Summer Reading - Elizabeth Wein, Cathy Brett, Rachel Ward, Laura Jarratt, Phil Earle and Teri Terry BRING ON THE JOY.

In two weeks, I am going on what is really my first ever proper summer holiday. Beach. Ice cream. Sun. Sea. Ice cream.

This gives me the perfect excuse to kick back, relax, and spend a month's wages all in one go. Yes, it's find-some-books-on-Amazon-and-order-them-through-my-local-indie time (which adds to the financial cost, but saves on the moral one).

I've already started. I am practically drooling over here.

Elizabeth Wein's new book Rose Under Fire is out, and I am HANKERING to get my hands on a copy. I predict that this one will be finished and my face tear-streaked by the end of the two hour flight, demanding to be re-read once I get to the hotel. Those of you who have read this blog before, or indeed EVER SPOKEN TO ME, will know that I rarely shut up about Wein's last book, Code Name Verity. In fact, I like it so much that I've written not one but two review of it - on this blog and on my other blog, Space on the Bookshelf.


Then there's this one:

I'm a big fan of Cathy Brett. Quite frankly, I think she's awesome. And her new book Everything is Fine (and Other Lies I Tell Myself) is already picking up stonking reviews... (If you haven't ever heard of Cathy Brett, this might give you an idea as to her particular brand of awesome.) This book seems to me to have been packaged a little more 'seriously' than her previous books, and judging by the pace building up behind it, it's going to do great things for her. Also: one of the best titles of the year so far.

And this one...

Rachel Ward's Numbers series is something I have longed shouted about, and I was wondering what was coming next from this terrific writer - and here it is! On the surface of it, The Drowning looks very different from the dystopian thrillers of the trilogy that came before, but Numbers was always gritty, and books two and three are very dark and disturbing. I strongly suspect that when the same style and pace is taken into a contemporary thriller, the results will be unflinchingly horror-filled. (In a good way, of course!)

Oh, Laura Jarratt's By Any Other Name. I loved her debut, Skin Deep. A great British teen romance. So I can't wait to read this next one!

Phil Earle's Heroic has been picking up some great reviews, but to be honest, I'd read this whether it had great reviews or not, because his debut, Being Billy, and the follow-up Saving Daisy, were brutally honest and brilliant.

And to complete the line up - Fractured, by Teri Terry. Teri is a good friend of mine, and I read this when it was a manuscript. But I know that some exciting things happened to it after I originally read it, so I'm eager to spot the changes and just generally enjoy it all over again!

I think, seeing as I'm building my own summer reading list, that I should offer up a recommendation, too! And, without hesitation, it's Pantomime, by Laura Lam. I want, nay NEED, to review this book and shout about it to EVERYONE I KNOW, but sadly, any kind of good review would ruin the book entirely. So I'm restraining myself. But go read it. It will be different from any teen fiction you've read before.

I'd love to hear other suggestions if anyone has any! Particularly suggestions of debuts - I seem to have LOTS of follow-ups on my list!

Picture That - Illustration in fiction for older readers

This week, I found this lovely YA book sitting on my doormat...

Why We Broke Up, by Daniel Handler and Maira Kalman

Inside, it looks something like this...

(Apologies for the rather dark pictures!)

Right now, I'm sitting on my sofa, wishing and hoping (and thinking and praying, if Dusty Springfield has anything to do with it) that illustration is making something of a come back.

Last month, Patrick Ness and Jim Kay won the Carnegie/Greenaway double for their book 'A Monster Calls'. It's a genius book, if you haven't read it, intwining words and pictures in a way that means neither would have quite the same impact without the other. It's the first time that the awards have been won by contributors to the same book - an acknowledgement, perhaps, that in this case, written story and drawn story exist as one thing.

A Monster Calls, where words meet illustration in a book for teens

So here's my question - when did illustrations stop being a necessary element of a good story?

Growing up, stories are all about pictures - the images act as a vehicle for understanding the words. Without the pictures, the story wouldn't be the same, but more importantly, it wouldn't be understood. (For me, life at that age was all about Janet & Allen Ahlberg.)

Why is that not the same for books for older readers? Why has it become something we associate only with books for younger children? Even Dickens had Cruikshank! Incidentally, the prevalence of illustrations in Why We Broke Up means a tumblr page is practically a prerequisite!

The use of illustration can be extremely powerful. Take this example from 'The Book Thief', for example. There aren't many illustrations in the book, and these particular ones appear in a section called 'Pages from the Basement'. They are the musings of a man who is hiding from the Nazis in the book thief's basement.

In Carlos Ruiz Zafon's 'The Midnight Palace' (originally published as an adult novel, but published here as YA), photographs are used to give a more visual sense of the book's Indian setting.

I don't know of too many recent books for older readers that use illustration to enhance the story. I've just been pointed in the direction of Cathy Brett, a writer-illustrator of books for teens, but I'm certainly interested in finding more - illustrations add such a fantastic dimension. They really can be an integral part of the story.

Cathy Brett's Scarlett Dedd - I can't wait to get stuck into this one!

So really that leaves me with just a few last words...

More, please, MORE!