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Participate in the African-American Read-In With Zombie Michele Lee and MonsterLibrarian.com!

As you probably know, February is Black History Month in the United States. To honor that, MonsterLibrarian.com brings you a message from Zombie Michele Lee announcing a project she’ll be spearheading this month. We hope you’ll participate!

Hi, this is Zombie Michele with a special announcement. In honor of Black History Month I’ll be hosting Monster Librarian’s first (online) African American Read In and you are enthusiastically invited to join in!

 

How to join: February 6th, 7th & 8th join us online on Twitter ( we’ll be using the hashtag #MLAAReadIn), on Facebook or here at Musings of the Monster Librarian.

 

All you have to do is read a book (or two or a dozen) written by an African American writer (stay tuned for a list, if you don’t know where to start) and tell me on those sites, or email me at zombiemicheleATgmailDOTcom (with spam guards removed) what book you’re reading. We’d love to hear what you think of it as well, but all we require for reporting is which books were read.

 

I picked a three day scope so that you have plenty of time to join in. There is no minimum number of books you have to read. There is no genre you have to stick to (though being a speculative fiction site we’ll be focusing on science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery and romance authors). Read as little or as much as you like of what you like!

 

I’ll do all the heavy lifting (aka, filling out the reports to make this event official). You just have to read!

 

To help you out, Zombie Michele has hunted down some booklists of reading material you can use to get started below:

YA/Adult List from the event site- http://www.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Involved/Action/AARI/Young_Adults_Adults.pdf

Young Children’s List from the event site- http://www.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Involved/Action/AARI/Young_Children.pdf

A book list from the Cincinnati Libraryhttp://www.cincinnatilibrary.org/booklists/?id=africanamericanwriters

 

And our own (not exhaustive) list of African American speculative fiction books. Many of these books are available digitally, so even if you’re a last minute joiner there’s no problem. Just download a book and jump in!

N.K. Jemisin

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (Inheritance Trilogy #1)

The Broken Kingdoms (Inheritance Trilogy #2)

The Kingdom of the Gods (Inheritance Trilogy #3)

 

David Anthony Durham

Acadia: The War with the Mein (Acadia #1)

The Other Lands (Acadia #2)

The Sacred Band (Acadia #3)

 

Octavia Butler

Parable of the Sower

Kindred

Fledgling

Dawn (Xenogenisis #1)

Adulthood Rites (Xenogenesis #2)

Imago (Xenogenesis #3)

Lilith’s Brood

Parable of the Talents

Wild Seed

Seed to Harvest

Mind of My Mind

Clay’s Ark

Bloodchild and other Stories

Patternmaster

Survivor

 

Samuel R. Delany

Times Square Red, Times Square Blue

Babel-17

Tales of Neveryon

Dhalgren

Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand

Trouble on Triton

Nova

The Einstein Intersection

Hogg: A Novel

Atlantis: Three Tales

Dark Reflections

Aye, and Gomorrah: And Other Stories

Return to Neveryon

Flight from Neveryon

The Fall of the Towers

Distant Stars

The Jewels of Aptor

The Ballad of Beta 2

City of a Thousand Suns

The Mad Man

Bread & Wine: An Erotic Tale of New York

They Fly At Ciron

 

Steve Barnes

The Cestus Deception (Star Wars: Clone Wars novel)

Beowulf’s children

Great Sky Woman: A Novel

Dream Park

The Barsoom Project

Casanegra: A Tennyson Hardwick Novel

Shadow Valley

Zulu Heart

Charisma

Lion’s Blood

Far Beyond the Stars (Star Trek Deep Space Nine)

Saturn’s Race

The Kundalini Equation

The Decent of the Anansi

Firedance

Assassin and other stories

Gorgon Child

Iron Shadows

 

Tananarive Due

My Soul to Take

The Good House

Blood Colony

My Soul to Keep

The Between

The Living Blood

Joplin’s Ghost

 

 

L.A. Banks

Shadow Walker (Neteru Academy)

Finders Keepers (Dark Avengers)

Loser’s Weepers (Dark Advengers)

Death’s Excellent Vacation (contributor)

My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding (contributor)

Love at First Bite (contributor)

Minion (Vampire Huntress)

Stroke of Midnight

The Thirteenth (Vampire huntress)

Vegas Bites (contributor)

The Awakening (Vampire Huntress)

The Wicked (Vampire Huntress)

The Hunted (Vampire Huntress)

The Forsaken (Vampire huntress)

The Ancestors

Bad Blood (Crimson Moon #1)

Bite the Bullet (Crimson Moon #2)

Undead on Arrival (Crimson Moon #3)

Cursed to Death (Crimson Moon #4)

Never Cry Werewolf (Crimson Moon)

The Bitten (Vampire Huntress)

The Darkness (Vampire Huntress)

The Forbidden (Vampire Huntress)

The Cursed (Vampire Huntress)

The Damned (Vampire Huntress)

The Shadows (Vampire Huntress)

L.A. Banks’ Vampire Huntress: Dawn and Darkness

L.A. Banks’ Vampire Huntress: The Hidden Darkness

Creepin’

Minion

Voices from the Other Side: Dark Dreams II (Contributor)

 

Timothy N. Stelly, Sr

Human Trial

Human Trial II: Adam’s War

 

Brandon Massey

Covenant

Don’t Ever Tell

The Ancestors

The Other Brother

Vicious

Cornered

Thunderland

Dark Dreams (contributor)

Voices From the Other Side: Dark Dreams II (contributor)

Whispers in the Night: Dark Dreams III (contributor)

Within the Shadows

Dark Corner

Twisted Tales

 

L.R. Giles

The Darkness Kept

The Serpent and the Stallion

Live Again

Trick Shot (a short story)

Lover’s Spat (a short story)

The Track (a short story)

Doc Damage’s Very Bad Day (a short story)

Southern Hospitality (a short story)

Wilson’s Pawn & Loan (a short story)

Power and Purpose (a short story)

The Shadows Gallery

 

Walter Mosley

All I Did was Shoot My Man

When the Thrill is Gone

The Long Fall

Known to Evil

The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey

Devil in a Blue Dress

Stories: All-New Tales

Killin Jihnny Fry

Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned

Little Scarlet

White Butterfly

Blonde Faith

Black Betty

Cinnamon Kiss

A Red Death

47

A Little Yellow Dog

Six Easy Pieces

Diablerie

The Man in My Basement

Fearless Jones

The Tempest Tales

Fear Itself

Fortunate Son

Bad Boy Brawly Brown

Walkin’ the Dog

R L’s Dream

Gone Fishin’

Blue Light

The Wave

Manhattan Karma

 

Charles Saunders

Imaro

Imora II: The Quest for Cush

The Trail of Buhu (Imaro III)

 

R.A. Baker

Rayna of Nightwind (Taren)

 

Nalo Hopkinson

So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction & Fantasy

Midnight Robber

The Salt Roads

Brown Girl in the Ring

The New Moon’s Arms

Skin Folk

The Chaos

Mojo: Conjure Stories

Whispers from the Cotton Tree Root: Caribbean Fabulist Fiction

 

Chesya Burke

Dark Faith (contributor)

Let’s Play White

Whispers in the Night: Dark Dreams III (contributor)

Voices From the Other Side: Dark Dreams II (contributor)

Dark Dreams (contributor)

 

Maurice Broaddus

Beauty Has Her Way

Dark Futures: Tales of Dystopian SF (contributor)

Dark Faith (editor)

Orgy of Souls

King Maker (Knights of Breton Court #1)

King’s Justice (Knights of Breton Court #2)

King’s War (Knights of Breton Court #3)

Apexology: Science Fiction and Fantasy (contributor)

Whispers in the Night: Dark Dreams III (contributor)

Harlan County Horrors (contributor)

Devil’s Marionette

 

Wrath James White

Succulent Prey

The Resurrectionist

Population Zero

The Book of a Thousand Sins

Yaccub’s Curse

 

John M. Faucette

Crown of Infinity

Siege of Earth

The Warriors of Terra

The Age of Ruin

 

Linda Addison

Animated Objects

Consumed, Reduced to Beautiful Grey Ashes

Being Full of Light, Insubstantial

How to Recognize A Demon Has Become Your Friend

 

Kevin Grevioux

New Warriors (Marvel Comics)

ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction

Adam: Legend of the Blue Marvel

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans

DevaShard: at first light

 

Andrea Hairston

Mindscape

Redwood and Wildfire

 

Nisi Shawl

 

Sheree Thomas

Anansi

Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora (editor)

Dark Matter: Reading the Bones (editor)

 

Nnedi Okorafor

Who Fears Death

Zahrah the Windseeker (YA)

The Shadow Speaker (YA)

Long Juju Man (YA)

Akata Witch (YA)

Iridessa and the Secret of the Never Mine (YA)

 

Seressia Glass

Vegas Bites (contributor)

Shadow Blade

Shadow Fall

Shadow Chase

Dream of Shadows

 

 

 

American Library Association 2012 Youth Media Awards Announced

ALA’s Youth Media Awards include the famed Newbery and Caldecott Awards, as well as numerous others. This year’s awards were announced last night at ALA’s Midwinter Meeting, and since I’m unfamiliar with a lot of the books, I now have a whole bunch of new titles to add to my (already very long) reading list.

The Newbery went to Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos. I LOVE Jack Gantos- to me it seems like he really captures the experience of being a boy, with humor. Not that I’m a boy. But a lot of his books are semi-autobiographical, and they just knock me over. Gantos has also written a YA novel, The Love Curse of the Rumbaughs, which is deeply dark and twisted, that we’ve reviewed here. He is, simply, a great writer.

The Caldecott went to A Ball for Daisy by Chris Raschka, who is a favorite illustrator of mine. I love his book Yo! Yes!… It is a great read aloud for any story hour!

And the Printz, for excellence in YA literature, went to Corey Whaley for Where Things Come Back, which I have been meaning to read and will now be moving to the top of my list.

 

Congratulations to them all!

Waiting for Godot

I wasn’t paying attention, but there has been some sort of brouhaha online about reviews on Goodreads. Apparently someone on there posted a negative review of  a book, and a  friend of the author’s who responded  in a less-than-professional manner, causing a stunning flame war on Twitter (the author herself apparently was very gracious when she finally responded to the whole discussion).

I’m not sure what the big deal is here. Reviews on Goodreads or Amazon are reader opinions. As a librarian neither of those are places I would go to decide whether to buy a book for my collection, and as a reader, well, one bad review(or one good review) on Goodreads or Amazon is something I take with a grain of salt. Our philosophy here is that the individual reader’s taste is personal. Not everyone will have the same taste. And that’s okay.

But out of all of this craziness came this post by Maggie Stiefvater. Maggie Stiefvater, if you don’t know, is a bestselling YA author who has written a series called The Wolves of Mercy Falls. Last year she wrote an article for Knowledge Quest, the journal of the American Association of School Librarians, about the responsibilities of a YA author toward her teenage audience, which I thought was pretty good.

Apparently this Goodreads debacle caused her to step up and inform her readers that

A review is an unbiased, careful look at a book — basically it is a little academic paper. It involves an itty-bitty thesis on your opinion of the book, surrounded by tiny supporting sentences describing the strengths and weaknesses of said book. Every month, dozens upon dozens of these reviews come out in professional journals. Because they’re fair and thorough, they’re prized and respected in the publishing world.

I’m not going to quibble with everything she says here. A review SHOULD BE a careful look at a book. But it will never be unbiased and it shouldn’t be. At MonsterLibrarian.com we have reviewers who enjoy and are knowledgeable about extreme horror and bizarro. Those are the people we ask to review extreme horror and bizarro, because they like reading it, have experience with it, and understand what it means to write well in those genres. If you write in those genres, be glad that we have those (awesome) people on staff.

Ms. Stiefvater’s post suggests that ONLY the reviews that appear in professional journals matter. I strongly disagree that a review must be a “little academic paper” with a thesis and supporting statements, though. If that were the case, I can guarantee academic and professional journals would not be publishing “dozens and dozens” of reviews(Also, her publisher wouldn’t have sent me a copy of Forever for review).  Just out of curiosity, I used the INSPIRE database Academic Search Premier (INSPIRE is Indiana’s virtual library) to find some “little academic papers” that have been published about Ms. Stiefvater’s own books. Reviews of her books have appeared in well-respected journals, including The Horn Book, Booklist, School Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, and the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy. I’ve read all of these at some point, read some of them regularly and have great respect for the work they do.

But many reviews are mostly plot summaries. This is from the review of Shiver from Publishers Weekly. Eighty percent of it described the plot- only part of the first sentence and the last sentence provide an evaluation of the “strengths and weaknesses” of the book.

Stiefvater leaves the faeries oí Lament and Ballad for a lyrical tale… Stiefvater skillfully increases the tension throughout; her take on werewolves is interesting and original while her characters are refreshingly willing to use their brains to deal with the challenges they face.

Where’s the thesis and its multiple supporting sentences?

Here’s a review, this time of Linger, from the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy. Once again, a majority of the review was a plot summary. Here’s the reviewer’s conclusion:

The sequel is as enjoyable as its predecessor but might benefit from more action. Both stories are basically love stories with supernatural elements. The new characters in Linger keep the story interesting, and readers are unlikely to sense an opening in the ending for a third book.

And here’s a review from Booklist, for Forever.

Once again, a large chunk was devoted to a plot summary. Here’s the part that actually commented on the book.

The parallel love stories contrast beautifully with each other: Grace and Sam are sweetly innocent together, constant and enduring; while Isabel and Cole’s relationship is more knowing, with sharp edges and an uncertain future. Stiefvater’s emotional prose is rich without being melodramatic, and she clearly shares her fans’ love of these characters.

She clearly shares her fans’ love of her characters? Is that supposed to be a strength or a weakness?

If it matters, I’m happy to share the citations, in proper format, on request.

MonsterLibrarian.com isn’t Booklist, and doesn’t pretend to be. We strive to write honest reviews, and to remember the audience we’re writing for. Every one of us is a volunteer and many of us devote hours each week to writing reviews that are so much more than what you see above, that our reviewers put their hearts and minds into to provide librarians and readers with reviews and information they aren’t going to find anywhere else. Kirkus Reviews may produce 5,000 reviews a year, but how many books are there out there with authors who will never make their cut? Ms. Stiefvater is one of the lucky few who can count on getting reviewed in the journals that libraries and bookstores use to choose the books they order. Not everyone gets that chance. But just because their review didn’t appear in a professional review journal doesn’t mean that the book isn’t worth reviewing or that those of us who genuinely strive to serve a professional or reading audience matter less.  As you can see above, even the reviews written for professional journals don’t quite meet her vision. Most authors who wait for a “little academic paper” complete with thesis and supporting sentences are waiting for Godot.

But authors, readers, and librarians looking for honest reviews of horror and paranormal fiction and the related genres, or scary stories for kids, will find that here.