First - Blogger still sucks and I have no clue why it hates me so bad. I can't make more than one link per entry without it locking up my browser and just generally infuriating me beyond belief.

Oh joy.

Second - A King Dork coolness update: on page 94 there is a reference to Harriet the Spy and on page 95, one to Yoda. The best part is that they both refer to the same character - narrator Tom Henderson's sister, Amanda. The whole book is proving to be so outstanding and I can't wait to write about it. My full review will be in the June column - along with other books all based on the theme of "surviving high school".

I figure the younger population can use all the help they can get.

Gwenda's fabulous article on literary fantasy is up at Publisher's Weekly. I'm really intrigued by this idea - that fantasy is now mainstream. I don't know a kid alive who didn't read at least part of The Chronicles of Narnia or The Rats of N.I.M.H. or A Wrinkle in Time when they were kids (among many many choices) so we all grew up on it. Why some readers decided they had to leave fantasy (and sci fi) titles for the "geeks" and head over into Mary Higgins Clark mysteries and The Thorn Birds, I'll never understand. Of course I'm writing a book that includes dragons, Jesuits and trench warfare (plus a modern teenager running for her life from her gated community), so I'm a little biased. I also think King Dork is about as good as it gets literature-wise, so maybe I'm not the kind of literary reader that ever wanted to put fantasy (young adult or otherwise) away in the first place. (But I also read The Thorn Birds in high school, so go figure.)

It just seems silly that it took the Harry Potter books for adults to realize they could read YA. I keep wondering who are they afraid of offending? Did they think the grown-ups on the commuter train were going to beat them up or something? Were they worried about being dragged into the executive bathroom at work and getting a swirly when Kelly Link or Charles de Lint was seen in their briefcase? Were the other adults in their condo complex going to ban them from the pool because they were reading a Laurell K Hamilton paperback? Lord - it looks like King Dork is arriving just in time as clearly we are dealing with an adult population who needs to be reminded just what the difference is between high school and adulthood.

Here's the thing - we get to read whatever the fuck we want people, and it won't go on our permanent record. You won't lose the promotion because you like to read about wizards (or vampires or pseudo Christian worlds visited through wardrobes). Quite frankly, I like telling people I read and review YA books. More often than not they ask me for recommendations and I always start off by telling them which ones an adult would enjoy the most. Why pretend that it's always about some imaginary kid back at home? I'm not going to tell on them, I promise.

And if they want to know about my favorite writers then the first one I mention is Ray Bradbury. I defy you to be embarrassed about Ray - it simply is not possible. The man is as good as it gets and if you aren't mature enough to realize that, then really, you deserve a swirly!