Yesterday's bubble wrap printing program was an awesome success! Check out what some resourceful teens and tweens made with just some bubble wrap, paint, and paper at our Flickr set for the Bubble Wrap Prints program.
Looking for something to read this summer? Want to know what other teens are recommending? Take a look at this list...these are the books that have been nominated for the 2009 Teens Top Ten list that will be announced during Teen Read Week in October. Fifteen teen book groups across the country, including our own Galley Review Group, have helped create this list of nominations from the hundreds of pre-publication titles provided by publishers during the last year. After you've read your choices, make sure to vote for up to ten of your favorites between August 25 and September 18 at www.ala.org/teenstopten.
City of Ashes
9781416914297
Book
.jpg "Teen Summer Reading Game logo")
If you're reading this, chances are you literally just got out of school for the summer! I know, the last thing on your mind might be more reading- but now's the time to come down to any library location and sign up for the Summer Reading Game! We've got library staff ready and waiting to sign you up, and there are tons of excellent prizes to earn- all just for reading anything with pages over the summer(yes, really)! Read more info about the games at the Reading Games page on our website, or stop in and pick up your game board and find out the rules in person!
So, Stewart, you may find this hard to believe, but I've just read a graphic novel that we've recently added to the Teen collection...Thomas Ott's The Number 73304-23-4153-6-96-8. Okay, I'll admit, I didn't actually read it cause it doesn't have any words. But I looked at it from cover to cover. And boy, is it weird...in a good way. It's like Twilight Zone with the picture puzzles of Graeme Base and the wordless stories of Shaun Tan. It all centers on a small scrap of paper with the number of the title written on it. Throughout the story, the paper changes hands once or twice, and the significance of the numbers takes on different meanings. But there are odd twists and turns that caused me to go back a couple of pages to make sure I was following everything correctly. I like any book that challenges my thinking of reality, and this one certainly did that.
Book
The Number 73304-23-4153-6-96-8
9781560978756
The pillars at the entrance to the Teen Area were recently decorated in anticipation of this year's Teen Summer Reading game: Wild Style! If you haven't been downstairs recently, you really ought to stop by(of course, if you're reading this in the Teen Area you already know). We decided to throw a little color around down here and I think it turned out great. We'll have a whole post about the game and Summer activities soon- but for now, come on down and take a look at our mess!
We can’t leave the subject of Holocaust fiction without talking about The Book Thief by award-winning Australian author, Markus Zusak. Published in 2006, this 550-page volume went on to win a Printz honor award—for excellence in young adult fiction—in 2007. Narrated by death, it is the story of Liesel Meminger, a young girl who, after witnessing the death of her little brother and becoming separated from her parents in Nazi Germany, is then taken in by foster parents in a small town on the edge of Munich. Liesel’s life intersects with many others, including the Jewish man hidden in her basement, the mayor’s wife who leaves the window to her personal library open so that Liesel has free access, and the neighbor boy who becomes her lifelong best friend. Throughout, Liesel learns to draw on the power of her stolen books as a means of survival.
One of my favorite things about Zusak’s writing is how he personifies inanimate objects or ideas. By describing something otherwise lifeless in human terms and human actions, the reader gets a heightened sense of what the characters feel and think. Consider these two examples:
“As the book quivered in her lap, the secret sat in her mouth. It made itself comfortable. It crossed its legs”
“Before they proceeded to their respective homes, Rudy’s voice reached over and handed Liesel the truth. For a while, it sat on her shoulder, and a few thoughts later, it made its way to her ear.”
Although published as a book for teens, The Book Thief has been popular with adults as well. Regardless, its impact as an example of literary excellence will endure. Please read it.
The Book Thief
0375831002
Book
My husband’s parents came to the U.S. from Cuba in the mid-1960s , so perhaps it’s easy to understand why any books about this tropical destination, albeit out of reach for most of my lifetime, are often of particular interest to me.
We have recently acquired Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba by Margarita Engle (The Surrender Tree), a novel in verse about a time in Cuba’s history that we don’t often read about…1939-1942, or World War II. Thirteen-year-old Daniel has escaped Nazi Germany, but sadly, without his parents. While their destiny waits in the balance, he sails by himself toward safety on a ship full of Jewish refugees. After being turned away in both New York and Canada, the ship finally lands in Havanna, where Daniel eventually discovers a new life.
Written in the alternating voices of Daniel, Paloma, a young Cuban girl, and David, the ice cream seller/Russian refugee who also escaped to Cuba’s shores many years ago, this fast-moving tale cleverly illustrates how one’s culture and history can affect one’s perception of the world, but also how easy it is to see things from someone else’s perspective when circumstances beyond one’s control make that unavoidable.
Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba
9780805089363
Book
With all the hoopla over vampires (i.e. Twilight) lately, you'd think that people were starting to forget all about the other major threat to our existence- I'm talking, of course, about zombies here. Fortunately there's several quality graphic novel series that help underscore just how serious the zombie menace is. I'll be looking at two very different titles in this post: The Walking Dead series, and Eric Powell's Eisner Award-winning slapstick gore-fest The Goon. (A word of warning: readers with an existential fear of returning from the grave with an unnatural hunger for brains should skip down to Karen’s excellent post on Francisco X. Stork’s Marcelo in the Real World.)
The Walking Dead is the most straightforward, classic us-versus-zombies title of the bunch. While it owes a huge debt to George Romero’s Living Dead films, it goes much further in it’s depiction of what the long-term effects of a total zombie takeover might be like on society. Fighting off hordes of the undead is one thing, but things really get nasty when different factions of the human survivors begin turning on one another for control of the few remaining resources. Due to a totally unflinching and ultra-graphic depiction of life after the zombie apocalypse, The Walking Dead is not recommended for the squeamish.
The Goon, on the other hand, takes the classic zombie menace theme, bolts on a cast of hard-boiled gangsters, werewolves, Spanish-speaking mutant lizard-men and other assorted bizarre characters; adds a dash of 1950’s science-fiction; and sets the whole mess in an unidentified Prohibition-era port city. It’s a formula that just shouldn't work, but yet totally does. The Goon is a musclebound mob enforcer who happens to live in a city infested with zombies(the zombies have their own section of town on the wrong side of tracks). With his sidekick Franky (a short, skinny loudmouth whose favorite fighting technique is called “Knife to the Eye”, for good reason), The Goon protects his city against the forces of the Nameless Zombie Priest by any means necessary, which usually involves lots of Warner Brothers-style violence and destruction.
The Goon is also not recommended for the easily-offended, due not only to the typical zombie blood and guts, but also some crude humor. Fans of Sin City, MAD Magazine, or Hellboy will love it. As an extra bonus, Goon creator Eric Powell is working on a big-screen animated version, due out sometime in 2010.
Remember, kids: Vampires come and go, but zombies are forever… or at least until someone removes their heads.
Stewart and I are going to start trying to post more mini-reveiws here about the teen books we've been reading. And we tend to have pretty different tastes from each other so you're eventually bound to read about a title that you might want to check out. One of my recent favorites, which also happens to be new to the teen collection, is Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork.
It's the summer before Marcelo's senior year in high school and he's about to start a new job working at his dad's law firm. But he has never had opportunities to interact with people in the "real world" because he has high-functioning autism and most of his expereiences have been in a more protected environment surrounded by other kids with special needs. Not surprisingly, Marcelo is a little anxious. "Following the rules of the real world means, for example, engaging in small talk with other people. It means refraining from talking about my special interest. It means looking people in the eye and shaking hands." Nevertheless, off he goes, to work in the corporate world of the big city. What ensues is a summer of revelation, friendship, deceit, and mystery, and Marcelo learns more than he wants to about how people sometimes treat each other in the real world.
This book hooked me on many different levels: It has the feeling of a legal thriller like The Firm, because of the case that attracts Marcelo's attention while working for his dad; it is told in a unique and genuine voice, reminiscent of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time; and it raises moral questions not only for the narrator, but for the reader as well, similar to I am the Messenger.
It left me so much to ponder, I'm thinking this one might be worth a second read...
Marcelo in the Real World
9780545054744
Book