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On October 24, Kate, a hard-working attorney and single mother, is called away in the middle of a crucial meeting to pick up her 15 year-old daughter at her fancy private school in Brooklyn. Amelia has been suspended for plagiarizing an English paper. When Kate arrives at Grace Hall she learns that Amelia has jumped from the roof, committing suicide. Adult Books 4 Teens blogger Angela Carstensen recently talked with debut author Kimberly McCreight about her debut novel, Reconstructing Amelia.
On Saturday, February 23, 2013, Oakville (ON) Public Library held the Real Life University & College Fair, the fourth of its kind since 2010. As I told one of my colleagues, “I love my job because of events like this and all the amazing young adults with whom I get to work!” I know that many of you share this very sentiment, too.
Fred Smith, a junior at Vidor (TX) High School, needed to find something written by an author after 1960 for the Oral Interpretation portion of a prose and poetry competition. He found Francesco Marciuliano’s I Could Pee on This, and Other Poems by Cats (Chronicle Books, August 2012) fit the bill. Smith’s drama teacher, Adam Conrad, reports that his student recently placed first at the District 20 AAAA level Oral Interpretation contest and has advanced to the Regional level that will be held April 20, 2013 at Sam Houston State University, as part of the Texas UIL (University Interscholastic League) Prose and Poetry Competition.
For readers seeking a thrill of adventure from the safety of the nearest comfortable chair, the following new books are just the ticket. From historical intrigue to high stakes suspense, eager and reluctant readers alike will be drawn into these stories.
Teens from the Patrick F. Taylor Science and Technology Academy review new entries from YA author standbys Sarah Dessen and Frances Lia Block, and Aussie writer Jaclyn Moriarty’s quirky new novel.
Though I’m surrounded by Walking Dead fans, I’d have never imagined a soundtrack—guess I was wrong! This might be just the thing to listen to while taking part in Run For Your Lives, a zombie-infested 5K obstacle course race that’s going nationwide. Spring training has wrapped up and the baseball season has begun, so there’s no better time to break out MLB 13: The Show, which sports many new features. Ready for some classic gaming? Sounds like Sly Cooper, Thieves in Time has all the moves for a satisfying experience.
The Street Lit Book Award Medal (SLBAM) Committee has announced its 2012 young adult winners. On the flip sideWinners and honorees are based on the titles’ popularity as determined by readers in school, public, and academic libraries. And the winner is… On the Flip Side, A Fab Life Novel (Kensington KTeen) by Nikki Carter.
Amulet Books, an imprint of Abrams, is thrilled to offer readers a free ARC to introduce two of its spring debut titles, Bruised and In the Shadow of Blackbirds, and to welcome back Laura Lee Gulledge to its list. Gulledge is the author of Page by Paige, which received a starred review from SLJ. “Gulledge is a master of both words and images,” wrote SLJ’s reviewer. She brilliantly portrays poignant emotions.”
It’s spring! Just like the narrator says in the 1947 educational film Body Care and Grooming, “Ah, spring. When birds are on the wing, when flowers bloom… Spring, when a young man’s fancy likely turns to….”—Author unknown. The answer has to be testing! High-stakes testing! Advanced Placement testing! American College Testing or even the SAT! Students feel pressured to work hard to prove themselves in this world of achievement.
This sci-fi thriller from Universal Pictures opens in theaters on April 19, 2013. Based on a yet-to-be-published graphic novel (Radical Publishing) by movie director/writer Joseph Kosinki, Oblivion (PG-13) is set 60 years after Earth is attacked by alien invaders. The entire human population has been relocated, and Jack Harper (Tom Cruise), a drone repairmen and part of a large-scale venture to extract vital resources, is one of the few remaining individuals stationed on a planet left in ruins. Update your collections with a selection of novels that prophesize an often earth-shattering (sometimes literally), tantalizingly thought-provoking, and always page-turning future for our planet and humankind.
In support of New York Times best-selling author Laurie Halse Anderson’s classic young adult novel, Speak, its publisher, Macmillan, is teaming up with RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) to raise funds for programs to end sexual violence. The campaign, nicknamed #Speak4RAINN, will be launched on April 2 (coinciding with the National Sexual Assault and Awareness Day of Action) and will run through April, which is Sexual Assault Awareness Month.
Youth Services of Tulsa, OK, has announced the addition of Tulsa City-County Library’s branches as official Safe Place sites for teens. Safe Place provides runaways and other youth in a crisis a safe place in their own neighborhoods, where they can seek help with issues like abuse, serious family conflicts, and other dangers.
Chelsea Clinton and a group of teens that included a blind pianist, a citizen scientist, and a social media strategist gathered at the Scholastic global world headquarters in New York City on March 16 for the fourth annual TEDxTeen event. This year’s theme “The Audacity of whY” focused on the power of Generation Y.
“March Madness” has taken on a secondary meaning in rural Pollok, TX, where 423 high school students have been closely watching, rooting for, and predicting the winners of a unique elimination contest this month—not basketball, but books. Under the direction of Donna Steel Cook, district library director and high school teacher-librarian, Pollok’s Central High School has incorporated our fifth annual Battle of the Kids’ Books contest into an engaging program to support reading.
Girls Write Now, a nonprofit organization that mentors budding female writers, opened its CHAPTERS Reading series with Sesame Street’s ‘Maria’ and YA author Sonia Manzano as the first guest speaker. The ongoing 4-part event will showcase the works of teen girls from all over NYC, and will feature female authors like Gayle Forman, Adele Griffin, and Marcia Ann Gillespie.
Alyssa Victoria Gardner is a 16-year-old skateboarder, artist, devoted child, and the great-great-great granddaughter of Alice Liddell, the inspiration for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, written by Lewis Carroll in 1865. Her mother, Alison, has spent the last decade in Soul’s Asylum, where she eats only food served in teacups and spends her time talking to flowers and insects. Alyssa also hears insects talking, but has not told anyone—since she doesn’t want to follow the same path as her mother. After a visit to Soul’s Asylum that’s particularly disturbing, Alyssa starts to put disparate clues together and realizes that the only way to save her mother and her own sanity is to find the rabbit hole and put Wonderland back together again. In Splintered, which SLJTeen calls “satisfyingly sensual, delightfully dark, and absolutely riveting,” YA debut author A.G. Howard puts a modern-day twist on Carroll’s classic.
What’s your survival plan? In Orleans, Sherri Smith has created a rich and complex world of the future where New Orleans and much of the Delta region are cut off from the United States to prevent the spread of a deadly virus. A new, primitive society emerges, divided by tribes based on blood types. Fifteen-year-old Fen de la Guerre—fierce, tender, and a survivalist—is left to fend for herself and an infant after her O-positive tribe is ambushed. Her journey, which Kirkuscalls “a harrowing and memorable ride,” is one you won’t soon forget.
Opening Day of Loudon County Library’s newest facility, Gum Spring Library, has come and gone. More than 6,500 people checked out 14,000 materials in just under five and a half hours, and we issued over 1,100 library cards. And those are just the tangible statistics! Teens finally found a place in their community to call their own! Caretakers can now stop driving 25 minutes to the nearest storytime! An entire region of northern Virginia learned what it feels like to have free resources available to them in their own backyard. The looks of amazement and happiness that I saw on Opening Day filled me with amazement and happiness. The Gum Spring Library has arrived, and we’re open for business!
Nobody’s Secret, the latest offering from Michaela MacColl, continues to get rave reviews. School Library Journal’s reviewer says, “The fast-moving plot makes this a well-crafted page-turner. The dialogue rings true, both to the historical time and to the chronological ages and social status of the characters.” And SLJTeen’s reviewer agrees. M.G. Higgins’s Bi-Normal is going on my to-read list. I just finished listening to David Levithan and John Green’s Will Grayson, Will Grayson, and I’m wondering what advice their openly gay jock Tiny Cooper would give Higgins’s protagonist, Brett Miller.
After surveying the kids in my facility, I created the following system to rate the books that they’re reading: one star = Wack, two stars = Bootsy, three stars = Koo, four stars = Clean, and five stars = That book Go! A book that’s “clean” is “real.” A book that “goes” has action. For my readers, a book is ideally both action-packed and real. What makes a book either or both? As usual, it’s not that straightforward, but here’s one attempt to decipher the question.
