Veronica Mars makes a splatter on Sesame Street

Kristin Bell on Sesame Street, my friends.

Cover me content

Cover art.  It's a killer - whether on the eyes, or the wallet - it can often be the deciding factor for a reader.

Just liking reading, it is subjective.  What appeals to one might not necessarily appeal to another.  And then there are those who don't appeal to anyone with the exception to the individual who signs off on the brief.

Inside of complaining about the common sights in covers, of which has been done well in many spheres of the 'net, I'm going to show off some of the covers that jumped out at me while browsing bookshelves.

All five are covers that I discovered while looking at new releases (and coming soons) in the US market.

Love at first sight (and it is a translation - double points!)

Mister Orange by Truus Matti

Pretty and disquieting (without requiring a pretty dress OR a forest)

Shadow Lands by Kate Brian

Oh wait...there is a pretty dress but it isn't centred on the page....  This one sounds exactly as I've subtitled it.  Straight to my "buy list".

Spare with flair

Teeth by Hannah Mozkowitz

Jar trump chest cavity

Love and Other Perishable Items by Laura Buzo

I love Good Oil (the Australian title of this Morris Award honor book).  However, I think this title and cover completely set up a beautiful slam dunk.

Tie me down, rainbow style

Meant to Be by Lauren Morrill

Which cover has recently set your life ablaze?

Vampire Academy casting

Really?

Author Richelle Mead tells us over and over again that Rose is bountiful in assets.  And by "assets" you know very well what I mean.

Or how the official graphic novel presents them....

Source: Shadowkissed.net

See them?  There's boobs (kind of a given) but more importantly Rose is described as having a caboose on her.  Rose has thighs, and a butt, and can kick your arse.

And then they hired this girl - Zoey Deutch

Source: Tumblr

I won't pretend to be surprised.  She's pretty (so is Rose), a brunette (as is Rose) and I am sure she can act but she isn't strong and she's not curvy.

As I said on Twitter, the only thing bountiful about her is her hair.

Rose is supposed to be powerfully built and also womanly.  This girl...looks like a girl.

I had hope.

It's gone.

Reading Matters 2013 - author explosion of awesome

I have the best job in the world.

For many many months my team at the Centre for Youth Literature has been toiling away on the Reading Matters conference program.

This afternoon we were finally able to announce all sixteen names that will be gracing our two day conference of YA awesomeness.

• Libba Bray (The Diviners, Beauty Queens) 
• Gayle Forman (If I Stay, Just One Day) 
• Raina Telgemeier (graphic novelist, Smile, Drama) 
• Keith Gray (Ostrich Boys, Doing It) 
• Tim Sinclair (parkour poet, Run) 
• Paul Callaghan (gaming wizz extraordinaire) 
• Fiona Wood (Six Impossible Things, Wildlife) 
• John Flanagan (Ranger's Apprentice and Brotherband series) 
• Alison Croggon (Black Spring) 
• Myke Bartlett (Fire in the Sea) 
• Morris Gleitzman (Once, Then) 
• Ambelin Kwaymullina (The Tribe: The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf) 
• Garth Nix (fantasy series god) 
• Andrew McGahan (Ship Kings series, Miles Franklin winner) 
• Gabrielle Williams (Beatle Meets Destiny, The Reluctant Hallelujah) 
• Vikki Wakefield (All I Ever Wanted, Friday Brown)

And this is why I love my job.

Think about joining us in Melbourne on 31 May - 1 June, or bring your class along for the schools day!  More information on authors, events and bookings here (sorry, couldn't resist the plug).

Are We Killing the Kiss?

This trailer popped into my sphere just after my post on the loss of romanticism.  I will point out that it is funded by Gilette (hence the beard talk) but it made me laugh anyway.

Two Year Anniversary of Dream Job (and PSnark taking a back seat)

Yesterday I celebrated the end of my second year as the Program Coordinator at the Centre for Youth Literature.

Two years in the dream job.  It has flown by and crawled past simultaneously   Previous to moving to Melbourne and making YA the "career", I was teaching in Adelaide (and Japan) and book blogging in every second of non-working time I had.  It still seems incredible to me that blogging opened up so many doors to people, places and organisations that I otherwise would have been a stranger to.  I feel incredibly blessed, and proud.

So what have I achieved in the past two years outside of sorely neglecting my blog?

Let's see shall we:

• I moved to Melbourne and started working within 24 hours.
• Worked alongside the lovely Pam, Lili and Cordelia as they all finished up with CYL.
• Launched the redeveloped teen reading and review website insideadog
• Questioned whether I should change my twitter handle to something more professional
• Headed to Sydney to meet all the publishers and lit organisations doing tremendous work
• Was invited to speak at the CBCA-NSW branch's Claytons.  My six book choices were all on the notables list with 3 in the shortlist, not bad.
• Met Shaun Tan shortly after his Oscar and Astred Lindgren win
• Gotten familiar (by getting lost) with the State Library of Victoria my home away from home and it's bountiful treasures and beautiful spaces.
• Presented my first "book talk" to an audience.....and then many, many, many more.  (Year nine students are the hardest audience by far.)
• I moved again.
• Organised, MCed and loved the 2011 Reading Matters conference.  Highlight: chairing a session with Melina Marchetta, Cassandra Clare and Markus Zusak....which was my first panel ever...in front of 400 people.  No pressure.  
• Undertaken my first Inky awards.
• Spent a week driving Melina Marchetta and Liz Honey on regional tour where they taught writing and watercolour workshops that I (sometimes) got to participate in :)
• Chaired 2011 Melbourne Writers Festival sessions with Maggie Stiefvater, Penny Tangey, Oliver Phommavahn, Sally Rippin and Gabrielle Wang.
• Still worrying about twitter handle.
• Became a Mac person
• Spoke on the Emerging Writers' Festival on the genre of YA alongside Tim Pegler, Fiona Wood and Andrew McDonald.  (I also attended my first EWF event to hear Stephanie Laurens speak and then promptly became ridiculously embarrassed when asking her to sign my book.)
• Was joined by the fabulous and oh so very geeky Jordi at CYL!
• Met Margo Lanagan for the first time....fell into a crush.
• Spent what would be my first and last afternoon at Dromkeen.
• Had my team swell in numbers with the addition of the lovely Liz and Nicole.
• I moved again.
• Celebrated the 21st anniversary of the Centre for Youth Literature and met David Levithan for the first time.  He was lovely (yes, that word crops up a lot).  He also made me a playlist.  It's a treasured item.
• Was a bridesmaid at my sister's wedding.
• Saw the first (hopefully not the last) Wordage festival be a raging success with authors Kirsty Eagar, Doug McLeod and Gabrielle Williams.  Also our first collaboration with Geelong Regional Libraries.
• Hosted EWF's Fright Night in the Library's Queen's Hall.
• Guested on Midsumma, Bayside Literary Festival and numerous other awesome literary events.
• Became an iPad person
• Attended my first CBCA conference.
• Wrote numerous grant submissions and acquittals.
• Received an email from Judy Blume.
• Chaired a number of sessions for the 2012 Melbourne Writers Festival with Melina Marchetta, Linda Sue Park, Oliver Phommavahn, Julia Lawrinson, Vikki Wakefield and Fiona Scott-Norman.
• Read an ms that I am very excited to see released in 2013.
• Wrote for Bookseller and Publisher, The Age, Newswrite, Off The Shelf and many blogs.
• Started organising the 2013 Reading Matters conference.
• Hit the road with Bernard Caleo and Heath to present on graphic novels to regional students.  Had a ball and invented graphic novel speed dating for year fives.
• Read 'Perks of Being a Wallflower' for the first time and was immediately hard on myself for not doing so earlier.
• Said farewell to manager Paula and greeted a new one, Anna.
• Presented at the YA Literature Symposium on Australian YA in the United States.  Met David Levithan again...got a hug.  Met many lovely people who were so incredible enthused about my country and its amazing YA.
• FINALLY met Capillya.  Loved her immediately.  Sadly said farewell.
• Attended YALLFest in Charleston and met two authors I was dying to meet - Stephanie Perkins and Siobhan Vivian.  Reunited with Gayle Forman (after meeting her in NYC in 2010) and Cassandra Clare (from Reading Matters). Met David Levithan again...another hug (I am probably rubbing it in at this point.)
• Spent the day with the exceedingly generous author Alexa Young seeing the sights on LA. 
• Continue to stir many pots.

It has been a bit of a blur but it was great for me to write down everything I can remember.  I am pretty positive that I have forgotten something though.  Regardless I am very happy to be living in my sleepy seaside suburb of very crap public transport and to be working with such hard working, good humoured and passionate individuals inside of CYL and my division as a whole.  It's been amazing.

So if you're wondering why I don't blog it is because I am doing everything that I've listed and more.  But I couldn't do any of it without our team and my friends.  I am very fortunate.

In celebration of two years at CYL and four years of Persnickety Snark (blogiversary was this week too), the Snark will be getting a facelift.  It will look pretty, fresh and help me keep my goal of blogging throughout 2013.

In the meantime you can catch some of my recent bits and piece on these links:

• review of Gayle Forman's Just One Day
• YALSA's reflection on Australian YA with mention of my presentation
• my article for ABC Splash on advice for parents wanting to read with their kids
• 'This book is shit, miss' a post I wrote on teen reading

What causes the 'reading hangover'?

First kisses - where's the romance?

With all the focus on the young adult / new adult categories and the inclusion of more sexually explicit content I feel we're losing something that is important.  The first kiss.  The anticipation.  And gosh darnit, the romance.  Yes, sex does become part of this but it's not often romantic or hot.  It's plain awkward or weird.

Melina Marchetta's On the Jellicoe Road has one of the best first kisses...in my humble opinion:

"When I turn around, he cups my face in his hands and he kisses me so deeply that I don't know who is breathing for who, but his mouth and tongue taste like warm honey. I don't know how long it lasts, but when I let go of him, I miss it already."

This works because the rest of their relationship is push and pull, hard layers and sharp corners.

I do love Marchetta's depiction of Will and Frankie's first kiss in Saving Francesca too - not often is their romance and there aren't many situations less romantic than a teen party.

"And he's coming closer and closer and the way he's looking at me makes me think that I'm going to have the most romantic night in the history of my life.  I open my mouth to say something and he sticks his tongue down my throat. 

We're in a corner, pashing, and I don't know what's got me to this point.  A look in the corridor?  A flirt outside my nonna's house?  All I know is that no one exists around us.  I don't know whether we're kissing for five minutes or five hours and my mouth feels bruised, but I can't let go."

See?  She's darned good.  But it works because of everything else that is built around it.  A kissing scene or sex scene is just something hollow without significant character work.  Frankie's closing line?  "Do that sober and I'll be impressed."  I adore the chutzpah.

I wrote about a few other favourites from YA back in 2010.

After a brief mention of Everwood via a Parks and Recreation mention on twitter I found myself plummeting down the youtube spiral that is Bright and Hannah.  One of the best first kisses and representations of the opposites attract trope.  Don't believe me...watch P&R's Chris Pratt and Grey's Anatomy's Sarah Drew...love.

"I'm sweaty."

For some reason or another I watched all nine seasons of One Tree Hill.  I won't pretend it was good by any stretch of the imagination but I just loved Bethany Joy Lenz who played Haley and thus her relationship with Nathan.  Another example of the nerdy girl and jock type...seeing a pattern?  The first season did a somewhat good job of establishing this relationship and then ended with them getting married at 16....which led to a baby AT graduation.  I wish I were kidding.

You can't look at teen television and not reference this awesome kiss.  Logan and Veronica...oh which the Duncan history could not eclipse.

I am a huge fan of Teen Wolf because I want to see a 'ship occur that the producer's constantly tease...that of Derek and Stiles.  Regardless of whether this happens or not, it's a lot of fun for the cast and the audience.

A huge amount of the previous two 'ships is the anticipation.  Not the act itself.  Whether it be Logan's epic love story speech in season 2, or Stiles using Derek's hotness to nab a favour...it's tremendously entertaining while also tugging on the heartstrings, or funny bone.

A personal favourite from my personal teen years is the Dawson's Creek Joey/Pacey kiss from season 3 where everyone could say FINALLY!  It worked because the writers committed to a whole season worth of friendship lead up that paved the way for the relationship.  It wasn't purely based on attraction or chemistry (which there was plenty) but also friendship.

I have never been a huge fan of the love at first sight plot device (in fact I wrote a whole discussion on it) as it's usually lazy, uninspired and mining well established tropes into dust.  Like I state in my linked post, it's never about a personal connection that is conveyed, it's always one that is stated over and over again until the audience is swayed (or not) into thinking it's true.

The humour, the earnestness and the scoring (oh my brilliant) of this Felicity and Ben scene is tremendous.  After  season of Felicity stalking Ben and then becoming friends, there's this moment of Ben's charm-pow.

The sound of the chair scraping back and the speed of his movement is unlike anything I've seen before or since.  Adore it...and his lisp.

Who do you think writes great romance (as opposed to lust) in YA or in television featuring young adults?

Admission: I like some genuinely horrible movies

I have a confession to make.

I love some truly horrible movies, and some movies that everyone else hates.  The worst is when they are horrible and no one has heard of them.

I'll get the worst out of the way.

I may be the only person that enjoys 'Batman & Robin'.  Sure I fast-forward through a majority of the movie but I honestly just plain old like Alicia Silverstone.  I hated that she was mocked for being overweight...she wasn't.  But her line readings are horrible, as is every actor in this film.  But again....still like it through the sheer admiration for how bad it is.

Having watched the above video I am now ashamed of myself.  I must always watch with an eye to other things....

Global Heresy (2002)
I have no idea why or how I came across this little movie but I kinda adore it.  Imagine an old English couple with a vast estate are running out of cash....if a fit of desperation they hire out their house to an American band and play the part of the help.

Now watch this...

How the heck they were able to get Peter freaking O'Toole and Joan Plowright for this I'll never know but they are brilliant.  The rest....not so much.  I do love the songs, and the bad lip synching and the really badly played relationship between Silverstone (there's a theme) and a guy that doesn't look like he'd had the strength to kiss her, let alone lift a guitar.  I will say that Lochlyn Munro who plays the drummer (and bad, frat dudes in the 90s - you will recognise him) is enormously entertaining.

**Note: the scene in which O'Toole explains the rules of cricket is superb.

The Postman (1996)

I will openly admit to ADORING this film.  Years after the world has gone to heck a charlatan moving from fort town to fort town, comes across a satchel of letters from the US Postal Service.  He uses them as leverage to get inside one town's borders and them begins to regain some humanity after many years alone.  Basically it's Revolution (the TV show) without the annoying main character, less focus on technology and an actual scary villan (Will Patton whoa).  I like that it's the strength of the written world that starts giving people hope again.

Also hilarious, this dystopian future....2013.  Watch out, people!

Also, a few years back I guested on the film podcast, Flicks, to discuss why I adore this movie so much.  Luckily both Jason and Dan loved it too.  You can catch it here, or on iTunes.  Dan and I used to podcast together when I was a podcaster....have I shocked you?  He kindly invited me to join them for this discussion though the dance movie episode that he said we could do never materialised....Dan!

Speaking of which...

Centre Stage

Look, the acting is woeful, the script isn't much better but the dance routines are phenomenal.  It's because of this movie that I used to think that I knew what I was talking about when I watch So You Think You Can Dance.

Seriously though, Jody had a choice between hot but bland Charlie, and ugly, flexible and bland Cooper.  It shouldn't have been that hard of a choice.

In a horrific moment I just realised that this movie is 12 years old (2000).  I am old....

Lastly,

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1945)

I love musicals but even I can admit this is fairly atrocious if not only due to the fact it is based on 'The Rape of the Sabine Women'.  Let's kidnap some women up to our mountain dwelling and make them ours....except with song, watercolour backgrounds and some rousing dance numbers.

I love it.  Finding it on DVD made my week - as does watching this number

The kid in the blue is Russ Tamblyn who went on to star in 'West Side Story' and interestingly fathered Amber Tamblyn aka Joan of Arc and one of House's ducklings.  If you are wondering why all the Seven Brothers have such horrid hair, blame the director.  In dying all their hair red...they looked related.  It didn't work.  Another interesting fact, the tall brunette dancing dream is Julie Newmar and they found it near impossible to find an amazing male dancer to match her height.

And this is the information I retain.

What are your guilty pleasures?

"This book looks like shit, miss"

There's been a lot of discussion on Australian students' literacy levels, class texts and the absence of joy in school reading these past two weeks.  On Friday I posted my thoughts over at my work (The Centre for Youth Literature) blog.

As you may have noticed, I have been posting regularly again and will continue to do so.  However, my work blog Read Alert will begin to feature more opinion pieces from me on the topic of teens and reading.

Thanks
Adele