I just got tapped to run a children's lit course and I'd like to have some stuff that was written in this century

probably going to do a fnaf book for the memes (should it be paired with a Goosebumps?)

I've seen a lot of people run it with Harry Potter but fuck that shit

I do have a book of international fairytales in my to-read pile that feels appropriate

what genre/mood do you want to go for and when you say children do you mean YA or actual children? any preferences for inclusivity/diversity? i know three YA librarians.

ya or actual children: both

I think one of the themes I want to explore is what we classify as "for kids" over time and what about different cultures determines it

and there's definitely a conversation to be had about how we're still classifying a genre as YA when it's something that people read well into adulthood

diversity would be nice! but this class starts on Wednesday so tbh I'm trying to get something done more than I'm concerned with being perfectly unproblematic

As a kid/teen I loved The Edge Chronicles - its a very accessible fantasy series that is completely in a different world. It is still apparently popular in the 10-15 crowd but was mostly written in the 90s/early 00s. Also Rosemary Suttcliff for historical fiction

I'm thinking of maybe finding the really racist Dr Seuss book and having some Talks about how many times they've changed the illustrations

damua oo thank you! I've never heard of either of those

well i can certainly list my favorite series if time is of the essense, it just won't be like. especially academic/curated as "good" by literary standards lol h/o

I mean "literary standards" are arbitrary and silly in general

Percy Jackson could be timely given the d+ show that just got dropped but that's more middle grade than ya

I feel I could list a bunch of weird British authors, but I also have a kid sister (13) and she likes Heartstopper (though its a graphic novel), the Darren Shaan series.

I'd been considering Percy Jackson, yeah.

better Percy than Harry

....wait by "this century" do you mean the 2000s or can i dip slightly 90s lol i'm realizing some of these are a bit old bc i read well above my level as a kid

hunger games is ya + timely with ballad of songbirds and snakes + slightly more literary

Her pride book this year was A clash of Steel a treasure Island Remix by Lee C B. I haven't read it but she said it was good- its like a YA book about lesbian pirates?

I do mean 2000s! because these college students were not alive before then and I'm hoping to appeal to things that happened before the late 1900s, as they're calling it lately

/...edits

I'm sorry! I'll take everyone's loves and figure it out. there is no bad data

also damua! there is no shame about a graphic novel in this house

iluvroadrunner6 ooo hunger games is a good shout

if you're looking for little-little kid books, jon klassen has a few ones that are quirky and cute. the rock from the sky is one of his

the raven cycle is only...... a little over ten years old

also as a 'YA that I am literally reading right now" Brandon Sandersons YA series (Skyward is the first one) is good and would definitely fit into a conversation about 'what makes it YA'

- scott westerfeld (leviathan, uglies, etc) was a fav of mine (i know uglies is for sure 00s)
- aiden thomas' "cemetery boys" is like 2020 i think!!! and was awesome. but might be too woke for your crowd?
- neal shusterman's "unwind" dystology was very good imho, that started in '07

Jo Abercrombie also has a YA series that might be like... Half a King is the first one? For more of that 'what makes this different than just the adult fantasy he writes" if that was something you were exploring

- gail carriger's "parasol protectorate" series started in 09, steampunk existential romance
- murderbot diaries is very new!
- six of crows duology is modern enough tho i don't consider it YA personally
- garth nix's "old kingdom" series deserves a spot even though it's 90s bc FUCKIN SABRIEL but you can ignore me ;;

Jonathon Stroud is another British YA writer I read as a teen as is 00s- I read the Bartimeaus stuff but there was recently a Netflix series of Lockwood and Co so they might be familliar with that

....i can keep going if you want, that was just me checking publish dates in my kindle library lmao

A series of Unfortunate events

honorable mentions:
- kate milford's "the boneshaker" was 2010! though i realized after a moment that it's SET in the 1900s
- laini taylor's "daugher of smoke and bone" series began in 2011 but it's set in europe so might not be super accessible

i never read it but iluvroadrunner6 has a good point that hunger games might appeal to them because that series is still lucrative and they'll have seen the ads for songbirds & snakes

it's like... current pop culture written in their lifetime! by someone not a completely horrible person afaik.

tho now that i'm thinking about it leigh bardugo might be a good one for "what makes this YA?" bc it does feel like the publisher just slapped a sticker on it and made her change the character ages to be younger.

.......might be too spicy tho.

yeah like... when I took it as an undergrad, it was run by someone who was just like "here's all the books I loved while I was growing up" and it was just a bunch of 70s paperbacks that didn't mean much to me

and I don't know what I want to do but I know I want to not do that

i get that. i will still argue sabriel is timeless.

all the rest of those should be mid 00s to present tho!!

these are all really good suggestions though! I'm excited to give them a closer look while figuring out placement and page counts and stuff

i hope you find something new you love, too! my picks skew a little.... dark and fucked up.

shusterman and westerfeld are writing to that specific teen demographic tho, it's not stickers slapped on to sell the books, but it's still complex and often philosophical subject matter. i felt like unwind was a modern YA series that felt like something by dick or asimov tbh.

(i have a journal for lev garrity that absolutely no one will ever care about lol)

VERY CURIOUS WHAT YOU PICK AND HOW YOU WORK THEM IN keep us posted

I will think on the books I've seen middle schoolers super into lately

hunger games is still pretty popular

yeah I think hunger games, pjo and harry potter (which I agree don't use but I do think you've probably got people in the fandom which has now turned against the author but keeps on going; they're learning death of the author young now!) are all still big in the demographic even if they're all early 00s releases. staying power etc.

oh also C B Lee who wrote clash of steel also wrote a dystopian superhero series the first one is Not Your Sidekick- that's probably more for an older YA audience than Clash of Steel is

Annnnd the dean didn't approve my overload so I'm union-blocked from accepting the class. OH WELL

thank you everyone who came to talk YA books with me!

Nooooo

ngl I had already mentally spent that extra money

8(

It also sounded kinda fun to get to curate your own

if you do end up back at it though, a good friend of mine wrote a middle grade book that was unexpectedly successful called dragon pearl, & it is definitely mg diverse sci-fi.

dang it, dean.

I mean union limits are there to prevent the exploitation of low-paid labor and that is important! but it's also several thousand dollars that I wanted to be mine despite the exploitation

it seems like you should be able to choose to be exploited if it is what you want. it's the RACK of work ...

adjuncts usually choose to be exploited by working at several different universities and adding backbreaking commutes to the load of actual work

the worst way I scheduled myself was the semester when I had a day when I worked in Jersey for two morning classes, then had an hour to eat and grab a half hour nap in my car before I had to do a 90-minute commute into midtown to teach two evening classes

leaving at 7am and getting home at midnight

which like! is not the worst schedule ever known but it was rough for a lot of reasons

^ adjuncts around here often teach at like 3 schools lol

both the best and worst ratemyprofessor notes ever that semester, and was simultaneously the semester when I decided to stop checking my ratemyprofessor

very like "oh this is just a measure of whether or not you liked me NOPE I DON'T NEED TO KNOW THIS"

oh yeah i have phd cohortmates who teach at 3-4 schools

yeah all my applications for summer funding have been Ike "I will never finish this degree if I never have time to write please can I take a semester off"

you eventually finished yours right?

or are you also in the ABD pocket

i am on medical leave because i am unable to make it to campus with my level of ME/CFS shenanigans, so i have not actually finished coursework bc they won't let me be remote. i would like to transfer but have an F on my transcript bc of not finishing an incomplete yet, which i haven't fixed, so ... someday

also couldn't get funding & ran out of savings, so could i even pay for coursework? nah.

oh my god that's so much

it's wild that they wouldn't let you be remote slash that they wouldn't let you resolve an IN -- my program was always so gentle with those things!

I only had one person ever give me a hard time with IN resolution and all I had to do was appeal to the chair and they all but forced it through

I'm sorry to hear your program was so inflexible

in a liberal arts program, everyone I've encountered has just been like "nah we get it, it's hard to create knowledge"

I got sick halfway through prepping for my orals and from that moment on everyone was just like "deadlines are fake and your health insurance comes from student status. Take your time"

I think they'd probably let me still complete the course (it's been like two years but the profs are sweethearts) but they absolutely refuse to let me be remote so I kinda just haven't bothered yet

That's a shame I'm sorry