The Thursday Book Beat: Gene Luen Yang Named National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature

Another year and a brand new Book Beat. It might only be January 7th but book news sleeps for no one! We started off the new year with sad news that George R.R. Martin missed his New Year’s Eve deadline for the Winds of Winter; the sixth book in the Game of Thrones series. This means the book won’t be published before the show’s sixth season which will spoil a few things that’ll happen in the new book.

“I won’t make excuses. There are no excuses. No one else is to blame. Not my editors and publishers, not HBO. It’s on me. I tried, and I am still trying.”

That sucks and as someone who writes, I can sympathize with the process of writing which does have its good days, and not so great days. I’m glad that fans have been supportive and I’ll add this to the “that sucks” column of the news.

National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. Drawn by Gene Luen Yang. "Reading Without Walls". 2016.

What doesn’t suck is the announcement that comics creator, Gene Luen Yang, was named National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature.

The ambassador program was established in 2008, by the Children’s Book Council, Every Child a Reader, and the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, to highlight the importance of young people’s literature in developing a literate, tolerant, informed citizenry. Yang will serve a two-year term, traveling the nation to champion diversity in all forms—and formats—with his platform, “Reading Without Walls.”

I’m a huge fan of his work and loved both The Shadow Hero (with Sonny Liew) and Boxers & Saints. If there was someone to succeed Kate DiCamillo, it would be him. It’s also great because he’s a comics creator taking on the position which just goes to show the impact comics is making especially for children.

Public Service Announcement time because it seems a self published author, Corinne Rosanna Catlin, is posing as a Penguin Random House employee in order to send bloggers a copy of her book. Many book bloggers have come forward and apparently Penguin Random House is getting involved as well according to Bookish Antics’ recent update. This is not the first time that the line between reviewer and author have been crossed. There was the situation with Kathleen Hale which she wrote about in the Guardian as well as Richard Brittain who attacked a teen reviewer with a bottle after a negative review.

Um No Gif

In other weird news, Chinese security officers are suspected of kidnapping five publishing employees who’ve gone missing. It’s speculated that the reason is due to a book being published about President Xi Jinping’s “former love life”.

The five work for a publishing house known for producing books critical of the Chinese government. The disappearances add to growing unease that freedoms in the semi-autonomous Chinese city are being eroded.

This reminds me a bit of the situation in Bangladesh at the end of last year. I do hope those publishing employees return home safely.

In other news, The Writers’ Union of Canada has joined the Authors Guild in the United States on “updating contract principles”. You can read more about that here. Also, this recent article by Kate Axelrod has many YA readers and writers seeing red. Despite the later half discussing the difficulties of categorizing a book and how that plays into sales, the first half completely disregards young adult as a category with any real weight. The author herself has stated she knows nothing about the category but gave her opinion on the matter anyway which just makes everyone sad all around.

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Ardo Omer

Ardo Omer

Former WWAC editor. Current curmudgeon and Batman's personal assistant. Icon art by Diana Sim.

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