Episode #214: Book Ratings and AI!
Welcome back! Grace and Alvina discuss some recent publishing news surrounding rating books for sexual content and AI generated books.
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“How have you been?”
Grace has been working on her novel and getting Hazel ready for back-to-school time! Traveling to the The National Book Festival went well. Alvina had some friends over for dinner and noticed a string of lights in the air. It was one of Space X’s Starlink satellite constellations. Alvina and Stephen had their niece and nephew for a day in NYC. They walked on the Highline but realized maybe walking isn’t the best kid activity. Kids see walking as a thing you do to get someplace. Do kids enjoy “just walking?” They also took the kids rollerskating! Alvina went to the book launch for Jen Baker’s book, Forgive Me Not.
Rating Books and AI
Rating books: Grace and Alvina talk about the Texas law forcing book sellers to evaluate and rate each title that they sell to schools including books that they have sold in the past. If they fail to comply with this law, then the schools will be barred from doing business with the schools. There is a suit now trying to block the law.
The book friends talk about trigger warnings in books and putting age ranges on them. 13 Reasons Why. There are alerts now for teachers when they get book shipments to notify them if their books contain any of of these topics: illustrations or images, crime, language, medical, sexual content, social issues, slavery in historical context etc…where are they drawing the lines? What is left? Read this article on recent censorship issue in Iowa:
Iowa District Removes 19 Books After ChatGPT Finds “Description or Depiction of a Sex Act” | Censorship News
Also in this discussion: Movie ratings vs book ratings.
Alvina, “books should be the last thing people worry about.”
AI Books:
Jane Friedman talks about Amazon and her issues with AI
What are you reading these days?
Grace: Hope in the Valley by Mitali Perkins
Hope in the Valley, from National Book Award Nominee Mitali Perkins, is a middle-grade novel exploring grief, friendship, family, and growing up in a community facing a housing crisis. Twelve-year-old Indian-American Pandita Paul doesn't like change. She's not ready to start middle school and leave the comforts of childhood behind. Most of all, Pandita doesn't want to feel like she's leaving her mother, who died a few years ago, behind. After a falling out with her best friend, Pandita is planning to spend most of her summer break reading and writing in her favorite secret space: the abandoned but majestic mansion across the street.
But then the unthinkable happens. The town announces that the old home will be bulldozed in favor of new--maybe affordable--housing. With her family on opposing sides of the issue, Pandita must find her voice--and the strength to move on--in order to give her community hope.
Alvina: Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars. But Athena's a literary darling. June Hayward is literally nobody. Who wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks. So when June witnesses Athena's death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena's just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers during World War I.
So what if June edits Athena's novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song--complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn't this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? That's what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree.
But June can't get away from Athena's shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June's (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.
With its totally immersive first-person voice, Yellowface grapples with questions of diversity, racism, and cultural appropriation, as well as the terrifying alienation of social media. R.F. Kuang's novel is timely, razor-sharp, and eminently readable.
Gratefuls:
Alvina is grateful for the nice cool weather and being able to use her back deck. She is grateful for her health. Grace is grateful for all that readers that love and appreciate her work.
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 and Threads
You can find Grace @Pacylin on Instagram and Threads and @gracelinauthor on TikTok.
