Book excerpt: A fast-growing area in fiction for the young, genre blends allow for new possibilities and ideas, stimulating children's imaginations. This helpful guide orients readers' advisory staff, educators, and collection development librarians with a hand-picked selection of hybrid genres and novels published since 2000. It's no wonder that genre blends are some of most popular books for children and teens. When you mash up two different traditional genres, it's like doubling what makes each one pleasurable on its own. This guide, the first of its kind, will help public and school librarians, teachers, and collections staff identify genre blends for readers' advisory, curriculum development, or creating core collections. Profiling more than 200 titles, inside its pages you'll learn about six of the most in-demand genre blends for young readers, including Fantasy Mysteries, Magical Realism, Steampunk, and Verse Novels; be introduced to each genre blend's most compelling novels and contemporary authors; understand both book appeal factors (such as genre and theme) and reader-appeal factors, assisting you in matching readers with the perfect book; receive guidance on finding genre blends for children who are facing difficult circumstances, such as their parents' divorce, cliques in school, lack of popularity, poor body image, or self-blame; and find what you're looking for quickly and efficiently with the help of succinct annotations and a thorough index.