Tag Archives: Tu Books

20 YA Novels for Thinking Adults: A Diverse List

There has been a lot of controversy this week surrounding that now-infamous Slate article saying that adults should be embarrassed to read YA. Here at LEE & LOW, we couldn’t disagree more. We don’t think your enjoyment of a book should be limited by your age (or anything at all, really). YA novels are great. They can be entertaining, literary, thought-provoking, funny, sad, or all of the above at the same time.

There have been several excellent lists of YA recommendations floating around this week, so we thought we’d add our own. Here is a list (a diverse list, of course!) of YA novels that made us think, featuring some great books from LEE & LOW and some of our favorites from other publishers:

1. Summer of the Mariposas by Guadalupe Garcia McCall (Tu Books)

When Odilia and her four sisters find a dead body in the swimming hole, they embark on a hero’s journey to return the dead man to his family in Mexico. But returning home to Texas turns into an odyssey that would rival Homer’s original tale.

2. How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents by Julia Alvarez (Algonquin Books)

Uprooted from their family home in the Dominican Republic, the four Garcia sisters – Carla, Sandra, Yolanda, and Sofia – arrive in New York City in 1960 to find a life far different from the genteel existence of maids, manicures, and extended family they left behind.

3. Under the Mesquite by Guadalupe Garcia McCall (Lee & Low Books)Under the Mesquite

As the oldest of eight siblings, Lupita is used to taking the lead—and staying busy behind the scenes to help keep everyone together. But when she discovers Mami has been diagnosed with cancer, Lupita is terrified by the possibility of losing her mother, the anchor of her close-knit Mexican American family.

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Ask an Editor: Worldbuilding After the Apocalypse

Stacy Whitman photoStacy Whitman is Editorial Director and Publisher of Tu Books, an imprint of LEE & LOW BOOKS that publishes diverse science fiction and fantasy for middle grade and young adult readers. This blog post was originally posted at her blog, Stacy Whitman’s Grimoire

Yesterday, Sarah Hannah Gómez wrote about people of color in dystopias. Today I thought we’d look at the post-apocalyptic genre (which overlaps with, but is not always the same as, dystopias) from the craft side. A while back, as I was going through submissions, a few thoughts formed for me about worldbuilding in the genre due to things I was seeing again and again. This isn’t by any means a comprehensive list of things to think about—just a few things that struck me as a pattern in some recent reads (and something I notice when it’s done well).

I guess everything I want to say actually falls under the old (and very useful) “show, don’t tell,” – which of course is relevant whether or not your novel is set after the apocalypse. So, here you go:

inverted pyramid

  • If you include newspaper clippings/stories as metatext to support the main narrative, make sure that it actually sounds like a news clipping. Use inverted pyramid structure, starting with the most important details and filling in backstory and history only once important details have been included. Who, what, why, where, when: these are the most important things to focus on in the first paragraph.
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Where are the people of color in dystopias?

Hannah GomezSarah Hannah Gómez has an MA in children’s literature and an MS in library and information science from Simmons College. Currently Guest bloggershe works as a school librarian in Northern California. An aspiring novelist and screenwriter, she is passionate about social issues in literature and social media engagement with books. She spends the rest of her free time singing, reading, and learning to run. Visit her blog at http://mclicious.org.

I was going to start this post with something pithy like, “How to survive the apocalypse: Be white. Or Morgan Freeman. Or, 2012 onwards, be a Kravitz!” I was going to tell you how dystopian and post-apocalyptic fiction and film allow creators to act out a future and explore countless possibilities that could ruin or save the world. And that is kind of what’s happening, though it’s a lot more complicated than that…

Have you noticed that every movie trailer that talks about Earth after some catastrophic event displays a civilization of white people (and to have a future with no diversity, when there is so much right here on the ground today, is disingenuous, odd, and patently false.*Morgan Freeman) speaking American English? Sure, some of that is unavoidable and practical–you can’t make a movie about everyone and in every language at the same time–but it’s also ethnocentric and exceptionalist of us. Not to mention problematic in myriad ways, because the lack of diversity goes utterly unacknowledged.

Generally in dystopia, the reader understands everything about the society in the story as a copy of their own, except when the author specifically points out the rules that make it different. So to have a future with no diversity, when there is so much right here on the ground today, is disingenuous, odd, and patently false.*

As it’s the United States that is driving the current success of dystopian genre, let’s look specifically at our diversity. White people will no longer be the majority within thirty years, says the Brookings Institution. And in the meantime, people of color are rising to positions of power (hey, Obama!) all over, and while we have a long way to go, old bastions of whiteness and power are being dismantled. While I can’t say this from experience, since I’m a woman of color, I can imagine that this is terrifying to people who are in a position to lose their power. If I were someone with lots of privilege and power, I would want to hold onto it, and it would be very nice to create a world in which I could.

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Is My Character “Black Enough”? Advice on Writing Cross-Culturally

Stacy Whitman photoStacy Whitman is Editorial Director and Publisher of Tu Books, an imprint of LEE & LOW BOOKS that publishes diverse science fiction and fantasy for middle grade and young adult readers. This blog post was originally posted at her blog, Stacy Whitman’s Grimoire

I recently got this question from a writer, who agreed that answering it on the blog would be useful:

My hero is a fifteen-year-old African American boy [in a science fiction story]. A few of my alpha readers (not all) have said that he doesn’t sound “black enough.” I purposely made him an Air Force brat who has lived in several different countries to avoid having to use cliche hood-terminology. I want him to be universal.

Do you have thoughts on this either way?

Is there a possibility that my potential readers could really be offended that a) I am “a white girl writing a book about black people” and b) that my character doesn’t sound black enough? I’ve looked through your blog and website and haven’t found anything specific to my needs on this particular question. Perhaps I missed it?

…should I use Ebonics or not use Ebonics?

First of all, black people—just as white people or Latino people—are a very diverse group of people. There are people who speak in Ebonics (which I believe would be more accurately referred to as BVE–Black Vernacular English) and people who speak plain old suburban English, people who speak with any of a variety of Southern accents and people who have Chicago accents, people who speak with French or Spanish accents (or who speak French or Spanish or an African language). So the question of whether a particular character in a particular situation sounds “black enough” is a complicated question, one that even the African American community can’t necessarily agree on. Within the community (and I say this because I asked a coworker who is African American, who can speak with more authority on the subject than I can) it’s often a question that draws on complicated factors, such as money, privilege, “selling out,” skin tone (relative darkness or lightness—literally, being “black enough”), and hair texture, which all relate to how much a part of which community a person might be.

The question, then, is fraught with loaded meaning not only to do with stereotypes, but also socioeconomic meanings. The question can also tend to be offensive because of that diversity and the loaded meaning the question carries.

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Publishing Advice: Pitching, Querying, and ‘We don’t know how to market this’

Stacy Whitman photoJoseph BruchacA few weeks ago, Tu Books Publisher Stacy Whitman and author Joseph Bruchac (Killer of EnemiesWolf Mark) answered questions about writing, publishing, science fiction and fantasy, and everything in between for a special Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA) session. We rounded up their best advice for aspiring authors in Part 1. Today in Part 2, we share some of their advice on pitching, querying, and marketing:

Q: Joseph, when you sit down to write a query letter, what do you think the most important thing is to get across? I’ve heard a lot of advice, from getting the character’s voice in there to making sure the plot ends on a juicy cliffhanger. What do you do that made you so successful?

Joseph Bruchac: Writing a query letter is an art in itself. You need to get across both your idea and that you are the one who is qualified to write it.

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10 Great Resources for Writing Cross-Culturally

Our editors often get asked for advice on writing cross-culturally, so we thought we’d round up some of the best links on the subject. Writing cross-culturally means writing about a culture that isn’t your own (and in this definition of culture, we include race, ethnicity, sexual identity, disabilities, and other identity markers). We have published many books by writers who wrote outside their cultures, and believe that it can be done well; in fact, writing cross-culturally is an essential component of boosting the numbers of books about diverse characters.

That being said, writing cross-culturally must be done thoughtfully and carefully. It requires research. Changing a core piece of a character’s identity is not the same as changing a character’s name or hair style; different cultures provide different lenses through which to view the world, and affect characters in a multitude of small ways.

Here are some good places to start if you are an author writing cross-culturally or thinking about writing cross-culturally:

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Advice on Getting Published from a YA Editor and Author, Part I

Stacy Whitman photoJoseph BruchacEarlier this week our Tu Books publisher, Stacy Whitman, and author Joseph Bruchac (Killer of Enemies, Wolf Mark), took to Reddit for an “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) session answering questions about writing, publishing, science fiction and fantasy, and everything in between. In case you missed it (or, like me, you find Reddit overwhelming and scary) here’s some of the best advice that came out of that thread:

Q: What advice can you give for any starting writer? What is the most important thing for a writer to consider?

Stacy Whitman: 

If you want to be a writer, you MUST read in the genre in which you want to write. And read a LOT!

Too many beginning writers who try to pitch books to me at conferences respond poorly when I ask them what they’ve read in the genre (because their manuscript or pitch makes it clear they have no idea what’s going on in the genre right now): they either only name books from 30 or even 50 years ago (“I love Heinlein!”) or they actually, when it comes to YA, say things like, “Oh, I don’t read that stuff.” If you wouldn’t read it, don’t write it.

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10 Tips for Being a Badass in Post-Apocalyptic Times

There are a lot of theories out there that our civilization as we know it will end, but as to when and how, nobody can say for sure. In this blog post, Lozen, the monster-slaying Apache heroine from our YA novel Killer of Enemies, offers 10 tips on how to survive in a post-apocalyptic world:

Lozen

  1. Shelter first. Fire before water. Water before food. You can last for days and days without food. Lots of hours without water. But you’ll either freeze from the cold or boil from the heat of the sun long before you die from thirst or hunger.
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Where Does Zilombo Live? A Photo Tour of the English Countryside

SP GatesIn her last guest post, author S.P. Gates shared some visual renderings of the monster in her new lower middle grade novel, The Monster in the Mudball. In this guest post, she shares photos of some of the real-life places in the English town of Newcastle Upon Tyne where her book is set.

When I write stories I like to set them in real places. The Monster in the Mudball is set in a city called Newcastle Upon Tyne near where I live. I thought you might like to see some photos!

zilombo1This is the main river that runs through the city. Note the building (nicknamed “The Silver Peanut”! ) and beautiful bridge! But, when Zilombo hatches out from her mudball she doesn’t live along this main river. Five minutes’ walk away is a weedy, forgotten backwater. It looks like this:

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Reminder: Our Tu Friends & Family Sale is Happening Now!

Tu Friends & Family SaleIf you’ve been looking for something great to read, you’re in luck! Our Tu Books Friends & Family sale is now happening, and we’re offering some great deals on terrific middle grade and YA titles through Friday, October 25!

Save 35% off + free shipping (US addresses only) on all titles from our speculative fiction imprint, Tu Books. Just visit leeandlow.com and use discount code FAMILY at checkout. Discounted books include:

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