This year, we’ve seen a lot of quality novels, but we’ve also seen some notable short story collections and anthologies.  Short story collections might not sell huge numbers, but they do provide for worthy discussions and make a great choice for both teens and librarians who are short on time but want an enjoyable, complete story.  I’ve been a big fan of short stories all my life, from fairy tales to Shirley Jackson to Margo Lanagan.   Here are some books that will both complete and diversify your collection.

First Kiss (Then Tell): A Collection of True Lip-Locked Moments edited by Cylin Busby.  They’re hilarious!  They’re disgusting!  They’re first kisses!

Love is Hell by Justine Larbalestier, Melissa Marr, Laurie Faria Stolarz, Scott Westerfeld, and Gabrielle Zevin.  True love between zombies and humans is almost always doomed.

Let it Snow: Three Holiday Romances by John Green, Maureen Johnson, and Lauren Myracle.  A snowstorm blankets three stranded teens in angst and waffles.

Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link.  Digging up dead girlfriends.  Worlds in handbags.  It’s all normal here.

Up All Night by Peter Abrahams, Libba Bray, David Levithan, Patricia McCormick, Gene Luen Yang, and Sarah Weeks.  There’s more to these all-nighters than caffeine and term papers.

Firebirds Soaring edited by Sharyn November.  Fantastic fantasy and flights of fancy.

How They Met and Other Stories edited by David Levithan.  Where “nice to meet you” takes on a whole new meaning.

Also, keep an eye out for two highly anticipated short story collections in 2009:  Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci, and Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan.

We’d done “Books That Don’t Make You Blush.” We’d done “Religion: Relationship with the Divine” and “Read ‘em and Weep. It was time for Popular Paperbacks to take a walk on the wild side. In 2007, the committee decided it was time to put together a list about teens’ decisions to have sex, or not. It’s no secret that teens are fascinated by sex, and that they receive mixed messages about it on a daily basis. We wanted to put together a list of books that would show how complicated the decision to have sex, or not having sex, can be. After much debate and a few raunchy jokes, the seven members of Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults given the charge of constructing and giving focus to this list, including myself, got down to business.

We knew putting this list together using the Popular Paperbacks criteria would be difficult and controversial. First, we didn’t want a list where teens would be punished for having sex. Second, we wanted to show that teens have a range of attitudes towards sex, from fright to ambivalence to enjoyment. Third, acknowledging that teens do have sex is always risky ground for librarians to tread, and we knew that there was a good chance our list would be met with outcry and opposition from “concerned parent” groups. As we discussed books like Paul Ruditis’s Rainbow Party, Elizabeth Scott’s Bloom, and Judy Blume’s Forever, we worked hard on adding stories from boys and girls, gay and straight, sexually active and abstinent. Although the original working title of the list was “Sex is a Touchy Subject,” we ended up changing it to “Sex Is…,” which we felt better encompassed the many points of view represented in the fiction and nonfiction that made up the list.

As Banned Books Week approaches, it’s time for us to remember that “sexual content” is often cited as a reason why books are banned. Of all the books for teens that do get banned, I often feel that the ones that are banned for sexual content are the ones most worth protecting. To a book banner, sexual content isn’t necessarily about two teens having intercourse. It’s ultimately about exploring and wondering about one’s sexuality and developing independent thoughts about sex. Everyone reading this knows that teens are curious about sex. All teens grow and develop and regardless of the rate at which they do so, they wonder about their bodies,romantic relationships, and other topics that are addressed in these books that are banned for sexual content. It was worth it to the Popular Paperbacks Committee to take the risks of being censored or called names because we were providing a list of popular books that would show teens they were not alone in their curiosities about sex and sexual health. It was worth it to us to cite books that say, “Yes, you are normal.” To the committee, “Sex Is…” about love, about heartbreak, about seizing the moment, and most importantly, about being human.

You can see the 2008 Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults “Sex Is…” list at http://ala.org/ala/yalsa/booklistsawards/popularpaperback/08ppya.cfm#sex

When I first saw the author’s name on this book, I thought, “There is no way it’s the same Michael Thomas Ford.”  I have known about Michael Thomas Ford’s (very) adult works for years, but I didn’t think he would ever write a young adult novel.  He has, and I have to say, I was pretty impressed.

Suicide Notes is narrated by Jeff, who we soon find out is narrating from the psychiatric ward of a local hospital.  As far as Jeff is concerned he’s fine, just fine, despite the bandages from where he tried to slit his wrists.  Obviously, Jeff is not fine, but he’s also quite reluctant to talk about or even acknowledge the events that landed him in the hospital in the first place. He’s much more interested in telling the reader about his fellow patients and their day-to-day dramas.  The hospital’s tough yet sympathetic psychiatrist, Dr. K., isn’t as willing to let Jeff ignore the course of events that drove him to suicide; before Jeff can go home he will have to face a part of himself he’s buried and denied.  Jeff is ready to keep denying everything until some  late-night encounters with another patient make him see that he can’t, not unless he wants to be suicidal forever.

Jeff’s narrative is both funny and heartbreaking.  Although Jeff is close to his sister, his parents’ ignorance of Jeff’s problems will make the reader feel bad for him and wonder how love can be so ignorant.  The content here is most definitely for older teens, showcasing Ford’s experience and talent in writing erotica.  The start of this book is a little slow, but readers who stick with Jeff will find themselves rooting for him, wanting him to get better, face up to his problems, and move back into his life.  It’s a good next-read for those who liked Get Well Soon by Julie Halpern.

Everyone has moments in life they wish they could rewind, erase, and do over.  For movie buff Kyle, that moment is the one where he killed his best friend Jason.  No matter how many times Kyle replays that moment, no matter how many different ways he can think of to film it, it always ends up the same.  Jason is dead and Kyle has to live with the consequences, and that is the setup for Freeze Frame by Heidi Ayarbe, coming in October.

One morning, Kyle and Jason are hiding out in Kyle’s shed, looking through some of the items Kyle’s dad had stored there.  Jason breaks open a rusted metal box containing a gun.  In fragmented scenes, the reader learns that Kyle fires the gun and Jason dies minutes afterward.

Kyle thinks it might have been an accident.

As Kyle’s movie plays out, the reader learns that Kyle’s friendship with Jason was not as perfect as he made it seem in the beginning of the book.  Jason had started to drift away from Kyle, hanging out with guys that Kyle didn’t exactly like.  Kyle stops doing his schoolwork and every day is a struggle, but he always makes time to look out for Chase, Jason’s little brother, the only one who Kyle can have a semi-normal conversation with.  Over and over, Kyle replays the scene of Jason’s death and holds short conversations with Jason in his head.  Ostracized by his best friend’s parents and the other kids at school, Kyle only knows one thing for sure:  He can’t keep living the scene over and over.  He has to move on, one way or another.

What could have easily been a preachy book about the dangers of guns is instead a swift-moving, thoughtful look at the function of memory and the consequences of living with oneself after a tragedy.  It’s reminiscent of Walter Dean Myers’s Monster and Gail Giles’s Right Behind You, and sure to appeal to fans of those books.  It’s a great choice for a teen book group, or just for those who want a more serious read.

Tyrell might be one of my favorite YA novels of all time, so you can imagine my joy when I opened a box from Scholastic that contained Coe Booth’s second novel, Kendra, coming in October.  For those worried about a sophomore slump, I have one word for you:  Don’t.  Kendra is every bit as raw and thought-provoking as Tyrell was, even though the voices sound very different.

Like Tyrell, Kendra takes place in the Bronx, and the themes of family and loyalty are just as prominent.  Kendra lives in the Bronxwood projects with her grandmother.  She barely sees her mother Renee, who had Kendra at fourteen.  Rather than drop out of school or get married, Renee committed herself wholly to her schoolwork and has just earned a PhD from Princeton.  In her pursuit of academic success, however, she has ignored Kendra, who has been raised by her grandmother, Renee’s mother.  Now fourteen, Kendra’s sexuality is beginning to emerge but because of her grandmother’s strict, almost puritanical rules about what Kendra can do, who she can talk to, what she can wear, etc., Kendra has some very mixed ideas about sex and love.  She likes one boy at school, sort of, but she’s hooking up with another, another who is already seeing Kendra’s closest friend.  Kendra’s not stupid.  She has goals and ambitions and interests.  What she needs is guidance, something she’s not getting from the adults in her life who are supposed to be there for her.

Kendra is not about sex, it’s about sexuality.  It’s not about absent mothers, it’s about the importance of family and adult mentors in the life of a teen.  It’s not about hooking up, it’s about navigating the many unwritten rules about sex and relationships.  Coe Booth has remarkable talent, and this layered, thoughtful novel showcases it perfectly.

It may be 90 degrees and humid here in New Jersey, but “A Very Supernatural Christmas” is on the TV and I’m craving Chinese food, so this seems like the perfect time to write about Let It Snow: Three holiday romances by John Green, Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle, coming in September.

Five people arrested, four close friends, three romances, two crashed cars, and a Waffle House (but not a pear tree). These things and more add up to three hilarious stories that are sure to bring holiday delight to fans of Johnson, Green and Myracle’s. Johnson’s story opens the collection. In it, Jubilee (yes, that’s her real name and no, she has no aspirations of being a stripper) has to cancel plans to go to her boyfriend’s for their annual Christmas smorgasbord when her parents are arrested in a brawl over a Flobie Santa Village limited-edition piece. Upon receiving news of her parents’ arrest, she’s immediately put on a train to Florida, a train that has to stop in the middle of a terrible snowstorm in northern North Carolina. Her refuge from the train is the local Waffle House, which is occupied by, among others, a very nice local boy. Some of the people the local boy knows are…

…the protagonists of Green’s story, which is sprinkled with shout-outs to the YA lit community, including a main character named Tobin who enjoyed The Book Thief. Tobin and his friends get wind of the fact that there’s a cheerleading team from Pennsylvania stranded at the Waffle House, so they do what any normal teenage boys and their best girl friend would do: They get in Tobin’s parents car and embark on a madcap road trip over unplowed roads and snowdrifts to the Waffle House, invoking the ire of the class bullies along the way.

Trapped at the Waffle House is Jeb, who we first meet on the train when he sits down next to Jubilee. Myracle’s story is told from the point of view of his girlfriend Addie, who has some very clear notions about what does and doesn’t constitute a romantic gesture. Addie’s having a perfectly miserable holiday because she’s convinced she and Jeb are over, and is spending the day confiding in her closest friends about her Jeb angst. Can she get her true love back with her mad barista skills? Maybe, but the one person she can’t seem to shake is Charlie, who…well, picture Chuck Bass with less money and more innuendo.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas in July and curl up with this fluffy-as-fresh-snow book, since you’ve no place to go. It’s sweet as eggnog and spicy as mulled wine, with a lot of coffee to perk you up.

I admit it, I’m old school. I became a librarian because I like to read, and I became a teen librarian because YA is my favorite genre (and, y’know, I don’t think teens are half bad, either). So as my new project for the YALSA blog, I’ll be writing a regular mini-feature called “Books to watch out for,” which is…exactly what it sounds like. With Fall ‘08 releases just around the corner, I’m really excited to be starting these entries now.

I mostly ignored my Bloglines feeds over the long weekend, but today I listened to an interview on NPR with Sarah E.H. Moore about her book Ribbon Culture: Charity, Compassion and Public Awareness, which I have not read. A $75 price point will do that to you. But hearing Moore speak on NPR made me think that now is the perfect time to talk about a book that is, among other things, about ribbon culture and how charity and compassion are not always its primary points. Hero-Type by Barry Lyga is set in the same high school as Lyga’s two previous YA offerings, The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl and Boy Toy. Set just weeks before the opening of Boy Toy, Hero-Type focuses on junior Kevin Ross, Kross to his friends. Kevin was catapulted to stardom after rescuing a classmate from a serial killer. He’s been given the key to the city and appeared on national television. The only person who doesn’t see Kevin as a hero is Kevin…until the ribbon fiasco.

As part of the mayor’s gratitude toward Kevin, Kevin receives a car. Before he drives it off the lot, the mayor sticks two magnetic ribbons to the bumper. You know the ones, the yellow ones, or the red-white-blue ones that say “Support our troops” and the like. Kevin doesn’t think much about the ribbons but his father, who served in Iraq during Desert Storm, screams at Kevin to take the ribbons off the car and throw them in the trash. Kevin follows his father’s orders, not knowing that a reporter photographs him trashing the magnets. Now Kevin is painted in the media as someone who hates America, who doesn’t support the troops, and who is much more villain than hero.

If you ask Barry Lyga what Boy Toy is about, he’ll tell you it’s about baseball. In that same vein, I’ll tell you that Hero-Type is a book about a car. There is a LOT in this book, topic-wise, from heroism to patriotism to free speech to the high school social ladder to apathy to romance, and it’s always thought-provoking if a little unwieldy in places. It’s a good next-read for those who liked Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, one to consider for book groups.