Monday before BEA Links

• R. David Lankes looks at ways that e-readers could be reinventing books and reading at School Library Journal.

• This post on some of the REALLY COOL and innovative ways that libraries are being used in Helsinki makes me want to move there.  RIGHT NOW.  So many things about this make me excited: libraries as content generators!  Patron-driven programming!  Citizen Media Computers!  (Hat tip to Tame the Web.)

• This is a gallery called “Hot Guys Reading Books.”  I have nothing to add.

• A good conversation happening in the comments of this KidLit.com post on swearing in YA fiction.  (My opinion: would the character say it?  Then it should be there.)

• Neesha Meminger’s post on bullying is wonderful.  I especially appreciated her thoughts on what gatekeepers can do to empower kids who are “easy targets.”  If you haven’t read this one yet, I highly suggest giving it some of your time.

• The Book Smugglers gathered some poll data and dug deep into the way we relate to book covers, and how they can influence our purchasing and enjoyment of the books we read.  They ask some genuinely interesting questions.

• Scott Westerfeld shares one of the best tidbits he found while conducting his book research, and it’s about the legalization of pants on ladies.  Sadly, there’s a current tie-in to actions in schools.

• Are Picture Books Leading Our Children Astray? That’s the questions asked by one writer, who sees a few classics for what they really are: “thinly-veiled endorsements of chaos, malfeasance, naïvete!” (Hat tip to Fuse #8)

• At this point I’m pretty sure that I’m just linking to every single thing Shannon Hale has ever said on the internet.  But she keeps saying such worthwhile things!  This time it’s about book banning and how books can start important conversations.

• Over at The Rejectionist, Zetta Elliot takes a closer look at the myth of meritocracy in the publishing industry by re-imagining Peggy McIntosh’s classic article on white privilege.  She also points out the UK Publishing Equalities Charter and the need for something similar in the US.

• Maggie Stiefvater, who has written some pretty awful YA parents in her day, weighs in on the “oh-no-there-are-no-good-mommies-and-daddies-in-YA” debate.

• When Paolo Bacigalupi found a “distinct lack of ass-kicking” in books for young people, he up and wrote Shipbreaker with “knife-fights and sea battles and the bio-engineered warbeasts called half-men that are a lethal mix of tiger and dog and hyena and human.”  While I don’t know that I agree with him on the lack of kickassery, I can definitely say that his book kicks a lot of it.  Also liked his comments on the difference in tone between writing for YA and adults.  Good interview.  (Hat tip to Chasing Ray)

• Just in case there is someone out there who hasn’t seen the Bronte Sisters Doll video that has been turning up all over my RSS reader lately – Go!  Watch! (Hat tip to lots of people, but first time I saw it was courtesy of Chris Ashworth)

• BEA!  Woohoo!  If you see somebody wandering around with purple hair, there’s a pretty good bet that it’s me – stop me and say hi!

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