Bringing YA to the LOU!

Have you ever wished that a big YA book tour would make a stop in your hometown? Well, here's your chance for that wish to come true! YA2U is a program that features five award-winning and best-selling authors who are holding a contest to see what city they should visit in an exclusive tour stop!

The authors are collecting votes from January 1 to February 15, and any city in the continental US or any Canadian city that has an international airport can win an exclusive visit from all five authors, including an author panel and book signing! Entering is super easy--and if you help spread the word about the contest, you can also enter win a signed copy of all of their books (TEN signed books in total!)--and the book contest is open internationally!

The authors in the program are:

• Marie Lu, the New York Times best-selling author of Legend and the upcoming Prodigy
• Marissa Meyer, the New York Times best-selling author of Cinder and the upcoming Scarlet
• Beth Revis, the New York Times best-selling author of Across the Universe, A Million Suns, and the upcoming Shades of Earth
• Victoria Schwab, author of The Near Witch and the highly-anticipated upcoming The Archived
• Megan Shepherd, author of the debut novel The Madman's Daughter

And they want to have an event in your home town! To participate, just got to the YA2U website and let them know what city you want them to come to. And while you're there, help spread the word about the contest and you can be entered to win all of their books--TEN signed books in total! 

Here's why the YA2U Team should come to the Lou! 

St. Louis is an awesome mecca of YA. Not only is St. Louis home to such awesome YA authors as Heather Brewer, Antony John, Cole Gibsen, and Fiona Paul but we are also home to some of the best local bookstores and libraries both in the county and the newly reopened city library. We also hosted the awesome YALSA YA lit symposium back in November, which brought even more YA amazingness (quiet that is totally a word!) to St. Louis.

And if that's not enough book awesomeness then consider voting for St. Louis for it's amazing attractions, many of which are free. Play with the animals at the St. Louis Zoo, feed the goats at Grant's Farm, or climb the giant jungle gym and whip down the ten-story slide at the City Museum. Speaking of museums, there's the Art Museum, the History Museum, and even a Transportation Museum. And if you are a geek like me you will love the Science Center with is giant Omnimax Theater. We even make our own root beer!

But really what it all boils down to is, no other city can boast that they have a giant magnet. It doesn't get any better than that.

So go vote for St. Louis and bring these amazing authors here!

Why should the YA2U Team come to your hometown? Why not join in the fun today and share with others about this program and your hometown. The more votes your town gets, the closer you are to having your very own personal tour stop! Vote for YOUR town here!

And if you help spread the word, you can also participate in the book giveaway. Tell them that you learned about YA2U from me and we both get extra entries in the contest! 

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Why I Love YA Books

 
It's no secret that I'm an adult who reads YA (young adult fiction). However, I don't often talk about why I almost exclusively shop for my reading material in the YA (and MG) section of the bookstore. There is something special about young adult books today. I think in part, my love stems from the fact that when I was young I loved to read. However, I could never find those action adventure, fantasy and sci fi books that you see all over the YA shelves today.

In fact YA didn't technically exist as an official genre when I was a growing up. Were there children's books? Of course, but there was nothing specifically designated between children's chapter books and adult reading. And guess what happened when I hit my teen years? I almost entirely stopped reading. I could make excuses and say homework, friends, extracurricular activities, etc. all got in the way, but the honest truth is I couldn't find a single book I wanted to read. Adult books were too far above my reading level and there were very few children's books I wanted to read (R.L. Stine being a huge exception). The fact that I wasted so many of my valuable teen years not reading, to this day makes me so unbelievably sad.

In High School, I took a Science Fiction English class. This was probably the single best class choice I ever made. In that class we read a little known (or big known) book called Ender's Game. And while YA was by and large an unheard of genre, and Ender's Game was technically classified as adult science fiction, today you will also find it in the YA section because at its heart Ender's Game is a Young Adult book. This book, my absolute all time favorite, made me fall in love with reading all over again. I hungered for more stories about Ender and I read every single one available. At the time there was the back three trilogy, and a brand new debut parallel novel Ender's Shadow centered about Bean. And then nothing. I waited for sequels to the Bean series but again, I'd run out of books.

Lucky for me, within two years a movie titled Harry Potter came out. This movie led me to all the wonderful things in the world Harry Potter, and once again I found a series of books I couldn't stop reading. From Harry Potter, I soon discovered a whole world of other readers who were reading Young Adult books. This is when I discovered that YA was a thing and there was not only one book, but shelves of them, an entire section in the bookstore in fact, of things I wanted to read. They were books that excited me about the possibilities of what if and books that allowed me to escape into gorgeous and adventure filled lands.

If it was not for Young Adult books I wouldn't read today, at all. Reading is an escape for me. I while away many hours with my nose in all the wonderful YA books. There are so many in fact that I can't keep up. And in reading so much, I've discovered another piece of myself that I never expected to find. The more I read, the more ideas started forming. Until one day they burst out of me onto the page. I became a writer. For a little over two years now, in addition to reading YA, I have spent countless hours pouring words onto the page writing my own YA and MG science fiction. A talent and joy I never would have discovered without YA books. Writing is a part of me I never knew was missing. Had I never picked up YA books to start, I wouldn't be where I am today. For that I am eternally grateful. And that is why I love YA books.

So if you've never read a YA book, I highly recommend the next time you are in a bookstore wander over to that section. The covers are beautiful. The stories are inviting and fantastic. I dare you not to find one book that interests you there. There is literally something for everyone. Pick up a book and start your adventure. Who knows what you might find about yourself inside that YA book.

This post was inspired by Beth Revis Celebrate Books Contest where you can win a signed library of 50 YA books. Be sure to check it out!