Week 7

Assignment 1:
The flow chart is interesting. I like that it gives you a lot of different options based on what appealed to you about The Hunger Games.  I'm really over dystopian lit, and I wish that the library world would spend more time talking about all of the other great teen fiction out there that adult readers are also reading.

Assignment 2:
New Adult: Needless Marketing-Speak Or Valued Subgenre?
Do I think customers will come in and ask for our New Adult section?  Probably not.  It's a marketing term, as the article says.  The content has always been there, even when it was less popular.  It's just a new name for contemporary romance (as was chick lit), but these titles are bestsellers (often self-published without all of the backing of a major publishing house) for a reason.  People want to read them. I think it's very important that staff know what they are and that we have them.  Librarians get too caught up on naming things and hating whatever's new sometimes.  We need to remember that our entire service model is "give them what they want," not "give them what we like."

The Next Big Thing: Adults Reading Teen Literature
This isn't a new big thing at all.  I think adults have long read teen literature and vice versa.  The truth is that people read what they want to read.  The age designations matter far more to publisher marketing teams and librarians than they do to our customers.

To me, the bottom line is that librarians are obsessed with teen fiction these days.  Look at this training--all the genres combined got one week and teen fiction also got its own week.  Given our circulation statistics and publishers' sales, that's a huge imbalance.  It is, however, reflective of the library world right now.  There is some great teen fiction out there. It is also very popular with adult readers too.  No question.  I just think it's important not to let our own personal reading preferences take the place of our customers' preferences in our discussions.

I commented on Sandy and Olivia's blogs.

Assignment 3:
Stacked
This one is written by librarians and seems largely focused toward a librarian audience, although it could also interest others.  It has reviews and discussions of YA publishing and trends.  It's really helpful.  I read a great post about July debuts.

Forever Young Adult
This is really interesting blog that reminds me a little bit of Heroes & Heartbreakers.  It's not specifically YA books, but it also has lots of pop culture info about tv shows and such.  It's definitely more of a blog for adults interested in teen lit as the name implies.  Very interesting. (There's a Gilmore Girls rewatching post!  <3) I like the pop culture information in addition to books.  I think it's especially helpful because sometimes I feel like librarians get stuck in the book world and miss so much of the general pop culture knowledge that plays into knowing the collection and popular titles for customers.

Assignment 4:
Harper Teen
This page is heavy on the dystopian fiction.  Probably because they're gearing up for the third Veronica Roth to be published.  I found a link to Epic Reads there, which was really interesting.  It has a lot of great content including adult books for teens. There's a lot more interactive content, and it's a really dynamic site.

Little, Brown
I really liked the Little Brown Teen site.  There are a lot of posts with graphics, tweets, and video content.  I think it's a lot more interesting visually than the Harper site.  I also like all of the author interviews and behind the scenes content.  The books on the page are much more varied.