Favorites from Your YA Keeper Pile

Every now and then the topic of favorite books is bound to come up with a book-nerd/writer like me. Recently the topic of keepers and throwers was broached, and I ended up on a bit of a topic safari with a friend. What Young Adult books do you keep around for younger visitors and your own mindless meandering pleasure? I love reading YA fiction, am currently writing it, and think more people should discover it. Around my home I have a solid list of absolute forever-keepers that never seem to miss with young readers and very often convert skeptical adults.

Here's my list of favorites:

Harry Potter -- The Series by JK Rowling
Lemony Snicket-- The Series by Daniel Handler / aka Lemony Snicket
Animorphs-- The Series by KA Applegate
The Harper Hall Series by Anne McCaffrey
The Valdemar and Bardic Voices Series by Mercedes Lackey
The Tiffany Aching Series by Terry Pratchett
The Deed of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon
The Five Little Peppers Series by Margaret Sidney
Little House Series by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Black Stallion Series by Walter Farley
Most of Robin McKinley
Fly by Night by KM Peyton
Island of the Blue Dolphin by Scott O'Dell
Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes
Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Lad, A Dog by Albert Payson Terhune

So what are your favorite young adult titles? I bet many of you will list titles I forgot to include-- so share!

You're So Vain You Probly Think This Blog is About You

Perhaps it's a bit unnatural for a writer of romance to lack a great deal of vanity. We do write a great deal about beauty, at least the conventional notion of it. I prefer to look good, but honestly... I have no intention of killing myself to get there. I can clean up pretty well. But the day to day grind finds me in jeans, t-shirts, sneakers, and very often a baseball cap. Love my Red Sox, after all, and when you wear your hair as short as I have in recent years it's great on bad hair days.

Lately, though, I've had more pressing challenges with regard to bad hair days. I have a conference coming up soon, one at which I will speak and be seen. My mom is in an absolute panic that I must attend this event without hair.

Chemo, Cytoxan, and life have robbed me of my dark locks for the moment. And honestly-- I don't care that much. My eyelashes and eyebrows have come back this month (ok, mostly) and my hair is just starting to come in-- soft peach fuzz. My solution is to wear a ball cap and deal. But I have that conference coming; and I had planned to put a pretty scarf around my noggin if I didn't have super-short spikes to go for the "moonlights as urban punk" look. Mom is freaking out at the very idea and wants me to get a wig.

Yeah. Cuz those things are soooo convincing. And the itch and panic that it's doing a jaunty tilt while I stand on a podium is nothing to worry about, right?

This is me, better or worse. I am what I am. Currently I am bald. The lack of hair up there doesn't seem to stop my brain from working. I guess my mind is fond of the cool air. So rather than fuss over any possible accidental reveals in my near future, I am putting it out there. If you could touch it you would discover that it feels a bit like a baby's head-- a tad coarser. The nice thing is, the stuff is like velcro. Anything you put up there sticks.

So you know... when I take notes there's a reliable place to put em, anyway. Plus it's spring. The snowdrops and crocuses are peeking out of the mud. Maybe something will grow on my noggin top if I fertilize it.

Feel free to post Jean Luc Picard jokes, and pass the Miracle Grow!

A Pre-Spring Sabbatical

For the next week or two I will be on sabbatical. My health has been a nightmare lately. Another quickie cancer wrestling match, the ongoing PF saga, hair loss, eyebrow camouflage, long vomit sessions, chemo, hypoxemia, heart damage... what's the muddy season for if not personal torture? Normally I face such things with a stoic and stiff upper lip, but damn... I am tired.

I try very hard to be a glass-half-full person. Growing up with many half-empty people around me, it felt like the appropriate way to readjust my path in life. When they zig, you zag, you know? Only recently I've realized that there are a lot of people existing outside the duality of half-full and half-empty. And they wear me out, these people.

The glass, for them, is neither empty nor full. The glass is broken-thank-you-after-all-the-time-and-energy-taken-to-scrub-the-jam-label-off-and-it-was-a-FAVORITE-glass-after-all-and-it's-YOUR-fault-and-this-is-why-we-can't-have-nice-things.

As Ahmed would say, bloody buggery damn.

And so, gentle readers, what with all the mud outside and my lungs being a bit bitchy, I am needing a break from the world of glasses and their many states of fullness, and mostly from those who have opinions about said states. The universe is peopled with good souls, but they are wading through a swamp of dangerous muck. I'm on a temporary muck break. I simply adore how physicians scold me to tell me I "overdo" and should rest more.

Fine. Initiating REST SEQUENCE. Fill your own glasses for a bit, hmm?

See you when the snowdrops emerge.