Guinea Pigs Are Just The Cutest Little Creatures.

                             Image Credit: Pottermore/Warner Brothers HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET of NOPE!  Dear JK Rowling,

Alia here.  There’s no denying you’re one of the most brilliant minds of our era. You’ve created worlds that we get lost in and complex characters that we love dearly. But with MAGIC IN NORTH AMERICA, something went wrong.  Maybe it’s that you’re not from North America? But surely you did your research into the complexities that are the native peoples of this continent...Maybe it’s that you didn’t grow up constantly bombarded by stereotypical images of native people on TV, in movies, as Halloween costumes, etc.? Maybe it’s because you didn’t go to school here and didn’t receive an incomplete history of native peoples that basically stops after “First Contact” & “Thanksgiving” and ignores modern native people? Perhaps...

There are real issues here. You’re dealing with real people, cultures, traditions and religions and with that comes a lot of responsibility. Native people are already heavily stereotyped around the world as “Magical Beings” and now...they’re in your magical canon! Not only do you refer to them as a monolithic group (there are hundreds of nations in the US alone), you *seem* to imply that native wand-less magic is powerful but not as refined as European magic (due to the power of a wand).

I encourage you, Ms. Rowling, to respond to native academics, fans, etc. who are asking you tough, but important questions. Debbie Reese, Dr. Adrienne Keene and many others have tweeted at you. Here, here, here & here are some EXCELLENT articles that delve into your work from a native perspective. This one is excellent as well. I ask you to check out Debbie Reese and Dr. Adrienne Keene’s websites in general. Just look around. They do great work.

Let’s get this discussion going and please let us know who you consulted for this project because we’re SUPER CURIOUS. (at least I am...) Representation Matters. It really does and yes, anyone CAN write a story, but I’d hope they LISTEN and learn as much as possible before releasing it to the world, especially when you’re dealing with living people, religions, and NATIVE KIDS. There’s a long history of misrepresentation, exploitation and stereotyping of native peoples. There’s also the fact native writers already have a difficult time getting published. They have a hard time telling their own stories. MAGIC IN NORTH AMERICA is problematic and we await your response... Sincerely, A Fan **SIPS TEA (out of the Goblet of Fire)**

We’ll get back to Mary Anning later. 

Is Kelis’ milkshake song a gift to humanity, or what?

YAAAAAASSSS! Well Read Black Girl is awesome. Check out this great interview and get with it. <3 Also Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

The Biggest Problem in Publishing? The Invisibility of Black Women Writers

And how #WellReadBlackGirl is changing the game.

MC: What do you hope people will get from following WRBG?

GE: Whenever I read a book that speaks to me, I immediately want to tell the world about it. Every post [on Instagram] is about a writer I admire, a book I’ve read, or a title I’m adding to my “To Be Read” pile. When people use the hashtag #WellReadBlackGirl, it suddenly transforms the solitary experience of reading into a social activity.  

People are constantly looking for diverse reading recommendations. I spend a lot of time finding compelling content produced by Black women: new book releases, essays, poetry, culture writing, etc. I want WRBG to give these extraordinary writers a voice and introduce them to new audiences. Publishers need to fully acknowledge the role Black women play in literary culture. We’re creators, as well as consumers. We deserve that recognition.

Waiting on Wednesday

A weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases that people are eagerly anticipating.

My choice for Waiting on Wednesday this week is:

The Land of 10,000 Madonnas by Kate Hattemer

Publication: April 19th 2016 by Knopf, 352 pages

Five teens backpack through Europe to fulfill the mysterious dying wish of their friend in this heartwarming novel from the author of The Vigilante Poets of Selwyn Academy. Jesse lives with his history professor dad in a house covered with postcards of images of the Madonna from all over the world. They’re gotten used to this life: two motherless dudes living among thousands of Madonnas. But Jesse has a heart condition that will ultimately cut his life tragically short. Before he dies, he arranges a mysterious trip to Europe for his three cousins, his best friend, and his girlfriend to take after he passes away. It’s a trip that will forever change the lives of these young teens and one that will help them come to terms with Jesse’s death. With vivid writing, poignant themes, and abundant doses of humor throughout, Kate Hattemer’s second novel is a satisfying journey about looking for someone else’s answers only to find yourself.

Wink Poppy Midnight by April Genevieve Tucholke

Publication: March 22nd 2016 by Dial Books, 352 pages

The intrigue of The Virgin Suicides and the “supernatural or not” question of The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer coalesce in this young adult mystery, where nothing is quite as it seems, no one is quite who you think, and everything can change on a dime. Every story needs a hero. Every story needs a villain. Every story needs a secret. Wink is the odd, mysterious neighbor girl, wild red hair and freckles. Poppy is the blond bully and the beautiful, manipulative high school queen bee. Midnight is the sweet, uncertain boy caught between them. Wink. Poppy. Midnight. Two girls. One boy. Three voices that burst onto the page in short, sharp, bewitching chapters, and spiral swiftly and inexorably toward something terrible or tricky or tremendous. What really happened? Someone knows. Someone is lying. For fans of Holly Black, We Were Liars, and The Raven Boys, this mysterious tale full of intrigue, dread, beauty, and a whiff of something strange will leave you utterly entranced.

5 Exciting YA Book Trends to Look for in 2016

Are you ready to discover the newest YA titles coming to a bookstore (or e-reader) near you in 2016? As a YA book blogger and book curator, I've scoured the Internet for forthcoming releases and f...

Hurrah for Cincinnati authors! Emily Henry and Kate Hattemer are both on the list!

A Feminist Reading List for the Holidays: Books by strong, spirited, whip-smart, flawed, fantastic, human, devastatingly talented women for anyone - female, male, or otherwise - on your list.

My Life On The Road by Gloria Steinem

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Hissing Cousins by Marc Peyser and Timothy Dwyer

Isabella: The Warrior Queen by Kirstin Downey

Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl by Carrie Brownstein

A House Of My Own by Sandra Cisneros

Fates & Furies by Lauren Groff

Vanessa and Her Sister by Priya Parmar

The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan

Missoula by Jon Krakauer

Let Me Tell You by Shirley Jackson

The Mare by Mary Gaitskill

You Don’t Have to Like Me by Alida Nugent (@thefrenemy​)

Peruse all of our holiday lists here!

Here’s a list of what us wenches are reading right now!

Under a Painted Sky by Stacey Lee & The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubraker Bradley

Whatcha reading, Brett?

Wing & Claw by Linda Sue Park 

By Break of Day by M L Buchman

Indeh by Ethan Hawke and Greg Ruth

Whatcha reading, Jo Ann?

Burn Math Class by Jason Wilkes

Passenger by Alexandra Bracken & Ninth Key by Meg Cabot

Whatcha reading, Tori?

Image credit: Harper Collins Publishers, Matt Murphy, Joel Tippie

Marita here. I’m apparently incapable of writing brief reviews, so buckle in.

World War II seems to be having a moment in YA, between Code Name Verity and Salt to the Sea and Wolf by Wolf (Hi, Melissa!), and it seems like I have been sucked in, too.

I picked up this book because I thought the cover was amazing, and something about the author’s name tugged on my memory.

So then I opened it up and read the first line of the prologue: “I’m not going to tell you my name, not right away.”

And WHA-BAM! It hit me. Michael Grant, the author, is married to K.A. Applegate, the author of Animorphs. For those not in the know, every Animorphs book begins something like, “My name is ____. I can’t tell you my real name. It’s too dangerous.” It’s a bit of an open secret that although his name’s not on the books, he collaborated with her on the series that pretty much defined my childhood. Some people know Harry Potter forwards and backwards, and some people know Lord of the Rings and some people know Star Wars, but I am a scholar of Animorphs.

So, yes, this made me very happy. 

The real strength of Animorphs is that it used fantastic settings and characters and circumstances to explore very real and important issues. It’s about a war between two alien species that humans got caught in the middle of, but the fact that it is a war is never forgotten. There are casualties and sacrifices, and it hurts.

Over the course of the series, each character is slowly broken in their own unique way. It is, at heart, the story of six children (OK, four children, a hawk, and an alien) who are thrown into a war they simply aren’t prepared for. Their only choices are to become soldiers or die.

It is a science fiction series through and through, but the brutality and the horror and the cost of war feels very, very real.

After reading Front Lines, I have to believe that that gritty, realistic tone was in large part Michael Grant’s contribution.

Front Lines, the first book in the new Soldier Girl series, is not science fiction or fantasy. It is a meticulously researched historical epic. There is exactly one fact that is not historically accurate, one court case detailed in the opening pages:

FLASH: “In a surprise ruling with major ramifications, the United States Supreme Court handed down a decision in the case of Becker v. Minneapolis Draft Board for Josiah Becker, who had sued claiming the recently passed Selective Service and Training Act unfairly singles out males. The decision extends the draft to all US citizens age 18 or older regardless of gender.”

--United Press International--Washington, D.C., January 13, 1940

Women became draft-eligible just in time for World War II. This is the single cog that Grant fits in to the machinery of history, and the whole thing spins out naturally from there. And my God, is it incredible.

Told in a roving third-person point of view, this is the story of three teenage girls heading to war. Rio Richlin is a sweet, innocent California farm girl who is thrown off balance by the death of her older sister in the Pacific theater. Almost on a whim, she lies about her age and enlists with her friend Jenou. Frangie Marr is small and unassuming, but dreams of being a doctor. However, because she happens to be black and female in Tulsa, Oklahoma in the 1940′s, this is little more than a pipe dream. She enlists because her family desperately needs the money, and because being an army medic might pave her way to the MD she’s hungry for. And Jewish New Yorker Rainy Schulterman just wants to give Hitler a taste of his own medicine. She’s icy and intelligent, and even though the men around her are quick to write her off, she’s determined to put her skill with languages and numbers to good use.

Our heroines make it through boot camp just in time to join the fray in North Africa and become embroiled in the Battle of Kasserine Pass.

Why is this book important? For a couple of reasons.

The one at the top of my list is that it makes war immediate and real. I’m a girl. I’ve never had to think seriously about going to war, and I don’t have any immediate family in the armed forces, either. War is a distant concept to me. I can have sympathy for the experiences of soldiers, but empathy simply isn’t possible because there’s nothing I’ve experienced that can compare. Sure, I can appreciate Saving Private Ryan, but once again, I can’t really empathize. I’m watching men I don’t strongly identify with going through things I can’t comprehend.

This book of teenage girls on the front lines made the battlefields of World War II feel personal. These are girls I could have been in another life, reacting like I would have reacted. They’re as confused and determined and angry as I could see myself being in the same situation. I may not know what it’s like to fire an M1 Garand and take a life, but I do know what it’s like to walk into a room full of boys and have them size you up and dismiss you in the same glance. And I do know what it’s like to want to show the boys you’re competing with that they’ve dismissed you at their own peril. I can definitely put myself in the shoes of these soldier girls.

(Side note: I’m almost resentful that this book was written by a grown man, but captures the feeling of being a teenage girl so incredibly well. He writes with such sensitivity about things like schoolgirl crushes and nail polish and hairstyles without being belittling or dismissive. It’s just not fair.)

There’s so many perfect scenes, so perfectly experienced by our heroines. This book is filled with countless moments that bring the war to life. Not a word is wasted. Every little instance of disenchantment and demoralization and rage and fear hits hard. You’re there on the transport ship on your way to the front for the first time, realizing that you’re still just a civilian in an army uniform. You’re there in the foxhole, aiming an M1 at another human being and hoping you miss. You’re there in the medic tent, making the impossible triage decisions. That experience alone makes this read so worthwhile.

Also important is the fact that Grant doesn’t pull any punches--not when it comes to the reality of war, and not when it comes to the prevailing attitudes at the time. This book is not for the faint of heart. There are scenes of extreme gruesomeness, and there is explicit and offensive language. It’s a hard book to read, but it has so many important things to say that you’re not doing yourself a favor by avoiding that pain.

A lot of war movies focus on the glory of battle and the unbreakable brotherhood between soldiers, how noble and brave they all are. But that’s whitewashing history. The soldiers who defeated Hitler were a bunch of scared kids. They were also, by and large, sexist, racist, and anti-Semitic. Many WWII works avoid acknowledging that the US army was still segregated at that point (probably because it would detract from our hero worship of those soldiers), but this fact is never sidestepped or excused or swept under the rug in Front Lines. In one scene, a soldier comments on the irony of sending a segregated army to fight a white supremacist and is immediately booed by the rest of his barracks, and that’s probably one of the least upsetting things that happens in the book. The fact that our three heroines are the continual targets of this bigotry drives that point home perfectly, if painfully. They don’t have to be as good as the white male soldiers they’re constantly measured against, they have to be better to earn any grudging respect.

World War II was that rare war that truly needed to be fought. Unfortunately, we’re a generation that has pretty much forgotten the lessons learned there. We’ve forgotten that Hitler was democratically elected. We’ve forgotten that the disenfranchisement of the Jews happened by inches and feet, not all at once. We’ve forgotten that the Holocaust happened because too many people saw evil happening but refused to speak up out of apathy and convenience. We’ve forgotten what it’s like for our country to go all-in on a war with rations and drafts. We’ve forgotten how it feels to live under a constant umbrella of fear. We’ve forgotten that lofty ideals don’t win wars, ruthlessness and violence do. And we’ve forgotten that the soldiers of that war weren’t glorious heroes. They were fallible, imperfect humans like the rest of us. He (or she) who forgets history is doomed to repeat it, though. By revising history, Grant manages to undo a lot of historical revisionism.

This is, all in all, an incredible tale that sucks you in, gets under your skin, breaks your heart, and shows you a whole new side to the story you thought you knew.

Hello! :) Bookwench #2 reporting in. Here’s a little about me...I’m Alia, I’m 27 years old and I love books, cake and Korean food.  I used to be an elementary school teacher in Daegu, South Korea for about four years. Daegu is famous for being hot (it’s in a valley), has lots of great food and people there have the best Korean accent ( it’s like a tough southern accent). With a background in teaching and experience in children’s bookselling, my contributions to The Bookwenches will mostly be children’s literature related.  I specialize in Picture Books. You have questions? I have answers. Need a suggestion? You got it. You like looking at pretty pictures?...WELL ME TOO! I also read quite a bit of middle grade and some YA. I like a little bit of everything; fantasy, historical fiction, sci-fi, fairy tale, realistic fiction, romance, coming of age novels, graphic novels etc.  One of my favorite books of all time is Zel by Donna Jo Napoli. Like Tori, I like that medieval, princessy but AWESOME story stuff!  In 2016, I’m looking forward to Sherman Alexie and Yuyi Morales’ new book Thunder Boy Jr. It’ll be Alexie’s first picture book!! If you don’t know him, just check out The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian. You won’t regret it. I’m also looking forward to Pugs of the Frozen North by Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre!  You can also check me out at my blog readitrealgood.com and I have a twitter @readitrealgood. On my blog I share diverse and excellent reads. It’s intended to be a resource for people looking for great kids books, especially ones focusing on diversity. I also discuss diversity in literature and publishing and share my thoughts from time to time. 

Nice to meet you...만나서 반갑습니다! 촣은 하루 되세요! ^_^

Exciting news yesterday from Andrea Beaty, David Roberts and Abrams Kids! The newest book in the fabulous Rosie Revere, Engineer and Iggy Peck, Architect series has been revealed. :)  She’s ADA TWIST, SCIENTIST!

Woo Hoo! for science and Woo Hoo! for two African American kids!