Diversity in YA Summer Reading Challenge!

The ladies over at Diversity in YA have issued a challenge. This summer, they would like to see readers reading books with LGBT characters or characters of color. Readers who do this and write an essay by September 1 will be entered in a contest to win a whole bunch of books!

I love books with diverse characters.

I am always interested in a way to win a whole bunch of books.

This is a perfect challenge for me! So...of course I'll be reading this summer. Some of the books I may read:

• Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
• Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
• The Last Herald-Mage trilogy by Mercedes Lackey
• Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare
• tithe by Holly Black
• Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson
• The Meaning of Matthew by Judy Sheperd

I'm sure there are others, but that's a start. You can find information about the challenge at Diversity in YA's website.

There is a great list of LGBTQ YA Novels with Characters of Color if you're interested in hitting both aspects of the challenge in one book. I haven't read any of the books on the list, but I've enjoyed other books by Alex Sanchez (The God Box and Boyfriends with Girlfriends made the list), whose LGBTQ hispanic characters are fantastic! I adore everything I've read by David Levithan, whose Love is the Higher Law made the list. I'm also excited to get my hands on some books by Steve Kluger (My Most Excellent Year) and Malinda Lo (Huntress). Happy reading!

Savannah vacation

I need to acquire and read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil this month. We are going to Savannah as an anniversary vacation in July! As I was ordering a map on Amazon, the most commonly purchased additional items were the book and DVD. It inspired a great hunger! I think I'll ask Mom if she has a copy I can borrow.

Also related to our trip, I made reservations for the Haunted Pub Crawl while we are there! The man who runs the tour company, James Caskey, wrote a book called Haunted Savannah which I might acquire while we are there. :)