Various Things

I have just a few random things going on in my mind today, and rather than post separately about each, I think I'll just combine them all here, especially since none of them are particularly exciting in and of themselves.

1. I posted the other day about how Kristen Stewart is going to play Bella in the Twilight movie. Supposedly filming starts in February, but when are they going to cast the Cullens??? Shouldn't they have done that by now? I once posted that I thought Jonathan Rhys Meyers would make a good Edward, but he does/did drugs and that turns me off. Still . . . . (Last time I made the mistake of posting a picture of JRM and then we kept getting all this traffic from Google image searches for him.)

2. Amazon has voting for the best teen books of 2007. The candidates are the top ten best selling books for teens on Amazon.com through October 2007. I am really surprised at some of the books on there (Math Doesn't Suck, for instance - - was it really that popular?). The editors' picks are kind of interesting. I don't think I've seen anyone talking about Arrival by Shaun Tan.

3. I wore my "Sam Hellerman is a Genius" shirt last Friday because I was booktalking King Dork. It was fantastic! Someone in every single period asked me about it before I even started talking about books. "Who is Sam Hellerman? "What does your shirt mean?" I need to get/make some more fun book shirts. (Un)fortunately, I checked out King Dork in the very first period, so I could only kind-of describe the book and not check it out to anyone.

Sam Hellerman is a Genius

Look what I got in the mail today!




















I ordered it because I loved King Dork so much and because I liked this saying. I've never bought a shirt related to books before (although I've liked some), but I think I should start doing it more (but only if they have cool sayings like this one). I think I may wear it during my next day of booktalking.


I also discovered that Frank Portman has another novel called Andromeda Klein coming out in 2008. I can't wait. I like the title and cover of this better than those of KD. Perhaps The Magic Blog (ie. some ATR reader) will send me an ARC! And perhaps Portman will tour in promotion of the new book, and perhaps that tour will include Houston (perhaps the Blue Willow Bookshop where many a famous YA author has signed?). And perhaps I will then be ecstatic.

A Great Plan!

I guess I don't need to explain to my 2 readers that this blog is basically read by the three of us, a couple of our friends on occassion, that person who runs Safe Libraries, people who stumble upon specific posts when Googling, and the YA authors who Google themselves. Honestly, I like it this way because I don't know if I'd enjoy writing for an actual large reader base. However, if we ever want to really increase our traffic and our comments here on ATR, I've got a great idea based upon the The Great Sartorial Debate™ going on at Smart Bitches Trashy Books where more than 500 people have commented so far on this one thread. It is based slightly upon the issue of non-writers like readers and bloggers/reviewers attending the RWA's national conference and mostly upon the issue of whether it is "appropriate" for Marianne Mancusi and Liz Maverick to wear these "costumes" during an RWA author signing event and for Sherrilyn Kenyon to wear this hat.

So here's the plan:
At the next library conference (ALA would be preferable but TLA would do in a pinch), we'll get Stephenie Meyer to wear a big ugly swan hat. I was thinking that Scott Westerfeld could wear some face tattoos and a grey silk suit or maybe John Green could wear a Brotherhood 2.0 shirt that mentions his pants or something, but while I still like those ideas, I think we need a female element. And a short skirt. A short skirt is key because we need to bring in feminism and the possibilty of child sex slavery and pornography (read the comments if you don't know what I'm talking about). So maybe Melissa de la Cruz could come wearing a kind-of short prep school outfit to promote her books, or Maureen Johnson could wear a bathing suit to promote hers (I think she might be open to costumes so this might be a good one to try). Then, we'll need to get Judy Blume to comment here about how it's inappropriate to wear such costumes to an author signing event at a professional conference because the media will focus on these anomalies and have further evidence that YA lit isn't to be taken seriously, something JB has been working for years to try to dispel. JB will post constantly about this issue in response to various reader comments, and even Meg Cabot or Laurie Halse Anderson will chime in for a comment or two. I realize the hard part will be getting everyone to agree to this, especially the costumes, but hopefully we can do it. Stephenie Meyer will probably be the most difficult to convince, so maybe Melissa de la Cruz could be the Ugly Swan Hat backup.