Here's some cool titles from S&S:
The Day My Mother Left by James Prosek: A "fictionalized memoir" by author and artist James Prosek that tells the story of a young boy whose mother leaves. In desolation Jeremy "throws himself into recreating his Book of Birds, a collection of his drawings that his mother took with her the day she left." Prosek is a great artist and I have two of his earlier books, Early Love and Brook Trout and The Compleat Angler. I have no idea if he can transition from nonfiction to YA fiction, but the story sounds compelling and the addition of his illustrations makes it certainly worth a look.
City of Bones by Cassandra Clare: Holly Black loves this urban fantasy ("Funny, dark and sexy. One of my favorite books.") and it has a great hook - here's a bit from Clare's site that does a good rundown of the plot:
My publisher calls my books "hip urban fantasy." I don't know how hip they are, but they're a trilogy about a sixteen-year old girl named Clary Fray, who lives in New York with her mother, an artist. She comes home one night to find her apartment ransacked, her mother gone -- and a slavering demon ready to tear off her head. Once the demon's dealt with, Clary follows the clues to her mother's disappearance into an alternate New York filled with hideous demons, hard-partying warlocks, not-what-they-seem vampires, an army of werewolves and the scariest thing of all: the secrets of her mother's past. She also finds herself torn between two boys -- her best friend Simon, for whom she's developing new feelings, and the mysterious demon hunter Jace, who has a past more tangled than her own. She becomes a part of the secret word of the demon hunters, or Nephilim, and as she does discovers she might be more connected to them than she originally thought.
City of Blood continues Clary's adventures with Simon, the demon hunters Jace, Isabelle and Alec, the warlock Magnus, and the vampire Raphael. City of Glass takes the characters to the demon hunters' exotic home country, Idris.
Cupcake by Rachel Cohn - If you loved Shrimp then you know what to expect. Cyd is now in Manhattan, separated from Shrimp (who might be "the one" but does she really know?), suffering from a broken leg and having a grand time. Cohn is great and I know this will be a fun title - the mystery is what will happen to Cyd and Shrimp and I'm onboard to find out.
Lightship by Brian Floca: A picture book about lightships that used to be anchored and served as floating lighthouses in areas where permanent structures could not be built. This is the story of the Ambrose (a very real ship now parked on the East River) and honestly, I had no idea that these ships even existed. It's bizarre how much I learn from picture books and this one even has diagrams! I'm such a geek - I totally can't wait to read this.
There were also a couple of adult titles, included in the catalog as they have "crossover" potential.
Graffiti Girl by Kelly Parra: The story of Angel Rodriguez who is a poor teenage artist. She meets Miguel who introduces her to "the underground graffit lifestyle". A story of a girl's search for her own identity, it will "resonate with anyone who's ever felt like an outsider looking in."
Well shit - we've all been there. Does that mean I'll identify with a graffiti artist - who knows. I am a little fearful as it is from MTV Books and that just might mean it's trying too hard. (MTV annoys me to no end these days - maybe I'm just too fricking old.)
The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz: A "modern family and their quirky way of loving and living" - okay, that works. Isabel works for the family PI business and wants out. Her younger sister ends up going missing though and then everything goes out the window. Both comical and suspenseful - I really hope that Lutz pulls this off. I've got high hopes for any book that claims to put "the fun in disfunctional" and it sounds like a YA winner that won't suck the life out of adult readers.
