Giveaways
Erin L. Schneider
Goodreads Giveaway: SUMMER OF SLOANE
Goodreads Giveaway: SUMMER OF SLOANE
,

Dear Teen Me: Giveaway & 6-Word Memoir Video

,

Dear Teen Me:

42-14-40

What's that you might ask? Well, when you're 12, you're gonna find out that's your 7th grade locker combination. And you'll memorize that sucker forwards, backwards, and upside down. After all, there's NO way you're going to be that "Sevie" who doesn't remember her locker combo. 

At age 14, you're going to kiss a boy named Matt J. A boy you've known since you were 2 - and yes, I mean really kiss. And it's not so bad. But a word of advice if I may: He has braces. Please make him brush his teeth after eating that pizza! Nuff said.

By the end of your sophomore year in high school - just after you turn 16 - you'll fall in love for the first time with a boy named Matt O. (I know, you apparently have a thing for boy's named Matt). You'll date for awhile, break up, then crush over him for the remainder of high school - that picture there to the right? Yeah, that's at the Senior Tolo dance with him. And even though you'll date again after college - you won't marry him. But, you will find a friend in him for life.

However...maybe you should get to know Neal C. a little bit more. Sure he's super shy. And in the 7th grade, you'll tossel his hair and give him static for wearing his polo shirt buttoned all the way to the top (I mean, who does that?). For which he'll still remember a year later and write "snob" in blue permanent marker over your 8th grade year book picture (yep, that's the picture right there).

But trust me on this and give that boy a chance - I promise in twenty years, you'll laugh about the year book with him. And yes, he stopped wearing his polo shirts that way. Because of you.

And speaking of year book disasters. During your junior year in high school when you're 17, you'll be photographed in your swim suit. Just before you're about to perform a back 1.5 pike dive at your swim meet.

It will end up in the annual.

Spanning an entire page.

But believe me, you look COMPLETELY FINE. Because when you're the age you are in 2012 (hey, no wise cracks, it's not as far away as you think!), YOU'RE GONNA WISH YOU STILL LOOKED LIKE THAT NOW. 

Those - along with six gazillion other memories from my teenage years - are still stuck in my head like it was all just yesterday. And if I could write a letter to my teenage self now, all of the above (plus so much more) would be included in that letter.

That's the premise behind the recently released book Dear Teen Me published by Zest Books.

Here's the Goodreads summary:

Dear Teen Me includes advice from over 70 YA authors (including Lauren Oliver, Ellen Hopkins, and Nancy Holder, to name a few) to their teenage selves. The letters cover a wide range of topics, including physical abuse, body issues, bullying, friendship, love, and enough insecurities to fill an auditorium. So pick a page, and find out which of your favorite authors had a really bad first kiss? Who found true love at 18? Who wishes he’d had more fun in high school instead of studying so hard? Some authors write diary entries, some write letters, and a few graphic novelists turn their stories into visual art. And whether you hang out with the theater kids, the band geeks, the bad boys, the loners, the class presidents, the delinquents, the jocks, or the nerds, you’ll find friends--and a lot of familiar faces--in the course of Dear Teen Me.

To celebrate the release of such a wonderful book, several of us were asked to participate in the Dear Teen Me blog tour hosted by Zest Books. And I'm lucky to be wrapping up the tour with my post here today - but believe me, there have been so many other fabulous posts throughout the tour! So please head on over to these sites to check them out: Zest Books and Dear Teen Me. 

Because that's where I found the amazing post and video by Ginger over at GReads! - where she asked her friends: If you had the chance, what would you say to your teen self - in only six words? 

Which inspired me to put together a video of my own, where I asked several of my MG / YA writer friends the very same question. The following is a compilation of the responses I received:

Thanks so much to all of my MG / YA writer friends who participated (in order of appearance): Jaime Morrow, Kris F. Oliver, Dorothy Dreyer, Bridgid Gallagher, Jessica Silverstein, Rebecca Barrow, Rebecca Mahoney, Heidi Sinnett, Katy Upperman, Tracey Neithercott, Angela Brown, Jessica Love, Jessica Lawson, and Sara Biren. They all graciously not only contributed their six words - but also sent pictures of themselves from high school! So thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!!!

And now for the giveaway! To celebrate this inspiring book, I've got a great prize pack up for grabs, which includes:

An autographed copy of Dear Teen Me - signed by 4-5 contributors - plus postcards and bookmarks.

To enter, please fill out the below Rafflecopter form and see all rules that apply:

a Rafflecopter giveaway  

And with that, I'll leave you to ponder: If you could tell your teen self ONE thing, what would it be? If you can do it in EXACTLY six words, even better!

Happy Halloween!!!

Hi everyone! I am feeling under the weather right now - super sore throat and double ear infections to boot - so I'm reposting my Halloween post from last year (and this year I'll be making homemade chicken noodle soup and not the nummy pasta below...boo.). Because I can't let this day pass, without a proper post!

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Yeah! My favorite holiday is upon us!

Wait, you don't think Halloween is a holiday? Oh, pa-lease.

It's only the best one out there. I mean, when else do you have the opportunity to dress up as a creepy zombie, slutty nurse, or scary witch? Unless of course, you're into that kind of thing and you don't need Halloween?

Anywho.

I love everything about this day - the crazy costumes, the decorations, the parties, the kids, handing out candy (although I do miss going trick-or-treating myself), and of course, the pumpkins. Oh, do I LOVE the pumkins!!!

Photo Courtesy of Ray Villafane StudiosSeriously, what some people can do with these wonderful gourds is downright crazy. And if you don't believe me, you've so got to check out this fab site: Ray Villafane. This man can carve a pumpkin like noneother!

Photo Courtesy of Ray Villafane StudiosHe was even invited to the White House last year to carve the pumkins for the Obama family - and this year is in Vegas, carving the lot for Heidi Klum's big Halloween par-tay.

Not too shabby, I'd say.

And with all this excitment, I actually don't mind being in the office today. Because I know I get to go home and get the house ready - and I'm excited for my super easy, but yum-o dinner, which even that, is pumkin inspired (courtesy of Everyday Food, November Winter 2007, with a little doctoring on my part): 

Penne with Creamy Pumpkin Sauce 

Canned pumpkin puree isn't only good for pie; here, it becomes a creamy sauce for penne, topped with deliciously crunchy fried sage leaves.

I've changed up this recipe by adding ground chicken and changing it from Rosemary to Sage leaves (as I think sage tastes so much better with pumpkin!).

  • Prep Time 10 minutes
  • Total Time 30 minutes
  • Yield Serves 4

INGREDIENTS

  • 12 ounces penne rigate (ridged), or other short pasta
  • Coarse salt
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 lb. ground chicken
  • 1 tablespoon fresh sage leaves
  • 1 can (15 ounces) pure pumpkin puree
  • 1 garlic clove, minced
  • 1/2 cup half-and-half
  • 1/3 cup grated Parmesan
  • 1 tablespoon white-wine vinegar
  • 1/4 teaspoon red-pepper flakes, plus more for garnish (optional)
  1. Cook pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water until al dente. Reserve 2 cups pasta water; drain pasta and set aside.
  2. In a separate saute pan, brown ground chicken with salt & pepper to taste (I like to add some of the red-pepper flakes here).
  3. In pasta pot, heat oil over medium. Add sage leaves and fry, stirring, until starting to brown, 1 to 2 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer sage leaves to a paper towel, leaving oil in pot.
  4. Carefully (oil is hot and will spatter) add pumpkin puree, garlic, half-and-half (you'll want to warm this first, to avoid curddling the cream), Parmesan, vinegar, red-pepper flakes, and 1 cup reserved pasta water to pot. Stir sauce until heated through, 2 to 3 minutes.
  5. Add pasta to sauce, and toss to coat. If sauce is too thick, add some reserved pasta water. Season generously with salt. Serve pasta sprinkled with fried sage leaves and, if desired, more red-pepper flakes.

COOK'S NOTE

Frying sage leaves in olive oil not only turns the herb into a crispy garnish -- it also infuses the oil to create a tasty base for the pumpkin sauce.

____________

AND WHAT IS EVERYONE ELSE DOING TODAY? STUCK AT WORK? DRESSED UP? TAKING THE KIDS OUT? GOING TO A PARTY?

Whatever it is, I hope everyone has a wonderful Halloween, stays safe, and gets pillow-cases full of candy! Because after all, there's nothing scarier than the day after Halloween...that means Christmas is only 55 days away. Yikes.

My Review: THE RAVEN BOYS by Maggie Stiefvater

The Raven Boys (Raven Cycle, #1)The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Goodreads Summary:

“There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.”

It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.

Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.

His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.

But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.

For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

From Maggie Stiefvater, the bestselling and acclaimed author of theShiver trilogy and The Scorpio Races, comes a spellbinding new series where the inevitability of death and the nature of love lead us to a place we’ve never been before.

My Review:

Among the many talents Maggie Stiefvater has, the one I believe she excels at the most, is how she captures the setting in her novels. She has this uncanny ability of making the reader experience all five of their senses, as they pour through her books - and THE RAVEN BOYS did not disappoint.

She also draws such animated characters, each one having a reason to be included. And I thoroughly enjoyed the various POV's she told the story through - something we're used to seeing from Stiefvater.

I was fascinated by the premise of the book around the ley lines and the quest the boys are on. And I was particularly absorbed in Blue's story - what a strange upbringing, what with her clairvoyant family - which was written in way that makes it seem so normal.

And then there's the twist - oh, the twist! I wasn't expecting that at all - and it's well worth reading this one to find out what it is, I promise.

I have been a long time fan of Maggie's books - from how vivid she wrote the scene in the candy shop, in SHIVER, to how nom-tastic the November Cakes seemed in THE SCORPIO RACES - and I'm for sure on board to take the journey with THE RAVEN BOYS, wherever they'll go next.

View all my reviews

The YA Book Club is hosted by the greatness that is Tracey Neithercott, from over at Words On Paper. For the month of October, readers selected The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater, as this month's read.

And the more, the merrier! If you'd like to partake in reviewing this month's selection - or jumping on board in the future - you can find all the details here: YA Book Club.

Children's and YA Revenues Up Almost 41% in 2012

This week GalleyCat announced some exciting news for all of us Children's and YA writers:

According to the Association of American Publishers (AAP) StatShot report for the first half of 2012, sales revenue in the children’s and young adult category skyrocketed by nearly 41 percent, compared to the same period last year, rising to $845 million.

Those gains were driven by a 251.5 percent increase in children’s and young adult digital books (see the chart embedded above). At the same time, adult fiction and nonfiction sales increased 8.3 percent.

They also posted the below chart, which breaks down overall year-to-date sales by category as well. The AAP collected information from 1,186 different publishers to compile the report.

It's great to see sales in the Children's / YA category continue to climb, and definitely proves we're writing in the right genre! 

This year alone, I've purchased more than 75 YA books, almost all of which, were hardback...and only ONE adult title (GONE GIRL by Gillian Flynn). And I can tell you I have my eye on several more YA titles before 2012 comes to a close!

So, have you done your part to contribute to the increase in Children's / YA book sales this year?

2nd Annual Banned Books Week Giveaway: And The Winners Are?

Thanks to everyone who stopped by, left a comment, and perhaps tweeted about Banned Books week! I've gone ahead and selected my two winners and they are:

Marie Haney and Nikki Marie

Please email me at elschneider@hotmail.com with the following:

1. Full Name

2. Your top 3 banned book titles in order of your preference (in case The Book Depository is sold out).

3. Your mailing address where you'd like your book shipped

Thanks again and happy reading!

2nd Annual Banned Books Week Giveaway (International)

For as long as I'm a writer and reader, I'll always support the FREADOM to read. And I've never hidden the fact I believe that what I read, is my own decision - and not that of someone else.

So I'm proud to yet again support Banned Books Week by participating in the 2nd Annual Banned Books Week giveaway hop, hosted by the lovely ladies over at I Am A Reader, Not A Writer and I Read Banned Books. 

As posted on the American Library Association website, Banned Books Week (BBW) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. This is something the ALA has been supporting for years - in fact, this year marks their 30th anniversary of supporting the freedom to read! 

Which is a good thing, because unfortunately the list of banned books is long - and grows longer every year. And we all know some of the classics that have been included on this list:

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, by Harper Lee, 1960: Harper Lee’s great American tome stands as proof positive that the censorious impulse is alive and well in our country, even today. For some educators, the Pulitzer-prize winning book is one of the greatest texts teens can study in an American literature class. Others have called it a degrading, profane and racist work that “promotes white supremacy.”

 

THE SCARLET LETTER, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1850: According to many critics, Hawthorne should have been less friendly toward his main character, Hester Prynne (in fairness, so should have minister Arthur Dimmesdale). One isn’t surprised by the moralist outrage the book caused in 1852. But when, one hundred and forty years later, the book is still being banned because it is sinful and conflicts with community values, you have to raise your eyebrows. Parents in one school district called the book “pornographic and obscene” in 1977. Clearly this was before the days of the World Wide Web.

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE by the late, great, Maurice Sendak, 1963: Sendak’s work is beloved by children in the generations since its publication and has captured the collective imagination. Many parents and librarians, however, did much hand-wringing over the dark and disturbing nature of the story. They also wrung their hands over the baby’s penis drawn in In the Night Kitchen.

And as posted on the BannedBooksWeek.org website, according to the ALA, there were 326 challenges reported to the Office of Intellectual Freedom in 2011 - and many more have gone unreported. And the 10 most challenged titles of 2011 were:

  1. TTYL; TTFN; L8R, G8R (series), by Lauren Myracle 
    Reasons: offensive language; religious viewpoint; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group
  2. THE COLOR OF EARTH (series), by Kim Dong Hwa
    Reasons: nudity; sex education; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group
  3. THE HUNGER GAMES trilogy, by Suzanne Collins
    Reasons: anti-ethnic; anti-family; insensitivity; offensive language; occult/satanic; violence
  4. MY MOM'S HAVING A BABY! A KID'S MONTH-BY-MONTH GUIDE TO PREGNANCY, by Dori Hillestad Butler
    Reasons: nudity; sex education; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group
  5. THE ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART-TIME INDIAN, by Sherman Alexie
    Reasons: offensive language; racism; religious viewpoint; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group
  6. ALICE (series), by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
    Reasons: nudity; offensive language; religious viewpoint
  7. BRAVE NEW WORLD, by Aldous Huxley
    Reasons: insensitivity; nudity; racism; religious viewpoint; sexually explicit
  8. WHAT MY MOTHER DOESN'T KNOW, by Sonya Sones
    Reasons: nudity; offensive language; sexually explicit
  9. GOSSIP GIRL (series), by Cecily Von Ziegesar
    Reasons: drugs; offensive language; sexually explicit
  10. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, by Harper Lee
    Reasons: offensive language; racism

________________________________________

So to celebrate this great week, what's up for grabs you might ask? 

TWO lucky winners will each receive ONE banned or challenged book (value up to $20 USD) of their choice, from the banned or challenged list. You can find some of the titles here and here. 

The giveaway will run from Friday, September 28th - Saturday, October 6th and I'll be announcing my winners on Sunday, October 7th.

A few housekeeping rules:

PLEASE be honest with your entries. If you commit to leaving a comment - then do so! I review all entries for accuracy and honesty and reserve the right to remove any invalid entries.

  1. Giveaway is International. Note: Giveaway is open to anywhere The Book Depository ships. It is your responsibility to make sure The Book Depository ships to your country. All entries for non valid ship-to countries will be void. You can confirm if The Book Depository ships to your country by going here.
  2. Winners must be 13 years or older.
  3. Winners must choose a banned or challenged book from off the lists I've provided above.
  4. Leave a comment? That's worth +1 entry.
  5. Only requirement: you need to follow me on Twitter (@erinlschneider1) to qualify. Worth +2 entries.
  6. Tweet about my giveaway? Let me know and that's worth +3 more entries!
  7. Total possible entries = 6.
  8. +6 entries possible per person - please do not use alternative email addresses to enter again.
  9. You must fill out the Rafflecopter form below, to be officially entered.
  10. Winners will be chosen via Rafflecopter on Sunday, October 7, 2012 and announced here on my blog.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Remember to stop on over at I Read Banned Books and I Am A Reader, Not A Writer to check out all of the other great participants in this blog hop! 

Thanks so much for stopping by and thank you even more, for supporting Banned Books Week!