Teens

The Mystery Writers of America has announced the nominees for its 2013 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction, and television from the previous year, in celebration of the 204th anniversary of Poe’s birth.

Our teen reviewers from Bookmarked are back up to speed and full of opinions on new and upcoming titles, including a mystery, a dystopian fairy tale, historical fantasy fiction, and yes, an apocalyptic tale involving a virus. If your library has fans of fairy tale retellings, stay tuned for next month's Media Mania column, which will feature a fine list of titles which are sure to satisfy their fancy.

My father is a Marine, so by the time I was eight I was quite adept at packing up my things. I vividly remember when we moved to Beaufort, SC. It was 1996, and it was the first time I ever took advantage of a move. Instead of trashing my old clothes and childish toys, I fixed up parts of my personality that needed improvement and tried out some new traits. I asked people to call me “Al”, giving the role of tomboy a spin. I also spoke up a little more and put myself in more social situations. I used this experience to invent a whole new me.

Although I didn’t come up with this column's name—YA Underground—I'm appreciating it more and more. The kids I serve are living underground both metaphorically and literally. My library is in a 350-bed lockdown facility Amy Cheney juvenile cellthat serves adolescents ages 11 to 19, and it's in one of three rooms with windows. I have the only room with windows that are at eye level. The sunlight streams in and looking out, you can see trees, grass, clouds, sky, and sunsets beyond the barbwire. When Jonas (not his real name), an avid manga fan, was in the library on his every-other-week visit, I heard him describe the library as “a lonely bright spot.” He was talking about books—but aren’t books windows?

African-American writer, griot, and blues singer Arthur Flowers and Indian scroll painter Manu Chitrakar have combined their very distinctive storytelling traditions in an extraordinary jam session, creating I See the Promised Land, a stunning graphic narrative-style biography of Martin Luther King Jr. In honor of Black History Month, Groundwood Books will be giving away 10 signed copies.

Our teen reviewers are still catching up from the holiday break. Bruno Mars first came to fame after his vocals were featured on the song "Billionaire," which he worked on with Travie McCoy in 2010. Now he has released his second studio album, Unorthodox Jukebox, building on his musical creativity—he cowrote all the songs—while still perfecting the art of chart-topping singles. And how did I not hear about an auto-racing game set in Colorado? (My family might tell you that every time I drive, it's like an auto race… ) I may have to give Forza Horizon a try myself.

Beautiful Creatures is a story of star-crossed lovers with a supernatural edge and atmospheric Southern setting. The film adaptation of the first novel in Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl’s fan-favorite series (2009, Little, Brown) is fittingly scheduled for release on Valentine’s Day, 2013. Tempt teens who just can’t get enough of these Beautiful Creatures to keep reading by booktalking or displaying a selection of page-turning tales forged with mystical wonder and touched by true love. Encompassing copious coming-of-age themes and a variety of writing styles, these titles also make excellent choices for book discussion groups.

We may have settled on our Best Books of 2012 back at the end of November, but here we are in early January and we’re still finding great books from last year.  This week, we have three very different takes on thrillers that all bring to mind (for me anyway) the movies. First up is [...]