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Our hand-picked list from the Best Selling Young Adult list from The New York Times includes a revisit of Red Queen, by Victoria Aveyard. The best selling young adult titles include books by super-talent Rainbow Rowell.

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Our hand-picked list from the Best Selling Young Adult list from The New York Times includes a revisit of Red Queen, by Victoria Aveyard.

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Nicola Yoon’s debut novel, Everything, Everything, is a must-read, inviting a broad spectrum of audiences, from preteens to the older generations.

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Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon. Delacorte Press, 2015. Reviewed from ARC.

The Plot: Maddy, 18, is a girl who hasn't left home in years. She has Severe Combined Immunodeficiency, which is a fancy way of saying she is allergic to everything. Her house has to be kept a sterile, few people are allowed in, and all she knows of the world is what she read or what she watches.

One of the things she watches is the house next door and the new family, including a boy, Olly, her age. A friendship develops, and maybe something more, as Maddy has to decide what her future will be and whether she will always be afraid of the world.

The Good: Maddy's father and brother died while she was still an infant, before her illness was diagnosed. For years, it's only been her mother, a doctor, and a nurse who also her friend and confidant.

Olly. Olly is a fresh breath and their relationship is slow and sweet (though Olly would probably hate that!). It begins with handwritten signs and progresses to texts and emails until Maddy begs her nurse to please, please, please let Olly visit her. He'll follow all the rules, they both promise.

One thing leads to another, and Maddy is tempted to do the unthinkable. To kiss Olly. To leave her home. To venture into a world that may kill her.

This is a terrific story of a girl get wrapped up and safe; it's a story of a mother and daughter who are close and loving, whose past tragedies have made them dependent on each other and close. It's a story of a girl who has to take a chance with life and love. It's about whether what is safe is the best; about when it's OK to take a chance. And it's also a book with a diverse main character (half African American, half Japanese American) in a type of book that is usually all white main characters with, at best, diverse side kicks/best friends.

SPOILERS.

It's also about how tragedy can shape a person, both mother and daughter. And how far a mother will go to protect someone she loves, to protect her child. All I'll say is that, Maddy's life is not what she thinks. That secret, that spoiler, meant that some people really did not like the book (see the Disability in Kidlit review). That spoiler didn't change how I viewed the book, it simply shifted it for me -- that the book was not about one thing, but was actually about another.

And that other thing, it's disturbing. It shifts how Maddy sees and interacts with the world. And it also makes one think about what causes hurt and what causes harm.









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© Elizabeth Burns of A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy

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Our hand-picked list from the Best Selling Young Adult list from The New York Times remains the same this month. The best selling young adult titles include books by super-talents Rainbow Rowell and Marie Lu.

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My thoughts on two new YA books—M. T Anderson's Symphony for the City of the Dead and Nicola Yoon's Everything, Everything—in the New York Journal of Books.

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This month, the best selling young adult titles include books by super-talents Neil Gaiman, Chris Riddell, Rainbow Rowell and Sarah Dessen.

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This post is part of a series on the blog where I share some of the nuggets of wisdom and inspiration — related to writing and/or life — that I find steeped in the pages of novels that I’ve read.

This author was recently at the 2015 Decatur Book Festival. If you love romance, then this is a book for you. It made its debut at #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List for Young Adult Hardcover.

Imagine if you were allergic to the world. You spent your whole life in your house — never venturing out — until you the love of your life moves in next door.

Maddy’s love interest, Olly, loves math and there is some discussion about chaos theory — how even one small change can lead to unpredictable results.

I know a lot of us think, “What if I have done this instead of that?” “How would my life have been different if I chose A instead of B?” The point is that we’ll never know because we chose a path and that is the path we are currently living. It does make you ponder though. At what moment was my life set on the current path I’m living? What would happen if I could change that moment?



From Maddy, the POV protagonist of the novel Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon

I think if I could just find the moment, I could take it apart piece by piece, molecule by molecule, until I got down to the atomic level, until I got to the part that was inviolate and essential. If I could take it apart and understand it then maybe I could make just exactly the right change.

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Maddie is a girl who has spent her entire 17 years of life indoors because she is allergic to most everything outside. She's smart, complex, and funny but sheltered from the world by her conditions. Her social needs are met by her online friends, her mother, and her nurse. One day, a boy moves next [...]

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Our list of the best new kids books for September highlights some amazing books from many different genres: non-fiction, reality fiction, fantasy, and even a beautiful picture book that addresses gender identity. Take a gander and let us know which titles and covers catch your eye ... Read the rest of this post

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Nicola Yoon grew up in Jamaica (the island) and Brooklyn (part of Long Island). She currently resides in Los Angeles with her husband and their daughter, both of whom she loves beyond all reason. Her first novel, Everything, Everything, will be published by Random House\Delacorte Press on September 1, 2015. Follow her on Twitter @nicolayoon.



Here's the synopsis of Nicola's book:

Madeline Whittier is allergic to the outside world. So allergic, in fact, that she has never left the house in all of her seventeen years. She is content enough—until a boy with eyes the color of the Atlantic Ocean moves in next door. Their complicated romance begins over IM and grows through a wunderkammer of vignettes, illustrations, charts, and more.

Highlights of Nicola's comments:

"The job of a writer is to tell the truth. To see people as they are."

Miranda asks Nicola about having a character with a serious disease, and at the same time being of mixed heritage.

"The story is about her, she's not the sidekick."

A book about the diversity (like coming out stories) can be "incredibly important."

And, Nicola says, "a non-issue book is just as important."

"If Harry Potter were black, that would be awesome. Or if he were gay."

Nicola speaks of what happens when you have only one of a category of people.

When you have only one black or gay character, then they become representative of that category. If you have only one character who is black and they're a drug dealer, that can be problematic. But if you have ten characters who are black, it's not so troubling. Because that one character is no longer a representative of everyone who is part of that category, too.

"No one represents everyone."

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Miranda Paul moderates the "Diversity in Children's Books: Challenges and Solutions" panel, (from left to right) Nicola Yoon, Varian Johnson, Brandy Colbert and Joe Cepeda.

(I.W. Gregorio was unable to attend.)

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