Teens

Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life is one of the most buzzed adult books of the year so far.  It has starred reviews from Booklist, Library Journal, and Publisher’s Weekly.  Outside of the library world, it’s gotten glowing reviews from Entertainment Weekly, The Guardian, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and many others.  And it [...]

Kathleen Reif, director of St. Mary’s County Library, Leonardtown, MD, is the 2013 recipient of Peggy Sullivan Award for Public Library Administrators Supporting Services to Children. The Sullivan Award, administered by the American Library Association (ALA), is presented annually to an individual in a library administrator role who has shown exceptional understanding and support of public library service to children. The award will be presented at the ALA President's Program, Sunday, June 30, at the Annual Conference in Chicago.

Today’s three reviewed novels share elements of the supernatural and magical realism. What teenager doesn’t wish for a superpower, if only to imagine themselves less under the control of the adults in their lives? In a series of connected vignettes, What the Family Needed introduces seven members of one family who grapple with special abilities. [...]

In our ongoing series about our first encounters reading adult books, reviewer Amy Cheney discusses many of her favorites as a young teen, but offers a special shout out to the power of Harlequin Romances.  For more thoughts on Romance novels, check out this fascinating article from The Atlantic, discussing the genre’s ongoing interaction with [...]

American College of Education is hosting a free massive online open course (MOOC) on digital tools for the K–12 classroom from May 6 to June 9, 2013 for educators and other professionals who want to integrate web-based tools like Animoto, Glogster, Prezi in the classroom. YALSA announced the 2013 Teens’ Top Ten nominees, and American Booksellers Association has selected the 2013 Indies Choice and E. B. White Read-Aloud Award winners.

Following Stiff, Spook, Bonk and Packing for Mars, Mary Roach is back with Gulp, in which she maintains her punning, entertaining writing style, as well as her willingness to go to the gross-out extreme. There were actually moments in this book that made me nauseous, and there is one chapter in particular that I believe [...]

Last time we discussed the many charms of Faith Erin Hicks’s Friends with Boys, recognized this year as one of the Great Graphic Novels for Teens Top Ten for 2013.  Readers who relish Hicks’s story of family, hauntings, and navigating a new school should turn to these recommendations for their next title. Anya’s Ghost by [...]

April is National Poetry Month, and unlike short stories, poetry is one form of literature that I, at least, have never had trouble getting teens interested in.  Every April (except this one–my library is doing some construction) I try to hold at least one poetry event–an open mic, or a poetry slam–and they tend to [...]

IDW has taken on several of Habro’s properties, both old and new. G.I. Joe and Transformers are older titles that they have breathed new life into, as well as some Wizard of the Coast titles such as Dungeons and Dragons and Magic: The Gathering. And of course, we can’t forget their spectacular big hit My [...]