This fake trailer for YA phenomenon The Group Hopper from SNL drags some of my favorite (Hunger Games) and least favorite (Maze Runner) dystopian YA novels/films, and I am. Here. For. It.
Also, Bill Hader’s in it.
“From the director of Maze Runner, the producer of Divergent, and a casual fan of The Giver, adapted from a YA novel written entirely in the comments section of a Hunger Games trailer, meet: The Group Hopper. Put him in a group, and he’ll hop his ass right out.“
Olivia Gatwood is one of my favorite contemporary poets. I love her perspective, choice of subject matter, and that her poems are just as strong on paper as they are performed.
Spoken word poetry kind of gets a bad rap in the mainstream, but if you’ve never seen good spoken word before, this is what it looks like.
Excerpt from the poem in the video and her collection Life of the Party:
When I Say That We Are All Teen Girls
What is more teen girl than not being
loved but wanting it so badly
that you accept the smallest crumb and call
yourself full; what is more teen girl than
my father’s favorite wrench, its eternal loyalty
and willingness to loosen the most stubborn of bolts;
what is more teen girl than my mother’s chewed
nail beds, than the whine of the floorboards in her
house?
If you’ve ever wondered why some books get put on higher pedestals than others for seemingly no reason other than the fact that your teachers and professors told you they were important, crack an egg of knowledge on yourself with this video from PBS’s “It’s Lit!” series.
TL;DW: “So, who decided what’s important in the Western literary canon? Well, historically it’s been … old white men.
… But our day-to-day lives and our understanding of people outside of our own limited worldview has changed, and with that, so too have the types of voices that now get published and elevated.”
This is one of many great videos from the PBS “It’s Lit!” series on YouTube. They’re hosted by of one my favorite YouTubers, Lindsay Ellis, who also has a ton of killer content on her personal channel about film, television, books, and musicals.
That Book Broad 