- How “The Hunger Games” Challenges Old Hollywood Expectations About Gender Roles by Allison Willmore at Buzzfeed: “Peeta may require the occasional rescuing, but Katniss is more than capable of figuring that out, and in flipping these roles, The Hunger Games has become a YA adaptation that shakes up the way we think about action, and — maybe more importantly — about romance.”
- What Really Makes Katniss Stand Out? Peeta, Her Movie Girlfriend by Linda Holmes at NPR: “In fact, you could argue that Katniss’ conflict between Peeta and Gale is effectively a choice between a traditional Movie Girlfriend and a traditional Movie Boyfriend.”
- How The “Hunger Games” Team Brought “Mockingjay – Part 1” From The Page To The Screen by Adam B. Vary on Buzzfeed: “His shock could have been due to the daunting task of transforming Collins’ darkest and most psychological novel into a global commercial blockbuster, or having to artificially split the book’s narrative into two franchise-extending movies. Instead, the reason was much more straightforward.”
- National Book Award winners this year include Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
- Being a White Guy in Children’s Books by Roger Sutton at The Horn Book: “It’s a nice life that’s easy to get used to. But as Handler learned, it can bite you in the ass. There he was in the spotlight, doing what he’s been amply rewarded for doing for years, and he overreached.” (Be sure to also read the comments here!)
- Handler Donates $110,000 to We Need Diverse Books by Claire Kirch at Publisher’s Weekly: “WNDB gave away as “featured” swag for each $75 contribution during the 24-hour period that Handler matched donations a signed copy of Woodson’s novel, Brown Girl Dreaming, which won this year’s National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. More than 150 copies had been given away to contributors by Saturday morning.”
- I Sacrifice, Therefore I Am Good: Young Adult Fiction Heroines and Self-Destruction by Katja Huru at PopMatters: “What makes Tris’s behavior problematic beyond the obvious level, however, is that her self-sacrificing behavior is validated through her motivations. The act itself is not important, only the reasons behind it.” I’m still not sure about this essay–and it has a ton of spoilers for the Divergent trilogy–but this is still a very interesting read.
Miss Print 