Post-Winter Reading Lists, or Why Summer Can't Arrive Soon Enough

Typical Scarletta Employee Behavior

Winter has battered us all this year. Intense storms, bad road conditions, record lows... but I digress. This post is an ode to Summer, and the delicious books that we gobble up on our summer reading lists. This post is about why summer should already be here! Denzel has talked about book diets, the PW blog talked about vacation reading, and now as a publisher, it's time for us to start talking about summer reading.

Summer reading is important on so many levels. The majority of libraries create FANTASTIC reading programs designed to engage kids of all ages (we highly recommend you enroll your kids in one). Publishers come out with great lists for varying tastes (seriously, every publisher has summer recommendations). More people choose to read for fun - to engage themselves in books while on summer vacation (honestly, who doesn't enjoy a good book while getting a tan?).

So before you cover yourselves in books, here are our recommendations - a few books from the Scarletta catalog to add to the lists of our voracious readers...

With an Eye to the Future

It's 2014 now guys! In fact, it has been for just over a week now. This means that the excuses of the holiday season are behind us and it's time to get back to being semi-productive members of society. It also means that it's time to look ahead at the exciting releases scheduled to happen this year, and announce the titles we're most hyped up about.

So, without further ado, I give you the expert opinions of my favorite panel of book lovers:

Why Don't People Go on Book Diets? What Would It Mean If They Did?

The literary world is full of terms like "devour" or "consume" used to describe how one reads a book. Even the term "bookworm" finds it's roots in the tradition of referring to any insect that may chew through books as "worms" even though damage is typically caused by the Common Paper Louse (Don't google that if you don't like bugs. Or really, even if you do. It's just no fun).

So, if we're good with imagining books as some sort of brain food, then how far can we stretch that? Book restaurants? We've got those in the forms of book stores. Books about how to prepare books? That's an entire genre, and not a small genre at that. There are tons and tons of parallels, mostly because I'm looking for them, but they exist.

And yet, I'm not seeing much by way of book diets. I mean, diet books are everywhere, but there don't seem to be many people writing about selective book consumption for a specific purpose. Why not? Perhaps it's because people generally believe that no books are detrimental. I doubt that because if that were true, banned books week would be blueberry muffin week or something due to lack of banned books. Perhaps people are worried that going on a book diet might limit their worldview, and there may be some merit to that. I feel like the real reason is because nobody else has the right combination of spare time, relevance to work, and penchant for pointless rambling necessary to discuss the future of literary book clubs.

BOOK DIETS:

The Cleanse: Nothing but children's books, without any trace of sadness, scariness, or really anything that can't be described as "warm and fuzzy" or "super wicked cool". Great for getting you mentally back in shape to see the world as a beautiful place of excitement and adventure. As an adult, you may need to repeat the cleanse multiple times annually for continued effectiveness.

The Doyle Diet: Nothing but sleuth protagonists. Maybe sprinkle in a cheap murder-mystery on cheat days. Ideally a weekly dose of Sherlock Holmes accented by Poirot as necessary. This diet is sure to help you bulk up your intuitiveness, and slim down your cluelessness. Side-effects may include increased paranoia and a penchant for stylish hats.

The ABC Diet: Apocalypses, Battlefields & Catastrophes. This diet consists of steady doses of Disasters of all proportions. End-of-Days and Final Hours stories help keep you thankful that you live in a relatively safe world. Also, all that panicking you do for the characters towards the end will keep your heart rate up, burning real world calories. It's a truly transcendent diet. 

These are just a few of the many diets that I'm sure could one day come to be the driving force behind book clubs the world over. Let these culinary collections of chapter books shape how you read, and watch as your mind becomes truly fit. Or, just keep reading like you always do. That's never a bad thing.

An Alternative to NaNoWriMo

“Sometimes a story has no end.”

Happy National Novel Writing Month, everyone! Earlier this month, Denzel wrote a fantastic piece on the basics of NaNoWriMo, er—ahem—#NaNoWriMo that provides a fantastic introduction to those of you unfamiliar with this month-long exercise in sanity. Celebrated across the United States for the entire month, NaNoWriMo is one of those events that appears just as terrifying as it actually is.  Fifty thousand words?! That’s a remarkable amount of work for a single month.

But I suppose that’s the appeal, isn’t it? At the end of 30 painstaking days, you have a novel in front of you.

But then what? What becomes of those fifty thousand words? What do you do when December 1^st rears it cold, ugly head and all you have to show for the month is a word document with countless unusable passages and multiple grammatically questionable sentences. What becomes of all your worrying, second-guessing, and coffee-fueled temper tantrums because that guy two tables down just will not stop tapping his foot to the beat of a song you can hear above the roar of the café you’re sitting in?

For most of us: nothing. Nothing will happen to that manuscript.

Nothing will come from our hard work.

No one will ever read our words and share their thoughts.

Nobody will care what happened to what’s her name or what path that one guy chose.

Libraries pick Lexicon

The Virginia Beach Public Library recently named Penny Noyce's Lost in Lexicon a VBPL Staff Pick. They weren't the first, and they certainly won't be the last because Lost in Lexicon has something in it for all kids.

In spite of its somewhat obvious goal of encouraging reluctant children to enjoy and understand the many uses of words and numbers, Lost in Lexcon is actually an enjoyable fantasy.
In the course of their travels Daphne learns to use a compass and navigate on the Cartesian plane. She has some other mathematical successes and discovers she enjoys solving these problems.
Meanwhile, Ivan discovers that he needs to use words, sometimes in critical situations. Naturally he learns to enjoy the power of words and recognize their usefulness.

Lost in Lexicon is perfect for kids who love math, as well as writing and reading. But the story isn't solely educational, kids get so swept up in the adventure to find the lost kids of Lexicon that they forget they're learning.