Blog and online fiction recommendations for high schoolers?

[jenett]

So, I'm working on a series of booklists to encourage students to read and explore cool stuff over break. I'm trying to figure out which things to suggest online - they should be of interest to high school students and not likely to either overwhelm them or make their parents desperately unhappy.

Fiction already on my list:
- Shadow Unit
- The Girl who Circumnavigated Fairyland In a Ship of Her Own Making

Comics:
- Girl Genius
- Gunnerkrigg Court
- Leanne's Autumnside and Winterside ;)

Most of my reading tends toward the more-geeky side of the spectrum, and I'd like a wider variety.

Anyone got suggestions? General content blogs, blogs about books, etc. are particularly welcome.

(Also, in work-preening, I have just managed to get one of our sophmores hooked on papersky's books. Go us! (Jo for writing them, student for having taste, and me for putting them together, or something.))

Comments

[aedifica]

Still on the geeky side of the spectrum: Narbonic, a webcomic about a mad scientist biologist and her gun-toting henchwoman and computer-expert lackey. It can be read in its original form (where you can go straight through the entire storyline and not have to wait, because it's already complete) here or the ongoing Director's Cut (one strip a day, now with Shaenon's commentary) here.

[jenett]

And of course, I am now partway through the archives. Figures, in a good way :)

[syzygis]

For non-geeky blogs, Cakewrecks is always good for a laugh, and frequently has useful grammar lessons. :)

If you have any students who are interested in Arthurian legends, I've found that Gerald Morris's Squire's Tales series is well done, humorous, and doesn't leave me muttering nasty things, which is rare for tales of Camelot.

Another webcomic (although, granted, both geeky and occasionally on the adult side -- you'd need to check its appropriateness before listing it) would be xkcd.

[skolem-hull.livejournal.com]

Anything by Cory Doctorow. I don't know if it matters that he's fairly political ('Free Culture'/'open source' movement), but that's why everything he's written is available online.

And it's kind of neat that his father is E.L. Doctorow, who may be familiar from the realm of more 'literary' fiction.

I dunno about appropriateness, but I made a list of a few feminist blogs here: http://skolem-hull.livejournal.com/60079.html.

[woodwitch.livejournal.com]

I'd recommend mine, but it's probably got way too much porn for high schoolers. :D

[jenett]

Regrettably, yes. Or at least for their parents. (I don't mind stretching their limits, but there's some that pushing past is probably not sensible.)

[woodwitch.livejournal.com]

*sigh* I just can't imagine what parent would object to hot boy on boy action.

[jenett]

Though, as work is a constant surprise, I *did* just get asked about resources on male prostitution in Victorian England or France.

(There are reasons I love my job.)

[woodwitch.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's...a niche.

[jenett]

Yeah. (European history class project about what kind of research would be needed to make a movie dealing wiht various topics, apparently.)

[whiskeychick.livejournal.com]

Shadow Unit would have been my suggestion. So good going.

[leanne-opaskar.livejournal.com]

Aww, you're sweet! Thank you! <3

In the comics arena, I wholeheartedly recommend Digger in the geek venue, and Planet Karen (very slow to update but the backlog is terrific) and Ozy and Millie (now completed) in the less-geeky venue.

Not sure what kind of general content blogs you're looking for. I read a lot of crafting and cooking blogs ...

[jenett]

I'm not sure what I'm looking for either, which is part of the problem. General commentary stuff, interesting bits and pieces.

[autumnesquirrel.livejournal.com]

Things that might be appropriate:
Evil Diva - Not finished, but has enough of a backlog to be interesting. Pink.
Digger
Roza - A couple chapters are finished, the story is ongoing.
Haunted - Not finished, but about some high school friends, and fun so far.
Demonology 101 - This one is finished, and about someone just starting high school. Granted, that someone is a demon, but you don't know that at first.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

-www.guysread.com has book recs specifically for boys
-www.tor.com
-www.scalzi.com/whatever
-www.bartleby.com is great for searching out quotes and browsing ye classics
-www.librarything.com is fun for tracking & tagging your books, and finding similar stuff
-http://www.pepysdiary.com/ is Pepys in blog format

[keshwyn]

http://www.talesfromthesecuremarket.com/

zombie_dog writes good stuff. He could do with an editor in some places - but for self-published, it's very, very good. And it is in fact complete.

There is violence (gunfire, magic, some death, some gore) but beyond that, the language is no worse than one sees on TV, and it's about people helping each other out.

[ardaniel]

...damn, everything I want to rec is either offline or primarily offline (Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener's Atomic Robo has some issues online, but not enough to be substantive).

[maribou]

This might be too obvious, but John Green (a really good YA novelist) and his brother Hank have a Youtube channel vlogbrothers that has a HYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOJ teen following. (Though, kinda geeky. But, geeks cooler than I was in high school...)

He also has done some metafictional stuff online, but I don't know links for that.

http://www.youtube.com/user/vlogbrothers

They talk about books and other very-contenty-stuff (science, politics, the environment) inbetween all the craziness and community-building.

I have about 30 blogs in my "fav book blogs" bookmarks folder, and would be happy to send you links for all of them if you *want* (annotated, even!), but here are 3 I think are very teen-friendly:

1) bookshelvesofdoom.blogs.com - this is a YA librarian writing mostly about YA books in a very funny and straightforward voice. And she reads VERY widely, lots of mainstream YA, not just the geek-love stuff. I think the Book Highlights of 2009 - http://bookshelvesofdoom.blogs.com/bookshelves_of_doom/2010/01/my-literary-highlights-of-2009.html - links to enough of her reviews to give you a very good idea of her voice. Also she has a lot of links to funny videos, trailers for teen movies, etc.... It may just be my favorite blog-of-someone-I-don't-know on the entire internet.

2) http://www.thingsmeanalot.com/ - this is pretty intellectual but I don't think it comes off as aloof. The books themselves aren't super-intellectual (To Say Nothing of the Dog, The Blue Castle, Mules and Men, Ella Minnow Pea), just the reviewer is superbrilliant. But she really thinks deeply and writes compellingly but accessibly about what she reads. If someone had presented me with this blog at the age of 17 I would have fallen for the WWW even harder than I did. For the lit-geek kids maybe?

3) http://www.citizenreader.com/citizen/ - Citizen Reader mostly reads nonfiction and her reviews are funny and incisive, mostly fairly short with clean sharp sentences. If you have kids looking for NF options, this blog would be GREAT!

[maribou]

Not sure this won't freak out the parents, but I've recently started reading The Lesbrary - all the reviews are of lesbian or other queer-girl-themed books: http://lesbrary.wordpress.com/about/ and I really like it!!


Also if you want to see an example of vlogbrothers book-related cleverness (albeit one that does not feature THEM in their charming goofiness):
http://www.youtube.com/user/vlogbrothers#p/u/7/AbprAKGAg8U

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Go you!

[jenett]

I thought you'd approve :) I started her with Tooth and Claw, and she has now gone off with the King's Name. (Our copy of Farthing is out.)