Launch of the Mostly Books YA Bookgroup

It’s a big jump from reading children’s books into reading adult books and one of the fastest-growing and most dynamic areas of publishing in recent years has been books aimed at creating great reads that particularly appeal to children of twelve and over – ‘YA’ books (or 'Young Adult').

There's some very exciting things happening in the world of YA this year - so we'll hand over to Mostly Books YA expert Imogen to tell you more about her passion for YA, the YA Book Prize 2015 - and the launch of our new YA Bookgroup...

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"Anyone who knows me knows that I have one huge book weakness: the Young Adult section in any book shop I come across.

Over the past few years, this section has bloomed. With the success of books like 'The Hunger Games' and 'The Fault in Our Stars', it has rocketed into the minds of both teenagers and adults alike. As that has happened, more and more books have come out, meaning that YA is no longer just a ‘genre’ but a group of books that stand out all on their own.
 
There is no one way you can sum up Young Adult books. It holds infinite worlds inside its name, from the alien invasion where you cannot trust a soul ('The 5th Wave') to the assassin who must work for her enemy for the chance at freedom ('Throne of Glass') and finding friendship and love in an unlikely place ('Anna and the French Kiss') to a dark fairytale set in the future ('Cinder').

What I love about this collection of books is that the word ‘Young’ does not put people off reading them. In fact, many parents will pick up a book after seeing their teenager read it, and end up wanting to read more.

This sudden growth in the YA sales, alongside the successes of films such as ‘If I Stay’ and ‘Mockingjay: Part One’ have prompted people to start thinking about this as a whole new section. Before, it might have been put down the end of the children’s books, or hidden near the adults, but treated like people were not sure what to do with it.
 
There are many awards that both adult and children’s books can win - the Costa Book Awards, Blue Peter Book awards, etc. - but YA have never had one for themselves.

Until now!

The YA Book Prize is a brand new award for 2015, and it looks at YA books from both the UK and Ireland. Shortlisted this year are:

• A Song for Ella Grey, David Almond
• Salvage,  Keren David
• Say Her Name, James Dawson
• Lobsters, Tom Ellen and Lucy Ivison
• Half Bad, Sally Green
• Finding a Voice, Kim Hood
• Only Ever Yours, Louise O’Neill
• Goose, Dawn O’Porter
• Trouble, Non Pratt
• Ghosts of Heaven, Marcus Sedgwick

Well, my To-Be-Read list just grew...

The winner of this award won’t be announced until March, but to coincide with it, we’ve decided to start something in the shop. For teenagers that love to read, or just want to try something different, we’re starting a YA Bookgroup. 

I have a passion, not only for the YA books, but for getting teenagers and young people to grow into reading them as well. The excited spark in their eyes as they talk about books they have found and loved, and the debates about what character/book/series is the best...

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So - fancy getting involved?

We will read three of the titles nominated for the first YA Book Prize before the winner is announced. The first book we are going to read will be Sally Green’s thrilling ‘Half Bad’ about one boy's struggle for survival in a hidden society of witches, blending the hard-hitting realism of ‘The Hunger Games’ with a supernatural twist (Kate Atkinson described it as 'Brilliant and Utterly Compelling' and film rights have already been sold...).

If you are over twelve and would enjoy the chance to get your teeth in to the best in YA fiction and join in to discuss what you loved/loathed about the books, then we’d love to welcome you to this new book group. Let us know you’d like to join and all you need to do is to have read the book in time for the first meeting on Saturday Feb 14 at 9.15am in the shop. You get 15% discount on the book if buying it from the shop.

Books for Christmas Part 6: all kinds of wild justice - our top teen reads for Christmas

We're going up the years - from little ones, to 7+, middle grade - and now here's our favourite books for teens.

One of the themes of our favourite teen reads this year is justice - whether dispensed by half-crazed, one-eyed ex-politicians from the Florida swamps or by supernatural beings righting wrongs from an earlier life, our pick of favourite teen reads this year is a mixture of styles with one clear link - great writing!

Skink No Surrender - Carl Hiaasen - £10.99
When Richard learns his cousin, Malley, has taken off with a guy she met over the internet he's prepared for the police hunt, the huge billboards that announce her missing - he's even prepared that she might simply turn up safe and full of her adventure. What he doesn't expect is to meet Wild Skink -a ragged, one-eyed eco-warrior who thinks her best chance is for him to track Malley down. With Richard riding shotgun, the unlikely pair set off in pursuit, introducing Richard to dangerous swamps, guns and wild life that is even fiercer than the locals. A fantastic road-trip adventure that is both exciting and funny.

Messenger of Fear - Michael Grant - £12.99
"I remembered my name - Mara. But, standing in that ghostly place, faced with the solemn young man in the black coat with silver skulls for buttons, I could recall nothing else about myself. And then the games began...". A suspenseful, twisting tale that touches on many aspects of teenage lives - pressure to fit in, the impacts of bullying, the nature of justice - but in a quirky, twisted fantasy world that grips to the end. Grant's 'Gone' series is brilliant, this marks the beginning of an entirely new direction for the author.

Ghosts Of Heaven - Marcus Sedgwick - £10.99
A cleverly interlinked novel written in four parts by award-winning author, Marcus Sedgwick, about survival and discovery, and about the effect of the spiral, a symbol that has no end, on all our lives. The 'Ghosts of Heaven' can tell us a secret as old as time, and with amazing skill as a storyteller, you can read the four 'quarters' of this mesmerising and mysterious new novel in twenty-four different ways. Genuinely original and beautifully conceived.

The Manifesto on How To be Interesting - Holly Bourne - £7.99
Bree is a loser, a wannabe author who hides behind words. But when she's told she needs to start living a life worth writing about, 'The Manifesto on How to Be Interesting' is born. Six steps on how to be interesting. Six steps that will see her infiltrate the popular set, fall in love with someone forbidden and make the biggest mistake of her life...

Belzhar - Meg Wolitzer - £7.99
A group of emotionally fragile, highly intelligent teenagers are mysteriously picked for Special Topics English, tasked with studying Sylvia Plath's 'The Bell Jar' and keeping a journal. Each time the teens write in it they are transported to a miraculous other world called 'Belzhar' - a world where they are no longer haunted by their trauma and grief - and each begins to tell their own story. From NY Times bestselling author Meg Wolitzer, and John Green's editor, Belzhar is a surprising story about first love, deep sorrow, and the power of acceptance. It's original and the characters will stay with you long after you close the book. 

My True Love Gave To Me - Stephanie Perkins et al - £10.99
On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me ...This beautiful collection of joyful, festive stories features twelve gorgeously romantic stories set during the festive period, by some of our favourite YA authors, including David Levithan, Rainbow Rowell, Stephanie Perkins and Holly Black. The stories are filled with the magic of first love and the magic of the holidays. This hardback edition features a ribbon marker and pink sprayed edges, and makes a perfect gift for anyone suffering from 'Fault In Our Stars' withdrawal symptoms...

3 4 Friday - young love can seem earth-shattering (literally and figuratively) with these top teen reads

Is there any area of publishing hotter than teen fiction? It's a few years since Twilight and The Hunger Games, so who are the current names to watch that keep teens hooked on books?

For today’s 3-4-Friday – three of our current favourite teen reads...

‘Soulmates’ by British author Holly Bourne has an original and extremely clever concept at its heart – we all know young-love is earth-shattering, but what if it were so...literally?

When Poppy and Noah meet, they have no idea what they are. But when they fall in love, thunderstorms, lightning strikes and lashings of rain are only the beginning of their problems as the world around them falls more and more into disrepair, and the chase is on – led by a shadowy international agency – to stop them before they accidentally destroy the world...witty, intelligent and crackling with energy.

If you like something grittier and set in the real world, then we can definitely recommend ‘Split Second’ from top Brit teen thriller writer Sophie McKenzie.

After a terrorist attack on a London market, two teens are bound together by what happened. Thinking at first they are very much alike, as the story goes on it begins to seem that one knows more about the attack than first thought. This is a tight and tautly-written book, that shows what can happen when courage and loyalties are tested...

Finally, a US pick by Imogen, who was persuaded out of reading dystopian fiction by the lure of John Green. He hit the big time with ‘The Fault In Our Stars’ and has teamed up with two other teen writers (Maureen Johnson and the unlikely sounding Lauren Myracle) to bring some festive fayre in 'Let It Snow'.

Through three intertwining short stories, we follow Jubilee, on Christmas eve, as she gets stuck in Gracetown after the train has to stop, Tobin, when his friends go to meet the cheerleaders from that train, and finally, Addie, who is still smarting from her week-old break up. Heartwarming, funny with a unashamedly festive theme, it’s enough to put a smile on your face while waiting for Christmas Day to come...

3 4 Friday: disappearance, life lessons and psychic powers - terrific teen reads

This Friday, we've been drawn back to one of our favourite areas of the shop - teen fiction. We continue to be impressed at the great books coming out for teens - from paranormal fantasy to contemporary fiction able to cut it with the mainstream.

So for today's '3 4 Friday' #FridayReads here are our favourite teen reads:

In 'Blackwood' author Gwenda Bond takes a real-life mystery and turns it into a paranormal mystery thriller that both teens and adults will enjoy. In an island community in the US the local theatre recreates for the tourists a performance all about how 114 of its residents - early settlers to the States - simply disappeared. Now it looks like history is about to repeat itself. Can a girl who thinks she was born with a curse and a boy who thinks he can hear the voices of the dead save the townsfolk from their strange fate? Miranda Blackwood who has always been shunned as an outsider must take on alchemy and witchcraft to put a stop to a curse that goes back hundreds of years. A gripping story that uses a real-life mystery to great effect to create an atmospheric explanation of a haunting mystery.

(‘Blackwood’ - published by Strange Chemistry - is part of the CloneFiles initiative. Buy the book, get the eBook free)

If your taste (or your teen child’s taste, ahem) is more for real life contemporary fiction, there have been a few stand-out titles recently. But one of our favourites, both for the moving subject it deals with (but not so much that it’s depressing!) and the fantastic writing is ‘How to Save a Life’ by Sara Zarr.

This is a beautiful story about what it means to be a family. Jill is struggling to deal both with the death of her father 10 months ago, and now the pregnant girl her mum has brought into the house whose baby she plans to adopt. Mandy feels lost and lonely and doesn't know what she should do with her life, or what's really right for her and the baby. Neither girl is sure of who they are anymore and how they fit in.

Ellie says "A terrifically moving story for teens as these two girls learn to let go and move on as their world's change dramatically around them. I read this in a day it was so compelling and it was beautifully done - nothing felt forced or unreal. A brilliant read.".

Our last title is ‘Raven Boys’ by Maggie Stiefvater, a book that falls between the paranormal and contemporary genres. There are psychics who can see things in the future, but their forecasts are sufficiently vague to still fit in with the real world and whilst the ‘quest’ of the main characters crosses the border to the paranormal, it’s roots are in an old legend (and legends and myths are a part of our history today).

When Blue, a psychic's daughter but with no powers herself, sees a spirit for the first time, it leads her to 4 boys from the local private school Aglionby. She's soon caught up in their quest to find Glendower - a lost ancient Welsh king who will grant supernatural favour to whoever finds him, and it is this mystery that is at the core of the book. But where will their quest lead them and what will be the consequences?

This was an excellent start to a series - the characterisation was really well done and the boys especially were particularly complex and layered characters that made them compelling parts of the story. The plot line was quite different and interesting and Stiefvater tells a fab story without the usual cliff-hanger at the end but with the story far from finished and more mysteries remaining...