Things for Teens

Celebrate Teen Read Week with the Wisconsin Book Festival

Celebrate Teen Read Week, October 12-18, by attending Wisconsin Book Festival Events featuring authors for teens.

Sat., Oct. 18, 2 p.m. A Room of One's Own Feminist Book Store	Catherine Gilbert Murdock: A Different Coming of Age Catherine Gilbert Murdock burst on to the scene of young adult literature with her debut novel, Dairy Queen, winner of Borders’ Original Voices Award, the 2007 Midwest Booksellers Choice Award, and the 2007 Great Lakes Booksellers Children’s Literature Award. Reviewers, booksellers, and readers from across the country embraced Murdock’s main character, D.J. Schwenk, rejoicing in her refreshing honesty, wit, and, most of all, determination to do something different. Dairy Queen’s sequel, The Off Season, soon followed and met with the same success, prompting e-mails from teens celebrating the return of D.J. and thanking Murdock for creating someone to whom they could relate.
Wed., Oct. 15, 7:30 p.m. Memorial Union Theater	Judy Blume: 2008 Charlotte Zolotow Lecture Judy Blume is the author of Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret; Blubber; Just as Long as We're Together; and the five book series about the irrepressible Fudge. She has also written three novels for adults: Summer Sisters, Smart Women, and Wifey, all of them New York Times bestsellers. In 1996, the American Library Association honored her with the Margaret A. Edwards Award for Lifetime Achievement, and in 2004 she received the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Blume will deliver a 45-minute lecture, aimed at adults, based on her writing for children and teens. This event is made possible by the CCBC. Tickets required: Free tickets to the lecture may be picked up at Wisconsin Union Theater box office in the UW-Madison Memorial Union, 800 Langdon Street, after September 8. Limit: 2 tickets per person. more info View books by Blume available through the Madison Public Library
Sat., Oct. 18, 4 p.m. A Room of One's Own Feminist Book Store	I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone: Stephanie Kuehnert Punk. Feminism. Combat boots. Girls with guitars. Family. Teeth. Attitude. Friendships ... It's all here. Stephanie Kuehnert's debut novel is a miraculously well-written tale of a girl, her mother, the circumstances that separate them, and the music that connects them. Kurt Cobain's biographer Charles Cross, one of many rave reviewers, says Kuehnert's "fresh voice makes this novel stand out in the genre, and she writes as authentically about coming of age as she does punk rock." Don't miss this raw new talent, with Wisconsin roots.
Sun., Oct. 19, 4 p.m. A Room of One's Own Feminist Book Store	There's No Place Here for You: Young Adults Seeking Home Disconnected teens may be a familiar theme, but the young people in these novels are pushed to extremes. In Darkness Under the Water by Beth Kanell, sixteen-year-old Molly Ballou discovers the very present danger of her Abenaki Indian heritage during the notorious Vermont Eugenics Project of the 1930's, while J.L. Powers' characters in The Confessional confront racial tension and fatal violence in the border town of El Paso.

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