we're all winners

the YA world's panties are all in a bunch right now because the stodgy Wall Street Journal wrote a stodgy article about YA fiction ruining the minds of our youth. read it here .

it's a little weird sending people the way of things i don't agree on. like when my friend told me i had to see that Rebecca Black Friday song. "it's just so terrible," he said. i stopped watching it ten seconds in. i didn't want to add to the view count.

why don't good things take off, too?

well...they do. sometimes we hear about them and sometimes we don't. just like, sometimes we hear about the excellent YA books and other times someone writes an article about the more -- okay, quite honestly --icky sounding ones.

it was never an issue of what i was allowed to read growing up. my mom is awesome and she trusted my integrity. if i didn't like something or didn't connect with it, i put the book down. or i never made it past the blurb on the back to begin with. did that mean i stumbled across inappropriate topics for my age group? (hello the sex scenes in Pillars of the Earth) i was reading Stephen King when i was in middle school, of course it did.

does this even need to be re-stated? there's all kinds of writers out there. there's all kinds of readers. thus there's all kinds of books. and luckily, as long as the human race is a varied, complex, and free mass of people, there always will be.

to make waves sometimes some people go to extremes. like some YA authors. like some writers of over-simplified Wall Street Journal articles. like some truly terrible youtube sensations.

at least we're talking books and debating reading.

on sunnier lots-of-other-people-haven't-already-said-it-better-than-me-news, this is my last week's recap:

corrie holds her first ever book giveaway contest. corrie has lots of new people look at her blog and goes a little attention crazy and extends the contest's deadline. corrie gets tired of promoting contest and goes for many bikerides instead. no new people look at corrie's blog.

learn and live.

so the winner today is the same winner as last week when i selected a name just to see had i ended the competition as planned who'd take home the prize and that winner is....

LAUREN ELIZABETH MORRILL!

(have you noticed yet that this hyperlinks thing is new and exciting for me?).

Lauren is a YA writer and reader. she's also the first ever person other than family or friends or friends of friends to comment on my blog. which means, i'm a little starry eyed right now and couldn't be happier to be sending her The Future of US.

which is a decidely un-depraved YA book.