Weekly YA Explorations

This week I checked out a few different books at my local public library. One of them I'd heard mentioned by so many different people, I thought it must be a sign... which maybe I'll get around to acting upon some day! The others I found through researching other aspects of YA.

The first book I'd like to highlight is The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, by Daniel James Brown. Told in part through the team members' own diaries and photographs, The Boys in the Boat seems like a perfect summer read for someone looking for both some inspiration (who couldn't use a bit of that these days?) and also way to get into the Olympic spirit during this summer's odd Olympics. The 1936 Olympics were also unusual, though more for the fascist scourge taking over the host country that the plague still ravaging the globe. I overheard strangers talking about this book over the last week; once when I was at the beach, and again when I was visiting my parents in New Hampshire. When I walked into my local library's YA section and saw this book prominently on display, I just had to pick it up. I know it's not a genre book but I couldn't resist the signs from the universe. Learn more here. 

Second up on my list for the week is book I learned about last week, while learning about depictions of faith and religion in YA. I learned that 2016 was a "big year for God" in YA, with many of these books winning awards. I know we're supposed to do "nerdy books" this week, but I thought I'd include it here since we didn't have to do any blogging last week. I also think it fits! Graphic novels are nerdy, right? It is also kinda related to the above book, too! John Hendrix's The Faithful Spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Plot to Kill Hitler is a graphic novel. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor and anti-Nazi who was executed in 1945, as the Nazi regime was crumbling, for being a part of the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Despite its limited color palette of blue, red, and black, The Faithful Spy is a very dynamically illustrated book, with Hendrix employing a vast array of comic illustration techniques. I'd like to actually read this one soon! Learn more here.

Last for the week is a book that I did not manage to see in person, but I'm very intrigued by it. As part of this week's content discussion, we read an article about dystopian YA fiction. One of the chief complaints that the author of this article and I share is that so much of YA, particularly dystopian YA, lacks a sense of humor. In fact, that was on aspect of this week's assigned book that made it a real struggle for me to get through. So I went searching for someone who might be considered a contemporary, YA Kurt Vonnegut and I ended up reading about Skunks Dance by St. John Karp. This story also doesn't really fit into the "nerdy books" category too well. I don't think you can call it genre fiction, but it is about two teenagers searching for a mysterious treasure! Tres Goonies. But I wrote about it because I was inspired to look for it based on an article we read this week, so I hope it counts. I'd like to check it out in person because anyone who dares to compare an author's work to Kurt Vonnegut, as I've seen done about this book in a couple of places on the internet, better be prepared for a critical eye. So it goes. Read more about this book here. 



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