YA Friday: Stacked

A month ago, I had this post where I said I would try to have a regular YA post since RA now includes the Teen department. So, while I am not going to promise a post every Friday, I will promise to gather interesting YA information and links as I am working to learn more about my new job responsibilities, and I will try to only post them on Fridays.

Yes, I am ghettoizing the YA talk to Fridays, but since this area is not my main focus, and I am usually working on ordering books every Friday at the BPL, it is a good fit for the blog.

Please note though, I am not a YA expert; I will be learning and you will be along for the ride.  Everything YA related will be tagged with the YA label.  You can use that label link in the right gutter to pull up all YA related posts at any time.  Up to today, I only had 22 posts with the YA label since the blog began over 5 years ago, but it is a growth area here on RA for All.

So let's go....

Today I want to talk about one of the blogs I began following to bring myself up to speed on YA books and issues....Stacked.  From their mission:

STACKED, on the surface, is interested in reviewing books for readers while simultaneously enticing non-readers to think about reading in fun and interesting ways. As librarians, we are aware that literacy comes in many formats, so we strive to include not just physical book reviews, but also reviews of audio books, digital books, videos, music, zines, graphic novels, and other materials easily found in the stacks.

There are a lot of YA fans out there with blogs, but I am most drawn to the ones which are run by librarians and/or book sellers who also have a passion for the YA titles. One of the two librarians who run Stacked, Kelly, is particularly passionate about YA lit and is recognized as an expert on the topic. In fact, one of the most useful resources on the blog is this document which she posted that categorizes good YA reads by topic.  I will use this for collection development, displays, and to help teen patrons.

I have also found the mix of posts to be useful, interesting, and entertaining. The posts are a mix of essays, reviews, links, and even analysis like this detailed post (with charts) that takes the recent YALSA award winners and compares those lists with other end of the year best lists. Impressive, right? But also useful.

So if you are looking for a YA resource created by our peers with information and discussions you can use with your teen readers, check out Stacked.