Welcome to September, YA fans!
This week’s newsletter is sponsored by Ghostly Echoes by William Ritter.
In the third volume of the highly addictive New York Times bestselling Jackaby series, Jenny Cavanaugh, the ghostly lady of 926 Augur Lane, has enlisted the services of her fellow residents to solve a decade-old murder—her own. Abigail Rook and her eccentric employer, R. F. Jackaby, dive into the cold case, starting with a search for Jenny’s fiancé, who went missing the night she died. EW.com calls the series “fast-paced and full of intrigue.” It’s “Sherlock Holmes crossed with Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” says the Chicago Tribune.
As you’re reading this, your newsletter writer is deep in the desert, soaking in the last few weeks of summer….and uninterrupted reading time. That means this week’s newsletter is dedicated to catching up on the links of interest. Dig in!
- First: did you know that we have a new YA-based tote bag in the Book Riot Store? This rad tote, with a quote from Nova Ren Suma’s The Walls Around Us was created for the first YA Book Mail Box, but we decided we’d put it in the store, too. Check it out and snag one. If you’re curious, it’s very big and has a nice pocket inside — it’s perfect for toting your library or bookstore hauls, some notebooks, pens, your phone, and other goods.
- A Monster Calls, the film based on the book by Patrick Ness (which might lean more middle grade than YA), is getting pushed back by a couple of months. Here’s info on the new release date and the latest trailer.
- Jennifer Yuh Nelson is on as the director for the adaptation of The Darkest Minds. Yeah lady director! Yeah lady director who is a woman of color!
- Speaking of female directors, Lumberjanes has one, too.
- Remember the announcement of YA X-Files books? Here are the covers for what will be hitting shelves early next year.
- In Italy, their young adults are getting nearly $600 to spend on books. This is awesome.
- Itching for some nostalgia reading? Here’s a piece from Broadly about our collective obsession with The Baby-Sitters Club. One of our Book Riot contributors just wrote a piece of interest, too, recommending books to the members of the BSC.
- Malorie Blackman’s Naughts and Crosses is being adapted by the BBC. This is a huge deal for UK YA — Blackman has a massive and devoted following. (It’s always fascinating to me to see how different the reception is in the UK or in Australia as opposed to the US and vice versa!).
- There are two more books slated for the wildly popular “Ember in the Ashes” series.
- 20,000 copies of Jason Reynolds’s books will be given out to kids. So great.
- There are more questions to be asked about this than answers to be had, so stay with me here. There is a proposal — not a written book yet — for the YA audience about The Donner Party which has already had its rights snapped for film? And it’s from Paper Lantern Lit (in basic terms, a book packager like Alloy that comes up with ideas and hires writers for them…think going for “Pretty Little Liars” type popularity and ubiquity). I don’t know how I feel about such a tragic, horrifying event being…commodified like that? And it’s not even a book yet! But the movie rights have been sold? “The Hunger?” Like I said, questions.
- Getting ready for the spring 2017 YA books? Here’s a preview from Publishers Weekly (& hey! I spot a familiar name there!).
- Marvel’s Runaways is getting a Netflix deal. This series was always hugely popular in my libraries.
- YA author Corinne Duyvis is writing a Guardians of the Galaxy novel.
And because we’ve had a lot of YA writing over on Book Riot recently, let’s catch up with it:
- YA book recommendations for fans of Stranger Things. This was such a fun list to write!
- YA book covers worth loving….especially because they feature girls of color on ‘em!
- A wee bit biting but also not incorrect (& also clearly written with love!), here’s a look at fandom according to YA fiction.
- 25 YA paperbacks for your fall reading pleasure. That’s backlist, baby.
- YA books with shifting POVs.
- A round-up of YA authors who literally rock . . . since they’re musicians.
- An early peek at some intersectional YA hitting shelves in 2017.
- And finally, an interview and look behind the scenes of cover design with Dave Caplan, Creative Director at Little, Brown. This entire series of interviews is outstanding for cover and design nerds.
May your books be fantastic and your end-of-summer delightful. We’ll be back with another installment of “What’s Up in YA?” in two weeks!