Dec 12, 2011

Each week I will highlight one of the new books that we have received this year.
These books are available for checkout from our library.

This week’s book is titled:
Guardian of the Dead
by Karen Healey

Eighteen-year-old New Zealand boarding school student Ellie Spencer must use her rusty tae kwon do skills and new-found magic to try to stop a fairy-like race of creatures from Maori myth and legend that is plotting to kill millions of humans in order to regain their lost immortality.

From the author’s website: http://www.karenhealey.com/books/guardian-of-the-dead/

“In less than a day I had been harassed, enchanted, shouted at, cried on, and clawed. I’d been cold, scared, dirty, exhausted, hungry, and miserable. And up until now, I’d been mildly impressed with my ability to cope.

At her boarding school in New Zealand, Ellie Spencer is like any ordinary teen: she hangs out with her best friend, Kevin; obsesses over her crush on a mysterious boy; and her biggest worry is her paper deadline. Then everything changes: In the foggy woods near the school, something ancient and deadly is waiting.
Debut author Karen Healey introduces a savvy and spirited heroine with a strong, fresh voice. Full of deliciously creepy details, this unique, incredible adventure is a deftly crafted story of Māori mythology, romance, betrayal, and war.”

Dec 5, 2011

Each week I will highlight one of the new books that we have received this year.
These books are available for checkout from our library.

This week’s book is titled:
How I Stole Johnny Depp’s Alien Girlfriend
by Gary Ghislain

Fourteen-year-old David, the son of a famous French psychologist, falls in love with Zelda, a new patient who believes she is from outer space, and soon they are tearing through Paris in search of her chosen one, Johnny Depp, so that she can take him to her home planet, Vahalal.

Reviewed at: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9460435-how-i-stole-johnny-depp-s-alien-girlfriend

Jackie rated it 5 stars:

How I Stole Johnny Depp’s Alien Girlfriend is one of the most outrageous, laugh-out-loud books I’ve read in a long, LONG time. Think Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy meets The True Meaning of Smekday…two of my very favorite books, by the way. When David’s father, a famous therapist, is ‘fixing’ Zelda, all sorts of mayhem and mischief starts. Zelda is a wacky, one-track-minded, brutish woman, who is on Earth (from her planet Vahalal) to find her ‘chosen one’ and mate. Of course, there are no men on Vahalal, since they are dumb, worthless, smelly, and crude. Clearly, Zelda thinks, as does all of Vahalal, that men are only good for one thing.

When Zelda is on a murderous trek to find Johnny Depp (Zelda’s chosen one) and transfer her green key tattoo to him (in order to re-enter Vahalal), David is smitten and enlists help from his step-sister, Malou. Together, the three of them, escape authority figures, encounter some maverick Vahalalian rebels called Valks, and generally cause an uproar throughout France with side-splitting humorous escapades that will have the reader wondering just how far these alien women will go.

This is one of the best books I’ve read this year! Kudos to Gary Ghislain, on his debut YA novel. I hope, hope, hope he is planning to write more.

Nov 28, 2011

These books are available for checkout from our library.

This week’s book is titled:
Brain Jack
by Brian Faulkner

In a near-future New York City, fourteen-year-old computer genius Sam Wilson manages to hack into the AT&T network and sets off a chain of events that have a profound effect on human activity throughout the world.

Reviewed at: http://www.yareads.com/brain-jack-%E2%80%93-brian-falkner/book-reviews/2187

“Brain Jack by Brian Falkner is a fast moving action thriller that kept me turning page after page, wondering what is going to happen next. When I started reading, and I found that Brain Jack was based in cyberspace, I was worried that it would become too technical, that I wouldn’t understand the language being used, but quite like his previous novel Falkner provides a way that you don’t need to be a tech-savvy person to understand and enjoy the novel. The feeling of being in over your head only enhances the understanding of the stakes the characters would be going through. The development of Sam from a teenager who believes he can do anything into a person who understands the implications of what one single action will have on the world is believable and engaging from start to finish.
A good read with a fast plot and an action thriller for all ages.”
Katie

Nov 14, 2011

This week’s book is titled:
Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares
by Rachel Cohn

Told in the alternating voices of Dash and Lily, two sixteen-year-olds carry on a wintry scavenger hunt at Christmas-time in New York, neither knowing quite what–or who–they will find.

From http://www.teenreads.com/reviews/dash-lilys-book-of-dares

Rachel Cohn and David Levithan’s first collaborative young adult novel, NICK & NORAH’S INFINITE PLAYLIST, gained huge visibility when it was turned into a popular movie starring Michael Cera and
Kat Dennings. The film, with its unconventional, music-laden New York City whirlwind romance, was undoubtedly good. But those who read the original book were treated to something even more special
— the chance to witness a literary collaboration unfolding on the page. Cohn wrote Norah’s chapters; Levithan penned Nick’s. With no planning or discussion in between, the two sent each other story installments one chapter at a time, with no idea what new twists or surprising connections the other would impose or uncover. For avid readers, especially aspiring writers, the novel is a delightful glimpse into an ideal writing partnership.

Now, in DASH & LILY’S BOOK OF DARES, their third collaboration (after NAOMI AND ELY’S NO KISS LIST), Cohn and Levithan become more self-reflective, as — even within the context of a truly delightful love story — the two offer plenty of musings about the process of writing, communication, narrating one’s own life, and even the people within it.

Nov 7, 2011

This week’s book is titled:
You
by Charles Benoit

Fifteen-year-old Kyle discovers the shattering ramifications of the decisions he makes, and does not make, about school, the girl he likes, and his future.

Reviewed at http://www.harperteen.com/books/You-Charles-Benoit/?isbn=9780061947049

This wasn’t the way it was supposed to go.
You’re just a typical fifteen-year-old sophomore, an average guy named Kyle Chase. This can’t be happening to you. But then, how do you explain all the blood? How do you explain how you got here in the first place?
There had to have been signs, had to have been some clues it was coming. Did you miss them, or ignore them? Maybe if you can figure out where it all went wrong, you can still make it right. Or is it already too late? Think fast, Kyle. Time’s running out. How did this happen?
You is the riveting story of fifteen-year-old Kyle and the small choices he does and doesn’t make that lead to his own destruction.
In his stunning young-adult debut, Charles Benoit mixes riveting tension with an insightful—and unsettling—portrait of an ordinary teen in a tale that is taut, powerful, and shattering.

Advance praise for You:

“You is authentic, ambitious, and gripping. A serious book that reads like a suspense novel, the story it tells—of the ways in which we become imprisoned by our own choices, big and small—is both frightening and frighteningly real.”
—Lauren Oliver, New York Times bestselling author of Before I Fall

“Charles Benoit has written a shattering, gut-wrenching novel that puts You right in the center of the story. Pick it up and you won’t put it down!”
—Michael Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Gone

“I sat down to start this book—and didn’t get up until I’d finished it, a riveting three hours later. You is pitch-perfect: funny, real, touching, brimming with tension and foreboding—and still surprising right up to the last page. one of the best ya novels I’ve read in years.”
—Patricia McCormick, National Book Award finalist, author of Sold and Purple Heart

“A sandstorm of a novel, as harshly real as hell or high school. I loved it.”
—Robert Lipsyte, Margaret A. Edwards Award–winning author of The Contender and Center Field

“Wanna know who the real bad guys in your school are? Read You. This book will keep you reading, and then it will start you thinking. And talking. You is good stuff.”
—Chris Crutcher, Margaret A. Edwards Award–winning author of Deadline

May 23, 2011

Each week I will highlight one of the new books that we have received this year.
These books are available for checkout from our library.

This week’s book is titled:
Boneshaker
by Cherie Priest
Sixteen years after inventor Leviticus Blue was commissioned by Russian prospectors to design a drill powerful enough to break through Alaska’s ice–which destroyed a section of downtown Seattle and unearthed a toxic gas that turned people into zombies–Blue’s teenage son Ezekiel will need his mother’s help to survive when he sneaks under the wall that keeps the undead confined within the city on a secret quest to rewrite history.

Reviewed at http://boingboing.net/2009/09/29/boneshaker-cherie-pr.html:
Cherie Priest’s zombie steampunk mad-science dungeon crawl family adventure novel Boneshaker is everything you’d want in such a volume and much more.
Boneshaker is the story of the Wilkes/Blue family, a storied Seattle clan whose three generations unmade and remade the city through a series of scientific and martial adventures that are recounted with great relish and verve. First, there’s Leviticus Blue, an arrogant mad scientist who developed a great tunnelling machine (part of a Russian-sponsored competition to improve Alaskan gold-mining) and undermined the city of Seattle, releasing the Blight, a poisonous gas that causes the dead to rise, and to hunger for the flesh of the living. Then, Maynard Wilkes, a prison guard in Seattle, committed an act of great mercy and bravery by releasing the prisoners in his care before they could be blighted, losing his life in the process, and becoming a hero to those left behind the walled-off city of Seattle, and a pariah to the settlers in the Outskirts beyond the wall. Then there’s Briar Wilkes, the widow of Leviticus and the daughter of Maynard, who is scraping by in the Outskirts, trying to outrun her reputation but unable to, and unable to escape Seattle because of the great Civil War that is eating America with martial trains and dirigibles and great armies. Finally, there’s Ezekiel Wilkes, the son of Briar and Leviticus, who has snuck back into the walled city, wearing an antiquated Blight-mask, to discover the truth about his father.
And that’s where the action kicks off, with son and mother chasing one another through the Blighted city of Seattle, avoiding the zombies, befriending the Chinese laborers who run the great machines that suck clean air from beyond the wall into the sealed tunnels beneath the city, trying to escape the clutches of the evil Dr Minnericht, the self-appointed king of Seattle (who may or may not be Leviticus Blue), befriending rogue zeppelin pilots, armored giants, and steam-powered cyborg barmaids.
It’s full of buckle and has swash to spare, and the characters are likable and the prose is fun. This is a hoot from start to finish, pure mad adventure.

May 16, 2011

Each week I will highlight one of the new books that we have received this year.
These books are available for checkout from our library.

This week’s book is titled:
Perfect Cover
by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

High school sophomore Toby Klein enjoys computer hacking and wearing combat boots, so she thinks it is a joke when she is invited to join the cheerleading squad, but soon she learns cheering is just a cover for an elite group of government operatives.

Reviewed at http://www.curledupkids.com/thesquad.htm:
“The last thing Toby Klein ever wants to be compared to is a cheerleader. She’s nothing like them – they do round offs and back flips; she does roundhouses and Jujitsu. Cheerleaders like skirts and body glitter, and Toby is more of a combat boots and black pants kind of a girl. So why is she getting notes in her locker from the cheerleading squad – scribbled in purple glitter ink, no less – demanding she attend a recruiting meeting after school? When Toby, against her better judgment, goes to the meeting, she finds out that the Bayport cheerleading squad is actually made up of teenage CIA agents who do local spy-work for the government. The last girl on the squad graduated last year, and the cheerleaders think Toby would make a great addition to their squad – if only she could learn how to cheer and clap at the same time…

Perfect Cover is the first installment in Barnes’ newest series and it’s chockfull of fun. Fans of Ally Carter’s Gallagher Girls series will likely enjoy this, especially since The Squad is geared toward a slightly older audience. Toby is infinitely likeable, and readers will get caught up in her immersion into the world of cheerleader spies. Toby’s acerbic wit serves as a good foil to the perk and pep one would expect from a squad of cheerleaders. That is not to say, however, that the cheerleaders are without depth. Each girl has her own back-story and her own reasons for being a part of the squad. Readers will enjoy watching Toby learn how to not only be a cheerleader, but also how to be part of a team.”

May 9, 2011

Each week I will highlight one of the new books that we have received this year.
These books are available for checkout from our library.

This week’s book is titled:
The Eternal Smile
by Gene Luen Yang and Derek Kim

A collection of three graphic stories featuring Duncan, a charming prince hoping to win the princess’s hand; Gran’pa Greenbax, a greedy old frog who longs to find true happiness; and Janet, a busy working woman who thinks she has found true love with a Nigerian prince who contacts her through an email asking for her help in liberating his family.

Reviewed at: http://www.comicmix.com/news/2009/05/18/review-the-eternal-smile-by-gene-luen-yang-and-derek-kirk-kim/

The Eternal Smile collects Duncan’s Kingdom, along with two other stories – Gran’pa Greenbax and the Eternal Smile and Urgent Request – which seem to be new work, though the book never says that specifically. The three stories are held together only loosely by theme; they’re all about escapism and greed, in their own separate ways.

Duncan’s Kingdom is a medieval fantasy – Duncan is a young knight in the service of a king, who is killed by the agents of the (presumably evil, though the plot is so quick and straightforward that a lot of things are left as “presumably”) Frog King on the third page. The Princess declares that whatever knight can kill the Frog King and bring his head back to her will have her hand and be the next king, so Duncan sets out on the quest with his magic sword.

Gran’pa Greenbax starts off looking like a parody of Barks’s “Unca Scrooge” stories, with the characters transformed to frogs: Gran’pa Greenbax is a nastier, greedier version of Scrooge, Filbert his hapless Donald-esque minion (without even a hint of Donald’s temper), and Molly and Polly are his cute little kid-identification characters, with their own version of the Junior Woodchucks Manual. But it veers away from those expectations almost immediately, as Gran’pa’s newest scheme to make money involves what looks like a giant grin in the sky.

And then the third story, Urgent Request, is about a mousy office assistant, Janet Ho, whom no one respects at work because she’s a doormat. (The art for most of this story is in moody blue tones, with few panels scattered across the pages, to add to the depressed, isolated feeling.) But then she gets one of those Nigerian-prince scam e-mails, and gives her banking information to her “Prince Henry.”

May 2, 2011

Each week I will highlight one of the new books that we have received this year.
These books are available for checkout from our library.

This week’s book is titled:
The Glass Castle: a Memoir
by Jeannette Walls

The author recalls her life growing up in a dysfunctional family with an alcoholic father and distant mother and describes how she and her siblings had to fend for themselves until they finally found the resources and will to leave home.

From the author at http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/7139443/ns/today-books/ March 2006:
Jeannette Walls spends most of her time digging up dirt on other people’s lives. As the gossip columnist for MSNBC.com, Walls tracks down the latest rumors about Britney Spears’ marriage, Michael Jackson’s peccadilloes and the latest target on the PETA hit list.
But her road to celebrity gossip columnist was tougher than any angry call she’d ever received from an enraged publicist. In her autobiography, released this week by Scribner, Walls reveals a sad and sometimes tragic childhood that few but her closest friends knew about.
“The Glass Castle” is a no-holds barred tale of a nomadic, deprived childhood told with the hypnotic wonderment of a child who always wants to believe that Daddy will be a hero in the end and that Momma really does know best. You are enrapt reading about Walls and her siblings rifling through trash cans at school looking for food, doing the skedaddle in the middle of the night, or waiting for Dad to come home after another bender. It’s a riveting story and a testament to Walls’ indomitable desire to rise above a life that could have easily turned her into just another tragic headline.

April 25, 2011

Each week I will highlight one of the new books that we have received this year.
These books are available for checkout from our library.

This week’s book is titled:
But what if I don’t want to go to college? : A guide to success through alternative education
by Harlow G. Unger

Offers guidance on the wide-ranging opportunities in alternative and vocational education, and provides advice on homebound and part-time work, resume writing, and employment interviewing.

“there are something like 50 million jobs
out there that don’t require a bachelor’s
degree and pay upwards of $40,000 a year.”
– Harlow Unger, author of “But What If I Don’t Want to Go to
College? A Guide to Success Through Alternative Education.”

Preview this book at:
http://books.google.com/books?id=l3QprjXMYqwC&printsec=frontcover&dq=but+what+if+i+don%27t+want+to+go+to+college+by+harlow+unger&source=bl&ots=t2lo7b-8ew&sig=HljiCjTenEA0pdONFcozuVh2wgg&hl=en&ei=Qp-xTZCwNoXEsAOI-8n9Cw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false