There are a crazy number of comments at Susan's post on "black literature beyond historical". Check it out if you haven't already and we're still demanding diversity in publishing here at Chasing Ray.

Liz had two interesting posts up recently - one on libraries of the future and how there seems to be too much emphasis on everything but books (even though so many folks keep going there looking for books - which is what I keep seeing at my local library) and a second that is a list of a bunch of different topics that have been cropping up lately like CLIQUES, ANTI INTELLECTUALISM and MIRROR BOOKS.

Is Almost Astronauts passionate history or slanted opinion? You be the judge. (Personally I think anyone who doesn't acknowledge discrimination against women in the aviation field up until the late 1970s is willfully ignoring the obvious.)

New issue of Bookslut is up. My column includes a great bio on Ernest Hemingway emphasizing his writing career; Lady MacBeth's Daughter, Cranioklepty & The Mysteries of Beethoven's Hair and a gorgeous Frida Kahlo title. All books I wish I had in high school. Still working my way through the rest of the issue although the review of Bluets certainly makes it sound interesting.

There are several titles on the horizon that have me excited. First Second has a slew of new cool graphic novels coming out: Zeus: King of the Gods, Athena: Grey-Eyed Goddess, Foiled (written by Jane Yolen!!), City of Spies and Booth, historical fiction about the assassination of President Lincoln. Gene Yang also has new strip collection coming out that looks pretty funny: Prime Baby.

There is also a new Holocaust title, set in France, Resistance. I will be skipping this one because as much as I think the French Resistance could stand a few MG/YA titles, the inclusion of YET ANOTHER JEWISH KID IN HIDING just turns me off.

Roaring Brook has a ton of new titles I liked the sounds of including: 90 Miles to Havana about the Pedro Pan Operation, Which Way to the Wild West, another in Steven Sheinken's excellent American history series, Black Jack: The Ballad of Jack Johnson by Charles R. Smith Jr (a picture book which looks fantastic; the graphic novel The Original Johnson by Trevor von Eeden is out this week. Hopefully I will have both for a "Cool Americans" column later this year.) Also, The Not So Great Depression, a YA novel by Amy Goldman Koss(!) about living in the recession and Charles Darwin and the Mystery of Mysteries because really, one can never read enough Darwin.

Finally, from FSG Finding My Place by Traci L. Jones ("...the only Black girl at a high school full of Barbies") and Dinosaur Mountain, a picture book about dino hunter Earl Douglass at the turn of the last century.

And finally finally finally PW gives a lot of love to Except the Queen by Midori Snyder and Jane Yolen. To wit:

After Serana and Meteora stumble across a secret that could damage the reputation of the Fairy Queen, the close-knit fae siblings are separated and banished to Earth. Stripped of youth, beauty, and magic, they struggle to adapt to the baffling modern world. In New York, Serana meets a feral young man whose talent for music is uncanny. In Milwaukee, Meteora finds refuge in the legendary Baba Yaga's house, where she befriends a trouble woman being stalked by a murderous tattoist. As the various players converge for a deadly showdown, the truth behind the sisters' exile is revealed. Unconventional narrative techniques and a full dose of magic and folklore give this urban fantasy a lyrical, mythic feel."