Cory Doctorow – Mom Read It

A monster slayer never sleeps! Poesy the Monster Slayer

Posted on July 31, 2020July 30, 2020 by Rosemary Kiladitis

Poesy the Monster Slayer, by Cory Doctorow/Illustrated by Matt Rockefeller, (July 2020, First Second), $18.99, ISBN: 9781626723627

Ages 4-6

Cory Doctorow always knows how to make me smile, whether he’s writing about gamer uprisings (Little Brother) or unionizing MMORPG gold farmers (In Real Life). His newest book, Poesy the Monster Slayer, is an illustrated picture book about a little girl who’s got to contend with her parents giving her a bedtime when she’s got far bigger things to worry about: monsters. Dad reads her trusty book on monsters to her every night, so Poesy is prepared and waiting when the slew of monsters arrive throughout the evening: werewolves, Great Old Ones, vampires, even Frankenstein’s monster all face off against Poesy’s skills, and she deftly navigates dispatching the monsters with carefully selected toys in her room while putting up with her parents’ constant interruptions as they tell her to go to bed.

Illustrated in comic book style, with panels and word bubbles, Poesy is a fun story about a smart little girl taking on bedtime and those irksome bedtime monsters. Shades of black, purple, and blue set a nighttime feel for the story, and the monsters are comically menacing, meeting their defeats at the hands of Poesy and her room full of carefully selected toys. Parents will love the relatability of trying to get one’s little one to stay in bed: I know I feel like I log more steps in the hours from 9-12pm than I do most of the day!

Absolute fun for storytime; keep this one handy for bedtime, too – just don’t blame me if your little ones add fighting Great Old Ones to their list of nighttime activities!

Fantasy

My Eventbrite-Inspired Dream Author Panel

Posted on April 21, 2017April 21, 2017 by Rosemary Kiladitis

Do you guys know Eventbrite? It’s a self-service ticketing platform where you can find people and plan events all over the world. I register for my Urban Librarians Unite events through Eventbrite all the time; in the world that helps people find and plan events. Anyway, Eventbrite asked me to come up with a dream author panel – how do I do that? It’s like selecting a favorite book (or 5), THERE ARE SO MANY.

If you know me, you know that Neil Gaiman is the constant. The given. Always, just like Snape. So I had to build the panel around Neil. I had Tolkien and CS Lewis – hey, it’s my dream panel, they can Skype in from the afterlife. I considered Gail Carriger and Cherie Priest. I drove myself crazy until I settled on a group of authors whose works I love and who all gel together pretty well, with a moderator that would take this panel from awesome to incredible. I give you: The Dream Panel.

Wil Wheaton narrates and is included in Ready Player One, and he’s a sci-fi/fantasy fan who is witty, asks thoughtful questions, and is hilarious, making him a perfect moderator for this bunch.

So now that I’ve pulled this group together, I think one of the main themes of the discussion could be setting fantasy in a realistic setting. I’m awful at coming up with questions, but a few I managed to wrack my brain to come up with include:

We have new gods: namely, gods of entertainment and technology, in Gaiman’s American Gods. How do these new gods figure in your (Doctorow, Neuvel, Cline) worlds? Could they find a place in these worlds?
Can you envision your novels taking place in the same universe at the same time? What would Cory Doctorow’s Homeland Security do, or the Nameless Man from Waking Gods, if the Armada spaceships invaded one morning? Sylvain, would they get Themis up and running in time?
What inspires you to base your writing in the near-future or present?
Your books all seem to be so well-researched. Do you outline what you’re writing about and research as you go, or do you prepare beforehand? (It’s the librarian in me, I need to know!)

Who’s on your dream panel? I’d love to hear! And I’d love to hear how you create your own interview questions, because I want to get better at this!

Thanks again to Eventbrite for the inspiration for this post; now I want to plan another one, maybe even branch out into favorite characters. In the meantime, you can search for book conferences in your area by going to Eventbrite’s website; signing up is free!

Fantasy, geek culture, Graphic Novels, roleplaying, Science Fiction, Teen, Tween Reads, Uncategorized

In Real Life: Where online worlds cross over to reality.

Posted on July 2, 2014July 2, 2014 by Rosemary Kiladitis

In Real Life, by Cory Doctorow/Illustrated by Jen Wang (:01 First Second, Oct. 2014). $17.99, ISBN: 9781596436589

Recommended for ages 13+

I’m a Cory Doctorow fan. I loved Little Brother, and I was fascinated by For the Win, which examines the lives of “gold farmers” – people whose job it is – in real life – to acquire gold and magic/rare items in games, and sell them to players for real-world currency. The gamers – which include children – are from poor families in third-world countries: India, China, and Singapore, working in deplorable conditions, and exploited by sweatshop bosses who pay pitiful wages.

In Real Life is a graphic novel about a girl named Anda, who loves playing a MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) named Coarsegold. She makes friends in the gamespace, ultimately falling in with Lucy, a more experienced gamer who takes Anda under her wing. They stalk and “kill” the “gold farmers” they encounter, believing them to be cheating by selling gold and rare items to fellow gamers. The farmers look small, almost childlike, and Anda – despite doing this in the gamespace – feels guilty. She strikes up a friendship with one of the farmers, a Chinese teenager named Raymond, who tells her about his life and his job – laboring under sweatshop conditions to farm so that he can help support his family – and Anda decides that something needs to be done.

The story is similar to Doctorow’s plot in For the Win, but without delving into the global politics and economics involved in the novel. I loved this graphic novel, which could be an introduction or supplement to For the Win. We get to see positive representations of female gamers, teenagers, and we have a moral central character who is forced to understand that even morals don’t come solely in black and white. At the same time, In Real Life calls attention to a form of human rights violation taking place all over the world, yet located in our homes, our libraries, and anywhere we game.

Jen Wang’s art is perfect for Doctorow’s story. She’s got a manga style that works for me. Her use of color works to as a soft contrast to the tech storyline, and brings out the humanity at the tale’s core.

In Real Life publishes in October of this year, and I can’t wait to get it on my shelves. It’s going to be a great addition to any graphic novel collection, and a must-read for older tweens and teens, especially those who game. Social Studies courses could get some great discussions by adding this book to their curriculum.