A few interesting tidbits culled from the latest kids/YA catalog to grace my doorstep. (I should also note after yesterday's post that I received TWO copies of the identical catalog, shipped separately, via UPS ground. Sigh.) First, here are several author bios that really stood out:

Author Tina Wells, aka America's Youth Expert, has spent a decade keeping her finger on the pulse of what's hot among tweens. Who better to create a series about aspirational tweens than someone who knows their world inside?

I am clearly way out of touch as I had no idea there even was a position of "America's Youth Expert".

Only eighteen when she completed Hancock Park, Isabel Kaplan isn't your average teen. The daughter of internationally acclaimed intellectuals Susan Estrich and Martin Kaplan, she views the world in a unique way. Her wry observations coupled with her life as a teen growing up in the best neighborhoods of L.A, and attending the finest schools makes her uniquely qualified to tell the story of Becky Miller.....

Kaplan is a freshman at Harvard. I'm sure the book, about a "sixteen-year old just trying to grow up, stay innocent, and maybe, just maybe, hold on to her sanity in a town that's anything but sane" is really fascinating. And original. And so unlike the million other books on the same subject published every year. I'm sure. Really.

Aliza Kellerman has been writing for years, inspired by family, which also includes her brother, Jesse Kellerman, and her father, Jonathan Kellerman. A junior in high school, she enjoys drawing, cartooning, singing, and playing the electric harp.

Two things: first, Aliza co-wrote her book with the assistance of her mother Faye, author of nineteen NYT bestsellers and second, "HAS BEEN WRITING FOR YEARS"????????? She's sixteen. It really takes a rocket scientist to figure out how she got her name on this book. (I feel compelled at this point to say yet again how fabulous Joe Hill is for doing the actual work of becoming a writer first rather than just trading on his last name.)

Lauren Conrad is the star of MTV's #1 show, The Hills. She has been featured on the covers of Teen Vogue, Us Weekly, Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly, among others.

Someone's going to have to tell me how all that qualifies you to write a book. Or someone's going to have to tell the name of the person who really did write the book her name is plastered across.

I am feeling disgruntled. Between the many books written by people who seem to know beans about writing (this is just a small sampling, believe me) there is also the issue of how many MG and YA books look exactly the same. I keep thinking this vampire trend is going to burn itself out but then another catalog shows up and there they are - all those books about broody sexy vampire boys and the girls who just can't say no. Or there are those books about the rich girls, the richy richy rich girls who don't do anything or think anything but somehow manage to fill 200 pages with all their vapid nothing. And the faeries. How many books can be written about faeries in our world, war with faeries in their world, "didn't know I was faerie but then found out I was" and the ever popular "fell in love with a dark brooding dangerous faerie boy" ? (I don't think I got the syntax right in that sentence but you get the point.) There are a lot of faerie stories out there; if you're writing one keep that in mind.

There are also a million books about being depressed and being in love and being misunderstood. The misunderstood titles are the most popular, after vampires and faeries. (Sometimes though you hit the trifecta and have a misunderstood vampire in love with a faerie. Wow.)

I know there are fresh cool stories out there (I know, I know) but lately they seem harder and harder to come by. (A sequel to "Freaky Friday"? Really? Or how about the one about two sisters in 1900 who go to live on the asylum grounds with their father after their mother's death. "The towering asylum, the mourning patients with their tormented pasts, and the exquisite locked garden at the heart of the grounds set the tone for mystery and enchantment." Didn't Frances Hodgson Burnett do this about 100 years ago, minus the asylum? a "locked garden" novel? REALLY?)

One whole catalog, over 200 pages and only one book that stood out: Nothing but Ghosts by Beth Kephart. "Ever since her mother passed away, Katie's been alone in her too big house with her genius dad, who restores old paintings for a living. Katie takes a summer job at a garden estate where, with the help of two brothers and a glamorous librarian, she soon becomes embroiled in decoding a mystery. There are secrets and shadows at the heart of Nothing but Ghosts, symbols hidden in a time-darkened painting, and surprises behind a locked bedroom door. But most of all, this is a love story - the story of a girl who learns about love while also learning to live with her own ghosts."

It does have a dead parent (you would think there was an epidemic of dead parents in this country from the number of books out there with them) but it includes a mystery and art and ghosts and romance. (Please let it not be a romance with a ghost!) We'll have to see how it turns out. Of course Nothing but Ghosts is from a publisher who doesn't invite requests so it will be hit or miss if the book turns up.

They will probably send me thirty books on vampires and faeries. Don't you just love publishers?