Conclave Humor

Yesterday I found this parody video,  a parody of one of the songs I included in my A to Z last month:

And these cartoons I found this week:

Book Discussion: YA Books Then and Now

 

On the Chocolate Lady's Book Review Blog was this question (which had come from this blog):

Have you ever looked at the young adult book section in a modern bookstore and felt out of touch or old?

This got me thinking about what I had read as a teenager.  This includes teen romance series like those in these photos:

I read a great deal of these books in junior high school and in high school. They were popular among others at school. The Sweet Dreams books were at my junior-high library, but I only ever got to check out about two of them! They were so popular! I had some many of these that I bought, along with other series. Several years ago, I discovered this blog that looks at teen book series from the 1980s (when I grew up). This includes some other series that I did not know about and some I'd had but forgotten about! Mystery series as well as romance are included. 

I don't recall the term "young adult" being used when I was a teen. Nor do I recall paranormal romances being a thing then. This seemed to come along well into the 2000s, perhaps even in the 1990s. I got hooked into the popularity of the Twilight series, and have been reading more since then. I still enjoy the YA genre.

As for feeling out of touch, looking at the selections of YA books in stores today does not surprise me. They seem to be keeping with the times by including texting messages in books and with more LGBTQ+ teen books on the rise. I imagine if series like Sweet Dreams and Wildfire and others link in the blog were still around, they would keep up with the times as well. But thematic series such as those seemed to have disappeared in favor of series of two or more books, such as Twilight and The Vampire Diaries. Nearly all the Sweet Dreams books were standalones, except for one or two that was a sequel to an earlier book. Same for Wildfire, though there were a few sequels such as the Christy books seem in the picture above. The Silhouette books had several sub-series, including one that followed a couple from their teens all the way to marriage and having children. But now separate series seem to be the way many YA books are constructed, as opposed having a single series that contains mostly standalone books. Though series books did exist back then as well. 

What is your take on YA books of today? How do they differ from those of your childhood?

The question above is from a blog hop at Ramblings of a Coffee-Addicted Writer. Click here to see others's responses. I'm including my post at this as well.

A to Z Road Trip 2025 #AtoZChallenge2025

 

IT'S ROAD TRIP TIME!

Road trip is our annual post-challenge tradition, which gives everyone an opportunity to visit others, and catch up on things they missed in April. Do you have blogs on your list you didn't get around to read? Did you run out of time and not get to follow along as much as you wanted to? Here is your chance!

FIRST: Sign up for the Road Trip! You can do it here. You can choose which one of your A to Z posts you want people to land on. Also, get the Road Trip badge from the graphics page above for your own blog!

SECOND: Get copies of the Road Trip List and the Master List to use as a guide!

THIRD: Start visiting blogs! You can go through the list of those who are participating in Road Trip. Read some posts, leave some comments! Leave a link to your blog. Visit back those who visit your blog. Go to the Master List, and visit some blogs that you didn't get the chance to in April! Enjoy!

LAST, BUT NOT LEAST: There is no time limit for Road Trip! Visit and read at your leisure. 

HAVE FUN!

13 Things This Week

Colleen at The Thursday 13 holds a weekly blogging prompt where bloggers make a list of 13 things on Thursdays. The topic is for you to choose. The blog host doesn't have any official graphics to display on the Thursday 13 posts, so I decided to whip one up myself. 🙂   

Some things collected from around the Internet this week.

Summer Reading Challenge: Read the Rainbow

Another favorite summer reading challenge.  It is to read books in all different colors on the covers.

Red: Dream When You're Feeling Blue--Elizabeth Berg

Orange: Mad Honey--Jodi Picoult

Yellow: Sinister Sprinkles--Jessica Beck

Green: Two Peas in a Pod--Sarah Mlynowski

Blue: Fired Up--Jayne Ann Krentz

Purple: Acts of Violet--Margarita Montimore

Black: Beautiful Creatures--Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

White: Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind--Shunryu Suzuki

Challenge completed on July 29

May Bookish Bingo

 Here is the new card for May. 

My Books:

1. Collection of Stories & Poems--Edgar Allan Poe (5 squares): Audiobook, Beard, Suspense, Premonition, Bad Weather
2. Rider of Last Creek--Louis L'Amour (7 squares): Library Book, Physical Book, In a Series, Unusual Mode of Transport, Origin Story, Escape, Sunrise/Sunset
3. Tricks--Ellen Hopkins (5 squares): E-Book, Not a New Release, Book Club Read, Free Space, Mother/Grandmother
4. Beautiful Creatures--Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl (1 square): Multiple Authors
5. Serendipity--Fern Michaels (2 squares): Flowers on the Cover, Not in a Series
6. How to Not Fall Apart--Maggy Van Eijk (1 square): Free Book
7. Dream When You're Feeling Blue--Elizabeth Berg (1 square): Shelf Love
8. The Wednesday Sisters--Meg Waite Clayton (1 square): Specific Day of the Week

23 squares completed on May 29

A to Z Blogging 2025 Reflections

 

Another A to Z Blogging event has come and gone and now it's time for reflections posts. It begins tomorrow, but I'm posting mine today. 

As always, it was fun reading and commenting on other participants' blogs, and seeing others comment on my posts. Some of the blogs I looked at the most this year were the following:

Laws of Gravity (which I already read regularly) was one of those who went with random blogging, fitting the letter of the day.

Mainely Write had a theme of poetry with watercolor paintings. I learned a lot of new poetry forms from this.

Balancing Act had the theme of "Songs of My Heart." Two songs she picked were the same as mine (this one wouldn't allow me to comment on the posts, however). 

Tossing It Out had alliterative titles for each letter of the day.

The Sound of One Hand Typing was another who chose random blogging, the post fitting the letter of the day.

Postcards From the Bookstore allowed readers to pick the word of the day for each of the letters. 

Penwasser Place had a history theme.

Multicolored Diary did women's epics. 

And there are just too many others to mention!

Any blogs I missed, I hope to visit during the Road Trip that begins next week. I also plan to revisit some of the ones I read last month. 

As for my theme of Novelty Songs, I got a lot of comments. There were people who knew the songs listed, and some, like me, to whom the songs were new. It was fun finding new songs during my A to Z preparations last month. I wrote and scheduled all my posts in March so I could have a little more time to visit other participants' blogs. 

I really liked the graphics for this year. The host blog already has a preview of the graphics for 2026. I hope to decide on a theme early next year and get my posts done ahead of time as I did this year. Schedule-posting works great for an event like this.