Keep reading for an update on Flintridge Books, Ben Esch's book reading, and GOOD ENOUGH being selected for the NYPL 2009 "Books for the Teen Age" list!

(Pictured above: L: Me & Ben Esch; R: Me & Catherine Linka of Flintridge Books) 

Taking a quick peek from the writing batcave to update everyone on some book news. First, I'm excited to announce GOOD ENOUGH was selected as one of the New York Public Library's annual "Books for the Teen Age" list for 2009!

The "Stuff for the Teen Age 2009" list marks the 80th anniversary of the New York Public Library's list of the best books, music, movies, and video games for teens.

My YA novel GOOD ENOUGH (HarperCollins '08) made the  list for the best humorous YA novels. It's in their LOL list. The LOL link is here:

http://www.nypl.org/books/sta2009/index.cfm?id=lol

The list of all the best books for 2009 is here:

http://www.nypl.org/books/sta2009/

For more info on the New York Public Library, check out their website here:

http://nypl.org/

Thanks, NYPL, for the honor! I'm thrilled to be included in this year's LOL list!

In other weekend update news, I attended the Los Angeles book launch party for BEN ESCH's debut YA novel, SOPHOMORE UNDERCOVER (Hyperion '09) at the very cool indie bookstore Stories in Echo Park.

Ben is a funny guy. Ben is a talented writer. Put the two together, and it's like a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup - two great tastes in one! Funny AND talented! It's better than peanut butter and chocolate! (Almost. Kidding!) 

Ben's  novel is about fifteen-year-old, adopted Vietnamese orphan Dixie Nguyen, whose high school is one long string of hard-to-swallow humiliations. But Dixie's luck takes a turn when he stumbles across one of the jocks using drugs in the locker room; not only does he finally have something newsworthy to write for his school newspaper, but the chance to strike a blow against his tormentors at the school as well.

SOPHOMORE UNDERCOVER has been praised as "part social satire, part teen-mystery parody, and wholly hilarious," and "a dazzling debut that will make headlines with teens everywhere."

Below is a picture of Ben doing his reading at the bookstore. For more info on Ben, check out his hilarious website which features a video game based on his book! I HIGHLY recommend you check his book out - it's amazing and Ben is a great guy. And no, he did not pay me to say that. Although I wish he did, 'cause I'm kind of broke and my birthday is coming up.

http://www.dixienguyen.com/

And finally, an update on the amazing indie bookstore FLINTRIDGE BOOKS in La Canada, CA. My last blog posting talked about the horrific multi-car crash that happened last week, tragically killing two people, injuring several others, and causing great destruction to the Flintridge Books and surrounding stores in the area. 

The blog link is here:

http://paulayoo.com/content/breaking-news-flintridge-bookstore-thu-4209

For more info on the store, go to there website here:

http://www.flintridgebooks.com/index.htm

I finally heard from the lovely Catherine Linka, who is in charge of the Children's Books section of Flintridge Books, a few days ago. She and the owners and staff are safe but shaken by the incident. But they are all also super positive and determined to keep the store running. 

I asked Catherine for some thoughts on what had happened, and she was generous enough to take time out and write me this thoughtful and eloquent email:

STATEMENT FROM CATHERINE LINKA TO PAULAYOO.COM:

"Catastrophe can bring out the best in people. I was blown away when I heard how two of our staff, Melissa and Dana helped free a woman from the nail salon next door and how our owner, Peter Wannier, plunged back into the smoke-filled store to search for anyone left inside.

"We have been so touched by the outpouring of support. I’ve talked about the Chamber of Commerce, the American Booksellers Association and SCBWI members, but we’ve heard from customers, publishers, and authors, and we even received  flowers from the ladies who wrote The Necklace and came to the store to share their story last fall.

"I have always admired the owners’ dedication to paying their staff decently and providing health care. Now I am blown away by their commitment to keeping the staff employed.

"Because of that, we’re going to try to keep as many of our off-site events going as possible. We’re checking out venues for store events such as the upcoming visit by Richelle Mead of Vampire Academy. And we even had a parent volunteer to host our Junior Advisory Board in her home. My husband suggested that we do the May Writer2Writer in our backyard and I’m hoping to set that up. (I think he did that so I’d clean up the backyard…)

"I anticipate that we’ll have a parking lot sale for distressed books (who wouldn’t be distressed if they were run over?) and I’d love to make it into a party and have lots of writers come and read their books (OK, so the truck ran over the YA and tween sections—but it missed picture, chapter, Newbery, junior fantasy and all the children’s non-fiction!)

"We don’t know if we can stay in our current building, because even though the fire department put support beams up, we don’t know how sound it is yet. There is a lot of commercial space available in town if we need to move.

"But we’re excited about starting anew. It’s a great time to rethink how we’ve done things or to try things we haven’t had time for, such as setting up an on-line business. We got a truck full of lemons, so we’re making lemonade."

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I am so thankful to hear from Catherine about the latest update on Flintridge Books. I will keep everyone updated on any new news I hear from Catherine in the near future. Until then, we could all learn a lesson from Catherine's sunny spirit and courage to always make lemonade out of life.

And with that, I must enter my writing batcave, but I hope everyone has a great week and I will probably blog some more soon to keep my sanity because it's lonely in the writing batcave!