, it comes as no big shock that adults enjoy teen titles. The article lists 10 reasons why adults are reading increasingly more from the teen area. I read a fair amount of teen lit just because I think there is a lot of good "stuff" in the teen section. Many of the reasons listed in the article are common sense, such as the large number of crossover writers (Patterson, Grisham, Picoult), the popularity of TV shows based on teen series (Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars) and what the author of the article refers to as "The Hunger Games Effect." One reason I hadn't thought about was the amount of teen lit book reviews that appear in various magazines. For example, Redbook recently had a feature called YA Novels for You and Your Kids.

The Molly Driscoll article from The Christian Science Monitor cites the same study as the Rummel article; "55% of customers who buy young adult books are 18 or older." For me, the biggest take away from this article was that young adult books may be less complicated than adult books and therefore offer more pleasure. Also, some of them are just well written. I wonder how many adults would pick up and enjoy a teen novel if they weren't aware that it was labeled as such by the publishing industry.

For the final part of this assignment, I commented on Julie B.'s blog and Erika C.'s blog.

Assignment 3
I am a huge John Green fan so of course I decided to take a gander at his website. Hmmm - not really quite sure what he's aiming for there... I watched a few of the videos he posted but it just seems to be a weird hodgepodge of things he wants to talk about. I guess I was expecting to hear him discuss books. Silly me.

So I moved along to the next site on the list Stacked and I immediately noticed the tag line in the header:
librarians.
reviews.
mayhem.
The authors of this blog are very upfront and straightforward about the purpose of the blog. "STACKED on the surface, is interested in reviewing books for readers while simultaneously enticing non-readers to think about reading in fun and interesting ways." This blog is for anyone who reads teen literature and it's presented in a fairly straightforward manner. There's an extensive list of labels on the left-hand side of the page so you can explore something specific is you do desire.

Teenreads is one of those websites I forgot existed until I saw it on this list. I always thought this site had a lot of really useful information for those who read teen lit. There are lots of reviews and great regular features such as Coming Soon, Books on Screen and interestingly enough, Adult Books for Teens. The site is easy to navigate despite the many links. You can search for reviews by title, author, genre or date; a feature I find useful.

Assignment 4
From the very first look at Teens at Random, it's easy to see that the current trends of paranormal/supernatural, dystopias and alternate realities continue to remain popular. Many of the new releases that are featured are titles that would be considered mash ups of multiple genres; a trend I learned more about last week's assignment. One such title that caught my attention was Golden Girl by Sarah Zettel, which falls into both the historical fiction and fantasy genres. In general, this website is interactive and offers book trailers, eBook samplers and games on Facebook.

Penguin's site for Teens and Young Readers is very similar to Random House's site. Among the featured books there were more post-apocalyptic tales and supernatural offerings. Once again there were interactive/multimedia elements such as eBook samplers, book trailers and a wide variety of apps. These apps range from a Vampire Bite app, a Crypt Radio app and an Alex Rider Gadget app. I can't check any of these out though because I am one of the few people left who has a dumb phone!
Another trend I noticed on both sites was the popularity of series. Kids of all ages seem to enjoy reading books that are part of a series. I hear this time and again from customers in our branch as well as my niece and nephew.