2017 Kids' Lit Fest Author Tiffany Schmidt

Meet Tiffany Schmidt

Tiffany Schmidt is the author of Send Me a Sign, Bright Before Sunrise, and Hold Me Like a Breath. She’s found her happily ever after in Pennsylvania with her saintly husband, impish twin boys, and a pair of mischievous puggles.

You can find out more about her and her books at: TiffanySchmidt.com, TiffanySchmidtWrites.tumblr.com, or by following her on Twitter @TiffanySchmidt.

Meet Tiffany Schmidt's Books

Hold Me Like a Breath

The reviewers say:

 School Library Journal - “A crime narrative that satisfies a craving for suspenseful romance, entertaining adventure, and edge-of-your-seat survival drama.”

USA Today - “Pretty dang awesome modern fairy tale. Add this to your must-read pile!”

Bustle –“an organ trafficking fairy tale for the ages.”

Paste – “a badass way to revamp a classic story.”

In Penelope Landlow's world, almost anything can be bought or sold. She's the daughter of one of the three crime families
controlling the black market for organ transplants. Because of an autoimmune disorder that causes her to bruise easily, Penny is considered too "delicate" to handle the family business, or even to step foot outside their estate.

All Penelope has ever wanted is independence--until she's suddenly thrust into the dangerous world all alone, forced to stay one step ahead of her family's enemies. As she struggles to survive the power plays of rival crime families, she learns dreams come with casualties, betrayal hurts worse than bruises, and there's nothing she won't risk for the people she loves.

Perfect for fans of Holly Black and Kimberly Derting, this first book in the stunning new Once Upon a Crime Family series from acclaimed author Tiffany Schmidt will leave readers breathless.

2017 Kids' Lit Fest Author Justina Ireland

Meet Justina Ireland

Justina Ireland enjoys dark chocolate, dark humor, and is not too proud to admit that she’s still afraid of the dark. She lives with her husband, kid, and dog in Pennsylvania. She is the author of Vengeance Bound and Promise of Shadows. Visit her at JustinaIreland.com.

Justina has a blog in which she posts anonymous reviews of YA books - anonymous because authors can suffer very real blow-back for calling out racist and other stereotypes in YA books. All of the reviews are deeply thoughtful, and raise important questions. Intrigued? Start with these:
Writing is Hard: Redemption Arcs for Racist Characters
Mulan as an important cultural narrative

Meet Justina Ireland's Book

Adjectives most often used in reviews: snarky, sly, darkly funny, ominous, dynamic, tantalizing, diverse

 A teen who is half-god, half-human must own her power whether she likes it or not in this snappy, Kirkus Reviews calls “a dark, slyly funny read.”

Zephyr Mourning has never been very good at being a Harpy. She’d rather watch reality TV than learn forty-seven ways to kill a man, and she pretty much sucks at wielding magic. Zephyr was ready for a future pretending to be a normal human instead of a half-god assassin. But all that changed when her sister was murdered—and Zephyr used a forbidden dark power to save herself from the same fate.

On the run from a punishment worse than death, an unexpected reunion with a childhood friend upends Zephyr’s world—and not only because her old friend has grown surprisingly, extremely hot. It seems that Zephyr might just be the Nyx, a dark goddess that is prophesied to shift the power balance: for hundreds of years the half-gods have lived in fear, and Zephyr is supposed to change that.

But how is she supposed to save everyone else when she can barely take care of herself?
snarky novel with a serving of smoldering romance that

2017 Kids' Lit Fest Author Sonia Belasco

Meet Sonia Belasco

I have spent much of my professional life working with teenagers as a mentor, tutor and therapist, and I'm often inspired by their passion, creativity and strength. I write because I love stories and I love sharing them. Truly great stories transport you to other places, let you live other lives and be a part of worlds only limited by the scope of your imagination. It's the most affordable way to travel.

Other things I love: TV shows about high school, baking, travel, mysteries where everyone is very British. Hip-hop of all types and flavors (ask me about Tupac vs. Biggie and be prepared to hang out for a while). Attempting cooking experiments. Analyzing pop culture. Photography. Going to live theater. Putting on a show.

Notable accomplishments include: I think I've probably seen every contemporary movie that involves dance battles or superheroes. My cat Moo Cow, a sassy Maine Coon/Angora mix from the mean streets of West Philly,  has an Instagram. I once spent way too much time cataloging my personal library on LibraryThing. I make a killer mix tape, and everything I write has a soundtrack.

I'm a native of Washington, D.C., and I currently live in Philadelphia, PA, where I keep (valiantly!) trying to acquire a taste for cheesesteaks.

Meet Sonia's Highly Anticipated First Book

Highly? Who's been anticipating it? Teen Vogue, Bustle, HerCampus, Bookpage, School Library Journal, Girls' Life

Melanie and Damon are both living in the shadow of loss. For Melanie, it's the loss of her larger-than-life artist mother, taken by cancer well before her time. For Damon, it’s the loss of his best friend, Carlos, who took his own life.

As they struggle to fill the empty spaces their loved ones left behind, fate conspires to bring them together. Damon takes pictures with Carlos’s camera to try to understand his choices, and Melanie begins painting as a way of feeling closer to her mother. But when the two join their school’s production of Othello, the play they both hoped would be a distraction becomes a test of who they truly are, both together and on their own. And more than anything else, they discover that it just might be possible to live their lives without completely letting go of their sadness.

2017 Kids' Lit Fest Author Margo Rabb

Meet Margo Rabb 

Margo Rabb is the author of the novels Kissing in America and Cures for Heartbreak. Her essays, journalism, book reviews, and short stories have been published in The New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, The Atlantic, Slate, The Rumpus, Zoetrope: All-Story, Seventeen, Best New American Voices, New Stories from the South, One Story, and elsewhere, and have been broadcast on NPR. She received the grand prize in the Zoetrope short story contest, first prize in the Atlantic fiction contest, first prize in the American Fiction contest, and a PEN Syndicated Fiction Project Award. Margo grew up in Queens, New York, and has lived in Texas, Arizona, and the Midwest; she now lives in the Philadelphia area with her husband and children. Visit her online at www.margorabb.com

 Meet Margo Rabb's Books

Acclaimed writer Margo Rabb’s Kissing in America is “a wonderful novel about friendship, love, travel, life, hope, poetry, intelligence, and the inner lives of girls,” raves internationally bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love). 

 In the two years since her father died, sixteen-year-old Eva has found comfort in reading romance novels—118 of them, to be exact—to dull the pain of her loss that’s still so present. Her romantic fantasies become a reality when she meets Will, who can relate to Eva’s grief. Unfortunately, after Eva falls head-over-heels for him, he picks up and moves to California with barely any warning. Not wanting to lose the only person who has been able to pull her out of sadness—and, perhaps, her first shot at real love—Eva and her best friend, Annie, concoct a plan to travel to the west coast. As they road trip across America, Eva and Annie confront the complex truth about love. 

Cures for Heartbreak

 A heartfelt novel that Michael Chabon called “sad, funny, smart, and endlessly poignant.” 

Less than two weeks after fifteen-year-old Mia Pearlman’s mother is diagnosed with cancer, she dies, leaving Mia, her older sister, and their father to face this sudden and unfathomable loss. As Mia struggles to navigate her grief, she’s also forced to examine the truth about her parents’ rocky marriage, her unexpected feelings for a guy with leukemia, and the nagging health phobias that plague her on a daily basis. Ultimately, her journey down this road slowly paves the way for hope amid immeasurable loss.

2017 Kids' Lit Fest Author C. Alex London

Meet Alex London

C. Alexander London (Alex) has written books for children, teens, even a few for grown-ups. He’s the author of The Wild Ones series, Dog Tags and Tides of War series, as well as the Accidental Adventures and two titles in The 39 Clues series for young readers.

His young adult debut, Proxy, was an American Library Association Top Ten Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Readers and included on their 2014 Best Fiction For Young Adults list. Proxy is a 2015 Texas Lone Star Reading List and TAYSHAS Reading List selection, a 2016 Intermediate Sequoyah Masterlist selection in Oklahoma, and has been on many state reading lists including Colorado, Arkansas, Missouri. The sequel, Guardian, is available now.

His books for adults include One Day The Soldiers Came: Voices of Children in War and National Jewish Book Award finalist Far From Zion.

Alex was born in Baltimore, Maryland and moved to New York to attend Columbia University. He graduated with a degree in philosophy and earned his Masters Degree in Library Science from Pratt Institute.

At one time a journalist reporting from conflict zones and refugee camps, he has recently moved from Brooklyn, NY, to Philadelphia, PA where he can be found wandering the streets talking to his dog, who is the real brains of the operation.

5 Fun Facts About Alex, From Alex

1. I spent a month as the Maryland State Jr. Skeet Shooting Champion because I was the only one entered in the “Junior” Category. It might actually have been in Delaware. My triumph didn’t last.
2. My full name is Charles Alexander London because my parents saw the monogram “CAL” on a towel in Macy’s and liked how it looked. They did not buy the towel that I am named after.
3. I was born three months premature and lived in an incubator for quite a while. I weighed less than two pounds and slept on a Ziploc bag filled with water that the nurses could jiggle when I forgot to breathe. I think I’ve been drawn to those breathless moments in life ever since. Also, I still love Ziploc bags.
4. I don’t remember how to write cursive.
5. I quit my job as an assistant to a movie agent in order to get a Master’s in Library Science because of a speech Chris Crutcher gave. At the time, I hadn’t read a single one of his books.

  Meet Alex's Books

 

Proxy

“Put down what you’re doing and read this book. Right now. The complex characters, intricate world, and blistering pace are off-the-charts amazing.” —Marie Lu, author of the Legend trilogy
Marie Lu and Alex discuss debt and dystopias

Syd’s life is not his own. As a proxy he must to pay for someone else's crimes. When his patron Knox crashes a car and kills someone, Syd is branded and sentenced to death. The boys realize the only way to beat the system is to save each other so they flee. The ensuing cross-country chase will uncover a secret society of rebels, test the boys' resolve, and shine a blinding light onto a world of those who owe and those who pay.

This fast-paced thrill ride of a novel is full of breakneck action, shocking twists and heart-hammering suspense that will have readers gasping until the very last page.

“Whipping Boy + Blade Runner with a sprinkling of The Hunger Games (plus, of course, a dash of A Tale of Two Cities) = a treat for teen SF fans.” —Kirkus Reviews

The Wild Ones 
“Raccoon hero Kit and his ragtag community of creatures will sneak their way into your imagination and steal your heart. They may pick your pocket, too, but they’ll take you on an adventure you won’t soon forget. This is a fantasy that kids will adore (and quick-of-paw parents will steal). A wild ride from a wildly imaginative author.”–Katherine Applegate, Newbery Medal-winning author of The One and Only Ivan and the bestselling Animorphs series

Kit is a young raccoon who has lived his whole life under the Big Sky. But when a pack of hunting dogs destroy his home and kill his parents, Kit needs to escape.

He finds himself in Ankle Snap Alley, a city in the midst of a turf war between the Wild Ones and the people’s pets who call themselves The Flealess. There he uncovers the secret that they died for–an ancient truce that gives Ankle Snap Alley to the Wild Ones. But the Flealess will stop at nothing to keep that secret buried forever, and Kit is in serious danger. Only the brave of heart and quick of paw can save the Wild Ones now.

Perfect for fans of the Warriors, Spirit Animals, or Redwall series, this first book in the Wild Ones epic is sure capture young readers’ imaginations and take them on a great adventure.

Young Adult Book Club Post-Book-Club Newsletters

Up until the book club ended in May, I kept a list of all the books we'd read on the book clubs page of the website. Now that I'm using a different format for the newsletters, with multiple book recommendations each time, and themes tying them together, that list seems unwieldy for the purpose of archiving. So I'm posting here the links to the newsletters themselves, starting from April, 2016. And I'll plan to keep updating!

If you aren't on our newsletter list, you can sign up here, and if you want to change which newsletters you get from us, you can click on the Update Profile link in any newsletter we send you!

May 2017:
Big Blue YA News -- KLF Author Extravaganza, News of Our Neighbors, and Readings of Resistance

April 2017:
Big Blue YA News -- Parks and Indie Bookstores, Love and Hate, and Authors Coming!

March 2017:
Big Blue YA News -- Dragons, Dragons, Peeps...and also Dragons!

February 2017:
Big Blue YA News -- Awards, Immigration, Peeps, and Dragons!

January 2017:
Big Blue YA News -- Series to Read and Reread, Store Bestsellers, and Activism!

December 2016:

Big Blue YA News -- No Name-Calling: Standing Up, and Fighting Back!
Note: There's a link in this newsletter to an interview that disappeared from the Girls Who Code website (and then reappeared later), and so the link in the newsletter is broken. Here's the correct link to the interview with Andrea Gonzales.

November 2016:
Big Blue YA News -- Independence, Slavery, and Standing Rock. VOTE!

October 2016:
Big Blue YA News -- Dystopias, Speculative and Real...or Coming Soon

September 2016:
Big Blue YA News -- Village Fair, Combating Xenophobia, and still more Harry Potter!

August 2016:
Big Blue YA News -- Reality in Fantasy, Writers and Their Writing, and More Harry Potter Events

July 2016:
Big Blue YA News -- Rise of Fascism and WWII**, Pretzels and Soda, and Pokémon GO!

June 2016:
Big Blue YA News -- Steampunk, Harry Potter, and Homemade Cookies!

May 2016:
Big Blue YA News -- Final Gathering (a Party!), Social Action, and Recommendations!*

April 2016:
Big Blue YA News -- Kids' Lit Fest, Final Meetings, and Verse Novels!

* The recommendations for May are two books about trans students already presenting as their truer selves and dealing with whether/how to come out to people in their schools, with questions of trust and of the perceptual differences between secrecy and privacy.***
** Themes for July and for September through December chosen with current political events in mind.
*** FYI, in the April-June newsletters, the link to our QUILTBAG books blog post (particularly relevant for May) is broken, though it was corrected starting in July. And then it was misdirected from December to February! Better since March, though.

Mt. Airy Kids' Literary Festival 2016 -- April 7-10

The 10th Annual Mt. Airy Kids' Literary Festival -- four days of authors, illustrators, games, parties, crafts, and more -- begins this Thursday, April 7!

Schedule and event information:
- Festival schedule on our website (and summarized below).
- Facebook festival page (though honestly I'm not sure I understand Facebook's new event system -- I keep getting recursive tabs when I try to click for more details).
- Event listings on Facebook, which include most (though not all) of the festival's individual events.

Blog posts with some attending authors and their books:
- Interview with Amy Ignatow, author of The Popularity Papers.
- Interview with Cordelia Jensen, author of young adult verse novel Skyscraping.
- Event writeup from last fall's YA author panel with I.W. Gregorio, author of None of the Above, and Randy Ribay, author of An Infinite Number Of Parallel Universes.

Blog posts with kids' books and other resources:
- Celebrating Multiracial Families and Friendships: A List of Books for Kids and Teens
- Great QUILTBAG (Queer, etc.) Books for Kids and Teens

Festival Schedule Summary:

Thursday, April 7

5:30pm - Young Writers Reading.
Authors ages 8-12 from the Abington Arts Center Writing Workshop will be presenting their first public reading.

7:00pm - Elizabeth Gold, author of The Mommy Group: Freaking Out, Finding Friends, and Surviving the Happiest Time of Our Lives.

Friday, April 8

6:00pm - Family Book Party in Honor of Autism Awareness Month.
Family Book Party with Kristin and Billy Arniotis, authors of I Have Autism and That's Okay, plus games, read alouds, and fun.
(All ages)

Saturday, April 9

10:00am - Beloved Book Characters Tea Party!
Bring your favorite book or plush toy, or come dressed as your favorite character! We'll share stories and have tea and special snacks.
(Ages 2+)

1:00pm - Reading with Laurie Wallmark, author of Ada Byron Lovelace and the Thinking Machine, plus Science Activities.
(Ages 6-12)

3:00pm - Great New Books and Series for Middle Grade Readers!
Discover some great new series books with Sarah L. Thomson, author of Secrets of the Seven: The Eureka Key, and Amy Ignatow, author of The Popularity Papers.
(Ages 8-12)

6:00pm - Beverly Cleary's 100th Birthday Party!
Beverly Cleary will be 100 years old next week! We'll celebrate with cake, games, and great memories. Come in costume if you want! Still have your favorite Cleary books from childhood? Bring them along! We'll also be making a video birthday card to send to our illustrious author!
(All ages)

Sunday, April 10

11:00am - Great Lives, Great Picture Books!

• Gary Golio, author of Bird & Diz and Jimi Hendrix
• Susanna Reich, author of Minette's Feast and Fab Four Friends
• E.B. Lewis, multi-award-winning illustrator of more Big Blue Marble favorites than we can count, including The Other Side, Talkin' About Bessie, and All Different Now: Juneteenth, the First Day of Freedom

(Ages 6+)

1:00pm - Books Are Great Tools for Exploring Our World.
Children's nonfiction authors take complex information and create fun, engaging books that invite children to explore.

• Terry Catasús Jennings, author of Gopher to the Rescue! A Volcano Recovery Story
• Jeanne Pettenati, author of Galileo’s Journal 1609-1610
• Ellen Marcus, author of That Fish On Your Dish: A book for children with eco-conscious parents

(Ages 5+)

3:00pm - QUILTBAG Books YA Author Panel with I.W. Gregorio, author of None of the Above and a founder of the We Need Diverse Books movement; Randy Ribay, author of An Infinite Number of Parallel Universes; and Cordelia Jensen, author of Skyscraping.
(For teens and up)

Once again, you can find the full festival schedule on our website.

Looking forward to seeing you this weekend!