Eating Muffins in an Agitated Manner

What makes YA literature YA?

Posted by Sari

There has been a lot of disucssion in fandom about this years different awards nominees and the large amount of books categorised as YA among them. Some think it is good thing, some think it is a bad thing, some think it is an irrelevant thing. As I do read quite a lot of genre YA and get paid for it, I want to ask something else. Why are some of these books categorized as YA? What makes The Knife of Never Letting Go an YA novel? it can't be just a young focaliser, because then What Maisie Knew would be YA. It can't be a didactic approach/style because most YA novel's don't have that. It can't be the that the narrative is about young person growing up and learning, because then all bildungsromans would be YA. Or has the world changed so that if Dickens would publish Great Expectations now, his publisher and bookstores would market it as YA? Because for the life of me, I can't see how such a harrowing, linguistically ambitious and political novel as The Knife of Never Letting Go which makes you feel sick inside is especially aimed at YA reader? Or Earthsea books, what on earth is there in Tombs of Atuan or Tehanu that makes it an YA novel? It is not that teenagers should not read these books, I just don't see what makes it a novel especially suited/written/marketed for them instead of adults.

Frank Cottrell Boyce says it here much better than me.

Hockey

Posted by Sari

Look, I think Rinne was great. Good, solid saves and he is surprisingly fast for such a large man. And trusting a good goalie to take the shots and not blocking his line of sight is a strategy. But when Norway gets 30 shots on goal I do think our defense needs to look in the mirror.

Also, new TV. The colors, man...

C. Superbus Lipotus

Posted by Sari

Martti has had some very interesting times lately. First great upheaval was the Bone. We bought him a nice reindeer bone from the pet store as a treat. Martti was very suspicious of it and it took him three days to actually go near enough to touch it tentatively, and one more to actually grab it and start eating. Go figure. We have also started training some basic obedience stuff, though Martti seems to think that if I give him goodies inside, it means I am going to trim his nails. Which has meant giving him random treats with clicker just to remind him what it is all about.

We also met another Lancashire Heeler on one of our walks, first time this has happened. Another first was a nice lady with Västgötaspets who was the first ever person to be more taken with Martti than Viivi. A woman of discerning taste, obviously. As you see, camera is still something a bit suspect, but he does stay put and does not get too stressed about being photographed :-)

My kind of marketing

Posted by Sari

Remember the scene from Fisher King where people just began to waltz in the Grand Central Station? I loved that scene. Apparently others loved it too. Behind the links are adverts for T-mobile and a Dutch TV-show which both use similar delicious idea. But as we live in the era of social media, things easily get out of hands.