Episode #195: Chop Suey! Saving things, disappearing categories, and our least-used sense!
Welcome back! This is a great odds n’ end episode! Grace and Alvina discuss whether they save things or use things, if there are certain categories of children's books that have disappeared, and what their least-used sense is.
The Book Friends have their 200th episode coming up! In honor of this milestone, they are looking for 200 ratings on their apple podcasts page. They only have 25, so they have 75 more to go! Thank you for helping out! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/book-friends-forever-podcast/id1454316608?see-all=reviews
How have you been?
Grace has been back to school visits and presentations. She’s been planning Hazel’s birthday party. Instead of a red egg party, she wanted to have a roller skating party! Alvina moderated two different panels at the KWELI 2023 Color of Children’s Literature Conference.
Chop Suey!
Topic #1: Saving Things
Why do we save things? Grace thought of this topic because of the weird phenomenon of saving things that are so good that you don’t even use them. She was recently was packing this rainbow sweater than she loves so much. “I didn’t want to bring it because I was afraid I would get it dirty!” Grace talks about Robert not wanting to listen to music while he was dying because he didn’t want the music to remind him of this time. He really thought he was going to beat cancer. Alvina talks about the food she bought on trips that she doesn’t use but holds onto. Alvina has been holding onto this frame television and finally got it up on the wall to enjoy!
Topic #2: An article in Publisher’s Weekly: Where Have All the 13- to 15-Year-Old Protagonists Gone? by Rachel Grover
Very good question! Rachel was writing about the need for upper middle school main characters. Editor’s tell authors to age up or down. 13 is well-represented but 14 or 15 are not. That is on the cusp of middle grade and high school. Where are all the mass market cheap paperbacks? Where’s the Sweet Valley High? What other categories do listeners feel are missing?
Topic #3: Kids Ask Authors
Grace is thinking of changing the podcast to the “Backlist Book Club”. They would choose 12 books a year and in the beginning of the month, she would talk up the book, and then at the end of the month they could interview the author and kids can ask questions. Every month, a teacher and Grace discuss the book. She would love to hear from listeners. What do you think? Please share your ideas!
Topic #4: Our least-used sense.
Gretchen Rubin is writing another book on the 5 senses. She put out a senses quiz. You can find it here!
BOOK RECS!
Unfortunately, Alison Morris was not able to join us this month. Alvina and Grace recommend some of their favorite books.
GRACE:
Alvina:
Thank you for tuning in! Thank you to Hachette Audio, Little Brown Books for Young Readers, and Alex at Pacyworks Studio for producing and editing this podcast. Be sure to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and tell a friend about us. (Use the hashtag #bookfriendsforever.)
You can find Alvina @Planetalvina on Twitter and TikTok and @Alvinaling on Instagram
You can find Grace @Pacylin on Instagram and @gracelinauthor on TikTok and Hive
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If you’re a patron, don’t forget to check out this week’s Random Questions feed! Authors Jonathan Auxier and Grace Lin answer the random question What invention doesn’t get a lot of love, but has greatly improved the world? Click here to listen! If you’re not a patron already, join today!
