RIYL DIARY OF A WIMPY KID

     A few days ago a kid asked me for books "like" the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series by Jeff Kinney. I sighed, then set to work coming up with suggestions.
     Basically I tried to find titles that fit a few or all of the following criteria:

 funny
aimed at boys
first-person narrator
diary format
school stories
illustrated

     Here's my list, which I'll be putting on an end-cap display:

 The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

Whales On Stilts! by M.T. Anderson

The Strange Case of Origami Yoda by Tom Angleberger

Science Fair by Dave Barry & Ridley Pearson

Superfudge by Judy Blume

NERDS by Michael Buckley

Notes From a Totally Lame Vampire by Tim Collins & Andrew Pinder

Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key by Jack Gantos

The Day My Butt Went Psycho by Andy Griffiths

Just Joking! by Andy Griffiths

Flush by Carl Hiaasen

Swindle by Gordon Korman

Leon and the Champion Chip by Allen Kurzweil

I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want To Be Your Class President by Josh Lieb

In the Land of the Lawn Weenies by David Lubar

My Rotten Life: Nathan Abercrombie, Accidental Zombie by David Lubar

Middle School, the Worst Years of My Life by James Patterson, Christopher Tebbetts, and Laura Park

Big Nate by Lincoln Peirce

Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey

How To Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell

The Dork Diaries by Rachel Russell

Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger by Louis Sachar

Guys Read: Funny Business edited by Jon Scieszka

Guy Time by Sarah Weeks

Zorgamazoo by Robert Paul Weston

Malice by Chris Wooding

Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time by Lisa Yee

BONUS:
Books by Roald Dahl, while not realistic, might be comedic & snarky enough to fit the bill.

BIBLIOGRAPHY : RIYL the Bone graphic novel series by Jeff Smith

     (Pssst! "RIYL" stands for Recommended If You Like.)
     Here are some middle school to junior high-appropriate graphic novels, with fantasy and/or adventure elements. At both school libraries I've worked in, the students are CRAZY for Jeff Smith's Bone series. Before Scholastic started releasing the new full-color versions of them, I had already collected and read the entire original (black & white) series myself, and loved it.
     When the kids finish all the Bone books, they're hungry for something in the same genre. Amulet is the most popular one, but there are others out there. These books are all selected from my library's shelves, which means there are plenty more great titles out there, but these are just the ones we happen to have available for our students.

 Rapunzel's Revenge by Hale, Hale, and Hale
Amulet by Kazu Kibuishi (#1 in series of same name)
Explorer: the Mystery Boxes anthology edited by Kazu Kibuishi
Pinky & Stinky by James Kochalka
The Royal Historian of Oz by Tommy Kovac and Andy Hirsch
Wonderland by Tommy Kovac and Sonny Liew
The Sons of Liberty by Lagos, Lagos, and Walker (series)
Mal and Chad: the Biggest, Bestest Time Ever! by Stephen McCranie (series)
Prince of Persia by Mechner, Sina, Pham, and Puvilland
Mouse Guard by David Petersen (series)
The Unsinkable Walker Bean by Aaron Renier
Crogan's Vengeance by Chris Schweizer (series)
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Shanower and Young (series)
Jellaby by Kean Soo (series)
Ghostopolis by Doug TenNapel
Kid Gravity by Walker and Jones (series)
Pandemonium by Chris Wooding and Cassandra Diaz

Also a possible fit for this list are graphic novel incarnations of some popular fantasy book series, like Pendragon by MacHale, Redwall by Jaques, and Percy Jackson by Riordan. The kids seem to like these okay, but they don't LOVE them. At least in my library, they seem to prefer the original novels. :)


Bonus "alternative format" titles (part novel, part comic)
Bone: Quest For the Spark by Sniegoski, Smith, and Hamaker (series)
The First Escape by G.P. Taylor (#1 of the Doppleganger Chronicles)
Malice by Chris Wooding and Dan Chernett (series)


DISCLOSURE: I put two books written by ME on the main list (Royal Historian of Oz and Wonderland) because I really think they fit. I don't normally do that kind of shameless self-promotion. But there it is. And isn't Andy Hirsch's cover art for Royal Historian of Oz beautiful?

BIBLIOGRAPHY : Dragons (middle grade to junior high level)

     One of our new little 7th graders is a voracious reader, and asks me EVERY DAY for more recommendations. He loves the Bone series of graphic novels, but also reads lots of junior high level fantasy. It's all I can do to keep up with his requests, but that's the part I love the most about this job.
     This morning he was checking out the last few books of Emily Rodda's Deltora Dragon's Nest series that he hasn't yet read, and asked me for more books like that, with dragons. There were more kids waiting in line behind him, so I told him I'd work on it later and have suggestions when he came back.
     Here's the stack of books I came up with:

How To Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell (#1 in the series of the same name)
The Fire Within by Chris D'Lacey (#1 in the Last Dragon Chronicles)
Hatching Magic by Ann Downer (#1 in the series of the same name)
Dragon's Milk by Susan Fletcher (#1 of the Dragon Chronicles)
Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke
The Saint of Dragons by Jason Hightman (#1 in the series of the same name)
The Dragon of Cripple Creek by Troy Howell
Starfinder by John Marco
Here, There Be Dragons by James Owen (#1 of the Imaginarium Geographica)
Pillage by Obert Skye
The Dragon's Eye by Dugald Steer (#1 of the Dragonology Chronicles)
Dealing With Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede (#1 of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles)
Dragon's Blood by Jane Yolen (#1 in the Pit Dragon Trilogy)

     And no, I'm NOT putting Eragon on that list. There's not a kid alive who hasn't already read it or heard about it. That's like putting Harry Potter on a list of suggested fantasy titles. That just seems unnecessary. But it's acceptable to make a "RIYL (Recommended if you like) Harry Potter" list, or a "RIYL Eragon" list.
     DISCLOSURE: I'm actually not going to recommend The Dragon's Eye to this kid, because it's the first in a series, and we don't have the rest. The kids at this school are completists, and get really frustrated if they can't start with the first volume of a series, and read the ENTIRE series. I think that's cool. But it puts a lot of pressure on the library!
     He may have already read a few of the really popular books and/or series on this list, such as How To Train Your Dragon, and The Fire Within, but I wanted to include them anyway.

UPDATE: This morning the student came in and went through the stack I had pulled. Turns out he had already read How To Train Your Dragon, and Dragon Rider. The book he chose was Here, There Be Dragons. I told him that's actually the one I would probably choose, too!

STEAMPUNK BIBLIOGRAPHY

          Finally one of our students brought up the "Steampunk" genre in our last library book club meeting. She was way excited about it, eyes wide and mind on fire. I thought, NOW is the time to put together a bibliography on Steampunk books for our students!
          A few years ago at a writer's conference I attended a presentation by David Gale, Editorial Director for Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers. He told us that "Steampunk" was going to be the next big thing in children's publishing, and blow up all over the place.

Feel free to reproduce this image if you like, we put it on one side of our bookmark, with the reading list on the reverse.

          Here is the list we came up with, using only books currently in our library collection. Some of these have all the elements of Steampunk, some of them may only have a few. If a particular title seems not Steampunky enough for you, just consider it "recommended if you like..."

Airborn by Kenneth Oppel
Amulet by Kazu Kibuishi (graphic novel)
The Clockwork Three by Matthew Kirby
The Death Collector by Justin Richards
Doctor Illuminatus by Martin Booth
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
Fever Crumb by Philip Reeve
Flora Segunda by Ysabeau S. Wilce
 The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
Gotham By Gaslight (“Batman” graphic novel)
The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray by C. Wooding
His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik
“Hollow Fields” manga series by M. Rosca
Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
The Hunchback Assignments by Arthur Slade
“The Hungry City Chronicles” by Philip Reeve
Incarceron by Catherine Fisher
“The Infernal Devices” series by Cassandra Clare
The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
“Keys To the Kingdom” series by Garth Nix
Larklight by Philip Reeve
Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
The List of 7 by Mark Frost
“The Looking-Glass Wars” by Frank Beddor
“Monster Blood Tattoo” series by D.M. Cornish
Nick of Time by Ted Bell
Pastworld by Ian Beck
Perdido Street Station by China Mieville
Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi
The Stress of Her Regard by Tim Powers
Tanglewreck by Jeanette Winterson
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
Whitechapel Gods by S.M. Peters
Worldshaker by Richard Harland

          If you're not sure what Steampunk is, think Victorian Science Fiction, with fantastical machinery using steam power. Gritty London streets, either in the actual Victorian era, or influenced heavily by it. Top hats, goggles, cogwheels and clockworks... Jules Verne and H. G. Wells are considered the grandfathers of Steampunk. You tend to find mechanically-inclined strong female characters in Steampunk.
          Here are some other core Steampunk titles, which may or may not be appropriate for junior high and/or high school libraries:

The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers
Boneshaker by Cherie Priest
The Difference Engine by William Gibson & Bruce Sterling
Infernal Devices by K.W. Jeter
The Return of the Dapper Men by Jim McCann, Paul Morrissey, & Janet Lee
Steampunk by Ann & Jeff Vandermeer
The Steampunk Trilogy by Paul D. Filippo
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

          Incidentally, I remember first hearing about Steampunk way back in about 1993 when I was working at the Santa Ana Public Library in the children's and young adult section. Just sayin'. The genre ain't NEW, but apparently there's a resurgence. Which is cool for those of us who work with teens.

R.I.P. BRIAN JACQUES

          On Monday one of my Library assistants told me that Brian Jacques had died (on February 5th), and asked if we were going to do a display of his books.  I was like, "Oh, wow.  I'm glad I thought of that!"
          Brian Jacques is of course popular for the "Redwall" series, which is a multi-volume medieval epic about talking/fighting bunnies, squirrels, mice, and other cute animals.
The article I printed out is from School Library Journal
          In case you didn't know, Jacques is pronounced "Jakes."  Be cooler than the other kids and say it correctly.
          On the back side of the display I put out books by other authors who write in the "animal fantasy" genre.
Examples from our library:

The "Deptford Mice" series by Robin Jarvis
The "Dragonback" series by Timothy Zahn
Fire Bringer by David Clement-Davies (deer)
The "Firebringer Trilogy" by Meredith Ann Pierce (unicorns and griffins)
The "Guardians of Ga'Hoole" series by Kathryn Lasky (owls, recently made into a movie)
The "Land of Elyon" series by Patrick Carman (hyper talking squirrel and other animal friends)
The "Mistmantle Chronicles" by M.I. McAllister (squirrel)
Raven Quest by Sharon Stewart
The Sight by David Clement-Davies (wolves)
The "Silverwing" series by Kenneth Oppel (bats)
The "Swordbird" series by Nancy Yi Fan
The "Warriors" series by Erin Hunter (cats)

          Another obvious "Read If You Like..." title would be Watership Down by Richard Adams, but we don't have that in our library.  We should probably get it.
          I remember when I was a kid I read Felix Salten's (author of "Bambi") wrenching novel, Fifteen Rabbits.  Those poor rabbits' lives were so fraught with terror and death, and he wrote very convincingly from a rabbit's perspective about how huge and scary humans are, with our big mangling hands and loud voices.  My heart bled for those bunnies and I never wanted to imprison a bunny, guinea pig, or hamster as a "pet" again.
          I did not go on to Watership Down, or Animal Farm.  The "Redwall" books seem less likely to scar me emotionally, so I may eventually read one.

GENRE : Dystopian fiction

          A Librarian friend and I have created (and presented a workshop on) a bunch of really great "Recommended if you like" lists, or "RIYL" for short.  We presented at the California School Library Association conference, and have continued to work on building our collection of genre lists.  We format them as double-sided bookmarks, with the genre heading and an illustration/picture on one side, and the list of titles on the reverse, and leave them out on the circ desk for students to browse through and keep.  What's really great is when you see kids keeping the bookmarks and checking off each title as they read their way through the list.  (Examples of some of our list titles: "Have You Mythed Out?" "Read the Movie," "RIYL Tim Burton," "Sugar and Spikes," and "Define Normal")

          When the English classes are studying 1984 they all start asking for books "like" 1984, which is a pretty specific sub-genre of science fiction, or rather speculative fiction.  It gets pretty sticky.  If you just do a general search in the library's database for science fiction, you get way too much, same with using "future" as a keyword.  I've started manually adding "dystopian fiction" in the cataloging records for any books that fit the bill, so it's quicker & easier to find them. 

          Here's an updated version of our Dystopian Fiction bibliography:

UTOPIA or DYSTOPIA?

What does the future hold?


The Diary of Pelly D by L.J. Adlington
Feed by M.T. Anderson
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Oryx & Crake by Margaret Atwood
Fahrenheit 451 by Bradbury, Ray
The Roar by Emma Clayton
The Supernaturalist by Eoin Colfer
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
The Maze Runner by James Dashner
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Dick
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau
The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm by N. Farmer
The House of the Scorpion by N. Farmer
The Dirt Eaters by Dennis Foon
The Beach by Alex Garland
“Gone” series by Michael Grant
Among the Hidden by Margaret Haddix
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Epic by Conor Kostick
This Side of Paradise by Steven L. Layne
The Cure by Sonia Levitin
Fearless by Tim Lott
The Giver by Lois Lowry
Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry
Messenger by Lois Lowry
The Resistance by Gemma Malley
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Secret Under My Skin by J. McNaughton
Z for Zachariah by Robert O’Brien
1984 by George Orwell
Witch & Wizard by James Patterson
The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Pearson
Last Book in the Universe by Philbrick
The Forest of Hands & Teeth by C. Ryan
Unwind by Neal Shusterman
“Virtual War” series by Gloria Skurzynski
Truesight by David Stahler
War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
“Uglies” series by Scott Westerfeld
The Bar Code Tattoo by Suzanne Weyn
Storm Thief by Chris Wooding
*All titles found in our Library*

          At first it was kind of fun, and I was finding plenty of books, but then I started noticing that there are numerous sub-genres of what I guess would fit under the umbrella term "speculative."  Things like post-apocalyptic, steampunk (all the rage now), etc.  And just because a novel is set in the future, does that automatically  make it utopian/dystopian?

          Even some English & Literature teachers have a hard time defining the parameters of general "science fiction."  I bossily intervened earlier this year when one of our English teachers claimed Jurassic Park was NOT science fiction because it's not set in the future.  She told a student he couldn't use it for a sci-fi book report, and since that teacher is a pal of mine, I emailed her several different comprehensive definitions of sci-fi from several different sources, to show that sci-fi isn't just future fiction.  Her reply was, "I think someone has waaay too much time on his hands over there in that library..."

          Which was funny, but unfair.  Isn't that the kind of thing we library people are SUPPOSED to care about?  Isn't that why we're here?  To be anal-retentive about literary details, definitions, and labelling?  (I have many thoughts & ideas on labelling.)  Anyway, she conceded the debate and let the kid use Jurassic Park, so...  I win.  Probably mostly because she doesn't really give a shit, as long as the kids are reading and comprehending.

          (And by the way, unfortunately I now feel compelled to work on a list of science fiction that deals specifically with genetic engineering, cloning, stem cells, etc. starting with Michael Crichton's books.)

          But back to dystopian fiction:

          I know everyone's batshit crazy for the Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins, and it's obviously THE dystopian teen series at this time.  I'm sure it's great, but the concept just makes me think of Battle Royale by Koushun Takami, which was originally published in Japan in 1999, almost a decade before The Hunger Games.  I haven't read Hunger Games yet, and I never will because I'm totally sick of hearing about it.  (Note: I did read Collins' Gregor the Overlander and totally loved it) 

          I'm sure what differentiates Hunger Games most from Battle Royale is that it's more palatable to teachers and librarians.

          Therefore, if I decide I want to read about teens having to battle to the death for survival in a harsh future, I will read the more controversial and possibly distasteful Battle Royale.  Because that's how I roll.