Week 7

Assignment 1
I looked at the  "What to read Next" flow chart. It was interesting to see the thought process behind this flow chart. I doubt, however, that I will use this particular chart for any RA.

Assignment 2

I read "New Adult Needless Mareting-Speak or Valued Subgenre?" As we see the move of older readers back into YA books, the publishers and book sellers need to find a way to categorize this so that everyone is speaking the same language. The article ended by quoting a book seller who was wrestling with where to put this material. She said "You're still going to be asked if new adult is kids, or adult". I think that is the bottom line here. No body likes suprises when it comes to content for kids. So... is New Adult a needless genre? It may be. Some clarity on the parameters of the term would be helpful. If it helps someone find their way to books that they enjoy, I say go for it.

I also read "Who is Buying Teen Books" as published in the Christian Science Monitor. It had
some interesting points, and ones that I recognize when I go to the YA collection for something to read. These books are generally easier to read. They are less complicated and can serve as a good literary escape. Sometimes you just don't want to work so hard. If something is written well, it's written well and differentiating the target audience between YA and Adult is just splitting hairs and at the end of the day, not very important. . We've seen this with Harry Potter and the Hunger Games.

Angelina Benedetti's "Not Just for Teens" article in LJ, essentially embellished the other two articles.She provided more details aobut the appeal factors of YA books and spoke about Ebook sales of YA material.

I posted comments on Kathleen MacCubbin's and  Becky Lindberg's blog.

Assignment 3

I have been following Teenreads.com. Its intended audience seems to be teenagers. I like the content rich site which should keep anyone who doesn't have a long attention span busy. The features that I found useful were the reviews, coming soon,  and books to movie list. I think it would successfully appeal to teens. I was not able to ascertain who was responsible for the content although it is part of the "Book Report Network".

I have also been following Squeetus Blog: Official blog of Shannon Hale. I didn't find this blog
very useful. It is a marketing medium for Shannon Hale. It contains what amounts to annotated notes to the text of her books. I can't envision using this blog for RA.

Assignment 4

I've spend some time on  Teen at Random. It is packed with features. New books, blogs, author profiles, Youtube videos and lots more. I like that you can select genre, author or title. I also followed Tor Teen.
I'm seeing alot less vampires, but still much fantasy, dystopian, teen relationship angst,
and humor.