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Showing posts from May, 2023

DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC: THE 11 BEST YA LOW FANTASY BOOKS

  R. Nassor   May 26, 2023 You might be in a YA low fantasy book if you turn the corner to get to your locker and come upon a daemon. They contain everything odd about high school and literalize it with fantasy. Here is a must-read list of YA low fantasy books for genre lovers and novices alike. Fantasy has a lot of sub-genres. Some are more well-defined than others, but on the broadest scale, there are  high fantasy  books and  low fantasy  books. Low fantasy books have fantastical elements in an otherwise normal world. You might be a witch working in a Starbucks who serves a cappuccino to a werewolf. The fact that you have magic may be well known. It could be a secret from others around you. As long as there is magic, abnormal beings, or paranormal somethings in the normal setting, it’s low fantasy. I have an enduring love for low fantasy YA books. Is this love attributed to the boom of low fantasy YA books post- Twilight ? In all likelihood, very much yes. At the time, there were so

3 YA BOOKS WITH META TITLES

 by  Tirzah Price I think a great title can elevate a book from want-to-read to must-read-this-NOW. The title is often the first thing you see about a book, aside from the cover, so it’s little wonder that a lot of importance is placed on nailing the perfect phrase or collection of words that will nab the reader’s attention. That’s why meta titles — you know, the self-referential titles that tell you exactly what the book is going to be about — can feel almost too on the nose…but if deployed correctly, I think they can be really fun and smart! Even though it seems like the author is telling you all you need to know about a story — going so far as to indicate how it will end! — these titles can be sly because as we all know, the story is in the telling. I think it takes a brave writer to go with a very meta title, especially one that gives away the ending, because then they have to meet or surpass reader expectations. But it can be done to great effect, and here are a few examples! THEY

20+ MUST-READ YA COMICS FOR NEW + SEASONED FANS OF THE FORMAT

 by  Kelly Jensen   Apr 10, 2023 Comics for teenagers used to be hard to come by. Or, to be more accurate, finding comics for teens that were not superhero comics was challenging; since the dawn of comics, teens have been a major market. In the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s, there were numerous non-superhero comics for teens, including teen humor comics and teen pulp comics, many of which trace lineage to Harold Teen. The history of teen comics is robust, but until the late-2000s, it was challenging to find manuscript-length comics for teens that were not the slick comic store serials. Even the late ’00s YA comics were few and far between. But now? We’re in one of the richest eras for YA comics in a long, long time. You’ll find book-length illustrated stories across genres and time and there are plenty of graphic adaptations of both classics of YA and more “traditional” classics. But whether you’re new to the format or want to expand your knowledge of all things YA comics, it can be hard to kno