I just read about Tucker. I'm so sorry, Colleen.

Really good boy book (IMHO) coming in July: THIS IS WHAT I DID: by Ann Dee Ellis. You should totally contact Little, Brown for an ARC.

Thanks so much Lauren.

Sara - I haven't heard of this one; I'll look into it. Honestly though, since an LB publicist seems to think blogs are equal to maggots, I'm not sure how likely they will be to send an ARC out to an online reviewer. (It's someone with LB who posted that anti-blogger rant at the NBCC that I linked to in in this post.)

that's nice and timely. we're doing a debate on girls books vs boys books for the Reading Matters Conference in Melbourne I am on the girls team with Justine Larbalestier and Jacqueline Wilson. The boys team: Scot Gardner, Jack Heath and David Levithan. The gloves are off!

I urge people to read good books, no matter what the reader's gender, no matter what the protagonist's gender.

Yes, some readers seem to lean towards books featuring leading characters that look or sound like them. It's simply easier to distinguish between genders because it has two camps - male and female - and every reader is one or the other. Right?

Well, bring on Parrotfish, in which the character is transgendered. (I haven't read it yet. It comes out in July. Some bloggers have already read it and praised it.)

Also bring on books with multiple narrators, like The Realm of Possibility by David Levithan, or books where the narrator is changed by the title character who happens to be of the opposite gender, like Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli and What Happened to Lani Garver by Carol Plum-Ucci.

And Gatsby, Gatsby, Gatsby.

I'm sure the LB poster was not from the Books for Young Readers side, which functions pretty much as a separate entity. I've definitely gotten the vibe from the BfYR people that they are enthusiastic about blog reviews, interviews, and all of the much needed word-of-mouth that brings--especially to YA, which is mostly overlooked (or maligned) in traditional media. Sounds like BfYR could do an in-service with their adult book counterparts and teach them a thing or two...

What's odd Sara is that I have received books from both sides of the house - and everyone involved has always been nice and supportive and excited to see the books reviewed. But I think you are right at the YA folks - they know that getting their titles reviewed in newspapers is a lot more difficult and I think they have all (at every pub) embraced the web much more.