SPECIAL UPDATE: LA Noire Stories

So one of the major program thrusts I have set for this year is a gaming/literature connection.  I truly feel that games not only increase some young adult interest in reading and math, but that by highlighting the connections, we do more to increase the appreciation of games as a viable genre of entertainment.  With all that being said, Rockstar Games has just made me excited...AGAIN.

Premiering TOMORROW, June 6, 2011, Rockstar Games and Mullholland Books

Author Alex Flinn Wages a Beastly arguument for YA Realistic Fiction

Alex Flinn is best known as the author of "Breathing Underwater" and most recently, the Beauty and the Beast spin "Beastly".  In her blog this week, she talks about her disgust for journalists and critics that protest realistic Teen fiction.  Her argument makes TONS of sense, so I thought I'd share a bit of it here. 

So this is the article that's pissing me off today. And the reviews to which it refers, blasting two new dating violence "problem novels" (not meant as a pejorative term, btw, at least not on my part).  It is something of an annual-or-so tradition that the New York Times (or, occasionally, the Wall Street Journal) will write an article, the subject of which is "Why Are There So Many Dark Novels for Teens . . . Lock Up Your Babies!"