YALSA’s The Hub Reading Challenge 2013: Ready to go!

How up are you on the year’s best graphic novels?  Want to join in the challenge to read this year’s best of the best?

When the awards are announced at the American Library Association’s Midwinter conference every year, we librarians (and book nerds everywhere) start amassing a pile of titles we need to catch up on reading. After all the hootin’ and hollerin’ is over at the actual announcements (believe me, having been in the room this year, there was plenty of both, and it was delightful), the selection lists generated by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) are posted a few days later, including the top ten lists for each. Thus the to-read pile inevitably gets higher.

Last year, YALSA ran a Best of the Best Reading Challenge that cleverly channeled everyone’s impulses to catch up on all the year’s notable books. This year, YALSA is doing it again, hosting the expanded, new and improved YALSA’s The Hub Reading Challenge for 2013. The full details on this year’s challenge can be read over at their starting post. I encourage anyone interested in teen literature to head over and check it out—when I participated last year, I had a wonderful time.  Participating focuses your reading and pushes you outside your comfort zone to find remarkable books you may otherwise have never paged through. I can’t think of a better way to entertain myself through the winter into spring.

Here at Good Comics for Kids, we’re taking the challenge in a slightly different direction that we think is still in keeping with the spirit. We will be reading and commenting on all of the graphic novels recognized this year, including the Great Graphic Novels for Teens Top Ten, and on top of that we’ll be recommending read-alikes for every notable title. As this is a challenge run by YALSA, the eligible titles are limited to those with teen appeal, so be aware the titles we’ll be discussing will be those recognized as appealing to teens ages 12 to 18.

If you’re keen to read some great teen titles, including graphic novels, head on over to The Hub and sign up for the challenge (grand prize: a big bag of new books!). Anyone can sign up at any time during the next four months.

If you’re especially curious about the eligible graphic novels and comics, join us here every Wednesday from now until the end of June for discussion, commentary, and read-alike book lists.

Filed under: News, Roundtables