Reprinted from School Library Journal Teens

Christopher Golden and Mike Mignola first collaborated several years ago on Baltimore, or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire (Spectra, 2007). Now they are back with a second novel collaboration, one that looks likely to become a series.

There is a terrific interview between Joe Hill (Heart-Shaped Box, Horns) and the two authors on Tor.com. It is especially interesting on the subject of illustrated novels. Can they do things that pure prose cannot?  What should (and shouldn’t) the illustrations try to accomplish? In the same piece, Golden names the novel’s (many) influences as “Sherlock Holmes and Houdini and H. P. Lovecraft and Dickens — to the less immediately obvious, which would be H. G. Wells and The Island of Doctor Moreau and Victorian ghost stories — to the obscure and personal, including a love of history and folklore and Pinocchio. But even with all of those things thrown into the stew of this novel, at the end of the day it’s much more about loneliness and a search for self and for purpose than it is about detectives and pulp heroes and mad scientists.”

The Slant Magazine reviewer calls it a mixture of monster fiction and myth and adds, “YA enthusiasts will find that it doesn’t pander to the young, providing a dark, sturdy story that will appeal to teenagers and adults alike. It’s also a gorgeous tome to behold, not least because of Mignola’s always-stunning artwork. His black-and-white illustrations provide stark windows into the world of the novel, never giving away too much so the reader’s imagination has room to experiment.”

MIGNOLA, Mike & Christopher Golden. Joe Golem and the Drowning City: An Illustrated Novel. 288p. St. Martin’s. 2012. Tr $25.99. ISBN 978-0-312-64473-4. LC 2012013269.

Adult/High School–Molly McHugh is a jaded, yet still good-hearted girl, living on the fringes of society with a strange old man called Orlov the Conjurer in a steampunkish alternate reality. A cataclysm in 1925 caused lower Manhattan and Brooklyn to flood and, ever since, resilient New Yorkers have adjusted, living on the top floors of mostly underwater buildings and getting around by boat and rope bridges. Felix Orvlov is not what he seems, but he is the closest thing Molly has to family and his kidnapping by the sinister Dr. Cocteau spurs her into a desperate search to rescue him. She  joins forces with a mysterious man named Mr. Church and his overlarge friend Joe, searching not only for Felix but also for a mysterious artifact called the Pentajulum, which holds the possibility of opening paths to other worlds. She faces many trials in her quest, but the more Molly learns, the more she realizes she doesn’t really know anything, and that most people are not what they seem–Mr. Church is more machine than man and Joe is literally made from stone and earth–and nothing is sure, not even the sanctity of death. Highly descriptive writing and grotesque imagery help to place readers in this truly fantastic setting with hints of elder gods and worlds beyond worlds. Enhanced by multiple points of view and deeply philosophical in its underpinnings, the lavish illustrations add immediacy to Molly’s world. Both teens who like their fantastic sprinkled with a little Lovecraft and steampunk and those who are interested in a wider view of the world should enjoy this.–Charli Osborne, Oxford Public Library, MI

Best Books 4 Teens - Best Books for Teenagers and Young Adults - Top Novels & Reviews

Reprinted from School Library Journal Teens

from graphic novel guest blogger Francisca Goldsmith (with our second starred review of the week!):

Russ Kick is not your typical comics geek, college prof, or earnest publisher who wants to show the uninitiated that sequential art is “real reading.” Instead, he does have some tendencies toward all three character types, but is an iconoclast out to put forward a project that is something close to the polar opposite of iconoclastic values: a pertinent, engrossing, and wholly genuine version of the literary canon on which we humans depend for a reality check with collective memory.

Planned to be complete in three volumes, The Graphic Canon is startlingly brilliant: the limits of titles collected are not Western; the art styles collected are neither monotone nor interpretatively repetitive; the packaging of long works into a few pages has not been undertaken either by those deaf to linguistic music nor those eager to turn the simple into the simplistic. With dozens of artists represented here, it is no surprise to see such comics luminaries as R. Crumb, Will Eisner and Peter Kuper. But the range of contributors is also international, the works presented include a number that have appeared in other places (a tale from Fulcrum Press’ Trickster, an excerpt from Seymour Chwast’s graphic adaptation of the Divine Comedy) and others by scholars and cartoonists many will not have been lucky enough to find before now: Valerie Schrag (sister of Ariel), Edie Fake (truly iconoclast with a respectful take on St. Teresa of Avila’s visions), and Cortney Skinner’s illustration on advice from Benjamin Franklin are among these.

This truly is what a canon boasts as being: a sum of essentials, here visual and interpretive as well as historically blessed. And unlike most schoolroom anthologies, this one will deprive readers of sleep, rather than encourage it.

* KICK, Russ, ed. The Graphic Canon. Vol. 1. 501p. bibliog. index. notes. Seven Stories. 2012. Tr $34.95. ISBN 978-1-60980-376-6. LC 2012000276.  

Adult/High School–This admirable and inclusive project’s first volume offers a plethora of literary milestones as envisioned by such luminary cartoonists as Will Eisner, Seymour Chwast, R. Crumb, Roberta Gregory, Rick Geary, Peter Kuper, and even the younger Schrag sister, Valerie. In an attempt to be culturally inclusive, this “canon” goes beyond the Western (Iliad and Odyssey, Le morte d’Arthur, Shakespearean Sonnets, etc., which are all well represented) to Native America (both North and South), Japan, China, and Tibet, to such religious writers as Hildegard of Bingen and the Book of Esther, and those in classical philosophy such as Plato and Lucretius. Each piece, however translated and/or abridged in text, includes specific source notes. Art styles vary from black-and-white cartoons by masters of the style to beautifully full-colored engravinglike pages. This is a masterpiece of literary choices as well as art and interpretation. It is a perfect graduation or summer-reading present, and the solid editing, including introductory notes for each piece, makes it a required purchase for any library.–Francisca Goldsmith, Infopeople Project, CA

Best Books 4 Teens - Best Books for Teenagers and Young Adults - Top Novels & Reviews

Reprinted from School Library Journal Teens

Kris D’Agonstino’s debut is an example of that rare animal, the funny, smart, well-written novel about family that will even appeal to boys.

There is a short piece on the ReadingGroupGuides website in which the author discusses how much of his book is autobiographical. Here is a relevant excerpt, “The wackiest and thereby most vexing period of my life (so far) was my mid twenties. I found that handful of years, roughly from 23 to 26, and the extended period of post-college floundering around that went with them, to be stranger and far more coming-of-age than my teenage years. Much more so than high school (encapsulated for me by a white suburban upper-middle class bubble) ever was. I knew I wanted to try and express the emotion, the anxiety, the excitement, the antsy-ness, the wonder — and the lurking, unspecified dread — that informed that period.”

D’AGOSTINO, Kris. The Sleepy Hollow Family Almanac. 336p. Algonquin. 2012. pap. $13.95. ISBN 978-1-56512-951-1. LC 2011038421.  

Adult/High School–It’s 2006, and 24-year-old underachiever Calvin Moretti is up to his eyeballs in student-loan debt. His film degree hasn’t helped him to land a lucrative dream job, so he’s back under his parents’ roof. And despite the fact that he counts the minutes to the end of his workday as an assistant teacher at a special-needs preschool, his misguided (but hot) supervisor thinks he should consider teaching as a career. Life is uncomfortable in the Moretti household, with a family dynamic reminiscent of the dysfunctional, unintentionally comic Hoovers of Little Miss Sunshine. Cal is putting money aside so he can move out, but only after he budgets for collectible record albums and pot. Dad, a grounded pilot, suffers from myeloma. Despite the fact that doctors say it’s curable, he spends his days wallowing in his bathrobe, toting a concealed pistol. Mom worries about losing the house. Older brother Chip, an insufferable Ivy League graduate, has been keeping the family afloat, a fact he won’t let anyone forget. And Cal’s rebellious sister Elissa, still in high school, confides she’s pregnant and intends to keep the baby. Told in the first person, The Sleepy Hollow Family Almanac is sharply funny and full of spot-on observations about what it means to be a responsible adult. Older teens will sympathize with Cal’s struggles as much as they’ll want to throttle him for his self-centered, slacker tendencies. First-time author D’Agostino has an ear for dialogue and the not-too-distant memory of what it’s like to be a conflicted, unmotivated young man.–Paula Gallagher, Baltimore County Public Library, MD

Best Books 4 Teens - Best Books for Teenagers and Young Adults - Top Novels & Reviews

Reprinted from School Library Journal Teens

Ron Rash’s new novel is a mysterious story of forbidden love in which much of the story is told from a teen girl’s point of view. Rash once again showcases his beautiful writing and a North Carolinian, Appalachian mountain setting, earning an AB4T starred review.

Rash is best known for Serena (Ecco, 2008), which was a PEN/Faulkner finalist. But a couple years before Serena came The World Made Straight (Henry Holt), a 2007 Alex Award winner. The YALSA annotation reads, “When 17-year-old Travis Shelton discovers a marijuana farm in the Appalachian woods, he begins a confrontation with the subtle evils within his rural world.” The World Made Straight is a really interesting combination of coming-of-age, crime thriller and historical fiction. What this annotation doesn’t mention are the novel’s flashbacks to the journals of a Dr. Candler, who witnessed another horrific confrontation in the same county during the Civil War.

If you ever have a chance to hear Ron Rash read his work, grab it. He has a knack for choosing wonderful passages to read, he has a beautiful speaking voice, and overall it is a mesmerizing experience. No exaggeration!

* RASH, Ron. The Cove: A Novel. 272p. Ecco. 2012. pap. $26.99. ISBN 978-0-06-180419-9. LC number unavailable.  

Adult/High School–The cove is tucked deep in the Appalachian Mountains of western North Carolina, a place where even the sun is reluctant to venture. But it’s all that’s left to Hank and his sister, Laurel. He has returned from fighting in World War I missing one hand, but determined to make a decent farm from their scrappy land. Laurel, however, is restless to experience more of the world. Superstition in the nearest town, Mars Hill, has it that her deep-blue birthmark labels her a witch, which brings even deeper loneliness to the young woman. Magically, a young man is found in the woods, a musician named Walter who cannot speak but plays enchanting music on his flute. The suspense ratchets up as Laurel falls in love with the stranger. Readers know that he has a secret past, and yet it’s impossible not to root for her and her innocent hopes for love. Rash uses language as untamed and beautiful as the land itself. Laurel imagines that her feelings for Walter were, “…nothing more than a figment her loneliness had fleshed out from a cross of wood and tattered cloth.” Like a thunderstorm ever darkening the horizon, heartache and violence seem sure to come. As in Serena (Ecco, 2008), Rash casts an ominous yet mesmerizing spell over his audience. Teens who cannot get enough of Cormac McCarthy’s atmospheric novels, or love Charles Frazier’s adventures set in the mountains of North Carolina, will be sure to add Ron Rash to their list of favorite authors.–Diane Colson, Palm Harbor Library, FL

Best Books 4 Teens - Best Books for Teenagers and Young Adults - Top Novels & Reviews

Reprinted from School Library Journal Teens

This poetry collection has been a labor of love for its editor, Jeffrey Coleman. In an interview on the Tavis Smiley show in April, Coleman talked about searching for poems related to the Civil Rights movement for a paper he was assigned in graduate school. The project continued from there. The full contents are available on the Duke University Press webpage.

This is a perfect title to highlight during Black History Month or Poetry Month, and a terrific addition to school library collections all year round.

COLEMAN, Jeffrey Lamar, ed. Words of Protest, Words of Freedom: Poetry of the American Civil Rights. 358p. Duke Univ. 2012. Tr $89.95. ISBN 978-0-8223-5092-7; pap. $24.95. ISBN 978-0-8223-5103-0. LC number unavailable.  

Adult/High School–This marvelous collection of poems written from 1955 to 1975 brings back the emotions and memories of those times as only poetry can. The short, informative introduction to each section serves both teenagers and adults well. Teachers will want to share these fine poems with their students. Chapters present poems that speak of the lynching of Emmett Till, the murders of famous leaders, and the children killed in 1963 in Birmingham at church. Audre Lord’s 1964 poem, “Suffer the Children,” brings back that terrible day. “We who love them remember their child’s laughter/ But he whose hate robs him of their gold/ has yet to weep at night about their graves.” Outstanding poems are included about the integration of the Little Rock schools, the Black Panther Party, and the race riots in the late 1960s. Julius Lester expresses one sad theme in “Revolutionary Mandate 1.” “These are not the times to take your friends for granted–to assume/that they will always be there. They may not be./And if you wait until the next time to tell them that they are very/ special to you/ You may wait until/someone calls you and says that/so and so’s body was found/ beneath the bricks/of a dynamited building.”–Karlan Sick, formerly at New York Public Library

Best Books 4 Teens - Best Books for Teenagers and Young Adults - Top Novels & Reviews

Reprinted from School Library Journal Teens

from graphic novel guest blogger, Francisca Goldsmith:

Guy Delisle’s Jerusalem won the Best Comic Book Award this year at Angoulème, the premier international comics festival.  A Quebecois who now has his home in France but keeps on the move to such rarely touristed places as North Korea, Delisle is the perfect investigator into life on the ground in East Jerusalem.  As a foreigner (and nominal if unbelieving Christian) he had relatively free access to neighborhoods and historic sites ranging as widely as the Dome of the Rock to a bend in the wall that divides the city and bounds one man’s back yard (formerly a small farm), from a classroom at Al-Quds University to an Orthodox Jewish Purim celebration and an unexpected opportunity to see the Armenian Quarter.

Delisle’s genius both as a cartoonist and as a human is his unassuming presence in places most foreigners can’t go (North Korea, Burma). Unlike cartoon journalist Joe Sacco, Delisle travels en famille (his daughter spends the year in an East Jerusalem kindergarten while his son is enrolled in primary school on the other side of the wall, in West Jerusalem) and takes on the basic housekeeping as it is his partner’s work with MSF that has placed the family in this particular part of the world.  In short, Delisle can reveal the profound and profuse machinations, indignities, and conceits suffered and exerted by the diverse inhabitants of Jerusalem because he looks, listens, and asks simple questions; he doesn’t take on the role of judge, mentor or mouthpiece. And in keeping his approach both simple and unsimplistic, he is able to bring the reader right into all the possibilities there are for allegiance, reliance on history, power, habit and tenacity.

Not only does this make Delisle’s current book a grand success but it also offers a springboard for introspection and discussion in our own politicized and diverse culture: who are the neighbors, and why are we more concerned about their ancestry than whether they can get to the hospital by a less circuitous route than around a wall?

* DELISLE, Guy. Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City. Tr. from French by Helge Dacher. illus. by author. 336p. Drawn & Quarterly. 2012. Tr $24.95. ISBN 978-1-77046-071-3. LC number unavailable.  

Adult/High School–A prize-winning Canadian cartoonist shares the year he and his family lived in Jerusalem, east of the Israeli built wall that stands as one of many constant witnesses to the multiple divisions of land and people. With his partner deeply ensconced in her work with MSF (Doctors without Borders), Delisle pursued his own divided life: he explored and collected imagery and experiences in his role as a cartoon documentarian of parts of the world most travelers rarely get to know, while also performing the duties of primary caretaker of his children and general housewifely duties. Delisle is inquisitive but sensitive, aware of when he misstepped by pressing strangers for information, but also eager and willing to discuss Palestine and Israel, as well as life in general, with folks he met who ranged from a local Lutheran pastor to a young Muslim women who attended his art lectures to another stay-at-home daddy. This is a rounded, insightful way to explore and become acquainted with how history, culture, ritual, and human emotions shape and misshape a storied part of the world most Americans know only through politically charged news accounts. Delisle always represents himself in these visits and musings, so readers knows exactly the narrator’s standpoint. Delicate and detailed cartoons inhabit mostly small and always bounded panels, with color accents highlighting sounds, sunsets, and points on the maps Delisle mentions to clarify how locations are connected–and disconnected–in the contemporary Middle East.–Francisca Goldsmith, Infopeople Project, CA

Best Books 4 Teens - Best Books for Teenagers and Young Adults - Top Novels & Reviews

Reprinted from School Library Journal Teens

Iris Dupont’s life goal is to win the Pulitzer Prize in Journalism. Reeling from the death of her best and only friend, Dalia, she begins to converse regularly with her hero, Edward R. Murrow.

Iris’s story begins in August 2012 when, on the advice of her therapist, her parents move the family from Boston to Nye, MA, where they enroll Iris in the town’s prestigious day school, Mariana Academy. Poorly equipped to make new friends, she gravitates to her biology teacher, Mr. Kaplan, whose narration alternates with hers.

Jonah Kaplan grew up in Nye and attended Mariana with his twin brother, Justin. Jonah is more reliable than Iris, but he is hiding from the truth of the events surrounding his brother’s tragic death. He blames Mariana’s secret society, Prisom’s Party, and has returned to unearth and destroy it. Lily begins her narration in October 1999, the year she, Jonah, and Justin begin 11th grade, providing crucial background to the present action. The intricate connections are pulled together by Iris’s investigation into Lily’s disappearance and Jonah’s past.

Iris is the center of the story, and she is too clever by half, an earnest, precocious teenager who believes herself superior to her peers. Readers will either find her hilarious or a bit annoying. Either way, amusement fades as teen pranks get uglier and the truth surfaces. Lily learns that “loss of innocence wasn’t a passive experience that happened to you. It was something you gave up.” Layers of mystery keep the pace moving. As in Marisha Pessl’s Special Topics in Calamity Physics (Viking, 2006), the strands come together in the end, thanks to more than one surprising, satisfying twist.

Angela Carstensen, Convent of the Sacred Heart, New York City

• The Year of the Gadfly
• List Price: $24.00
• Price: $11.24
• Read Reviews

Adult/High School

Jennifer Miller’s debut novel is funny and suspenseful, yet sad and hard to read at times. When a school’s secret society begins taking pranks way too far, students aren’t the only ones who get hurt. Iris Dupont, a brilliant loner, is in the middle of it all, using her investigative journalism skills (including advice from the ghost of Edward R. Murrow) and her understanding of the scientific method to figure things out.

What’s up with the gadfly reference? Adult Hazel explains to young Iris that Socrates was called the Gadfly of Athens, “No matter how hard his opponents tried to swat him away, he kept biting them with difficult questions.” Even when members of the secret society try to intimidate Iris, she refuses to be turned from her course. Unfortunately, she learns some sad truths as a result. I think my favorite thing about this book is watching just how the many plot elements come together at the finish. You have to appreciate a novel that holds onto its mysteries until the very end.

The Year of the Gadfly has been chosen as one of five Best Young Adult books featured on the iBook shelf this May. I guess the gods of Apple have given it the teen appeal stamp of approval!Miller has taken the journalism theme and translated it into a fabulous book trailer, which is a narration of the beginning of the novel by a variety of journalists, everyone from Christiane Amanpour to Dan Rather to teen journalists in their school hallways. Novelist Gary Shteyngart gets my vote for best performance.

MILLER, Jennifer. The Year of the Gadfly. 384p. Houghton Harcourt. 2012. Tr $24. ISBN 978-0-547-54859-3. LC 2011042369.

Best Books 4 Teens - Best Books for Teenagers and Young Adults - Top Novels & Reviews

Reprinted from School Library Journal Teens

Grace Covey and her teenaged daughter Jenny are badly injured in an arson fire, and both lie unconscious in the hospital. Despite outside appearances, both are well aware of what’s going on around them and are taking steps to understand what happened.

Grace, suffering from a head injury that leaves her in a coma, and Jenny, badly burned, are both able to leave their damaged bodies. They can speak to each other, hear all the conversations going on around them, and can even hitch rides in cars as police and family members inspect the scene and question those involved. As Grace gets new information and Jenny is able to remember more details about the events around the fire, they realize the danger isn’t over. They are the only ones who have all the pieces of the mystery but they can only communicate with each other. In the end, they must make difficult choices in order to protect the ones they love.

Afterwards touches on similar themes to Lupton’s Sister (Crown, 2011)–family connections, manipulative relationships, and a twisting search for truth–but the story unwinds and reweaves in a very different way. Teens will find the mystery compelling but will also connect with Jenny’s difficulty in getting Grace to accept that she’s not a child anymore. The book will be enjoyed by fans of suspenseful, character driven thrillers with no shortage of dramatic twists and turns.

Carla Riemer, Claremont Middle School, CA

• Afterwards: A Novel
• List Price: $25.00
• Price: $10.41
• Read Reviews

Adult/High School

British author Rosamund Lupton’s much-anticipated second psychological thriller has even more potential teen appeal than her first. Lupton is a master at both plotting and characterization, using close family relationships to ratchet up the suspense.

Her debut, Sister, made several “best of” lists last year; our own AB4T review was enthusiastic.
The paperback cover (pictured here) is more likely to catch the teen eye than the hardcover image, so if you haven’t added Sister to your collection yet, now’s the time.

In Afterwards, a teenage girl and her mother spend the novel outside their bodies, after being injured in a terrible fire. Unlike Lovely Bones, however, they find ways to take action. For the multitude of teens who love Sebold’s book, this is a good read-alike recommendation.

Library Journal has published a Q&A with the author which I found interesting for its insight into Lupton’s process. She plots “obsessively” before she begins writing. Considering her propensity for twists and turns, it makes sense!

LUPTON, Rosamund. Afterwards. 400p. Crown. 2012. Tr $25. ISBN 987-0-307-71654-5. LC number unavailable.  

Best Books 4 Teens - Best Books for Teenagers and Young Adults - Top Novels & Reviews

Reprinted from School Library Journal Teens

Poet Craig Arnold disappeared while hiking a volcano in Japan in 2009. The woman who loved him writes about their relationship and her sense of loss without explanation. There is no preface; the tragic event is explained in the blurb on the back cover.  

The first poem, “What Rings but Can’t Be Answered,” is touching and could speak to anyone who has ever waited for a call from a loved one.

“I want to be the crackers in your soup,

I want to be your brass compass. Oh, mister,

just thinking about you curls the ends of my hair.”

Thirty-one pages are given to the alphabetical listing of remembrances and feelings as the couple’s story is told.

“A ABANDON, what I did when you touched me that winter with an ungloved hand.”

“C COMPROMISE, I will get up early with you so long as you’ve made coffee.”

“O Over, when I answered the phone that May morning and the man from the search team said, “It’s over.”

The entries take readers from Bogota to Rome where the couple traveled and explored. Sometimes Lindenberg explains in prose poetry what she is doing and thinking. The overall effect of sadness builds until readers feels her tremendous loss. The slim volume is beautiful and romantic and should appeal to teen readers.

Karlan Sick, formerly at New York Public Library

• Love, an Index (McSweeney's Poetry Series)
• List Price: $18.00
• Price: $11.05
• Read Reviews

Adult/High School

Love, an Index is Rebecca Lindenberg’s first book, and the debut volume in the recently announced McSweeney’s Poetry Series.

This series of poems traces her relationship with poet Craig Arnold. Lindenberg began the book while he was still alive, in fact started working on it three years before his disappearance. But after losing him, it became something closer to an elegy which, as mentioned in her interview in The Believer, is both celebration and mourning.

LINDENBERG, Rebecca. Love, an Index. 99p. McSweeney’s. 2012. Tr $18. ISBN 978-1-936365-79-1. LC  number unavailable.  

Best Books 4 Teens - Best Books for Teenagers and Young Adults - Top Novels & Reviews

Reprinted from School Library Journal Teens

Kleon is known for his poetry collection Newspaper Blackout (Harper Collins, 2010). Here he offers engaging, inspiring and practical advice on becoming a successful artist, advice that applies well beyond artistic pursuits.

In an open, convivial tone that conveys the thrill of pursuing a creative passion, Kleon admits in the first pages that he’s “writing to a previous version of himself” and shares a photo of himself captioned “19-year-old me could use some advice…” He begins with the premise that “nothing is original” and encourages readers to figure out what is worth stealing, to embrace influences. He does not advocate plagiarism or direct copying. Rather, he believes that studying what you love in great depth will reveal the ideas behind the art, the thought processes behind the work.

Kleon makes a clear distinction between transformation or emulation and mere imitation. He encourages artists to go ahead and create, not to wait to be an expert in their field of interest, and reminds readers that in today’s world location doesn’t matter because fellow enthusiasts and mentors are online. The creative process just needs time and space–and plenty of daily hard work.

Quotes by artists from Jay-Z to T. S. Eliot to Picasso are scattered throughout. The book’s small size and unusual shape catches the eye, as does the bold black-and-white cover, which is echoed in the alternating black-and-white pages within. Quirky charts, drawings, lists, and photographs break up the text. This is a quick, easily digestible read that is particularly relevant in today’s digital world.

Angela Carstensen, Convent of the Sacred Heart, New York City

• Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative
• List Price: $10.95
• Price: $5.86
• Read Reviews

Adult/High School

The genesis of Austin Kleon’s new book began with an invitation to speak at a community college. In preparation for giving the talk he made a list of 10 things he wished someone had told him when he was starting out as a young artist. The talk became a hit and he expanded it into this book. The 10 things are listed on his website.

I started reading this book on the subway home from work one afternoon last week, and simply couldn’t do anything else until I was finished. The tone is just right. Never condescending. Never preachy. And the book is full of great advice. Who doesn’t like being told they should spend lots of time studying the things they love? Who doesn’t enjoy knowing that procrastination is important because artists need down time to be creative? So many things about this book will appeal to teen readers. And their parents will appreciate it too. In chapter 9 — “Be boring. (It’s the only way to get work done)” – Kleon includes advice to get rest, live frugally, find a day job, and work on your art every day.  Even better, he advocates stepping away from the computer and going analog.

It bears special mention that Kleon’s first book, Newspaper Blackout, was a 2011 Alex Award nomination.

KLEON, Austin. Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative. illus. by author. 160p. illus. photos. bibliog. Workman. 2012. pap. $10.95. ISBN 978-0-7611-6925-3. LC 2012001196.  

Best Books 4 Teens - Best Books for Teenagers and Young Adults - Top Novels & Reviews