As part of Book Blogger Appreciation Week I was lucky enough to be paired for an interview with Sarah from GreenBeanTeenQueen.
GreenBeanTeenQueen has been shortlisted for best YA blog blog at this year’s BBAW Awards and I can see why. I hadn’t visited her blog before our interview pairing, but I have added it to my reader – I love it!
Her site is packed with well written reviews and is so easy to navigate. I recommend that you go and take a look!
If you’d like to find out more about Sarah, then keep reading….
I love your blog’s name. Where did GreenBean Teen Queen come from?
GreenBeanTeenQueen is a mix up of all sorts of names! My maiden name is Bean, and I work with Teens and my library system is Springfield Greene, so everyone at work would joke around with my rhyming name. I’m also called by my manager the “teen queen” at work, so the name evolved from that.
I see that you have been blogging for just over a year now. What inspired you to start?
I started blogging because I wanted a place to store my reviews for TeensReadToo.com for myself, and also to post any reviews of books I read for fun. It’s been a great resource to have reviews to come back to when I have teens asking for books! I also have my co-workers tell me they read my blog and use it for suggestions, which is still a little weird to me!
Your blog focuses on YA fiction. Do you like to read books from any other genres?
Haha-that question made me smile. I really skipped over most of YA when I was a teen (there wasn’t much there and I never found anything I really enjoyed). I never found anything in the adult section either and stopped reading as much in college. Since I’ve re-discovered YA, it’s like I’ve come home. I’ve found the exact books I was always searching for! I love YA, but yes, sometimes I take a break for an adult book. I read mostly chick-lit in adult-I’m a sucker for romance-but I’ll try just about anything-except horror, it would give me nightmares! I also read a decent amount of tween books.
What is the best book you have read so far in 2009?
Catching Fire right now. I’ve also loved Eyes Like Stars by Lisa Mantchev, Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater, and The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams.
Working in a library must mean that you spend your whole day surrounded by books. What is the best thing about being a librarian?
The best thing about being a librarian, aside from being around books all day of course, is interacting with readers. My favorite moments are when I can talk to a patron about books they’ve read and share books I’ve read. I love sending them away with new books to read and discovering books to add to my TBR pile. Programming is fun too and I love that part, but sending a patron away with a book is always the highlight of my day.
I love YA fiction, but do you think more adults should read it? If so which books would make a great introduction for them?
I of course think adults should read more YA! People have this misconception of YA being “easy reads” and “fluff” which is so not true! On my recent trip to my master’s class institute, I would tell people I work with teens and they would say “teens have the best books!” like it’s a big secret they just discovered.
For adults wanting to start on YA, I would suggest Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, What My Mother Doesn’t Know by Sonya Sones, Looking for Alaska by John Green – there are so many others, but those are some that I think will get readers interested in reading more.
Thank you so much for answering my questions! I’m going to try to read a few of your YA suggestions soon.
Congratulations on being shortlisted for the BBAW awards! I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you!
Twitter has taken off this year and has been utilised by many bloggers, both as a way of getting to know others and as a marketing tool for their blog. I have often seen posts encouraging people to sign up to Twitter, implying that it will make you a better blogger, but I’m not sure I agree with that.
